I’ve been trying to step away from the keyboard for a while. To let the dust from the Premier League’s opening salvo settle before drawing conclusions that are better made with consideration than in haste. No sides are “in crisis” yet. You go down the shops and when you come back Adam Johnson has joined Sunderland. There is still a week of the window to go and there are teams with holes that obviously need to be plugged. By next Saturday some will have improved their prospects while others will seem to have pissed their money away.
However, big football is back to thrill, divert and frustrate us all. It will be better to get some of these thoughts out of my head so that I can concentrate on serious issues like how come the two teams which have claim on my heart are yet to even draw a game never mind win one !
So, Swansea City actually liked to play an attractive passing game & were not just forced to by the previous manager. Eight goals scored and none conceded deserves a rave review and it has been achieved without two of the stars of last season, Allen and Sigurdsson. Scott Sinclair is now “doing a Dempsey” and putting his season on hold until the end of the transfer window. If he is still a Swan next week then he may find it more difficult to get a game than Clint will.
It is good to see that a place has finally been found for Wayne Routledge. Since he left Palace he has been an unhappy wanderer around the league. Other wide players of similar ability, Wright-Phillips, Lennon, Downing have got the big moves while it seemed as if he would fit no-one’s plans. At 27 he should be more mature and ready to make the most of this chance to play regularly. Of course Michu is not going to keep up his average all season (or he will end up with 60 goals) but it is already a case of “Gylfi who ?”. A talent for arriving late into the penalty area and then behaving as if you have been there before and know what you are doing can take you a long way in the Premier League. A snip at £2 million, there are players who cost over £10 million who may not have three goals by Xmas. I want to finish with a “Respect” to Ashley Williams who for the past four seasons has risen to the challenge of defending against a rising quality of strikers. It may be that he is in a “Roger Johnson” situation and would be rubbish if he moved away. No matter, every side needs guys like Ashley who know how far they have come and what needs to be done.
Oh yeah, Anjel Ranjel, Angle Rangle, Anghel Ranghel…it is of no consequence…crazy name, crazy guy. Now that Dirk Kuyt has left the Prem the only thing we know about football is that no-one can pronounce his name properly !
Enough. I will hold fire on the new manager (he was some player !). I will only say that whenever his name is spoken it is the law that you must now say…”he was some player”.
3-2 is the magic number
This season marks the disappearance of three ex-centre halves as managers of Premier League clubs. These scarred (scared ?) miserablists, Bruce, McCarthy & McLeish, all regarded survival at any cost as the be-all and end-all of their jobs. McCarthy would cynically send his stiffs out in games he thought were beyond winning. McLeish regarded a 0-0 home draw as a triumph for his tactics. All three would consider that they were facing the “realities” of managing teams in the lower half of the league.
In the first week of the season three managers, two of them new to this survival game, have taken their sides to the stadiums of the top three teams and have lost by the odd goal in five. Do Adkins & McDermott not know the etiquette of smaller teams visiting the palaces ? You let them get a couple of goals in the first quarter &, in return, the princes do not embarrass you too badly. Surely all players want to play in big games against big clubs at packed stadia. They do not want to be saved for the midweek six-pointer against Wigan. They want to do their best against the best. If there is a new trend in the Premier League for unfancied teams to give it a go then let’s hope that every now and again they get some reward for it. We will all be more entertained as a result.
Here’s a before and after of Mr McDermott for our younger viewers. It happens, I am afraid to say, to all of us. Just don’t let yourself go like Steve Bruce has.
Goalkeepers
I have thought for some time that a goalkeeper can become shot shy in a way a boxer can take too many punches. A keeper who has spent too much time trying to save good shots can start to think well…I wont get that one. It happened to David Seaman and I think that Given, Green, Schwarzer, Friedel and Jaaskelainen may be getting to this stage. I know that an error by a keeper is magnified but the Prem has some of the most talented players in the world coming to show their talents. Is it too much to ask that the clubs put a bit of effort into signing some decent custodians ?
Finally…what is the story with the yellow piping around the bottom of the Villa shirt ? We play in claret and blue with some white. No yellow ! I am sure that if this is put right then the season will sort itself out.
armchair hooligans 