TERRACE TALK: Reaction from the weekend’s top Premier League action
Hot on the heels of chasing two goals against Basle with no strikers, Brendan put Brad Jones in goal at Old Trafford and started with no strikers. As suicide notes go, this one was horribly eloquent. All it needs now is a Bournemouth full stop.
Despite logic dictating it should be nonsense, it is beginning to look like last season’s exploits were based solely on two strikers in outlandish form.
You can have personnel missing and still play with something resembling your own style y’know, but honestly; where is it? Where’s the verve, the pace of the title challenge?
Everybody’s discussing Rodgers’ future now. Obviously there’s a knee-jerk “too soon for that/what kind of fan are you?” response from those who always think loyalty to the manager meant loyalty to the club. It’s like they’ve never watched football before.
This is what happens when you lose 10 (possibly 12) games before Christmas, when what you’re watching is absolutely dire, when you go into every big match with no expectation of victory.
Rodgers will exploit this transfer committee smokescreen. There are already leaks about this buy and that. Frankly, even if he whittled his share of the blame down to half of them he’d still have a woeful record.
My dad died on this weekend six years ago, so I wasn’t really in the mood for any of this. It would have to be ‘them’ as well. Funny, because you sometimes get requests for an opinion on the ‘clash of the giants’ and there were a few this week. There were none in March. Go figure.
Higher up the media food-chain there was the usual Liverpool baiting. Rodgers led one newspaper’s “Sport” pull-out claiming he was the only man for the job. A photo of his enormous head blotted out part of the p in “Sport” so it read “snort”. As in derision, geddit? The same ‘neutral’ paper stitched me up eight years ago.
It takes a special kind of inferiority complex to act this way after everything United have done over the years but nobody at that club can help themselves. Every televised game you hear them singing about Scousers.
Manchester’s children are living in terrible poverty but it doesn’t stop their morons mocking Liverpool in almost every chant, almost every game. At least our dickheads take a break occasionally.
Liverpool’s team has countless permutations, not one of which inspires confidence. That’s the way of our world lately. This particular hotchpotch didn’t do so badly but within 30 seconds the whole match — the entire season — was encapsulated by first Sterling then Rooney.
Their goalkeeper may be world class but he never did anything extraordinary. What Brad Jones was doing for the first and third goals only his analyst could explain.
By half time this “exciting” formation was bagged and chucked into the nearest canal. Everyone crying their eyes out about ‘offside’ ignored no-one challenging Van Persie and no-one marking Mata. It’s what we’ve seen a100 times before.
Enter Balotelli. With a few goals required? Why careful Brendan, you’ll be getting a reputation for logic if you’re not careful. Of course Mario trundled around and did as he pleased, often looking like the spoilt idiot-child of ill repute, but there were chances. Throughout the match there were some chances. This United team is all over the place and yet Liverpool could not exploit that. Not once.
Gary Neville lowballed it with the “Red Lion” crack. This was more Yellow Mouse. Coutinho got better because the opposite wasn’t possible. Gerrard hid and how Joe Allen stayed on no rational man can explain.
We began 2014 by implying we didn’t need a defence. By the end of 2014 the goalkeepers are interchangeable and the forward line vanished too. Sometimes the midfield goes awol.
It’s nearly an invisible team. Rodgers’ work is almost complete now. “We know what the solutions are”? Just shut up, you fraud.
And breathe...
Never mind what triumphalist English propagandists might tell you; Napoleon was right about most things, most of the time (although I’ll demur on the non-washing of wives, Boney).
“Give me lucky generals” sprang to mind at full-time yesterday, as we grinned in disbelief at each other. Six wins on the spin for LVG, of which only one could be said to have been deserved and without any good fortune.
Somewhere in northern Spain must be groaning the Glaswegian accent of a certain ginger. Poor David: you can bet your bottom peseta that, had he still been in charge of United, Raheem would have buried his opening opportunity, the linesman would have spotted RVP’s offside assist for our second, and De Gea would have parried one of his many saves into the net. Instead, we are left to revel in a tremendous early Christmas present, namely the most complete nine-month reversal of fortune between us and LFC since 1985/6.
Remember that season? At Christmas, we were way top of the league, and set fair to knock Liverpool off their perch at last. Yet nine months later, we were fighting relegation, hastily ushering Ron Atkinson towards the exit chute, and casting murderously envious glances towards an Anfield busy polishing its Double trophies.
Now think back to nine months ago: recall that atmosphere of sheer dread as Moyes’ United fell apart, and Liverpool won 3-0 at Old Trafford en route to what seemed like an inevitable title.
Yet here we are today, cock-a-hoop, and with the beleaguered Brendan doing a very good impression of glum Big Ron after losing 4-1 at The Dell.
I dare not glance across the page to see how my esteemed old colleague Mr Kelly is taking all this, lest my sympathy for him take the edge off our joyful schadenfreude. Then again, kicking a man when he’s down is never very attractive — especially when it’s someone who is always falling over so often anyway, hey, Stevie G? Still, it’s hard to resist pointing out another irony of yesterday’s role reversal: that we appear to be adopting the LFC playbook of 2013/14. Which, roughly translated is: “Yes, our defence is rubbish, and we’re led by an overrated Scouse ‘national hero’ and a self-bastingly arrogant manager. But we’re just going to try to score more than we let in, and see how it goes.” And Liverpool? Well, they’re now thoroughly Moyesian, aren’t they?
It’s always tempting to be negative at a time of uncertainty and transition, of course. Six games ago, a poll of Red Issue’s premium website asked “how many points will the next six games garner?” Less than 3% answered “18”. And yet here we are, with all of ‘em in the bag. Looking ahead to the festive period, all four of the matches seem eminently winnable too, despite three being away. Ten in a row?! How very 1985/86, again.
But let us take one last lesson from Bonaparte, on the dangers of overestimating one’s resources: “Conquer Russia by Christmas? Pas de problème!” was not one of his wisest utterances, after all.
The chorus of ‘There’s only one Arsene Wenger’ which rang out during our rampant display against Newcastle shouldn’t be taken as a sign that our recent form has been forgiven and forgotten.
You only had to hear the mutterings of discontent prior to kick off about our makeshift defence, to know we were all decidedly unhappy with only one recognised available centre-half.
It was hardly ideal that this time it was Debuchy forced to assume the crucial responsibility of partnering Mertesacker in the middle, with our French full-back only recently returning from a long enforced absence.
Yet despite our abiding anger over Arsène’s culpability in our lack of cover in defence, in our hearts, the vast majority remain forever grateful to the man and what he has achieved.
And the vast majority would also not share the sentiments displayed by the handful of ignorant yahoos who hounded him while boarding the train back from Stoke last weekend.
Saturday’s vocal demonstration of support for le Gaffer was by no means indicative of a Christmas truce.
Football fans have become so fickle nowadays that Saturday’s convincing victory won’t prevent the level of disapprobation from being any less vehement, should we fail to beat QPR in our next home game.
But for all the recent criticism and in spite of the increasing clamour for Wenger to walk, the core of all those of us who can still recall the woefully dour mediocrity of the Arsenal’s football in the era before Arsène (or more accurately, before Rioch signed Bergkamp) were intent on making it known to him and the rest of the football world that he will forever be adored.
In fact we set about the Toon with an intensity and verve that suggested our squad also had a point to prove about their staunch loyalty towards our leader, after letting him (and us!) down last weekend.
Playing “with the handbrake off”, by contrast to the vast majority of our comparatively sedentary showings this season, the Gunners were an irresistible force.
Infused with the same irrepressible energy of Sanchez, Bellerin was extremely impressive at right-back. And the robust vitality of the Ox was influential in the middle of the park.
It was also brilliant to see Santi mark his 30th birthday with the rediscovery of his mojo. The somewhat astonishing sight of the tank-like Tiote bouncing off the diminutive Spaniard was indicative of Cazorla’s desire to bring his influence to proceedings. It was so refreshing to see him desperate to stay on his feet, hungry to secure our second goal, when Santi could’ve easily opted to hit the deck following the contact from Coloccini in the area. Especially compared to the irritating sight of all those Chelsea players going down like ninepins on Match of the Day later that night.
This might’ve been a whitewash if Welbeck had scored the brace he deserved.
Yet if I was a Newcastle fan I would’ve been disappointed with the Toon’s minimal efforts to take advantage of our panic-stricken defending.
I’ve still not got over the trauma of us being pegged back to 4-4 at St James Park a few seasons back. Despite our dominance on Saturday, the defensive calamities we’ve endured in more recent times resulted in a slight air of anxiety, as we began to run out of steam and Perez took advantage of us going to sleep at another set-piece.
Thankfully Santi put a supremely fitting cherry on the top of this long-awaited celebration of Wengerball and warmed the cockles of Gooner hearts, with his “Panenka” from the penalty spot.
Our new fitness guru has certainly got his work cut out, as our players continue to drop like flies. But if Wenger can bolster our defence and with so many of our talented stars to add to Saturday’s mix on their return, it’s good to be going into the festive season feeling more optimistic. Now if only we can avoid Bayern, Real and Barca in the Champions League draw, it will feel as if Santa arrived prematurely.
Did Gary Cahill dive or was he trying to avoid a challenge? Only one man knows the answer but I am gobsmacked by the witch-hunt that has blown up since this incident on Saturday
Seriously, you would have thought that the genial northerner had eaten a baby! No one likes diving, but let’s keep this in perspective — it’s not as if he is a serial offender and there were far worse incidents on that pitch.
Shouldn’t we instead be talking more about the kind of tackles like the one which saw Huddlestone red-carded rather than an uncharacterised dive from a pretty upstanding player?
Obviously not.
Steve Bruce can get as indignant as he likes and give the media all the woe is me soundbites that he likes, but he is only kidding himself if he really thought that had any baring on the match.
Foy was awful — but how is that news? He is an appalling referee and has been for some years.
But the backlash over this isn’t the only thing annoying me: Frank Lampard is also beginning to get on my nerves. I don’t have an issue with him going to City, after all Chelsea can only blame themselves for letting him go, but I’m convinced the route he took to Manchester was pretty Machiavellian and pre-planned. I imagine Chelsea would never have sanctioned a move to another Premier League club, and especially one which was always going to be a direct league rival. If he had been honest when he went, I’d have wished him well but at the moment I can’t help think less of him. He will always be a Chelsea legend and my favourite player but I just don’t like him much at the moment. Apparently, without his goals, City would be eight points behind us now.....
It was good to see Costa hit the net, especially as his hard work has seen no reward in the last couple of games.
We don’t seem to be getting the service to him as we were earlier in the season and so he is going further and wider trying to get the ball himself. We also need the rest of the team to be weighing in with their fair share of goals (this is where we really miss Lampard). I expect more from Oscar and Hazard, and so will Jose.
Speaking of Jose, despite the speech when he returned to English football about being the “Happy One”, he seems far from that to me. He just doesn’t seem himself.
Where are the theatrics? Where are the provocative words and actions? Where are the regular FA charges?
The more this goes on, the more I think he has been restricted by the club, which is a dangerous thing to do. You take that bite away from him and he is not the same animal. You must give him free reign to do things his way.
He seems to be constantly at simmering point but just preventing himself from boiling over. But we need him at his grandiose best. When he last won the league here he had to overcome a couple of decent managers with good teams — now the league is more competitive than ever and he has to be allowed to use every weapon in his armoury because as Mourinho knows only to well, leagues are won as much in the mind as they are on the pitch.
So whoever has been putting the muzzle on, needs to have another word and tell him the time has come to unleash the dogs of war.
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