I watched the Big 5 at the weekend.
I watched Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool.
I also watched Aston Villa .
My conclusion after watching those five games was that Man Utd and Aston Villa have a goal threat and the other three don’t.
I knew Man Utd would score, so I backed them. My gambling buddy John backed 0-0 at half-time and 1-0 to Man Utd at full-time and he twice told me to bet that way. I thought there might be a goal in the first half.
I knew somebody would score. Maybe Berbatov, maybe Vidic. In the end , Giggs scored in 62 minutes, swerving in from the right and sidefooting through a crowd of players to beat West Ham keeper Rob Green, who played well.
Arsenal have no goal threat because they’re not direct enough and they have no momentum. They pass the ball sideways in very predictable patterns. They play five-a-side football with 11-a-side and that only works when you have world class players like Bergkamp, Vieira, Ljungberg, Pires and Henry.
I could not believe Wenger’s substitution. Ade pulls a hamstring in 35 so he warms up Bendtner. But when Eboue is sent off in 38 he should tell Bendtner to sit down and put on a midfield player and play 4-4-1. Sure, RVP isn’t an ideal lone striker. I’d have brought on Ramsey in a midfield/half-striker role and if it was still 0-0 near the end, brought on Bendtner
As it happened, Arsenal defended well but had no shot on target until Bendtner’s shot was tipped over by Cudicini in 91.
Bottom line? Arsenal have no goal threat. Song can wrestle Palacios as a corner comes over but he can’t volley the ball from six yards and put it between two metal posts eight yards apart.
Song is a dope and an embarrassment to the club. How can Pat Rice and Vic Akers sit there and watch Song at weekends after watching him in training all week? It must be purgatory for them.
Liverpool are so rigid, so defensive, that they have no goal threat other than Gerrard and Torres. Rafa is a striker’s nightmare and also an owner’s nightmare.
Tom Hicks can’t give Rafa full control of transfers because nobody, even Dubai, would then buy the club off him !
Workmanlike Aston Villa have consistency of attitude and no players as clueless as Song, Eboue or Adebayor. James Milner is a dribbler and a crosser who can play on both flanks. But given a bit of space he smacked a left-foot shot across Paul Robinson and into the net.They’ve got Ashley Young back. He hasn’t been injured, so he’s been training normally and looks sharp and fresh and full of it. I fancied Villa to beat Blackburn 1-0 but they won 2-0. Agbonlahor scored in the 90th minute. He’s young, English, fast, determined. He’s got no left foot but many players have no left foot.
You might say : OK, but Aston Villa haven’t built a new ground and aren’t trying to build their old stadium into 700 flats. But it would be more pertinent to say: Villa are not struggling to replace Bergkamp, Vieira, Ljungberg , Pires and Henry because they’ve never had players of that calibre.
Big challenges for Bendtner now. Four big games coming up for him : Cardiff, Sunderland, Roma, Fulham. If he’s going to become an Arsenal striker, now is the time to show it.
On Monday morning I decided to do what I do on Wednesday.
Switch to voicemail and turn off my router at 9am. When I switched them back on at 3pm I got calls and emails saying Scolari had been sacked. The team played to get him sacked. Quite pathetic. They have no strikers, no goal threat, Drogba is not interested. His mind wandered during games last season, by his own admission. Anelka is a lazy, cowardly footballer, a multi-millionaire who cheats his employers in every game. Malouda is the worst signing in Chelsea’s history. At least Kalou is hungry and gets into the right positions, even if he can’t hit a barn door.
Carlton Cole is better than Adebayor or Anelka right now, even if he isn’t scoring many goals.
He left Rio Ferdiannd for dead early in the game. And Vidic had to get a fierce grip on Cole’s shirt, swing him round, and still keep a tight hold of his shirt, or he was beaten.
As long as Peter Kenyon is MD, Chelsea will fail. His mentality is : nobody’s good enough for us. No manager is good enough for us. Kenyon is the twerp who told us, “Chelsea are in a league of one.”
My only thought at 9am on Monday, before I switched over to more important things than football, was that Chelsea could save Arsenal. If Chelsea continued to implode, they could save Arsenal.
Six hours later I discovered Scolari had gone. Kenyon has always wanted Sven, who loves the dinner parties in London. Frank Rijkaard is a better option. But Avram Grant will be their caretaker. Then, next February, when they sack the next coach, Grant will be caretaker again. I can’t see Guus Hiddink taking the job. If he wanted it, he would have accepted it before now.
Even Everton, the team with no fit strikers, beat Bolton 3-1. So they have a goal threat. Their goal threat is Tim Cahill and he didn’t score. But they still won 3-1. Lescott gives them a goal threat, Fellaini too. And Everton are only four points behind Arsenal after 25 games
Man Utd 24 56 pts
Liverpool 25 54
AstonVilla 25 51
Chelsea 25 49
Arsenal 25 44
Everton 25 40