By Myles Palmer
This Premiership season has been enlivened by a few ambush teams and some hot young strikers.
An ambush team is one that makes headlines by beating the big boys.
These teams usually managed by a little Scottish guy who builds a team as hungry as himself.
Everton became an ambush team when Wayne Rooney beat Seaman from 25 yards to make it 3-2.
That stunning goal on October 19th ended Arsenal’s long run and started Everton’s renaissance.
Southampton’s James Beattie has been making a name for himself by scoring 15 goals, more even than the prolific Thierry Henry, who has 13 league goals so far.
In previous years West Ham have often been an ambush team who looked capable of upsetting a Man United or a Liverpool.
I was there when Paul Ince took Liverpool apart and the bookies didn’t take many bets on the Hammers winning 4-1 that night.I would not venture a guess at what year that was. But it was memorable because it was not what we expected to see.
At the moment the Premiership looks like four, six and ten.
Four clubs will get into the Champions League, Chelsea and Newcastle being the other two, probably.
Since I predicted failure for Houllier, Liverpool have extended their sorry sequence to 11 Premiership games without a win.
Six clubs are in a relegation battle, led by West Ham, West Brom, Sunderland and Bolton. If Birmingham and Bolton lose a few more games they will sink into the drop-zone.
And the ten clubs in the middle are headed by Southampton and Everton, who have become so consistent they cannot be called ambush teams any longer.
Gordon Strachan’s Saints have earned respect.
So have David Moyes and his grafters from Goodison.When they win games now, it’s not a surprise.
Myself, I like the transfer window.
This week could be fascinating because what we might see is the old domino theory working at a hyper-accelerated rate.
I can remember standing outside Highbury a few years ago talking to Jerome Anderson, the agent, who said that once Dean Saunders was sold, every club who wanted him would buy somebody else.A domino effect was inevitable.
At that moment we were waiting for the first domino to fall and push the others over.
This week could be something similar: If Robbie Fowler goes to Man City, Shaun Goater might go to Bolton, releasing Michael Ricketts to go to Spurs, and Les Ferdinand could go to West Ham.
But that’s a lot of ifs.
Football being an unpredictable circus, that is a helluva lot of ifs.
However,the armchair viewing public CAN rely on a young striker scoring a great goal every week.
With Wayne Rooney suspended, we can expect a spectacular goal or three from James Milner at Leeds, James Beattie at Southampton, or Jermain Defoe at West Ham.
Or even, perhaps, Neil Mellor at Liverpool.
It would be ironic if an English kid saves Houllier’s job,after he signed about 30 foreigners.
SOME READERS HAVE ASKED FOR MY VIEWS ON MATTHEW UPSON.
Well, my views haven’t changed very much in the last two years.
I don’t think Upson will make it at Arsenal and I don’t believe AW thinks he will make it.
Upson is tall, left-footed,the best header of the ball at the club, and quite useful with his RIGHT foot, from what I’ve seen.
He is quick over 30 yards but a bit slow over the first five, I think.
Main problem, it seems to me, is that Upson panics under pressure.
It’s not like Arsenal to allow a messy situation to develop, if half of what we read is true.
Apparently,Birmingham bid £1 million for Upson, going up to £3 million on appearances and Premiership survival.
And we are told Arsenal accepted that bid.
But AW has said he wants Upson to stay. And the player has said he wants to fight for his place.
It’s too messy for me. It’s too hard to read between the lines.
But facts are facts.
If Arsene thought Upson was gonna make it he would have played him far more often than he has.
January 15th 2003.