From Brendan : interesting points in recent posts
Hi Myles,
I’ve enjoyed the exchange of views between Justin and the ice cream makers.
I’m pretty much fully with Justin and his seeing a complete lack of black/white, either/or in the whole mess, only a multitude of contradictory and sometimes paradoxical realities, with mostly only subjective views possible.
And he’s right, there is much more to be worried about than the debate over …. you know what.
We could get into global geopolitics and discuss the potential for countless more resource wars, standoffs and proxy wars etc, but even in the limited world of football, there are far greater problems.
I think it’s a fascinating season from one point of view in particular- and that is this: although the probability is that Chelsea will get over the line (they have four pretty winnable games coming up) and win the league, the model of ‘buy big money players’ has been called into question more seriously this season than ever before.
From my point of view, that’s great. Wenger himself has had to make concessions to this model, with Ozil and Sanchez, but he has not embraced it and probably wouldn’t have the capability to anyway in the same way as Chelsea, City and United.
Most obviously, United’s big money signings have been flops this season, apart from Rooney, who is still one of them in his own right. They are such a strange team at the moment because watching them against Arsenal in the Cup, I could swear that they’d struggle to finish in the top 5.
Then the next game they sweep Spurs aside like it was nothing.
Immensely frustrating I’m sure and lacking a kind of ‘ideological backbone’ under Van Gaal in my view.
Talking of Spurs, I think Kane is one of the great stories of the season, even though he couldn’t take it to United.
It’s fantastic that a player who came through the ranks of a club has been the best striker in a division with strikers worth such ridiculous amounts, and looking at Spurs’ own recent transfer record, how ironic that all the Bale money really never brought the next Spurs hero (well Eriksen may be close, but not yet).
Man City? Also lacking an ideological backbone.
I think Spurs, Arsenal and Liverpool have one.
Of course, it’s all about how they’re managed, what they try to do when they play, and just as importantly, what they don’t do.
City just don’t seem to know what they’re about. I was amazed by how toothless and disinterested they looked against Burnley, and I get the feeling that there’s a certain critical mass of highly-paid stars who could get in to a lot of teams anywhere which, when reached, starts to actually work against a team.
Getting back to basics, like Arsenal did with making Coquelin a regular starter, putting an experienced goalkeeper as the number one in the league, and rotating the defence to keep them on their toes, seems to have helped.
City and United have looked like teams without purpose quite often this season.
Chelsea?
The Mourinho effect has never lasted long, wherever he’s been. It’s the same old story. He pulls the old trick of conjuring that siege mentality, ‘everyone’s out to get us’, and then his players start to believe it.
Costa stops playing, but carries on fouling and arguing, Fabregas turns from being the most exciting player in the league to a player wondering what the hell he’s doing with this belligerent egomaniac. Cesc has a brain, as we all know.
Maybe there’s a twist in the tale yet. I wouldn’t be surprised!
I think in the Premier League Liverpool and Arsenal are the form teams.
Not suggesting for a second they’ll overhaul the big gap but how funny it would be. In time for another FA Cup showdown, perhaps?
Myles says:
8.30 in the morning is too early to talk about resource wars, Brendan.
Last season, Suarez & Liverpool was the story.
This season, for me, Koeman & Southampton is the story .
After half an hour last night I wasn’t enjoying Swansea v Liverpool because the Reds were taking too long to score, or look like scoring, so I switched it off and we watched Enigma, a 2001 film about Bletchley Park.
Some of my mantras apply to Liverpool right now.
They won again last night and they’re unbeaten in 13 league games and the only club in the four English divisions who haven’t lost a game in 2015..
Momentum gives you confidence gives you sequences and football is 90% confidence.
After watching the Chelsea-Southampton game and the Man Utd’s demolition of Spurs, I found I wasn’t enjoying last night’s match because it came too soon after those games and wasn’t as good.
I saw Jordan Henderson’s jammy goal later on and again this morning.
You have to be making that run into the box to have the chance to score that vital goal, to contest the 50-50 ball so that the defender will kick it against your leg in the 68th minute.
HENDERSON? Big engine, big warrior, big improvement