WATCHING three TV matches on a damp autumn Sunday gave me a few pointers about how this season might go.
Manchester United won 2-0 and Arsenal won 4-0. Then Real Madrid beat Barcelona 2-0.
At Old Trafford, Liverpool looked good for the first five minutes and the contest had a real edge to it. United v Liverpool isn’t just another day at the office.
Then I realised that Liverpool do not have the required goal-making machinery.They can’t score because the machinery that should create the chances is just not there.
Steven Gerrard was their top scorer last season with 23 goals.But he was wide right in a game they had to win. Mark Gonzalez was awful on the left, Luis Garcia was invisible in the hole, and honest Dirk Kuyt ran around to little effect
Meanwhile, the United midfield WAS functioning quite well, Carrick was finding Saha with longish passes, Giggs was menacing on the left, and Fletcher was occupying Riise and also, crucially, getting in the face of Alonso, Liverpool’s tactical brain, their quarterback. If Alonso does not play well, Liveprool have no chance.
Rooney, 21 this week, was very energetic, playing in Giggs for a low cross that the unmarked Scholes stabbed in from six yards in 38.And Saha had three shots in the first half.
Only after Rio Ferdinand made it 2-0 did Benitez bring on his only in-form striker, Crouch, who was soon booked for an ambitious tackle on Edwin van Der Sar, as he cleared the ball.
Liverpool are now 11th in the table.
THIERRY HENRY scored after 58 seconds at Reading and it was quite easy for Arsenal after that.
Fabregas cut the ball back to Henry who was only just inside the box. He was unmarked because four Reading defenders were all marking the positions they marked in the Championship, allowing him to sidefoot sweetly and firmly into the net from 16 yards.
There was no Reading player near him. He was standing still when the ball reached him and he hit it first time with no impediment. And that was Reading all day.I expected them to mark and tackle but they stood off Arsenal, who played through them all day long.
Hleb made it 20 in 39 minutes and van Persie slotted with his right foot for 3-0 in 49, and Henry made it 4-0 from a penalty in 69, after a foul on Fabregas by the keeper.
Then three subs disrupted the rhythm, none of them adding anything to the game. Adebayor’s touch was woeful, Walcott kept losing the ball.
As I suggested a few weeks ago, Thierry Henry will not be making so many long sprints on the left, now that he’s a bit older, and now that Pires and Cole have gone. Instead, I reckoned, he would be floating around the front third and playing various runners into the box.That is exactly what we saw at the Madejski Stadium.
And Henry also scored his 168th and 169th Premiership goals on Arsene Wenger’s 57th birthday.
A 4-0 win in on your birthday is what every manager wants and Wenger achieved it by doing what he did on his best days and nights at Highbury : by taking London Colney into the stadium. When the boys replicate his quick-passing training routines in matches, and score goals, he is happy.
Also, significantly, Wenger kept faith with the same eleven who lost to CSKA.
Alex Hleb and Robin van Persie were very poor in Moscow, and CEsc Fabregas was poor for the first hour. Those three improved because the manager believed in them. So they believed in themselves.
And so it came to pass : the mugs of Moscow became the magicians of the Madejski. Fabregas scored one and won a penalty, Hleb scored one and made one for Van Persie.
The win put Arsenal fourth on 17 points with a game in hand. Chelsea and Man United have 22 points and Bolton are third on 20 after beating Blackburn 1-0 at Ewood.
FABIO CAPELLO has sorted Real Madrid out at last and their season really kicked off last Tuesday with a thumping 4-1 win in Bucharest.
Last season’s home game against Barcelona was a humiliating 3-0 defeat which effectively finished the galactico era of Florentino Perez.
When Eto’s stabbbed in the first goal, and Ronaldinho score two spectacular goals from dribbles down the left side, he earned a standing ovation from the Madrid fans. The fans had seen the beginning of the end, then the middle of the end – and that was it, kaput, finito, THE END.
There is a moment in every operation where you have to draw a line under it – and move on.
Capello has given them discipline, revived Raul, made them into a team which now looks quite good.
Like Arsenal, Real Madrid scored a killer early goal. Right back Sergio Ramos crossed, Raul headed in, and they were 1-0 up after two minutes.
The game was played in pouring rain and Barca.s game was slowed down by the puddles, although Messi played really well.
When Robinho crossed in 50 minutes, keeper Victor Valdes came out but bottled the 50-50 with Ruud van Nistelroy, who made it 2-0.
This is Capello’s second spell at Madrid. He has yet to lose a home game.His ruthlessness has transformed a shambles into a formidable fighting unit.
Here we saw that Capello got his Brazilians to foul Barcelona’s Brazilians, and they seemed to relish the task.
Right after Raul’s goal, Emerson grabbed Ronaldinho’s arm with hoth of his hands.He got hold of Ronaldinho’s upper left arm with his right hand, and grabbed the same arm with his left hand, which severely impeded his friend’s ability to run away from him with the ball. Emerson then bumped Ronaldinho down onto his bum. It was wrestling, not football.
Near the end the bouncy Robinho flattened Ronaldinho in centrefield with a very strong challenge which Capello did not think was a foul.
La Liga will be different this year.