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Southampton: A not-so scary story
There aren’t any monsters living under your bed, Friday the 13th is just a date like any other and The Exorcist was just a movie. Heads don’t really spin around like that.
In short, you don’t have to be scared. What initially seems unfamiliar and daunting can be overcome and eventually enjoyed if you just allow yourself to be a little braver and take control of the situation.
Southampton are proving that at the moment.
Following early run-ins with the big beasts of the Premier League, the Saints have slowly begun to acclimatise to their surroundings and are now even starting to look comfortable.
Brave losses to both Manchester clubs and a 6-1 hammering at Arsenal was a tough beginning to life at the top level for boss Nigel Adkins, but he and his side have recovered and come up with some eye-catching football in recent weeks. They’ve only lost one of their last six games.
That defeat came at Anfield at the beginning of the month when some Saints followers felt that their Merseysider boss Adkins showed Liverpool a little too much respect on the way to a 1-0 reverse. And so just when they were in danger of looking intimated by the division again they came up with last weekend’s 1-0 home victory over Reading, possibly their most important result of the season.
It was a win which lifted Saints out of the bottom three and into 15th, a highest position of the season so far.
Of course it is far too early to suggest that this is form that will see them pull away from the relegation zone and enjoy safety in their first top flight season since relegation from the Premier League in 2005 – they subsequently had a spell in the third tier of course – but what it does show is that Adkins and his side aren’t in danger of being completely overwhelmed by the top division, and nor should they be.
There were a few weeks back in August and September when that looked to be the case though, but crucially Southampton have been beating the teams around them this season.
Aston Villa, QPR, Newcastle and Reading are the four sides who Adkins’s men have seen off to pick up 12 points which were as crucial for Saints to claim for themselves as it was to prevent their opponents from taking them.
Given that their weekend fixture with Chelsea has had to be moved into the New Year due to the Blues’ Club World Cup involvement this seems like the perfect time for Southampton to take stock of their campaign and look to move forward again.
A home fixture against Sunderland when they return to action on December 22nd is another opportunity to beat one of those other teams around them, and Adkins will doubtless be looking to prolong the good feeling amongst his players during this gap without a match, a gap which he says will help them given that it provides the chance for captain Adam Lallana to recover from a knee injury without missing a match.
Others such as Rickie Lambert, Jason Puncheon and Nathaniel Clyne – all impressive in recent weeks – won’t be given time off during Southampton’s break but will instead be encouraged to keep working hard and keep proving that they, Adkins and the club have nothing to be scared of as they continue to go through life in the Premier League.
They are still likely to be involved near the foot of the table come May – even the most optimistic of Saints fans would probably agree to that – but any extra confidence they pick up along the way is sure to stand them in good stead when the wins suddenly get more vital and three points can feel like six.
That’s not a situation to be scared of though, and luckily Southampton know that now.
@Mark_Jones86
Gameweek 16 preview: Will Black Cats bring good luck?
If a team is playing badly then can Fantasy bosses trust their players on a double Gameweek? We’re about to find out.
Sunderland have won just one of their last nine games, a run which has seen them slide down the table and now sit just one point and one place above the relegation zone.
It is hardly stellar form and they are results which have cast serious doubt of the future of boss Martin O’Neill, who will be desperate to pick up at least one positive result in the days ahead as his team face two very different challenges.
First up is Chelsea on Saturday, and with Rafael Benitez struggling to adapt to the very peculiar demands of the Stamford Bridge hotseat – in the Premier League at least – then the Black Cats are likely to fancy their chances ahead of that and their second game of the week against Reading on Tuesday.
Fantasy bosses who are playing the long game will have had Steven Fletcher (£7.2m) in mind for this Gameweek for as long as Sunderland’s game against the Royals was called off due to excessive rain in the north east in August – a common occurrence there – but with the Scot struggling with an ankle injury then it might pay to switch those sights to Stephane Sessegnon (£7.4m) now.
This season the Benin international might not have hit the heights that he regularly found during his last campaign when he registered seven goals and 12 assists, but there have been signs that he’s returning to form recently and whatever Sunderland do over their next 180 minutes is likely to heavily involve him.
Fletcher, Adam Johnson (£6.8m), Craig Gardner (£4.9m), Carlos Cuellar (£4.6m) and goalkeeper Simon Mignolet (£5.1m) are others to keep an eye during Sunderland’s heavy workload, but it is next Tuesday’s opponents Reading who might offer the greater value for your Fantasy cash.
A Saturday match at fellow strugglers Southampton is followed by that Sunderland meeting next week for Brian McDermott’s men, and with forward Adam Le Fondre (£4.9m) forcing himself to the front of Reading’s queue of forwards in recent weeks the 26-year-old could be seen as an inexpensive gamble.
Reading will fancy their chances of finding the net against their two red and white striped opponents, with Le Fondre, Jason Roberts (£4.5m), Jobi McAnuff (£5.1m) and Hal Robson-Kanu (£4.3m) all offering the chance of cheap thrills for your side. At the back, defender Sean Morrison (£4.0m) has come into the team in recent weeks and showed an eye for goal.
With neither of the teams involved in the double Gameweek looking particularly convincing, you might be tempted to look at the teams playing in the regulation one, with the biggest one of those coming at the Etihad Stadium.
The Manchester derby is probably even tougher to call than the usual big name Premier League tussles, but with Wayne Rooney (£11.7m) finally finding his goalscoring form at Reading last week then he’ll be one to watch. Sergio Aguero (£11.0m) started Manchester City’s last two games on the bench and so will surely be turned to from the beginning for the hosts.
In Sunday’s other matches it can’t have escaped Fantasy players’ notice that Tottenham are likely to be missing Gareth Bale for their trip to Everton whilst Luis Suarez (£10.5m) is banned for Liverpool’s visit to West Ham, a state of affairs which could see midfielder Jonjo Shelvey (£5.2m) start upfront and Jose Enrique (£6.0m) pushed up to the left wing again.
A day earlier and up in North London, Arsenal will want to emerge from their latest crisis at home to West Brom and can do if forward Olivier Giroud (£8.5m) is handed a start.
The Frenchman had scored three goals in his previous two home games before being left on the bench for last weekend’s loss to Swansea – Michu is now up to £7.8m ahead of their game at home to Norwich by the way – and if Arsene Wenger turns to his summer signing then he could find that his team gain a bit of luck in front of goal.
Luck which should be on everyone’s wish list this weekend and beyond.
Norwich: Standing on the shoulders of giants
Norwich City have beaten Arsenal and Manchester United this season and are currently on the same amount of points as Liverpool. They haven’t so much snuck up on the Premier League’s big boys as gatecrashed their party entirely.
It wasn’t always like this of course. There was genuine concern in Norfolk at the end of September and beginning of October when Luis Suarez, Fernando Torres and Eden Hazard cut Chris Hughton’s side apart as Liverpool and Chelsea beat them 5-2 and 4-1 respectively.
They were results which left the Canaries second to bottom of the Premier League with three points from seven matches, still winless and still licking their wounds from a 5-0 loss at Fulham on the opening day. A long, uncomfortable campaign beckoned for Hughton in his first season in the Carrow Road hotseat.
Yet the transformation since then has been nothing short of remarkable.
It started with the home win over Arsenal in mid-October, finally a first three points of the campaign and what looked a pretty decent platform to build upon. It’s proved to be the most solid.
The victory over the Gunners was the start of an eight-match unbeaten league run – nine if you count the Capital One Cup win over Tottenham – which has seen the Canaries concede only four goals. As QPR and Reading – their partners in the relegation zone in those uncomfortable early weeks – have failed to escape the bottom three, Norwich have soared up the table with the talk in Norfolk now concerning just whether Hughton can deliver a top half finish.
The most memorable of those eight unbeaten games surely came against Manchester United last month, when Anthony Pilkington’s winner underlined the quality within a squad which has largely been drawn from players in the lower leagues.
Pilkington, Bradley Johnson, Robert Snodgrass, Wes Hoolahan and Grant Holt have all served their apprenticeships away from the limelight – literally in the case of Holt who had spells at Workington, Halifax, Barrow and Singaporean club Sengkang Marine during his early years as a footballer, years in which he subsidised his income by working in a factory.
It’s been a long road to the top for him and for Norwich, who often impressed under Paul Lambert last season of course as their back-to-back promotions were topped off with a campaign which never saw them in serious relegation trouble.
Yet when Lambert went to Aston Villa there were concerns that Hughton would struggle with what is still largely the Scot’s team, with those concerns playing out on the pitch in the opening months of the season.
Things still aren’t perfect of course. The win over Sunderland on Sunday was only the second time all season after that Liverpool loss that the Canaries had scored two goals in a league game, whilst they are still to record a win away from home – something that they’ll be looking to put right at Swansea on Saturday.
It is their fine home form which is driving things forward at the moment though, with that Sunderland win opening up a seven point gap between them and the relegation zone. More importantly, there are only seven points between them and third-placed Chelsea.
Such heights might have to remain in the ‘dizzying’ category for some time of course, but there is no sense that Norwich are trying to run before they can walk as their impressive campaign continues.
Just where it will take them remains to be seen, but you get the sense that the club’s fans are more than happy to just enjoy the ride at the moment. Relegation fears shouldn’t be completely dismissed just yet, but they can surely be forgotten about over the busy Christmas period.
Their last two fixtures of a 2012 which has shown that they are not afraid of the big boys are at home to Chelsea and Manchester City.
The pair have been warned.
Swansea: More than just passing through
As he pressed the flesh of pretty much everyone in sight at the Liberty Stadium on Sunday, there was a sense that Brendan Rodgers was a little more bothered about his return to Swansea City than his old club were.
Already faced with the embarrassment of seeing his Liverpool side lower in the table than the club he left for the Reds in the summer, Rodgers seemed determined to greet old friends with a fixed smile on his face, hugely laudable behaviour of course but perhaps also that of a man who was desperate to show that he had left for greener pastures in the summer whatever the league table says.
Ultimately Rodgers’ Liverpool were the better side in South Wales, particularly in the first half, and if anyone was going to claim the three points then it probably deserved to be them, but once again Swansea showed just what a valuable addition to the Premier League they have been since their promotion under Rodgers 18 months ago.
Luis Suarez still had his moments but ultimately he was shackled by Chico Flores and Ashley Williams – perhaps the Uruguayan’s unofficial biographer – in a more impressive manner than anyone has managed in the past six weeks, and if it makes a change to start off discussing a Swansea performance by focusing on their defence then maybe that will soon change if the centre-back pairing and full-backs Angel Rangel and Ben Davies continue in the manner that they have been.
That the focus so often shifts further forward is down to Swansea’s vibrant attackers and their protection of the ball of course, with Michu and Pablo Hernandez looking lively and Wayne Routledge and Nathan Dyer troubling Pepe Reina with a fine shot and a boot to the face respectively.
That was a rare ugly moment in a match that the purist would have loved had there been any goals, and one which again showcased Swansea’s commitment to possession.
In this day and age of endless tactics-based debate it is quite uncommon to find a club who are solely committed to playing a certain way regardless of who the manager is.
There is nothing revolutionary about the way that Swansea have gone about their game in recent years – although at times Rodgers would have you believe there is – but instead their approach symbolises a club who are comfortable with their pleasing image and want to stick to it.
Football pub bores will go to great lengths to tell you that it was of course Roberto Martinez who started off this Swansea culture of possession being nine tenths of the football law, which would be quite interesting if everyone didn’t know that already.
Under chairman Huw Jenkins, the Swans have protected this philosophy through the promise of Martinez, the wobbles of Paulo Sousa, the results of Rodgers and now the current regime of Michael Laudrup, perhaps the most laid back manager in the Premier League and certainly the one who can boast the best playing career.
Whilst that alone doesn’t guarantee success in the top job of course, a healthy eye for a good player certainly does, and Laudrup has demonstrated that in abundance during his brief tenure with the signings of the likes of Michu, Hernandez, Ki Sung-Yeung and Jonathan de Guzman.
Stationed in the top half of the table ahead of Wednesday’s meeting with the still upwardly mobile West Brom, Swansea appear to be perfectly placed to continue with the rapid progress they’ve made during their time in the top flight.
They’ll have their tough times of course – not least with trips to Arsenal and Tottenham and a home game against Manchester United before Christmas – but Swansea certainly don’t look like becoming involved in a relegation battle at any point this season, something that they were tipped to do under Rodgers and even under Laudrup by some.
The current Liverpool boss will have his own moments in his still new job, but the side he left behind will go on enjoying themselves for some time yet.
Swansea are doing much more than just passing through the Premier League.
West Bromwich Albion: Some forward thinking
Have you heard the one about the Irishman, the Belgian and the Nigerian? Premier League defences have and they’re growing increasingly sick of it.
It’s no joke that West Bromwich Albion are performing so well in this campaign though, and with early season optimism now giving way to mid-season reality there appears to be a real belief that Shane Long, Romelu Lukaku, Peter Odemwingie and an increasingly impressive supporting cast can fire the Baggies to new heights.
Just how high those highs can get depends on what happens over the next few months of course, but with pre-season hopes of successfully fighting relegation now morphing into desires of a top half finish (even Europe?) then The Hawthorns is fast becoming a good place to be.
Roberto di Matteo will be back there on Saturday 21 months after losing his job as Baggies boss, and whilst his sacking seemed more than a little harsh at the time it is yet further evidence that this is a club who are not afraid to make brave and bold decisions both on and off the pitch.
Behind the scenes, sporting and technical director Dan Ashworth undertakes a role the like of which isn’t all too common in the Premier League, and would become less so at the end of the current season were he not involved in appointing his successor before his heads off to take up a similar role with England.
A former player, Ashworth is a savvy operator who has gone about improving West Brom’s fortunes since being appointed to the role in late 2007. When things looked in danger of unravelling under Di Matteo, Ashworth stepped in and appointed Roy Hodgson to steer the side to mid-table. Eyebrows might have been raised when he chose Steve Clarke as Hodgson’s replacement following his departure for England, but so far so very, very good.
And why shouldn’t it be? Clarke was an experienced player at the top level and has learned his coaching trade under the likes of Jose Mourinho and Kenny Dalglish. That Ashworth and West Brom had the bravery to give him his step up to become a No. 1 is a decision that has so far been richly rewarded.
The likes of Ben Foster, Gareth McAuley, James Morrison, Claudio Yacob and Youssouf Mulumbu have all impressed as the Baggies have picked up six wins in their opening 11 games to sit fifth in the table above fancied teams such as Tottenham and Arsenal, but it is those three attackers mentioned earlier who appear to epitomise everything about this forward thinking club.
Long, Lukaku and Odemwingie have each scored three goals in the league this season, and although when combined that only just puts the three of them ahead of the division’s top scorers Luis Suarez and Robin van Persie – who each have eight apiece – they have been invaluable contributors to a team who appear to fear no-one.
There will of course be tough challenges ahead – not least Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United before the turn of the year – but there is nothing to suggest that West Brom should go into any of those games with an inferiority complex. Everton, a club who West Brom are currently on the same points as and beat at The Hawthorns in early September, are often lauded for the workaholic way that they tackle every game, so why not the Baggies too?
As well as hard work, Clarke’s rotation of his three forwards has been key to their success, and there wasn’t a hint of dissent when Odemwingie was dropped to the bench for last weekend’s visit to Wigan just a few days after he’d scored twice against Southampton.
The options will be limited against Chelsea at the weekend due to Lukaku being unable to face his parent club, but Long, Odemwingie and their team-mates will be working as hard as ever to deliver against the European champions.
Clarke will demand nothing less, and’s that’s no joke.
Wigan: Sticking up for the little guy
Here in Britain we love a good sporting underdog, someone we can get behind and support even in the face of tremendous adversity.
Examples include Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards, a quite spectacularly bad ski jumper who competed at the 1988 Winter Olympics, as well as any number of British tennis players who have tried and failed to win Wimbledon over the years. If you’re lucky and you’ve plied them with just the right amount of alcohol, you can even get a supporter of one of Liverpool’s fierce rivals to admit that a hint of a smile crossed their face when Djimi Traore, Igor Biscan and the like were parading the European Cup around Istanbul after the Reds came back from the dead to beat AC Milan in 2005. They’ll later deny it of course.
All of those were one off, sometimes once in a lifetime moments though, but it seems as though we are a little less welcoming of our more regular underdogs.
Take Wigan Athletic, a club who have only been part of the league system in England for 34 years and come May will have spent the last eight of those years in the top flight. Theirs should be a heart-warming tale of the success of a locally-backed club from a town whose population could fit inside Wembley Stadium, but for many it isn’t.
Wigan ‘don’t deserve’ to be in the Premier League apparently, with their place supposedly blocking the path of other, ‘bigger’ clubs who haven’t produced the results, consistency or quality of football that the Latics have over their stay in the top flight.
Attendances at both home and away matches are often flagged up as one of the key reasons for this belief, with the latest example of it coming last Saturday when a low amount of Wigan fans made the trip to North London for what turned out to be a terrific 1-0 victory over Tottenham.
The same jokes were wheeled out as photographs of the away end at White Hart Lane did the rounds over social media, as fans of other clubs pointed out that they would of course have taken far more fans to such a big game, thereby proving that they were more deserving of a top flight place than Wigan. Jealousy could be detected in the words.
The fact that this was occurring just a couple of weeks after a survey into the price of football which led to many proposing a potential fan boycott of matches due to astronomical ticket prices was an irony apparently lost on many, but as Wigan received the same criticisms they always do off the pitch, on it Roberto Martinez and his team pulled off another spectacular result.
Last season it appeared certain that many football fans would get their wish to see Wigan return to ‘where they belong’ – perhaps to be replaced by the yo-yoing Birmingham or West Ham – but wins at Anfield, the Emirates Stadium and at home to Manchester United and Newcastle spectacularly turned that around, with this latest win at Tottenham coming off the back of a home victory over West Ham and really invigorating the campaign for Roberto Martinez and his men.
Since Wigan’s promotion to the Premier League in 2005 only the seven ever-presents in the 20 year history of the revamped league – namely Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham – as well as Fulham and Manchester City have managed to stick around in the top flight with them, with plenty of other clubs falling away, yo-yoing between the leagues or never coming back up.
The Latics have had their moments when they’ve looked like joining them of course, but the fact that they haven’t is a curiously uncelebrated underdog story which still continues; a diverse story which includes characters such as Paul Jewell, David Unsworth, Emile Heskey, Charles N’Zogbia, Hugo Rodallega and of course Martinez himself.
There might be other heroes this season – Ben Watson, Franco di Santo or Arouna Kone perhaps – but even if there isn’t then surely it is high time to acknowledge this story, and pay tribute to an underdog who can produce a pretty fierce bite.
Every dog has its day, and Wigan have had eight years’ worth of them.
Isn’t that achievement worth celebrating, no matter how many people are watching?
Tottenham Hotspur: Quietly confident
The attention was largely elsewhere during a madcap Sunday which could quite accurately be described as ‘Super’ due to the drama on show, but Tottenham Hotspur didn’t let that distract them from achieving their goal.
On England’s south coast, Spurs rather quietly slipped into the top four with a 2-1 win over Southampton that might not have done much for the home side’s prospects of avoiding relegation, but certainly served as a huge boost to the ambitions of the visitors at the other end of the Premier League table.
The win was Tottenham’s fifth from the last six league outings, with any doubts over manager Andre Villas-Boas following a winless first three games now firmly placed in the past.
That run of a loss at Newcastle followed by home draws against West Brom and Norwich even saw a few of the more reactionary Spurs fans call for Villas-Boas’s head and the return of good old Harry Redknapp, but the results since mid-September have now surely got any remaining doubters off the Portuguese’s back.
The task now is of course to keep on impressing, and going into a November which includes fixtures against Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool it will also be important to stay calm and not let results go to their heads.
Staying quietly confident might just be the best thing for Villas-Boas and Spurs right now, and so not for him the bullish and always inaccurate cries from Redknapp that his side were ready to challenge for the Premier League title.
The manner that Chelsea took the game away from them in their 4-2 win at White Hart Lane a week and a half ago showcased that Tottenham’s squad isn’t quite on a par with the top sides in the division just yet. Finishing just below them is a different matter altogether though.
In Gareth Bale, Moussa Dembele, Aaron Lennon, Gylfi Sigurdsson, Clint Dempsey, Jermain Defoe and Emmanuel Adebayor there are the raw attacking materials for a serious tilt at the top four from Tottenham, with qualification for the Champions League surely more than just a pipedream during a campaign in which a good cup run would also strengthen Tottenham’s claims to be considered amongst the big boys.
Reaching the Champions League quarter-finals in 2010/11 perhaps led to some people behind the scenes at Tottenham deciding that the club should run before they could walk, and with Redknapp eventually paying the price for such an increase in expectations then maybe it’d be wise for Spurs fans to just take each game as it comes right now. When you have a talent such as Bale on your hands though, that is easier said than done.
In these times of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo it can be easy to overlook other talents and compare them to that star duo – comparisons which they will always lose out in.
However, Redknapp’s recent claim that Bale is the best British player in the Premier League is probably a correct one in terms of recent form, and if the Welshman can keep on inspiring his side then the sky could well be the limit for Tottenham – so long as that sky falls just below Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City that is.
Like it or not that is where Spurs are right now, but that is a terrific base from which a young manager can build and look to improve as he establishes himself at a club who are slowly beginning to take him to their hearts.
Spurs and Villas-Boas shouldn’t mind that they’re not the centre of attention as long as they keep winning.
Leave it to others to decide when the quiet confidence deserves to be shouted about.
FPL: Statistical round up – by @shots_on_target
If you haven’t already check out @shots_on_target on twitter and visit his site www.shotsontarget.co.uk/
He is spoiling you with individual team statistics for all Premier League clubs.
You can click the team names below for an in-depth statistical round up by
- Visual representation of each player’s appearances in the last 6 weeks and their fantasy form (F.SCORE).
- Key Player Stats: shots, shots in box, shots on target, key passes, assists, minutes and goals
- Key Player Info: FPL price, points scored and % ownership
- Projected Points for the next 6 fixtures(note: Pts x 10)
- Star Player indicators – to 15 F.SCORE and top 15 Value players indicated
- Latest injury news from Physioroom.com
Team Pages:
Manchester City: If it ain’t broke don’t fix it
There is a sense of irony that it took a home match against Sunderland for the Manchester City of late 2012 to finally start looking like the Manchester City of earlier in the year.
The Mackems were the only team to leave the Etihad Stadium with more than a cup of tea and a sense of regret in the Premier League last season, with late March’s 3-3 draw serving as the only home league match of 2011/12 that City didn’t win.
They would have experienced defeat back then had first Mario Balotelli and then Aleksandar Kolarov not struck in the final five minutes to earn a point which ending up proving vital in the title race, but there was only one way that the meeting between the same two clubs a week-and-a-half ago was going to go once Kolarov scored a trademark free-kick just five minutes in.
The Serbian was playing in a City team which was made up entirely of players who picked up league title winners’ medals last season, with first Sergio Aguero and then Gael Clichy emerging from the bench to make it a lucky 13 champions on show for Roberto Mancini.
Only after James Milner had made it 3-0 with his deflected free-kick did the City boss turn to one of his summer recruits, with Jack Rodwell climbing off the bench to enter the contest after the 90 minutes were up, ensuring that he didn’t have time to make the kind of error seen in the matches against Southampton and Borussia Dortmund earlier this season, when stray Rodwell passes led to opposition goals.
This isn’t singling out the former Everton man, but City’s troubles at the start of the campaign seem to have stemmed from their desire to integrate summer signings into their plans.
In a transfer window which saw Chelsea buy Eden Hazard, Arsenal bring in Santi Cazorla and Manchester United acquire Robin van Persie, City – fresh from a first title in 44 years and no doubt determined to build upon it – signed Rodwell, Javi Garcia, Scott Sinclair, Maicon and Matija Nastasic.
Garcia, an expensive arrival who lists Real Madrid and Benfica on his CV, is undoubtedly a fine player whilst Nastasic, at just 19, showed immense promise at Fiorentina, but neither were signings to get City fans out of their seats, whilst Maicon’s best days are as far behind him as Gareth Bale was a couple of years ago, and Rodwell and Sinclair are young talents who aren’t likely to get the playing time at City that they would have got elsewhere.
Last season – right to the very last kick of it – was of course one of perfection for Mancini, City and their fans, and in the task of improving upon perfection City might just have come up short. They’re not alone in that though of course, it happened with The Godfather sequels as well.
This particular Italian figurehead has seemed to have complicated things for himself in the early weeks of the season, with the signings of Nastasic and Maicon in particular seeing Mancini switch to using a back three instead of the back four which saw City to success last season.
The result has been uncertainty at the back whatever way City line up, with two goals conceded in both of their first two league games of the season against Southampton and Liverpool, three against Real Madrid in the Champions League and four as they exited the Capital One Cup at home to Aston Villa. Only the heroics of Joe Hart kept Borussia Dortmund down to one in the Champions League two weeks ago, as the defence in front of him resembled an absent Polish roof letting everything through.
Mancini’s mood after that match indicated that he was ready to abandon the back three experiment, and so it proved when City looked back to their old selves against Sunderland as they kept a first clean sheet of the season.
Going back to improve in the future seems to be the way forward for Mancini, and whilst his summer signings can’t be written off as duds just yet, the boss might just have to make them work a bit harder for their places in his plans.
Those who were in them last season deserve that at least.
To Know The Game: The Story So Far (Part 3)
Having already looked at the best signings of the summer and the top three surprises of the Premier League season so far, the guys from To Know The Game are back with the third and final part of their trilogy for Yirma.
Here, they look at who they believe are the contenders for both a top four finish and for the Premier League title.
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The Race for 4th
4 wins in a row for Spurs; an impressive defensive start for Arsenal; a team from Merseyside that usually finishes strong has started brightly (Everton) and the chance that Newcastle will build on their impressive finish from last year – the race for 4th spot already looks like it will be a close call.
Fans of all 4 teams can truly say that their team will only get better.
Spurs will look forward to Adebayor regaining full fitness and competing with Defoe while the new signings of Dempsey, Sigurdsson and Dembele will settle in and get better. Ekotto should return soon meaning Vertonghen can play in his preferred role as CB and the team will adapt to AVB’s methods. TKTG has already covered Spurs chances for success this season and fans can be excited about their chances to finish in the top 4.
Arsenal will point to the fact that they look a better defensive unit this season – their biggest issue last year. Against Chelsea (their first loss) they conceded 2 set piece goals against an attacking unit (Torres, Mata, Hazard, Oscar) that was assembled at a cost of over £100 million. Szczesny and Sagna will return soon adding more defensive steel and of course there is the return of Jack Wilshere. A decent defence; a midfield of Santi, Arteta, Wilshere and Podolski, Giroud, Gervinhio, Walcott and The Ox…. top 4 or higher?
Everton are notoriously slow starters. Not this season! With 4 wins in 7, Everton seem like an outside bet for the top 4. Usually lacking a decent, fit striker, this year David Moyes has 3 attackers to share the load – Jelavic, Mirallas and Naismith and along with their impressive midfield and solid defenders they can certainly make a run for the top 4. Also, they usually finish strong….
Newcastle finished in 5th spot last year and their fans will be thinking “Why not one better?”. Players should be more familiar with the premiership and their team mates and they have stability with their coach who signed an 8 year deal. If they can put forward a solid run of results in the next 3 months they could be looking to improve on last years’ position. Just don’t mention Mike Ashley to any of their fans.
Current odds make Arsenal favourites at 1/2; followed by Spurs 2/1, Everton 11/2 and then Liverpool 15/2. Newcastle are 25/1 finish in the top 4. (Odds taken from Bet365.com)
Who will be Champions?
Chelsea have collected 19 points from a possible 21. Not only are they the best defensive team in the premiership so far (only 4 goals conceded) but as we have written in the past their forward line looks very promising.
Their biggest problem besides John Terry and Ashley Cole will be their lack of squad depth in the striker department. How will they cope with a suspension (or worse an injury) to Fernando Toress? Sturridge and the unproven Lucas Piazon are the only options or perhaps play the Spanish formation of 4-6-0? Can Sturridge really be the main man of a Premiership winning team? Expect them to buy in the January window but by then it may be too late…
Manchester United’s problems in midfield are well documented. Could Wayne Rooney playing in midfield solve their problems? Along with their injury plagued defenders and lack of defensive cover, can United aim to win another title or are 2 defeats in the league already an issue? Money seems to be short at United so don’t expect any major signings in Jan – United fans hope that we are wrong and that they can acquire a world class CB, LB and CM soon! Is Rooney the answer to United’s midfield and 20th title?
Manchester City were champions last year but this time around they look slightly confused. It’s never easy winning back-to-back titles and not having a settled 11 does not help. Supporters may say that flexibility is key to City this year which in theory seems great but it is not translating to results. Currently on 15 points (same as United), City seem to have another issue – Is Mario Balotelli this year’s Tevez? Seven games into the season and “Super” Mario has already thrown a tantrum – a few more and will Tevez join in as well?
We have the rest of the season to find out… In the meantime, share your thoughts with us
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