The Devil In Me

It is the 10th of November and the basic notions coming from the press are that Liverpool are genuine title challengers and Arsenal’s season is finished. It is the 10th of November. The vast majority of press on the English Premier League originates from the broadcasters and newspapers of the United Kingdom, in particular the BBC, so why are we hearing such absurd things so early on?

Simple.

The press is full of ex-Liverpool players and fans who hanker back to the glory days of the 70s and 80s. Arsenal will never get the credit they deserve because they will never be forgiven for that last minute Michael Thomas winner and if Liverpool haven’t completely ballsed up going for the title by week 10 then they are cast iron certainties to finally bag the trophy. All of this is, of course, complete rubbish.

No matter what flak they get Arsenal’s reserves are still extremely good. Straight from the off in this match it was clear that Sam Nasri was beyond the control of our defence, he went on to score both of their goals. For messers Neville and Van Der Sar the fat lady is clearing her throat. At least we now know the future of the right back position. Rafael’s performance oozed confidence and he was far more assured than the club captain, or even Rio, after he came on.

Why did we lose this game? Arsenal wanted it more. Why did we lose against Liverpool? They wanted it more.

Now we can say that the hardest away matches of the season are already out of the way and we are still vaguely in touch but I am more worried about this. Here is a quick table outlining the influence of the clashes between the top teams and the eventual winner of the League:

2002/03
PREMIER LEAGUE: Man U 83pts, Arsenal 78, Chelsea 67, Liverpool 64
BIG FOUR LEAGUE: Man U 14pts, Arsenal 7, Liverpool 5, Chelsea 5

2003/04
PREMIER LEAGUE: Arsenal 90pts, Chelsea 79, Man U 75, Liverpool 60
BIG FOUR LEAGUE: Arsenal 14pts, Chelsea 7, Man U 6, Liverpool 6

2004/05
PREMIER LEAGUE: Chelsea 95pts, Arsenal 83, Man U 77, Liverpool 58
BIG FOUR LEAGUE: Chelsea 14pts, Man U 12, Arsenal 5, Liverpool 3

2005/06
PREMIER LEAGUE: Chelsea 91pts, Man U 83, Liverpool 82, Arsenal 67
BIG FOUR LEAGUE: Chelsea 15pts, Man U 11, Liverpool 4, Arsenal 4

2006/07
PREMIER LEAGUE: Man U 89pts, Chelsea 83, Liverpool 68, Arsenal 68
BIG FOUR LEAGUE: Arsenal 14pts, Man U 11, Liverpool 6, Chelsea 5

2007/08
PREMIER LEAGUE: Man U 87pts, Chelsea 85, Arsenal 83, Liverpool 76
BIG FOUR LEAGUE: Man U 13pts, Chelsea 10, Arsenal 6, Liverpool 4

Do the rest of the maths yourself. We are in trouble.

As is widely reported, no hunters from the West of Bromich have returned from Manchester with a victory since the tricerotops roamed through Salford. Of course, one of our match going team was there in that cold December in 1958 and the memory of it still haunts him. So our hopes of a high scoring victory were doused with trepidation before kick-off as he portended doom in the usual fashion.

Fortunately, Wayne Rooney also disagreed with his cynicism and set about the travelling team like a caveman against a wounded sabre-tooth tiger. Rooney is in form at the moment, but he has always gone on little runs like this - there was a similar one last year kicked off by a hat-trick against Bolton - but because he is also doing it for England there is now hullaballoo involved.

The team is still not clicking in scat fashion yet so immense performances from individuals will have to see us through for the time being. I think we are getting there but there is definitely something missing at the moment. I hate to say it but we look like a cup team this year, let’s hope it is the big one. We will live to rue our results at Stamford Bridge and Anfield I fear, the Chelsea juggernaut rolls on and, horrifically, Liverpool are gaining in both momentum and belief.

Doom was portended by our companion for this solitary fixture, but the season at large could cause tears unless those two rivals start slipping up. It is going to be a long 7 months.

We have to view this as a huge missed opportunity. I think anybody who is honest was not confident before the game and even less so when the teams were announced. How wrong we were. The build up for our goal was first class but it is a damn shame that with a squillion pounds worth of strikers we only had one bullet in the chamber. Chelsea came back as Chelsea do and we looked a little out muscled in the second half, is Rio our biggest tough guy at the moment? It is hard not to think that with either Vidic or VDS on the field we might have defended better for their equaliser. This is far from a tragedy, but we should have won. Bringing on O’Shea was the move that lost us the points. No offence John.

This was decidedly middle-notch entertainment. In fact, the most interesting part of the evening was trying to decipher the team selection. There were bound to be changes made after Anfield and Fergie must be bricking it about central defence for the Chelsea game.

Johnny ‘no means no’ Evans played okay, and whilst he couldn’t quite keep our defensive areas completed zipped up, he did manage to penetrate the Villareal box against its wishes and nearly scored at the end. Gary Neville is starting to remind me of the original version of the King Kong movie, brilliant in its time but painfully dated now. He needs a major restoration and he may well not be the man to try and stop Joe cole and Bang/Crash/Whallop Drogba on Sunday. I would play Wes at right back and John O’Shea at centre back in the vain hope that he utilises some of that luck his countrymen are famous for.

The mysteries of the midfield continue. Was Fergie punishing the central players for last week’s result? Or was this too, another dry run for Sunday’s outing at the bridge? Or do we simply have no idea who are the first choices in that area? I always like the look of Hargreaves and when he is fit he should play, other than that it is hard to choose, for the most part we will need grafters on Sunday.

Villareal played a very nice, neat passing game. When they got possession they held possession and seemed a very organised team. This result is no tragedy but we are far from in form at the moment.
We are not in trouble in Europe, yet, and Fergie will know his midfield and defence for the weekend now he has had this little experiment. The thing that nobody seems to mention is that, frankly, it is time to drop Rooney.

Perhaps somebody should send out a memo at Old Trafford. The memo should read along the following lines:

“Competitive matches for Manchester United Football Club began four weeks ago, maybe the playing staff could start competing now.”

Alas, United have somehow managed to drag the lacklustre performance seen recently in the millionaire’s playground of Monaco into the urban wasteland of Liverpool. The Super Cup Final was, well, a cup final and we looked like we couldn’t be bothered. Games against Liverpool are bigger than cup finals and, again, our motivation was sorely lacking.

Despite recent form, and our decent record against them, if a Manchester United team steps out at Anfield giving anything less than 150% they are going to be beaten.

By starting with Tevez, Rooney and Berbatov we were left with no wingers and therefore no width and service for the guys up front. It looked to be working after three minutes as the new man danced down the right to set up Tevez. But after that it all started to go wrong, poor Rooney was everywhere achieving nothing again and we didn’t even have somebody to take the corners. Anderson’s two attempts could find their way into a textbook on backpassing.

So the formation didn’t really work and our pingy passing game was further unsettled by Liverpool’s energy and hustling. Then we lost control of the midfield and the second half comes close to embarrassing. I struggle to remember anything from that second period that comes close to resembling a good move. Giggs showed enduring class with his reactionary volley but that was about it. You always know it’s not going to be your day when someone gets sent off in the last minute through frustration and now we are missing an important player to suspension.

To put it mildly the players need a major rollicking and you can expect Kuscak and Neville to start against Chelsea whilst VDS and Brown find themselves in Trafford General Hospital having their eardrums reattached.

With Chelsea and Arsenal registering wholesome victories nearby we are the only ‘big gun’ not to have recorded a sizeable win yet. Horribly, Liverpool were good value for this victory. Not to worry, the next game is at Stamford Bridge, we’re sure to win 6-0 there.

It was important to get a win on the board before we head off to Monaco for Friday’s Super Cup match. By the time we return to Premier League action against Liverpool on the 13th of September we will be a fixture, and possibly a few points, adrift of the others.

Fratton Park has been about as much joy as dinner with the mother-in-law in recent seasons and turning up with such an untried squad rattled the nerves slightly before kick off.

Fortunately the boys played. This current United system is certainly a different vintage to the swashbuckling wing play we have seen from Fergie’s sides down the years, but it does the job. There is a real slickness to our movement all around the field and I can’t imagine than anybody enjoys defending against us.

Vidic and Rio are looking as solid as ever and if we are to continue averaging one goal a game they are going to need to stay that way. Whilst far from overconfident, this match has convinced me that the world has not caved in after the departure of Quieroz. All we need now is a goal or two for Tevez and Rooney against Zenit St.Petersburg and then we can really get going. Darren Fletcher cannot sustain the charge for the Golden Boot on his own after all.

Not the end of the world but not the end of a summer of discontent either. Ferguson will be hoping that the midwinter will not be as bleak as things appeared to be after this game.

To look at things honestly we must give credit to our barcoded cousins. They ran and chased every ball, as did we, but their commitment was a match and they deserved their point. You would think that the superior quality of our players would carry us over the line in fixtures like this but today it was not to be.

This puts into stark focus how reliant we are on Ronaldo’s goals and the lack of cutting edge we showed was a worry. Rooney is indeed my favourite player at the moment (sorry Rio but you’re just not good looking enough) but we still don’t have somebody with that ‘Mark Hughes’ quality of winning games from nowhere.

So with our sharpest weapons seemingly on the treatment table and potentially in the shopping basket it looks like we could have a fairly sluggish start to the season. This has happened before but this time our first four games contain fixtures against the Roubles and the Bindippers. This could get ugly because Chelsea are most certainly out of the traps.

Goals against Portsmouth are a must.