Last night I spent the evening in the company of a number of old friends who constitute football journalists and football-educated “civvies” and, as one would expect three days before the start of the season, the conversation was predictable. We gather about the same time every year to thrash out our hopes, dreams and, more [...]
Europe has been in shutdown this last week and a half because of a volcano in meltdown in Iceland, and football has not escaped its heavenly wrath. Meanwhile, League One continues to be an enigma right to the end – although at least Norwich have deservedly been promoted. And, the Premier League’s top four have had a poor season this year – but it may not be the same next season. Sean Smith writes…
Chelsea are just a few games from an historic double for the club, but the concensus of opinion is that they are a poor winner of a broken league weakened by the financial crisis of the last few years. What does this mean for the near future of English football. Is it heading backwards?
After the scourge of a brutal winter comes the gamblers scourge of unpredictable pitches. It looked like the usual rant of a madman when Sir Alex Ferguson suggested that the turgid pitch had “killed Wayne Rooney”, but he may have a point. The problems with the Wembley pitch are well documented, but elsewhere in England – as the permafrost threatened to lift across the country – an unprecedented number of managers claimed the pitch as a factor in iffy results. There were grumblings at Peterborough in The Championship as the poor surface did nothing to help a home side that prefers to play it on the deck, but the worst pitching – inevitably – further down the leagues.
So we have three teams within three points of each other at the top of the Premier League, and the bookies are undecided as to who is going in it. Chelsea (61 points) and Man Utd (60 points) are impossible to split at 6/4, while Arsenal (58 points) are a little bit bigger on 11/4. Exciting stuff, eh? And, here’s the thing: it’s going to get a lot more exciting because the outsider is going to rip right through the field and win.
Spare a thought for Arsene Wenger as he peruses the fate of his mice, not men, after their drubbing at home to Chelsea – the second time in two seasons that the Blues have duffed them up and taken their dinner money at the Emirates Stadium. Wenger must be feeling a little bruised and alienated after reading the papers this morning. In them he is lambasted in his comments about Didier Drogba, which had The Sun newspaper suggesting that he needs his head examined
That was one hell of a game between Arsenal and Liverpool on Wednesday night, and one that re-instilled a little bit of faith in the present custodians of the great game.
It was a game played at a fast, but controlled, pace with very little let-up – particularly in an engaging second half.
But what struck me most about the game was how it was played with a true Corinthian spirit, which is highly commendable given the average age of both these young teams.
