A Winning Habit

Strange scenes at Wembley as Jamie O’Hara sat, dejected, having missed Spurs’ first penalty whilst Manchester United ambled up the long flight of stairs to collect the trophy as if they had just won the Community Shield. It was a contrast echoed in the pub I was watching the game in, where Spurs supporters, who had been by far the more vocal throughout the match, sat despondently with only the unfamiliar surroundings of a relegation battle to look forward to as United fans already began to look ahead to Wednesday’s trip to St James’, their eyes on the season’s bigger prizes. Odd, really, that the same piece of silverware could mean so much to one club and so little to another.

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It wasn’t as if Manchester United weren’t interested, in fact Ferguson picked a far stronger team than I was anticipating - once Wellbeck, Gibson and O’Shea had been replaced by Anderson, Giggs and Vidic respectively it was approaching full strength - but this seemed like a cup that Spurs wanted and needed far more. They had sacrificed their UEFA and FA Cup campaigns for it, amidst the catastrophe that has been their season this remained the glimmer of light for them and their beleaguered supporters. Alas, it was not to be on this occasion – although I certainly feel that had Robbie Keane or Jermaine Defoe been eligible or fit the outcome might have been different.

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On an afternoon of mediocre football, there were some interesting notes. Aaron Lennon once again produced an infuriating display, quick, dangerous and inventive, but invariably producing the sort of final delivery that has allowed David Beckham to amass 108 England caps and has meant that his name is still never too far away from the words ‘impact substitute’. Ben Foster had a superb game which will probably be remembered for his point blank save from Aaron Lennon with twenty minutes to play and his penalty heroics, but who also performed all the basics well, took crosses, kicked well under pressure and looked a far better prospect as Van der Sar’s successor than the unconvincing Tomasz Kuszczak. Danny Wellbeck and Darron Gibson struggled to make an impression – it’s one thing scoring against Derby, but history has proved that Manchester United can be a punishing environment for youth team players, just take a look at the litany of players throughout the football league that struggled to make the grade throughout the Ferguson era, Healy, Chadwick, Greening, Wallwork to name just a few. The newest crop will have to learn to play on the big occasion and learn fast if they want to avoid playing Derby far more regularly. Despite the avalanche of recent accolades for the first team, it isn’t a terrible time to be an up and comming striker or a central midfielder at United. Carrick will be a mainstay for the next six or seven years, but Hargreaves, Anderson and Fletcher have all struggled to make a convincing case for the second spot. Similarly Carlos Tevez’s future seems to be away from Old Trafford and Wellbeck offers a different option to what is already available. There is certainly hope for both of them, but players just as capable have struggled.

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Finally, a word on Ronaldo’s yellow card - unnecessary, really, and wholly unjustified. There is a thin line between ‘simulation’ and contact in the modern game, against Blackburn last weekend he crossed that line and deserved his yellow card. Unfortunately every game is not a separate entity, it isn’t a court of law, there is no right to a fair trial. Of course, in an ideal world, all players and clubs should be equal, but the realist in all of us accepts the fantasy in that philosophy. His reputation went before him, but it is a justified reputation that he has helped cultivate. It was the wrong decision, but I sympathise with the referee and can understand why it happened. Of course it’s a far easier to be gracious and talk about how hard the referee's job is when you’re winning. Overall, a constructive day for Manchester United, but one that did little to promote the value of the Carling Cup, only serving to enhance the gulf between the Premier League’s two halves.

Too Soon to be Talking Titles

By Alex Allen

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Bookmaker Paddy Power’s absurd decision to pay out on a Manchester United treble with a third of the season remaining may owe more to a PR strategy designed to fill column inches far more prestigious than these, but they were not alone as fans, media and pundits combined to dish out footballs most sought after trophies three months early. Manchester United are playing well, they have created a strong platform to build from – and that is really all you can do by March, remain in a position to challenge for trophies in May. Their strength this season, ironically, is that Cristiano Ronaldo has not quite been up to par, albeit his 'par' is unbelievably high. It has removed the team’s reliance on him and has resulted in a more equal contribution to the team as an attacking threat which has meant Ferguson’s squad rotation hasn’t had an adverse effect on results. Giggs, Tevez, Berbatov, Vidic, Rooney and Ronaldo have all scored the crucial goal in a succession of 1-0 victories. There isn’t one player, other than perhaps Nemanja Vidic, that United could lose which would decimate their season whereas Liverpool seemed utterly void of ideas and inspiration without Steven Gerrard to get them out of jail against Manchester City. Much has been made of smaller teams ‘parking the bus’ when they play away at the big clubs, and while I don’t particularly agree with Arsene Wenger’s complaint that these teams should make it an open game (come on Arsene, they’d be taken apart!), the trend does not bode well for the future of the league. Take Rangers and Celtic as a prime example, it’s a contest of consistency, of who will flinch first. Is that what we want for our own league? Two or three teams routinely obliterating the rest with its final destination determined by their head to head results? Creating a more level playing field and a more competitive league is really another article entirely, but situation as it stands, Liverpool lack the players to combat this ultra defensive philosophy. For the Champions League sides, drawing has become the new losing (don’t even think about losing a game, that’s complete suicide), and Liverpool have done an awful lot of drawing with teams they should and need to be beating. In my opinion their position as second place title chasers owes more to a combination of several fortuitous comebacks early on in the season, 3-2 against Manchester City at Eastlands springs to mind, which built confidence in the team combined with a declining Arsenal and a Chelsea team trying to shake themselves out of their Jose Mourinho hangover. Pundits condemn their title credentials, but in truth, nobody expected them to be there in the first place, and for the very reasons they are now being criticised. Too reliant on Gerrard, lacking creativity to break teams down, no width, no strength and depth, these criticisms were all equally true at the start of the season and Liverpool shouldn’t be lambasted for failing to deliver something that, during this season at least, they were never genuinely capable of. As with Arsenal last season, their first choice eleven is a match of anybody, but in a season where players can play up to 60 fixtures, it only takes a couple of injuries, suspensions and poor results to derail the whole train.
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However, as I said, all that United have at this stage of the season is a basis for success, nothing is in the trophy cabinet just yet. To that end, this could still very well be Chelsea’s season. Cup football is unpredictable, it isn’t fair, the best team doesn’t always win. Did Manchester United deserve to draw run away Serie A leaders Inter after comfortably winning their group? Probably not, nor did Arsenal earn a relatively easy draw with Roma but these decisions, draws and dramas can shape and end careers. Call it wishful thinking, but there’s a very strong argument to be made that the unfortunate Tim Howard fumble which allowed Paulo Constinha to follow up and dump United out of Europe in 2004, sparking Jose Mourinho’s famous touchline celebrations, has propelled the Portuguese’s entire career. Gus Hiddink may only have PSV on his CV as far as club management goes, but he hasn’t really been hired for that. He might be coming out with all the right noises, that they won’t concede the title, that anything can happen, but nobody realistically expects Manchester United to lose a third of their remaining league games and Chelsea to lift the Premiership trophy aloft an open top bus. It just isn’t going to happen. But in competitions so fraught with unpredictability, deflected goals, unforeseen injuries and card happy officials, Hiddink is perhaps unsurpassed at doing everything that can be done to prepare a team. Fitness, organisation, winning mentality, these are the qualities he will give Chelsea at this crucial period of the season. Whilst I don’t believe in favourites for any cup competition, too many pitfalls, too much than can go wrong – just look at last season’s FA Cup washout for the big four, in recent years the winning teams have always had the same thing. It isn’t Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi, it’s defensive immortality and brilliant organisation which has seen average sides like Porto and Greece win some of football’s biggest prizes. While I think the league is over for another year, only Chelsea have the players to realistically compete and are simply too far behind, the cup competitions are for anybody to make their mark on, I suspect it will be the team that can best express these key qualities that will be prevail and I wouldn’t pay out on anybody just yet.

The End of the Roman Empire?

By Alex Allen

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Are Chelsea really a club in turmoil, or does their perceived demise owe much to fanciful media scaremongering? Fourth in the Premiership, still involved in the FA Cup and Champions League, as a footballing force they hardly seem at death's door. In fact, their biggest public relations problem seems to be that the club has become defined as a bottomless financial pit, relentlessly ploughing the European leagues for their best players and prizing them away whether their clubs like it or not. But the days of transfer wranglings with Lyon over Michael Essien are long gone, and despite massively reducing their transfer outlays in recent seasons the stigma of fiancial gluttony has remained, jeoprodising every managerial incumbent at the club since Jose Mourinho, who, along with Claudio Ranieri, is the only manager to have really benefitted from massive transfer funds. When the team wins, journalists and fans argue that they should be given the amount of investment they have received, when they don't it is considered a massive underachievement and that money and talent should be able to overcome luck, weather, fatigue, injuries and suspensions. Perhaps the club's biggest error was giving their fans and the media the impression that their blueprint was to operate in the way which Manchester City intend to, as a rich man's toy where money is no object. I suspect that in 2003 when Roman Abramovich took control of the club that that was the plan and it was only Peter Kenyon's arrival and determination to build a legacy for the club that has derailed it and injected a sense of realism in to the project.
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It is the eternal dialema in a modern game dominated by foreign ownership, business versus performance. Investment in the Premier League is rife, clubs that don't have it feel like they are being left behind, cannot comprehend the financial consequences of relegation and are looking for it from any willing source - just take Newcastle United as an example. But how much do we really know about these people? How often are clubs' lured towards new ownership with dollar signs in their eyes without questioning their long term ambition and committment to the club? Kenyon is planning for Chelsea's future by trying to make ensure that if Abramovich ever grows tired of owning the club they won't be left in a mountain of debt without a leg to stand on. It's a cautious approach that may not reap many trophies in the short term, but then again, things haven't started going wrong for the foreign owned clubs yet. Take Manchester United as an example of a club living life close to the line - the owners are currently paying 80 million pounds in interest payments on the 770 million loan the Glazers' took out to finance the club in additon to any transfer outlays. Fine while the going is good and the club qualifies for the Champions League routinely, while it is generating massive sponsorship deals, merchandise revenue and gate receipts, but who can tell whether than will be sustained when Sir Alex Ferguson retires? United fans will tell you that although they would prefer the club not to be privately owned at all, at least the Glazers have stepped back, let Ferguson and Gill do their jobs and generally been good owners. Of course, it's easy to do that when you have arguably the best manager of his generation at the helm and the team is winning, who can say whether the Glazers will be any better than Roman Abramovich when Ferguson eventually retires? It is up to these twenty clubs to find some middle ground between business and performance, between caution and adventure. Each have set up their stall and have started a heated debate amongst their supporters about whether their club is on the right path. Arsenal, for example, are spending very little and making great profits on their developing stars, Vieira, Anelka, Henry, all sold on for a large profit, but one that has come at great cost on the field as they find themselves in severe danger of failing to make the top four. Which is the best approach, prudence or positivity? Only time will tell, but Kenyon and Chelsea cannot be blamed for taking steps to ensure the future of their club, however detrimental it may be to their short term success. If the club is guilty of anything it is misleading their supporters by continuing to operate in the same high 'em fire 'em style they did when money was being poured in to the team. Scolari inherited an ageing team that knew how to win in a certain way. Those players were all bought at their peak, their value was never going to increase and when Sir Alex Ferguson commented in the 2007/8 season that the team wasn't going to be able to develop he was right. Turning that squad in to a team capable of playing free flowing, attacking football was never a one season job, the players just weren't there and those that were such as Joe Cole were permanently in the treatment room. If the club wants to suceed financially and on the field then business and pleasure must pull in the same direction. Would Chelsea rather play defensively and win, or try and build something more entertaining and lose? More importantly, can they afford they to lose? Time will tell, but Peter Kenyon and Roman Abramovich appear to have different ideas about how they want Chelsea to operate, over the next season or so we will find out if there is enough common ground for them both to work together.