"People think I'm mad to take the job" I don't Alan, not at all. If anything you are a genius. You've managed to get yourself a five year contract at the most unstable football club in the country. Succeed and you are a genius. Fail and you get a lovely compensation payoff. Incredible!
Why Houghton was sacked is beyond me. You take a club back into the Premier League and have them mid table at Christmas and that’s the thanks you get? Holloway and Di Matteo must be crapping themselves.
The only way that this decision could have been justified was if they had brought in a big name, and when Martin Jol resigned from his position at Ajax, it seemed that Mike Ashley might have pulled off something of a coup. But instead they have gone for a man whose sole achievement in football management is a trip to Cardiff with West Ham back in 2006. Since then Pardew was sacked at West Ham, albeit slightly harshly, struggled terribly at Charlton and left League One Southampton under a cloud of controversy.
But this isn’t Pardew’s fault; Ashley is the man to blame here. Just when it seemed like all was quiet on the Anti-Cockney Mafia front, the owner of the world’s worst sports store has managed to once again rile up the Geordie faithful. Will he ever learn? I can understand that he is ambitious and wants to take Newcastle to the next level but this season isn’t about that. Survival should always be the aim for a newly promoted team. And if European Football is Ashley’s ultimate dream Pardew is hardly the man to take them there.
And with that here’s this week’s SS Selections. Three out of nine last week was a truly atrocious performance and this week’s games are also to tough to call.
Villa v West Brom - Draw
Villa look knackered at the moment and the baggies appear to have hit form again with a couple of good wins.
Everton v Wigan - Home win
Cos Wigan are awful really. Not much more to add here.
Fulham v Sunderland - Draw
Basically because Fulham appear incapable of anything else.
Stoke v Blackpool – Away Win
I've written off Blackpool too many times this season to make the same mistake again.
West Ham v City - Away win
The Hammers are showing signs of improvement but City should have too much for them.
Newcastle v Liverpool - Draw
Pardew won't have the same luck as Gullit did years ago against the scousers. Hodgson looks a bit clueless away from home but I don't think Pardew will give the Toon a huge lift.
Bolton v Blackburn - Home win
Owen Coyle should enjoy showing Big Sam that you can keep the ball on the deck at the Reebok.
Wolves v Birmingham - Draw
Another West Midlands derby, another draw. Brum don't score more than one a game an Wolves will be up for it after getting battered by Blackburn last week
Spurs v Chelsea - Draw
Spurs are on a high at the moment and Chelsea look so out of sorts that i wouldnt be too surprised to see Ancelloti replacing Rafa at Inter by the start of the new year. That's said Chelsea will turn it around sooner or later and they have the quality to get a result here.
In one of my early blogs, I waxed lyrical about how I go through obsession phases and vowed that golf wouldn't be one, and I might add that it wasn’t. I played until mid September before Saturday league football started again and free time became precious. I never did manage to break 90 but rest assured the clubs will be out again come April and hopefully sooner than that.
What did appear to be nothing more than a fad was this very blog. Having smashed my way through six in four to five weeks, nothing has been forthcoming in the last three and half months. As a result of rather indirectly selling my soul to Murdoch, the truth is that I’ve not had the time to put any thoughts down on paper and for a couple of months i barely had time to watch as much football, NFL, golf, or cricket as I normally would.
The workload continues to increase but as my last blog post back in August focused on what I thought would be of interest in this year’s Premier League, a good way to get blogging again would be to see how the five topics that were supposed to keep everyone interested this season are progressing.
1. Javier Hernandez
I’m going to come off extremely biased here but I simply don’t care; this guy looks the complete package so far. Chicharito has seven goals this season, including the winners at Stoke in the league and Wolves in the Carling Cup. His first goal at Stoke however is the one that sticks in most people’s mind, as he somehow managed to arch his back and place a header into the back of the net using the back of his head. I mentioned a few months back that I was really looking forward to seeing him play with Rooney, however young Wayne’s well documented issues on and off the field have meant that this partnership hasn’t really got started. Even without Rooney though, Hernandez has blossomed into United’s most likely threat if a goal is needed.
2. They say in America that parity usually rules supreme in the NFL, and for the first time in a long time, the Premier League is starting to head in that direction. The standards may have dropped somewhat but overall this makes for a more exciting league. Chelsea currently top the table and have four defeats in late November. FOUR DEFEATS!!!!. Last year they had six in total. But Chelsea isn’t the only team to have odd results. Sunderland who ran out 3-0 victors at the Champions ten days ago, had two weeks previously been battered 5-1 at their biggest rivals Newcastle. Newcastle themselves were beaten by the same score line at Bolton (this years surprise package) this past Saturday. West Brom have travelled to the Emirates and won and taken a point at Old Trafford, yet managed to be beaten 3-0 at home by a Stoke team who are on a three game unbeaten run having lost their previous five. One thing that does stay constant, West Ham are rubbish. Their performance at Anfield last Saturday evening was nothing short of a joke and they are surely dead certainties to go down.
3. My early season prediction looked something like this.
1.Chelsea
2.Arsenal
3.United
4.City
5.Spurs
6.Liverpool
At the moment the table looks like this
1.Chelsea
2.United
3.Arsenal
4.City
5.Bolton
6.Spurs
With Liverpool currently in ninth and so inconsistent they can’t be trusted to put together two wins against teams in my Saturday league, the top six will more than likely stay that way, but I would swap Bolton and Spurs around. Bolton are a completely different side under Owen Coyle and are playing some great football that has got them big results recently against Spurs, Newcastle and Wolves. Plus they were one kick away from an impressive win at Goodison a few weeks back; I can see them sticking around.
As for the title race itself, at 12.45 last Saturday I had Arsenal, at. 1.45 I was ready to sign into Oddschecker and find the best price, at 2.40 I didn’t know what to think. Chelsea then went to St Andrews and got beat, whilst United plodded past Wigan without much fuss or fanfare. I’ve talked about Chelsea already but as for United, they hardly look inspiring yet somehow they remain undefeated. This is not a team that would win the title in any other season but this year with the other team slipping up anything is possible. City? Well they have talent but as I’ve said before I don’t think Mancini will bring them the title or even a trophy. Winning 4-1 away at Fulham was a step in the right direction but any manager who brings on Gareth Barry and thinks it will bring them a goal isn’t convincing me. As for Spurs, they may be the most exciting team in the league in terms of entertainment and they have made the best signing of the season in Van Der Vaart, (excuse me i’m just thinking of him playing every week at Old Trafford....... sighs), however they are more susceptible to a draw or defeat at home to a so called lesser team and so Harry’s dreams of a title will have to wait. As a famous commentator once said “It’s Up For Grabs Now”.
4. The blue half of Merseyside once again had a terrible start, blowing my prediction of them making the Champions League right out of the water. Losing Rodwell at the start of the season didn’t help a huge amount, but they have lost just one of their last eight games, the 2-1 home defeat to Arsenal. Whilst that run sounds impressive, too many draws in that sequence have meant that they haven’t really climbed the table as much as they would like. They have two tough away games ahead of them at Chelsea and City, places they managed to take four points in total from last season, and with some very winnable home games coming up Moe from the Simpsons, Albert Steptoe and the rest of the toffees will be climbing up the table, I’m still pretty confident of that. They may even finish higher than the red half of Merseyside.
5. I owe the people and supporters of Blackpool an apology. Currently residing in 12thplace they already have more points than I thought they would amass the entire season. Ian Holloway has brought with him a much needed breath of fresh air in terms of post match interviews and he has also brought with him a squad with a huge amount of fighting spirit as demonstrated by their "heroic in defeat" performances against City and Villa and of course their famous win at Anfield. With the talented Charlie Adam patrolling the midfield, and Luke Varney and Marlon Harewood coming up with some big goals, including Varney’s candidate for goal of the season against Wolves, the Tangerines have a great chance of staying up. And here’s hoping they do as a lack of cash means I can’t make the United trip there in a couple of weeks.
City will make the Top four this season. The squad is to good now for it not to happen. The big question for them, or more likely their owners is, “is that enough?”
City are now in a similar position to where Chelsea were at the start of the 2004/2005 season. They have had one full season with new ownership and have a relatively new manager. Mancini has had one full summer to make signings and make the team his own. This year he can have no excuses for not delivering what is expected of him.
What differentiates them from Chelsea is that in 2004, Chelsea already had the basis of a decent squad with talent such as Joe Cole and Frank Lampard in their ranks. Coming off a second place finish in the Premier league they were able to attract better players to the squad because they could offer Champions League football. Therefore, once the special one had been appointed at Stamford Bridge he was able to go out and sign players of real quality who had serious credentials. They were able to sign players like Carvalho and Ferreira who had won the Champions League, a striker in Drogba who had already destroyed Liverpool and Newcastle in the Uefa Cup and Peter Cech who despite been a relative unknown to most fans over here at the time, became one the best goalkeepers in the world.
David Silva is a fantastic addition to City’s squad but whilst Yaya Toure and if he arrives, Balotelli, have won Europe’s premier competition, they certainly weren’t the driving force behind those wins. Also, does City really want to be chasing after players who react like this when they are brought on as a late sub?
Given the amount of squad rotation that will have to be done at Eastlands this year it seems like a strange choice.
And that is another issue that Mancini will have to deal with; the size of the squad. On Friday Jim White and Co stuck up the names of the entire City midfield.
Michael Johnson
Stephen Ireland
Shaun Wright-Phillips
Adam Johnson
Gareth Barry
David Silva
Patrick Vieria
Kelvin Etuhu
Vincent Kompany
Nigel De Jong
Vladimir Weis
Yaya Toure
Abdisalam Ibrahim
If you add Milner to that list, City will have 14 players vying for three spots assuming Mancini goes with his 4-3-3 formation that he used last season. How do you keep all of them happy? By juggling the squad round week by week surely there can’t be any consistency for the team either. Look at Benitez at Liverpool. It could be argued that his constant tinkering with his team cost him his job because he never knew what his best team was.
Mourinho had a plan for Chelsea when he took over and as a result he got rid of a lot of the dead wood at Stamford Bridge that didn’t fit in. Out went Petit, Hasselbaink, Desailly, Babayaro, Melchiot, Zenden and a few others, whilst Crespo and a young Carlton Cole were sent out on loan to Milan and Villa respectively. This gave his new signings faith that he believed in them and that they were the players to go out and win the league. There has been little evidence so far that Mancini wants to get rid of any players although with a squad cap of 25 players been enforced by the Premier League this season, he will have to make some tough choices sooner or later.
What I do think is crucial for City is a good start. Mourinho was able to put down a marker in his first game as they beat United 1-0 at the Bridge. City has a great opportunity to do just that as they face Spurs at White Hart Lane on the opening day of the season and then Liverpool at Eastlands a week later. Win those two and the confidence will flow through the squad like the Thames does through London. However if they lose both, there will be serious questions about the players that Mancini has brought in.
Of course there will be plenty of time for them to recover and this is a squad that possesses some of the best talent in the country (Gareth Barry excluded). For me though, City’s fate will be determined by how Mancini copes with the pressure that the job at Eastlands now comes with. At Inter he was gifted the title by the match fixing scandal of 2006, yet in Europe he couldn’t get Inter past the second round of the Champions League where he was frequently outwitted by Europe’s other top coaches. He was eventually sent on his way by Inter and replaced with Jose himself. Mourinho charmed the media in his first season here and whilst he did ruffle a few feathers along the way he was able to take the pressure of his team and keep the media focused on him. His players loved him for that and as a result they played for him in a way that they didn’t for Grant or Scolari, his two main successors. Mancini is of course his own man but he would do well to take note of how Mourinho coped with the pressure of building a new team and fans and media expecting results straight away.
A top four position is more than achievable for a team with City’s riches, especially given a lack of real investment by any of the other so called big sides. It would represent progress for City, however Mancini will have to do a lot more than that to keep his job at Eastlands. Otherwise he may see Jose on the other side of that revolving door again in ten months time. Just ask Ranieri.
