The Weekend's Winners and Losers
Fergie's ManYoo were the big winners this weekend and Arsenal the main losers on what was a bad weekend overall for away teams, officialdom and managers in general...
Winners
ManYoo
The Big Four are so dominant, and the rest of the Premiership so ordinary in comparison, that when a member of the former hosts the latter then it is right to regard home victories are formalities. So it was on Saturday when the gulf in class at Old Trafford was frightening. There are occasional slips, generally as a consequence of Arsenal's profligacy, but once Wayne Rooney had successfully convinced referee Mike Dean that he was felled the outcome in Manchester was just a question of arithmetic.
Defeats for Chelski and Arsenal on Sunday completed a perfect twentieth anniversary for Sir Alex. Roll on November 26 - and Chelski's trip to Old Trafford.
Tottenham Hotspur
With a little luck, a little help from Graham Poll, and a subtle change of formation by Martin Jol after Claude Makelele's opener, Spurs ended their Chelski hoodoo and defeated their west London rivals for the first time since 1990. The victory also marked Spurs' first success over either Chelski, ManYoo, Liverpool or Arsenal since Jol's appointment two years ago.
West Ham
Having sought a 0-0 stalemate against wasteful opposition flagging because of midweek exertions in Europe, the Hammers then grabbed victory in the 88th minute. Not, of course, that the football provided the principal interest.
Liverpool
As expected, Liverpool have enjoyed their home comforts this week. Three successive wins have seen Pool qualify for the next round of the Champions League and leap up to seventh in the Premiership table. It has also seen Dirk Kuyt continue his emergence as a player of note and a reasonable impersonator of a 1990s Mark Hughes. Although it is doubtful whether Sparky, hardly a prolific striker, ever enjoyed a run of form that brought five goals in seven Premiership starts.
Yet the past seven days have proved nothing. In fact, they have only put Pool's travel sickness in the starkest possible contrast: Following the win over Reading, Pool lead the 'Home Form' league table; if they lose at the Emirates next weekend by three goals they will be bottom of the 'Away Form' league.
Charlton Athletic
But Charlton's win over Citeh was so illusory and so undeserved that, even after the addition of three points, the odds on the Addicks being relegated should not be altered. Iain Dowie's side remain bottom of the table and deserve to be so.
Losers
Arsene Wenger
According to Alan Pardew, the extent of his crime was "celebrating our goal, nothing more". The likelihood of Pardew being a reliable witness to events must be doubtful given his description of the previous mundane 88 minutes as "pulsating" and the hopelessly exuberant observation that the Hammers "thoroughly deserved victory".
At least two of his fist-pumps could be perceived as being directed at the Arsenal bench before he approached Wenger, laid hands on the Frenchman and supplied some unwanted observations. To Wenger's subsequent reply the West Ham boss then, if my amateur lip-reading skills are any guide, invited his Arsenal counterpart to "fu*k off". Cue the confrontation.
Whatever the provocation, Wenger erred by refusing to shake Pardew's hand at the final whistle. Even if he had good reason not to - and Wenger's refusal to speak to the press before leaving Upton Park was equally foolish - he was already particularly vulnerable to the charge of being a bad loser. He will never lose the tag now.
Away Teams
The line between winning and losing is a fine one and rarely level.
The common denominator at Craven Cottage, Old Trafford, Upton Park, Villa Park and White Hart Lane this weekend was that the match-tilting decisions of officialdom, all of which were, to varying degrees, wrong, penalised the visitors. It is probably not a coincidence that the only away side to uniquely benefit from errant decision-making, Wigan, were playing at the ground with the small attendance.
That referees and linesman are swayed and cowed by the partisan judgement of the home support is explicable but far from acceptable. For Blackburn to have lost at Villa due to such a soft penalty award is an outrage. Nor was Jose Mourinho alone in failing to understand why John Terry was dismissed when his only offence appeared to be brushing arms with a Spurs defender. I'd discover an ounce of respect for serial Big Match Wrecker Graham Poll if he admitted in his match report that Terry was sent off 'because I wanted to hear myself cheered.'
Until football arms itself with officials of strength and introduces video technology, it will remain the most injust sport on the planet with the balance of fairness stacked overwhelming towards the hosts.
Newcastle United
Newcastle were so poor on Saturday that it would have been understandable if the small band of Sheffield United fans participated in the post-match protest against Freddie Shepherd outside St James'.
While the notion that Toon boast the most loyal fans in the country is overplayed - barely fifteen years have passed since St James was regularly half-full - they deserve sympathy. Has ever any other club on the shores been so systemically mismanaged, at every level, as Newcastle United?
According to at least one Sunday broadsheet, it was the Toon chairman himself who ruled that an extra £250,000 from Sky to cover Saturday's night shambles was of greater import than an extra days' rest for the first-team squad after Thursday's UEFA Cup tie in Italy.
"All over the pitch we were a yard or two slower," commented Glenn Roeder. "You have to look for reasons when the performance is as poor as that, and less than 49 hours ago we were playing in Italy. I'm not saying that is the reason, but it certainly hasn't helped."
The priorities motivating Shepherd's decision to accept Sky's cash are as questionable as the business transaction in 1998 which saw Shepherd Offshore plc sell a warehouse to Freddie's brother, Bruce, for £175,000. Newcastle United plc then completed a 17-year deal with Bruce Shepherd for the warehouse to store the club's merchandise at a cost of £2.5m.
How Toon could do with that sum now. For one thing, Shepherd has believed to have a clause in his contract stipulating that he will receive two years' pay if dismissed. Or, in other words, around £2m. And as Shepherd implicitly confirmed last month when he revealed that the club had recorded pre-tax losses of £12m, that's money Newcastle simply don't possess.
Joseph Heller must have been a Toon supporter.
Glenn Roeder
When does a beleaguered manager lose deserved praise for facing up to the press? From this seat, when the beleaguered manager makes a point of opining that he deserves praise for appearing in front of the cameras when he faces up to the press.
Chelski
Whereas Charlton were losers despite winning, Chelski were winners in losing. Having spent the season playing poorly and losing, the champions performed splendidly at White Hart Lane and deserved at least a point.
There's no doubt that they would have departed with all three had the self-serving Graham Poll not mysteriously ruled out Didier Drogba's goal. There's scarcely less doubt that the 'goal' would have been awarded if the match was played at Stamford Bridge.
Bolton
The frequent refusal of linesman to reward attacking play is a personal pet hate. Bolton would surely have beaten Wigan if the linesman had observed the state of play and the laws correctly. A minute before West Ham's equaliser, Emmanuel Adebayor was ruled offside when replays were inconclusive.
It is a despicable aspect of football that attacking football is so rarely given the benefit of the doubt. Yet it isn't only linesman who apparently regard good goals being disallowed as the lesser of two evils compared to the prospect of offside goals being awarded. The Sunday Times failed to mention even once in their match report of Bolton-Wigan that the home side had a perfectly valid goal ruled out. Never mind, it was only the pivotal moment in the match.
Claude Makelele
The Frenchman was at 50/1 to score the opening goal at White Hart Lane - odds that were rather stingy considering that in his previous 98 Chelski matches he had only scored once and failed to score at all during his 125 matches for Real Madrid.
David Moyes
A career in politics surely beckons. Asked to comment on the coin-throwing incident that saw Fulham's Claus Jensen struck by a coin as he prepared to take a corner in front of a stand populated mostly by Everton supporters, Moyes delivered some of the most remarkable quotes of this nascent season.
"Behind that goal today were mixed supporters of both Everton and Fulham, which was great to see. It's unsavoury when that happens but it was a mixed end wasn't it?" he countered. "If someone did that then I agree they should be banned but you have got to accept there is as much chance of it being a Fulham supporter."
Stand up and wave if you believe that there is as 'much chance' of a Fulham fan throwing a coin at a Fulham player who had just scored a match-winning goal as there is of an Everton supporter being the culprit.
Hang on. There's more.
"He could have been aiming somewhere else," continued Moyes. "It could have been another player he was trying to hit."
Err, David, Jensen was preparing to take a corner when he was struck. There wasn't another player within a vicinity of twenty yards.
According to reports of the post-match press conference, Moyes looked momentarily perturbed when this was pointed out. Yet the Scot wasn't to be defeated:
"Have you ever tried to throw a coin accurately?"
Even the gentlemen of the press couldn't provide a satisfactory answer to that one.
Winners
ManYoo
The Big Four are so dominant, and the rest of the Premiership so ordinary in comparison, that when a member of the former hosts the latter then it is right to regard home victories are formalities. So it was on Saturday when the gulf in class at Old Trafford was frightening. There are occasional slips, generally as a consequence of Arsenal's profligacy, but once Wayne Rooney had successfully convinced referee Mike Dean that he was felled the outcome in Manchester was just a question of arithmetic.
Defeats for Chelski and Arsenal on Sunday completed a perfect twentieth anniversary for Sir Alex. Roll on November 26 - and Chelski's trip to Old Trafford.
Tottenham Hotspur
With a little luck, a little help from Graham Poll, and a subtle change of formation by Martin Jol after Claude Makelele's opener, Spurs ended their Chelski hoodoo and defeated their west London rivals for the first time since 1990. The victory also marked Spurs' first success over either Chelski, ManYoo, Liverpool or Arsenal since Jol's appointment two years ago.
West Ham
Having sought a 0-0 stalemate against wasteful opposition flagging because of midweek exertions in Europe, the Hammers then grabbed victory in the 88th minute. Not, of course, that the football provided the principal interest.
Liverpool
As expected, Liverpool have enjoyed their home comforts this week. Three successive wins have seen Pool qualify for the next round of the Champions League and leap up to seventh in the Premiership table. It has also seen Dirk Kuyt continue his emergence as a player of note and a reasonable impersonator of a 1990s Mark Hughes. Although it is doubtful whether Sparky, hardly a prolific striker, ever enjoyed a run of form that brought five goals in seven Premiership starts.
Yet the past seven days have proved nothing. In fact, they have only put Pool's travel sickness in the starkest possible contrast: Following the win over Reading, Pool lead the 'Home Form' league table; if they lose at the Emirates next weekend by three goals they will be bottom of the 'Away Form' league.
Charlton Athletic
But Charlton's win over Citeh was so illusory and so undeserved that, even after the addition of three points, the odds on the Addicks being relegated should not be altered. Iain Dowie's side remain bottom of the table and deserve to be so.
Losers
Arsene Wenger
According to Alan Pardew, the extent of his crime was "celebrating our goal, nothing more". The likelihood of Pardew being a reliable witness to events must be doubtful given his description of the previous mundane 88 minutes as "pulsating" and the hopelessly exuberant observation that the Hammers "thoroughly deserved victory".
At least two of his fist-pumps could be perceived as being directed at the Arsenal bench before he approached Wenger, laid hands on the Frenchman and supplied some unwanted observations. To Wenger's subsequent reply the West Ham boss then, if my amateur lip-reading skills are any guide, invited his Arsenal counterpart to "fu*k off". Cue the confrontation.
Whatever the provocation, Wenger erred by refusing to shake Pardew's hand at the final whistle. Even if he had good reason not to - and Wenger's refusal to speak to the press before leaving Upton Park was equally foolish - he was already particularly vulnerable to the charge of being a bad loser. He will never lose the tag now.
Away Teams
The line between winning and losing is a fine one and rarely level.
The common denominator at Craven Cottage, Old Trafford, Upton Park, Villa Park and White Hart Lane this weekend was that the match-tilting decisions of officialdom, all of which were, to varying degrees, wrong, penalised the visitors. It is probably not a coincidence that the only away side to uniquely benefit from errant decision-making, Wigan, were playing at the ground with the small attendance.
That referees and linesman are swayed and cowed by the partisan judgement of the home support is explicable but far from acceptable. For Blackburn to have lost at Villa due to such a soft penalty award is an outrage. Nor was Jose Mourinho alone in failing to understand why John Terry was dismissed when his only offence appeared to be brushing arms with a Spurs defender. I'd discover an ounce of respect for serial Big Match Wrecker Graham Poll if he admitted in his match report that Terry was sent off 'because I wanted to hear myself cheered.'
Until football arms itself with officials of strength and introduces video technology, it will remain the most injust sport on the planet with the balance of fairness stacked overwhelming towards the hosts.
Newcastle United
Newcastle were so poor on Saturday that it would have been understandable if the small band of Sheffield United fans participated in the post-match protest against Freddie Shepherd outside St James'.
While the notion that Toon boast the most loyal fans in the country is overplayed - barely fifteen years have passed since St James was regularly half-full - they deserve sympathy. Has ever any other club on the shores been so systemically mismanaged, at every level, as Newcastle United?
According to at least one Sunday broadsheet, it was the Toon chairman himself who ruled that an extra £250,000 from Sky to cover Saturday's night shambles was of greater import than an extra days' rest for the first-team squad after Thursday's UEFA Cup tie in Italy.
"All over the pitch we were a yard or two slower," commented Glenn Roeder. "You have to look for reasons when the performance is as poor as that, and less than 49 hours ago we were playing in Italy. I'm not saying that is the reason, but it certainly hasn't helped."
The priorities motivating Shepherd's decision to accept Sky's cash are as questionable as the business transaction in 1998 which saw Shepherd Offshore plc sell a warehouse to Freddie's brother, Bruce, for £175,000. Newcastle United plc then completed a 17-year deal with Bruce Shepherd for the warehouse to store the club's merchandise at a cost of £2.5m.
How Toon could do with that sum now. For one thing, Shepherd has believed to have a clause in his contract stipulating that he will receive two years' pay if dismissed. Or, in other words, around £2m. And as Shepherd implicitly confirmed last month when he revealed that the club had recorded pre-tax losses of £12m, that's money Newcastle simply don't possess.
Joseph Heller must have been a Toon supporter.
Glenn Roeder
When does a beleaguered manager lose deserved praise for facing up to the press? From this seat, when the beleaguered manager makes a point of opining that he deserves praise for appearing in front of the cameras when he faces up to the press.
Chelski
Whereas Charlton were losers despite winning, Chelski were winners in losing. Having spent the season playing poorly and losing, the champions performed splendidly at White Hart Lane and deserved at least a point.
There's no doubt that they would have departed with all three had the self-serving Graham Poll not mysteriously ruled out Didier Drogba's goal. There's scarcely less doubt that the 'goal' would have been awarded if the match was played at Stamford Bridge.
Bolton
The frequent refusal of linesman to reward attacking play is a personal pet hate. Bolton would surely have beaten Wigan if the linesman had observed the state of play and the laws correctly. A minute before West Ham's equaliser, Emmanuel Adebayor was ruled offside when replays were inconclusive.
It is a despicable aspect of football that attacking football is so rarely given the benefit of the doubt. Yet it isn't only linesman who apparently regard good goals being disallowed as the lesser of two evils compared to the prospect of offside goals being awarded. The Sunday Times failed to mention even once in their match report of Bolton-Wigan that the home side had a perfectly valid goal ruled out. Never mind, it was only the pivotal moment in the match.
Claude Makelele
The Frenchman was at 50/1 to score the opening goal at White Hart Lane - odds that were rather stingy considering that in his previous 98 Chelski matches he had only scored once and failed to score at all during his 125 matches for Real Madrid.
David Moyes
A career in politics surely beckons. Asked to comment on the coin-throwing incident that saw Fulham's Claus Jensen struck by a coin as he prepared to take a corner in front of a stand populated mostly by Everton supporters, Moyes delivered some of the most remarkable quotes of this nascent season.
"Behind that goal today were mixed supporters of both Everton and Fulham, which was great to see. It's unsavoury when that happens but it was a mixed end wasn't it?" he countered. "If someone did that then I agree they should be banned but you have got to accept there is as much chance of it being a Fulham supporter."
Stand up and wave if you believe that there is as 'much chance' of a Fulham fan throwing a coin at a Fulham player who had just scored a match-winning goal as there is of an Everton supporter being the culprit.
Hang on. There's more.
"He could have been aiming somewhere else," continued Moyes. "It could have been another player he was trying to hit."
Err, David, Jensen was preparing to take a corner when he was struck. There wasn't another player within a vicinity of twenty yards.
According to reports of the post-match press conference, Moyes looked momentarily perturbed when this was pointed out. Yet the Scot wasn't to be defeated:
"Have you ever tried to throw a coin accurately?"
Even the gentlemen of the press couldn't provide a satisfactory answer to that one.
posted by Hector Ship-Grill at 12:29
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