TERRACE TALK: Reaction from the weekend’s top Premier League action
How best to express the sense of excitement in the run-up to Sunday’s kick-off? Try this typical comment from one colleague: “I’m as giddy as a kid on Christmas Eve. I cannot wait — the only problem is I can’t open the presents ‘til 4 o’clock!”
Even the oldsters were caught up in it, as another time-served lad confessed: “The last time I spent all week counting down the days to the match was probably the days of Hill and Coppell.”
When he, and I, were in short trousers, and “counting down the days” to stuff was the key gauge of everything important in life.
We purred and cooed over the starting line-up, which not only looked thrilling but, in classic Top Present fashion, contained a still further treat within, with the promise of Falcao to come off the bench. I hadn’t been this impressed since Christmas 1973, when my long-awaited copy of the ‘Band On The Run’ LP was revealed to also have a fiver sellotaped to the liner notes. As we excitedly discussed possible formations, another colleague spoke for us all: “no matter how they play, I’m just delighted that Fletcher, Valencia, Cleverley, Anderson and Young aren’t in it.”
Amen to that.
As the joyful first-half festival unfolded, my pal Jay chirped: “Quick passing, imagination, and actually trying to go forward with the ball? This’ll never catch on.”
And in Di Maria, we see the possible beginnings of a full-on, massed-man-love crush: 70,000 Reds swooning for his teasing tango.
Such can be the emotional results of a successful transfer window, and one can only congratulate ‘Super Ted’ Woodward for rising to the challenge we had all set him two weeks ago. According to an account in the new Red Issue fanzine, Woodward emerged triumphant from a showdown meeting with the Glazers after the Swansea defeat, having got what he wanted: the right to spend as though his life depended on it. Which, I suppose, it did.
The run-up to the weekend was still filled with the sound of drones, though, and I’m not talking about those heading towards western Iraq. I mean Messrs Phelan, Meulenesteen, Butt et al, attended by various crosspatch journalists, whinging softly but publicly about “the end of an era” and the supposed abandoning of the youth-driven, locally-bred ‘United Way’. Many of the complainants’ motivations were painfully transparent: we’re mainly talking about the discarded, the overlooked and the slighted, men whose loyalty is to the increasingly marginalised Ferguson clan or to favourite players who’ve been rejected.
I’m usually a sucker for this kind of Old Lag grumbling. Let’s be honest: I quite often start it. But let’s get a grip. We’ve always spent big, and we’ve never allowed our penchant for youth, or Mancs, get in the way of hardheaded necessity. History shows that not only have United broken the British transfer record more than the next two clubs put together but Alex Ferguson alone broke it more than any other entire club.
There was even a perfect reminder on Sunday’s pitch to illustrate the fatuity of the old boys’ case: Rio Ferdinand. He’s not a Mancunian, and he remained the world’s most expensive defender for more than a decade.
To drum the point home, we could look to Rio’s old hunting ground at the other end of the field, and young Blackett, a no-fee local made good, given his chance nice and early.
Perhaps the critics could tell us how he has evaded the net of Nasty Louis and his roving Child Catcher death-chariot?
Danny Taylor, the doyen of United-watchers, summed it up well enough in the Observer to be given the last word here: “This is the first year of Glazer family ownership that the club have spent more on transfer fees than the debts that, sadly, none of the old boys ever see fit to mention. Just imagine where United might be if it had been the norm over the past nine years rather than the exception.”
Quite. If this is indeed “a new era“, then it’s very welcome.
After an interminably tedious international break, where two years worth of tortuous European qualifiers appear designed merely to eliminate the mighty footballing powers such as Gibraltar, Andorra, Luxembourg and the like, it was marvellous to find myself strolling around to the Man City game on Saturday, positively bristling with anticipation at the prospect of witnessing the potential of this season’s Arsenal squad.
With Danny Welbeck’s arrival on deadline day in such debatable circumstances, while le Prof was playing peacemaker for the pontiff in Rome, when the majority of Wenger’s peers were seemingly pulling what remains of their hair out in their efforts to squeeze a signing or two through the door before the transfer window slams shut, this weekend’s game was akin to Christmas morning.
Thousands of eager kiddies rushing down to the glamorous environs of the Arsenal to unwrap our new present and discover whether we’ve been gifted the football equivalent of a lush new gaming console, praying that le Gaffer wasn’t instead left picking up the last battered striker toy box on the shelves. Most excitingly, we found that an unusually generous Father Arsène had left all our goodies under the tree, in Saturday’s swank starting XI.
Welbeck’s brace against the Swiss gave us plenty of cause for optimism and he was only the width of the post away from producing the perfect start to his Arsenal career against City. His similar price-tag to Balotelli resulted in much deliberation.
While I previously suspected that opposition defenders might find the Italian striker more psychologically and physically intimidating, their contrasting work-ethic was evident from this weekend’s displays and Balotelli’s apparently limited overall contribution brooks no comparison with Welbeck’s selfless graft.
It would’ve been great if we could’ve managed to put one over on Man City, particularly in the absence of Yaya Toure.
Sanchez impressed yet again with his tireless industry. It was ironic that it was Alexis’ mazy (one man too many!) assault on City’s goal that resulted in the counter-attack, which led to the Sky Blues taking the lead.
From where we sit on the opposite side, it felt as if the Gunners had made the unforgivable mistake of assuming that the ball was going into touch.
Between them, Navas and Aguero made us pay a hefty price for this seemingly indolent presumption. City’s goal knocked all the stuffing out of us, just as we’d begun to acquire the sort of swagger that’s been so sorely lacking in top four clashes of late.
Mercifully Wilshere soon repaired the dent in our confidence with his wonderful equaliser.
The chutzpah he demonstrated in selling Clichy a dummy, along with the composure necessary to wait for Hart to commit, before clipping the ball over the keeper with his wrong foot, from such a tight angle, suggests Jack remains entirely unaffected by all the recent criticism he had endured.
Yet where we’ve grown accustomed to the sight of Wilshere sitting on his backside, pleading for restitution, I cannot repeat too often quite how refreshing it is to witness the unflinching determination Sanchez shows, in riding the incessant efforts to thwart his unstintingpassion to impose himself.
In one of Özil’s more inept performances to date, the ensuing castigation of our most expensive star wasn’t exactly surprising. Especially when the impressive work-rate of his team mates only highlights Mezut’s languid style and when we are subsequently left enviously watching Fabregas doing exactly the sort of slicing and dicing for Mourinho that’s expected from our man.
Whether or not Welbeck can do for us what Costa is doing for Chelsea, remains to be seen but with Walcott fast on the mend, I would love to see Mezut prompting all this pace from the middle of the park.
Although the gossamer thin depth of the squad, as far as the Gunners’ defensive cover is concerned, remains a massive concern, should the array of attacking facets in our armoury, begin to fall into place, this holds the promise of a scintillating assault on the Premiership promised land.
Mourinho doesn’t like speaking about individuals — he’s all about “the team” or “the group”; even post-match on Saturday he had to be forced to speak about our new wonder striker and even then it was partially a warning that Costa couldn’t possibly keep this strike rate up.
Jose, of course, is right on both counts — despite Costa’s phenomenal record-breaking start, “it is not normal” and you can bet every manager in the land is studying and plotting how to stop our pet new Rottweiler. Equally, the manager’s long held philosophy on the “group” was never so evident as in the game against Swansea.
He may have scored the goals but it was Hazard’s trickery, the direct and physical style of Ramires and Fabregas’s vision that contributed as much in this performance as the Spanish international had.
One should also not forget the contribution of the manager — I think we have become so used to Mourinho’s game-changing tactical substitutions that we sometimes overlook their importance.
On paper we should be beating Swansea all day long, but they (along with us) were the in-form side and they made life very difficult for us in that first half — made us look as if our midfield hadn’t even left the dressing room. Jose knew exactly which tweak to make when there was obviously a few players not hitting their mark in that first half. Of course it’s his job but few can change a game so comprehensively as he can.
Even Remy scored on his debut to further discredit my misgivings on his signing — I really should learn to take my own advice and just trust Mourinho. Despite all this I am still preaching restraint — some people already have the Premier League trophy in John Terry’s grasp — not many Chelsea fans I grant you — but enough opposition fans and media types to make me fearful of complacency.
The other thing that’s making me nervous is all this positive press — I’m sure Jose doesn’t like it either — I bet he’s got something up his sleeve to get the general footballing fraternity spitting feathers. He’ll be plotting something I’m sure for either the City or Arsenal game.
The wild celebrations following our winning goal at the Bridge where he climbed over the City bench and scaled the seats to get to his (strategically placed) son and the “expert in failure” jibes of last season caused a mini whirlwind at the time — should we still be talked about in glowing terms I expect the Portugeezer to blow up a hurricane which will have the Wapping scribes oozing bile from their poison pens and opposition managers/fans foaming at the mouth. Can’t wait! It’s just a shame that Mourinho and Brendan Rogers are such mates as I would love Jose to put the boot in there too — especially as the Liverpool manager gives us so much material to work with. I’m sure Mourinho would have something to say regarding the latest budget whinges, but I digress...
Champions League starts this week — not sure how much of a priority Europe is this season as all the talk at the back end of last was about the Premier League. That said, we all know that the owner is very fond of the Champions League so it’s not something the manager can write off completely — but I think we’ll be seeing a very different team on Wednesday to the one we saw at the weekend. For me, who will be standing between the sticks will be of much interest. Did Jose make some concessions when choosing the young whippersnapper over old faithful? Would Courtois even agree to such a concession?
Either way, victory to keep up our current momentum has to be the order of the day, especially with our biggest test of the season so far following hot on this game’s heels. We need to build some breathing space early in the campaign as we don’t have the depth of squad that the likes of City have, so we need to make hay while the sun shines.
Most left Stamford Bridge with massive grins on their faces on Saturday and the owner is enjoying what he is seeing too. It’s all good at the moment and long may it continue!
Cometh the revolution, the man who invented international football will be first up against the wall.
It’ll be a waste of a good bullet as there are millions of others who love all that nonsense. It’ll just make me feel better.
Sturridge may be made of potpourri but handled correctly he’ll play most of your games and be damn lethal to boot. You can never put the words ‘Hodgson’ and ‘revenge’ in the same sentence without a phalanx of lawyers arriving on your doorstep, but the ignoring of club advice was largely put down to everyone’s ghastly experiences in 2010.
It also annoys fans that the player himself stays mute in all this. What was your ‘reward’, Daniel? To have loads of knuckle-draggers and two-bit experts say Welbeck is a better team man than you, anyway? Insult added to injury. That seems worth stalling your career for.
Notice United made less noise about losing Jones (now, now, children, play nice) so we’re more likely dealing with exacerbated Scouse anxiety here. It was bad enough losing the son of Freddie Mercury, but without the other prolific scorer to fall back on things might become troublesome.
And so it proved. Those of us not entirely infected with the Mario-love were not likely to be sending flowers and candy after Saturday’s offering. True, Lee Mason brought his uniquely selective myopia and clearly hasn’t forgotten that Rodgers crack about Manchester referees from last season either, but that was only a footnote to an all-round tale of toothless lethargy.
There was no sign of Suarez’s “get mad and get even” attitude from Balotelli.
This is a weird fixture. The last times either home team won, Hodgson faced Houllier at Anfield and Stewart Downing got the winner at Villa Park. Few would have Paul Lambert down as an astute tactician but stick him inside Anfield and he becomes Paisley’s grandson.
Sad thing is he didn’t need to do anything clever. Work hard, stay in formation, get corners. He didn’t even have Benteke and Vlaar while saddling himself with Senderos, Cleverley and Cissokho. He could have issued blindfolds and still been assured of a draw. That was all down to Liverpool.
Ironically, there were far too many new faces for a game that Liverpool have found difficult in recent years. Not that we really had much choice in the matter. Resting Sterling might have smacked of not taking the opposition seriously enough, which is lesson No 1 in the big book of rotation; Hubris.
Rodgers has only just picked up that gigantic tome. He’s never needed it before and it took better managers than him years to learn it all by heart, and they still kept making mistakes. If he’d broken Sterling this early on the wave of vitriol that would have come his way doesn’t bear thinking about. The devil and the deep blue sea both called to Rodgers on Saturday.
The few players who did take part in last season’s tremendous performances hardly shone reds either. In fact it was a pretty rotten day all round, but there were a few £20m players on the pitch and a lot of head-scratching in the stands. That’s not a comfortable combination, even this early. When Remy opened his Chelsea account less than an hour before our game started, you sensed it might be one of those days. Just because an eye-watering amount of money has been spent does not mean you have arrived at anything remotely resembling a solution.
The people bellowing for time and patience are going to be very loud and very insistent this season, confident in the knowledge there is no alternative. It’s probably for the best that all eyes have been opened so early.
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