How did that happen?
A Gooner nightmare started to come true last night as Spurs moved nine points above Wenger\’s multi-national team of multi-millionaires.
NINE POINTS !
If Wenger\’s such a genius, how can his team be nine points below Tottenham, who haven\’t won the league since 1961?
Harry Redknapp’s athletic, forceful, well-organised outfit beat Everton 2-0 to go third, level with Manchester United on 45 points.
Manchester City are top with 48.
The first eight clubs have all played 20 games now, so the second half of the season has started and Arsenal are chasing Chelsea for fourth place.
Tottenham 45
Chelsea 37
Arsenal 36
Liverpool 34
Newcastle 33
Stoke 29
Last night Adebayor didn\’t score, Defoe didn\’t score, and Bale didn\’t either. But Spurs still won 2-0.
Aaron Lennon got the first goal. In the second half left back Benoit Assou-Ekotto, who hasn’t scored for over two years, hit a shot from distance that deflected off Tim Cahill’s thigh and swerved inside the post. I thought the ball swerved more than three feet but less than four feet. So, as a strike by a left back, it wasn\’t as spectacular as Nigel Winterburn’s thunderbolt against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. But it wrapped up the game.
Did Liverpool just win the Carling Cup?
I know the second leg is at Anfield on January 25 and that football is unpredictable blah blah blah.
Crystal Palace beat Cardiff 1-0 in the first leg of the first semi.
In the second Carling semi-final first leg, Manchester City, without Yaya Toure, Kompany and David Silva, lost 1-0 at home to Liverpool last night.
Stevie G, fit and back to his best, was once again the action-man, the gladiator, the standard-bearer who scored the priceless goal.
Man City had no leader and nobody scored for them. The match, played in a downpour, started with some exciting action and Joe Hart had to make several electric saves to prevent Liverpool scoring sooner than they did.
Hart came out to block Andy Carroll early on, dived to his left to tip a Stevie G shot round the post, and was almost wrong-footed by a Stewart Downing deflected volley which he saved brilliantly to his left again.
Stevie G took that corner, and when City failed to clear, young Savic clattered Daniel Agger in a clumsy manner, kicking the Dane\’s knee with a high boot.
Joe Hart was on fire and I thought he might dive to his left and save Gerrard\’s penalty But Stevie hit a superb kick to Hart\’s right and the keeper read it but couldn’t stop the ball flying into the corner of the net.
Man City 0 Liverpool 1, after 13 minutes.
I like Liverpool because they play collectively, with a good shape, doing things that I recognise. They have some dodgy players, and some very limited players, but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
That’s down to good management and good coaching. Well done Kenny Dalglish and Steve Clarke !
It didn’t matter than Liverpool were missing their best player, Luis Suarez, that Glenn Johnson was at left back, that Andy Carroll was a carthorse, or that Craig Bellamy was peripheral on the right wing.
LIVERPOOL played all the football and had a better shape and more possession, more good habits, hunted the ball in groups, and did what they had to do to protect that precious 1-0 lead.
Second half, the whole game was played in Liverpool’s half, and there were many tactical switches, and well as the maximum number of subs coming on for both teams, but Liverpool won and gave me something I recognised.
A few old-fashioned football virtues, as practiced by Forest and Liverpool in the late Seventies/early Eighties.
I recognised certain qualities in their DNA. Once, when I was interviewing Charlie Nicholas in Jerome Anderson’s office on the Finchley Road, Charlie said, “Liverpool are the most professional team I’ve ever played against.” I wasn’t quick enough to ask, “Exactly what d’you mean by that?” But I had a rough idea what Charlie was talking about.
Yes, yes, the game has moved on in the last 30 years, we all know that.
MAN CITY, by contrast, had no convincing shape, no link-play, no coherent collective movement, no heart. They\’re still top but Mancini is always whinging. With what he’s got, he isn’t doing very well.Citeh have lost four of their last eight games.
Memo to Alan Shearer : Give that jacket to Oxfam today. Don\’t wear that ghastly grey jacket again, even when you’re alone in your house.