Wichita Lineman Was A Song I Once Heard

Essential Listening: Steely Dan – Can’t Buy A Thrill (1972) & Aja (1977)

Posted on 05/11/2013 by Wichita Lineman Was A Song I Once Heard

One of the biggest moments of your life is when you first discover how great Bob Dylan is. The question isn’t how you first experience Dylan’s music – as everybody does at some point – it’s what song of his you hear first. I’ll always remember the first time I heard ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues’. ‘When you’re lost in the rain in Juarez/and it’s Easter time too’. At the time it seemed like such a beguilingly peculiar lyric with which to start a song. In-between there’s that lovely acoustic guitar lick that resolves itself, and then the drum kicks in just as he delivers this line – ‘and if you see Saint Annie, please tell her thanks a lot’, and that’s it, you’re hooked.

The second best? Well that’s a more difficult question, as in my case the why becomes less important than the how.

Without thinking, never a good idea, I’d normally say the Rolling Stones. But, and it is a but, I was always aware of their existence and excellence, even if, up until my mid-teenage years, I hadn’t listened to any of their records in their entirety, or owned any of them. Like The Beatles they’re such a pervasive influence on popular culture that avoiding exposure to their songs, through various forms of media, is a borderline impossibility. This was the case even in the nineties, never mind the multi and instant social media age we have today.

So it has to be Steely Dan then. I’ll start with the why, as that’s straight forward, they’re bloody marvellous. Now for the more important how – they’re the first band whose existence and excellence I discovered completely on my own, without the insistent recommendation of anybody else. Personal discoveries that improve your knowledge of a subject you love are always doubly special. As, especially if you’re young and a bit sullen, it makes you realise that life has the ability, the propensity even, to always surprise you and impart knowledge. That’s hope in a nutshell. That’s what discovering Steely Dan symbolises to me.

Of course there’s a bittersweet element to discoveries like this. You wonder what else is out there that you’ve yet to discover, musically, or otherwise, and whether you’ll ever. It also makes you lament that you didn’t discover it sooner, and in my case I was embarrassed as I immediately thought of all the shitty stuff I’d listened to in my teenage years, when I could and should’ve been listening to this instead.

Anyway, onto the next question. To sum up Steely Dan’s brilliance and my own experience of discovering their music, which song and or album would I pick? Because I’m a spineless twat I’ve given myself a significant margin for error and picked their two best albums; “Can’t Buy a Thrill” and “Aja”.

I had to include “Can’t Buy a Thrill” because it was the first Dan record I ever listened to, and appropriately it was their first record. A nice symmetry I think. In retrospect I’m glad I stumbled on Thrill first as it’s a more immediately accessible album.

The first song I heard from the album was ‘Brooklyn (Owes The Charmer Under Me)’. The lyrics are vague. My thematic interpretation was of the vagaries and hypocrisy of those who profit from and or use prostitution, the album cover certainly aids that interpretation; ‘A race of angels bound with one another/A dish of dollars laid out for all to see’. The girls grouped together, the punter flashing his cash? ‘A tower room at Eden Rock/His golf at noon for free’. Because he gets his golf for free its okay for him to show some extravagance when paying for it? ‘Brooklyn owns the charmer under me’, especially as it’s sung as the elevating hook, a euphemism for ‘I’ll be back again?’ Or perhaps I just have a dirty mind.

The first thing that attracted me was the composition of ‘Brooklyn’ not its lyrical nuances. Great songs are always able to capture you with their sound, allowing them to reveal its lyrical worth later. ‘Brooklyn’ has that haunting pedal steel with a country accent running through it continuously, providing a melancholic juxtaposition with the warmth of Palmer’s voice, the lyrics and that uplifting chorus. Which in my interpretation makes sense as it is being sung by the satisfied and ‘tragic’ punter.

That ‘Brooklyn’ isn’t sung by Fagen, and having listened to their discography, it can’t be considered the quintessential Dan song. Neither is ‘Dirty Work’, another belter off Thrill which also features Palmer as the lead vocalist. The difference between ‘Dirty Work’ and ‘Brooklyn’ is structurally ‘Dirty Work’ features brass and the electric piano more than the guitars. It’s actually a template for many on the songs on their later album “Aja”.

If we apply it comparatively with the entirety of Dan’s discography that’s the theme and use of “Can’t Buy A thrill”, its sound is its main appeal. The result is an album which sounds like a classic, but not a classic belonging to Steely Dan. “Can’t Buy a Thrill” was them experimenting while also providing a record of commercial value that would appeal to contemporary tastes. Dan weren’t honing their song writing craft, as every song is a winner, they were using it to hone their sound, or finding what sound they wanted to be theirs. The album is eclectic with influences and holistic in approach. ‘Do it again’, one of the best tracks on the album, relies heavy on the Electric piano synonymous with sixties Psychedelia. ‘Midnight Cruiser’ has more in common with the sound of early seventies rock, with its choruses sung in synchronicity, a device that was synonymous with other acts at the time, such as Big Star, Crosby Stills Nash and Young and the Doobie Brothers.

That David Palmer left Steely Dan so early probably helped force Becker and Fagen in a certain direction, or into a decision rather, one that meant centring their songs on Fagen’s vocal style of delivery. Accident or not it was a change for the better. There’s no question that technically Palmer’s a better singer than Fagen, but Palmer’s voice is generic. Fagen’s voice has a distinct flavour. The delivery is conversational and unimposing, the accent clear, and the tone dry. It places the emphasis on inflections when required, and at no point overwhelms the lyrics. It’s no surprise really, some of the most memorable music is sung by those who aren’t considered to be great or even good singers, whether it be Cash, Dylan or Hendrix. Their voices aren’t good enough to distract from their main talent, and crucially it isn’t enough of weakness to subtract from it.

So it’s no surprise that by the time they’d reached “Aja” that Fagen’s prose had been given more space to operate. In retrospect I can’t explain why I listened to “Aja” last, but I’m glad, as it turned out I’d saved their best for last.

Upon first listen the first thing that struck me is the progression, or should I say subtle metamorphosis, is clearly linear through “Pretzel Logic” and “Katy Lied” to “Aja”. The various jazz subgenres that appeared fleetingly on “Can’t Buy a Thrill” come to the forefront on “Aja”. There is also a greater emphasis on brass at the expense of guitars, which still make an appearance, but often as an adornment, not as the song’s foundation.

‘Aja’ is the weakest of the tracks on the album. Steely Dan do melodic choruses as well as anyone but there’s not really one here. The constituent parts of ‘Aja’ are of course highly proficient, and in isolation enjoyable, but as a song it never quite transcends the some of its parts. When I say weak I’m talking comparatively to the rest of the album. ‘Aja’ is still a good song. ‘Home at last’, delievers the promise that ‘Aja’ threatens to. It’s my second favourite song on the album, purely for the guitar work near the end over that horn section. Pure gravy.

‘Peg’ and ‘Black Cow’ is Fagen at his best. ‘Black Cow’ earns bonus points for being sampled by MF Doom. The slower subdued rhythm of ‘Black Cow’ helps set the scene of a Dive Bar, and matches the mood of Fagen’s satirical take of the effects that an addict’s addiction has on others. It crests with the brass punching as Fagen delivers his putdown of ‘Seems so clear, That it’s Over now, Drink your big Black Cow, And get out of here.’ Of course the song makes much more sense when you discover that ‘Black Cow’ is a type of cocktail. No metaphorical meaning here then.

Of all the songs on “Aja” ‘Peg’ actually shares the most in common with “Can’t Buy a Thrill”. There’s a quicker tempo set by the pinching guitar, the melodic chorus using Michael McDonald’s overdubbed voice, and there’s no brass. Yet it doesn’t feel out place with “Aja” as an album. Peg was also sampled by De La Soul, so not only is “Aja” a classic, it helped spawn classics in another genre.

Speaking of classics, that brings us to ‘Deacon Blues’, Steely Dan’s crowning achievement. The only negative here is that an awful Scottish band formed in the eighties, who made kitsch pop suitable only for naff wine bars, named themselves ‘Deacon Blue’ after the song. I consider this tantamount to slander and the defacement of greatness. Not on. Also my Mum and Dad owned some of Deacon Blue’s stuff on cassette and they used to play it in the car, often. Too often.

On that point, appropriately, ‘Deacon Blues’ is about attempting to escape from the mundane. Fagen tells of character who decides to make a go of it as Jazz musician even if he’s acutely aware that failure is possible or even likely, ‘You call me a fool/You say it’s a crazy scheme, This one’s for real /I already bought the dream’. And part of the reason he’s so tempted is he cannot resist imagining what the perks of being a musician are, ‘I crawl like a viper/Through these suburban streets, Make love to these women/Languid and bittersweet’. These lyrics, added to that sultry trad jazz sax, makes me disingenuously envision an idyllic bygone era of style and glamour that cannot be touched or reclaimed. It would be the perfect score for a screen adaptation of one of Raymond Chandler’s hard boiled crime novels.

I’ll come clean, this visual interpretation of ‘Deacon Blues’ is influenced by the knowledge of where the name ‘Steely Dan’ is taken from. The term appears in ‘Naked Lunch‘, written by William S. Burroughs, which itself is a novel about escapism into the existential capability of one’s own mind through chemical assistance:

‘The reader follows the narration of junkie William Lee, who takes on various aliases, from the US to Mexico, eventually to Tangier and the dreamlike Interzone. The vignettes (which Burroughs called “routines”) are drawn from Burroughs’ own experience in these places, and his addiction to drugs (heroin, morphine, and while in Tangier, “Majoun“—a strong marijuana confection—as well as a Germanopioid, brand name Eukodol, of which he wrote frequently)’.

I could easily see ‘Deacon Blues’ being an ode to Burrough’s experiences, with Becker and Fagen quoting or embellishing their own experiences as aspiring musicians, or of others they encountered.

Someone I know and whose opinion I respect says that the main sax solo in ‘Deacon Blues’ is too long and self-indulgent. I have to respectfully disagree. It fits with the song’s narrative of the need for a hedonistic escapism through self expression; ‘I cried when I wrote this song/Sue me if I play too long’ and offers a much needed break from Fagen’s sarcastically droll prose. Just as the character in the song is delighting and over indulging in his moment, the sax solo also prepares you to do the same with final verse to bookend the narrative. You already know it’s the precursor for that chorus to return, and you’re aware, even before the sax solo ends, that it’ll be for one last glorious time:

This is the night
Of the expanding the man
I take one last drag
As I approach the stand
I cried when I wrote this song
Sue me if I play too long
This brother is free
I’ll be what I want to be

I’ll learn to work the saxophone
I’ll play just what I feel
Drink Scotch whisky all night long
And die behind the wheel
They got a name for the winners in the world
I want a name when I lose
They call Alabama the Crimson Tide
Call me Deacon Blues

‘Drink Scotch whiskey all night long, and die behind the wheel’ – I don’t know whether this is a reference to the death of Jackson Pollock, a famous American artist in the fifties, who was also a hardcore alcoholic. He killed himself by driving into a tree, while tanked up, of course. That’s the popular cultural inference I drew from that lyric in ‘Deacon Blues’. Is that what Fagen was referring to? That Pollock lived a life of hedonism without consideration of the consequences? That essentially he was as ‘free’ as the character in ‘Deacon Blues’ aspires to be? I don’t know, and I’m afraid to find out in case it isn’t. In case this song isn’t a sophisticated and brilliant as I think it is. But I’m sure that’s how it’s meant to be interpreted. Every time I listen to ‘Deacon Blues’ it reminds me of the power of self discovery, and that this invariably provokes a cognitive accord with other aspects of cultural excellence, as ‘Deacon Blues’, and Steely Dan, both firmly belong to that sphere.

Posted in Essential Listening | Tagged Aja, Big Star, Bob Dylan, Can't Buy A Thrill, Crosby Stills Nash & Young, Donald Fagen, Jackson Pollock, Katy Lied, Pretzel Logic, Steely Dan, The Beatles, The Doobie Brothers, The Rolling Stones, Walter Becker, William S. Burroughs | Leave a comment

Song Of The Day – Patio Song by Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci

Posted on 03/11/2013 by Wichita Lineman Was A Song I Once Heard

From the album ‘Barafundle’ (1997)

Posted in Song Of The Day | Leave a comment

The Premiership Quarterly Report – Part Three

Posted on 31/10/2013 by Wichita Lineman Was A Song I Once Heard

Here are the links for part One and Two, where I reviewed the riff-raff and the bloated middle class of the Premier League, or you can just scroll down, either way you’re a lazy bastard.

Right, so we’ve finally reached the summit. Here we find the rentier class, the top six sides in the Premier League. The best in show. Bollinger and Caviar for everyone!

Championship Pretenders Fourth Place Contenders:

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR

Current League Position: 4th

Pre-season Prediction: 6th

Revised Prediction: 6th

Going by what some, mainly Liverpool, fans were saying on Twitter – okay, okay I know – on the eve of the season, you would think Spurs had assembled one of the best squads of all time. It was pathetic, spineless self-loathing stuff, to say the least.

The truth is they sold the second best player in the league last season, who also happened to score an inordinate number of match winning or point accumulating goals, and replaced him with batch of players, who range from good to very good. That’s it.

So let’s document all of Tottenham’s main summer moves:

In: Paulinho, Christian Eriksen, Erik Lamela, Vlad Chiriches, Etienne Capoue, Roberto Soldado and Nacer Chadli

Out: Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Scott Parker, Steven Caulker, Tom Huddlestone, Clint Deadeyes Dempsey and of course, Gareth I have a shaved side parting which means I’m an ubercunt Bale.

To quote Ray Wilkins, my word. I stated in my commentary of Norwich City in part one that continuity as a footballing cliché, or meme if you prefer, was overrated, and that having significant financial resources was more likely to lead to improvement. Well Spurs might be the shade of grey that ruins my categorical position on that. They had the money this summer to overhaul the squad, but a lot of it came at the expense of losing their best player. The early returns suggest that this formula doesn’t lead to improvement, at least immediately.

But you simply can’t blame Daniel Levy for relinquishing Gareth Bale. That transfer fee was obscene, a once in a lifetime opportunity, and the player wanted out. Bale was also unlikely to repeat last season’s heroics. If there was a mistake made it was waiting until the end of August to allow the deal to be completed. Real Madrid, or rather their clown of a president Florentino Perez, was hard for Bale, he openly bragged about being willing to pay €100m for him. To use a great Scouse colloquialism, what a beaut. Had Levy set an earlier deadline for the deal to be completed, or even compromised on taking less money upfront, rather than haggling over the structure of the deal, not the fee you’ll note, you wonder whether Spurs might’ve gotten a better striker than Roberto Soldado, for example.

By selling Bale the squad is now better, there are more options, particularly among the attacking midfield positions. But having come so close on many occasions the goal for Spurs is to reach the Champions League this season, and while they were selling their best player, the other top clubs who’ll rival Spurs for a top four place were keeping theirs, and they were improving their squads too. You wonder if at one point Daniel Levy was having second thoughts about selling Bale. At one point it looked like Suarez might leave Liverpool, Arsenal weren’t doing anything in the market, and David Moyes was now the manager of Manchester United. A window appeared to be opening.

I just wonder how much pressure Andre Villas-Boas will come under if they fall short of the Champions League holy grail (meh) again. Unfortunately last season and Spurs’ summer activity have worked together to skew expectations somewhat. Even with Bale and everything that he did, they still only finished fifth. He did paper over some sizeable cracks, a dreadfully trite adage I know. Spurs had poor play from their strikers, and a midfield and defense which was decent, but nothing more. I think Spurs have improved in midfield, but are now weaker, overall, in attack, not just without Bale’s goals, but minus his presence too.

While having greater squad depth is nice, you also need to have some semblance of an idea of what your best side is to maximise your squad’s potential. Clearly Soldado is a better striker than Jermain Defoe and the chronically unreliable Emmanuel Adebayor. The balance in midfield is a puzzle which Villas-Boas needs to solve, and the sooner the better. Spurs have a glut of players who prefer to play in the number ten position: Lewis Holtby, Christian Eriksen, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Erik Lamela. Now here’s where things get tricky. Lamela can play wide, but a large part of why Spurs paid so much money for him was down to his form for Roma last season, where he finally fulfilled his potential when he was afforded more freedom playing centrally off the striker. Will Spurs allow him that same freedom? Lamela started his first league game for Spurs after injury against Hull City recently, starting on the right. Sigurdsson is good player, better than I thought. He’s been used on the left quite a bit by Villas-Boas, and it’s worked quite well. Eriksen, so far, has been given first shot at the central position, but is that because he’s the best option there, or because he’s less versatile than Lamela or Sigurdsson? The most important question is which of these three is likely to help Spurs the most by playing there? Maybe it’s none, what about Paulinho? Would he benefit from being liberated from concentrating on the defensive duties of playing in a deeper central midfield position? When Etienne Capoue is fit again Spurs will have Moussa Dembele, Sandro, Paulinho and Capoue for two central midfield spots, you can only play eleven players remember. My head is spinning.

And I didn’t even mention the genuine wing options, who, if the numbers tens are accommodated in wide areas, wouldn’t start: Aaron Lennon, Andros Townsend and Nacer Chadli. And yes the Andros Townsend hype is fucking annoying, isn’t it? The lad’s a decent player, but enough already. His game consists of the same insidious move onto his left foot. There have been a number of games this season where he’s been neutralised quite easily. But you don’t hear about them, do you?

It all comes back to the same theme here, Spurs have a talented squad, but how does it fit together optimally?

The impression that Villas-Boas is still searching has been solidified when coupled with how Spurs have performed so far this season. They’ve been, at times, ineffective in attack, only nine goals so far, but to be fair they’ve only conceded five. I suspect this will take more time than Spurs fans expect or want it to, and they may still not have enough quality. I also wonder whether Villas-Boas is entirely satisfied with the balance of the squad he’s been given. Franco Baldini is the director of football. They had all that Gareth Bale money, yet the after the transfer window had closed their two best options at left back were Danny Rose (mediocre) or Jan Vertonghen (a very good centre back being used out of position). At best it suggests poor planning, at worst it’s an oversight.

There’s always January of course, and they should still have funds available. But will it be too late by then? If they’re to finish fourth this season then things will have gel and improve more quickly than they are currently.

MANCHESTER UNITED

Current League Position: 8th

Pre-season Prediction: 3rd

Revised Prediction: 5th

Given the obvious chasm in ability between David Moyes and Alex Ferguson, Manchester United needed to do more in the transfer market to make up for this significant shortfall than they did.

I’ve already hammered David Moyes enough here, so I won’t go over it in such detail again, except to say that it’s still fucking hilarious that he’s their manager.

There is good news. Adnan Januzaj has signed a new deal. Cracking talent. Robin Van Persie is still around and Wayne Rooney is playing his best football in a couple of years. That’s what the motivation of knowing you’re playing for your last big money long term contract will do for you. The only thing more inevitable than night following day is Leighton Baines arriving in January. He’ll replace Patrice Evra, who’s been shite this season.

But back to the bad news, Moyes is United’s manager, and United, by their standards, have been very mediocre.

Most worryingly the style and quality of football has deteriorated, the passing isn’t as sharp or as crisp, nor is the movement. There are fewer players arriving in the box now, something that they’ve done so well out of, at least domestically, for years. Despite being managed by Moyes United just have too many gifted players who know how to play, and win, that it wasn’t going to completely disintegrate overnight. But technical quality can only go so far when faced with tactical ineptitude and insipid coaching. Moyes is an average coach who lacks sophistication. Even as Liverpool fan, watching Moyes marginalise Kagawa has made me wince. Especially as it’s so he could play Ashley Young. Young is a woeful footballer, he is incapable of going to his left in possession, and as such is easy to neutralise. His only move is to shuffle the ball on to his right foot, cut inside and deliver an inaccurate cross. It’s the sort of low percentage play that Moyes favoured at Everton, so I suppose it’s appropriate that Moyes started the season with him in the team. Young’s the sort of ordinary player Moyes has been used to coaching and managing his whole career. Shite always has a way of attracting flies. Perhaps there’s hope yet for Moyes though. Thankfully Kagawa has been playing more and at worst the emergence of Januzaj into the first team should make Ashley Young obsolete. Sadly there’s nothing to be done about Fellaini, who is a complete lemon, and worryingly indicative of the signings United fans can expect in the future if Moyes somehow manages to reach the minimum requirement perennially, whatever that may be. In the short term, will Michael Carrick last the season carrying Fellaini on his back?

I know the Premier League has mandated these pointless home grown rules, where clubs are required to have a certain number of players who have been developed by the club, preferably English. But c’mon now, are Danny Welbeck and Tom Cleverley really Manchester United standard? Watching Cleverley stink the joint up by passing the buck, or just not passing it quickly enough full stop, really drives home what a ghastly error United, and Ferguson it has to said, made in letting Paul Pogba leave for Juventus. The double whammy is that had Pogba remained Moyes might’ve been less inclined or discouraged completely from buying Fellaini. As for Danny Welbeck, well he looks a bit Emile Heskeyish to me. I can’t see him lasting, unless Moyes…well you get the drift.

The word on the street is Malcolm Glazer is a fucking vegetable. Not that this makes a difference really. His sons are clearly cut from the same cut throat cloth. As long as the Champions League revenue continues to arrive, along with the TV rights money from the Premier League (of course) they won’t care if first becomes fourth and the hardcore United support are put off by Moyes’ mediocrity, average football and his negative waves. There’s more fake fans who’ll pay through the neck to take their places.

But this is a nightmare scenario I can’t envision. Sense, at some point, will prevail. As nice as it is to dream of Manchester United going through a full metamorphosis to Moyesification, the signing of the absolutely useless Fellaini being only the first step in this process, it won’t happen. With Disco-Dave’s mediocrity, and such is the sheer competitiveness among the Premier League’s top teams, that would ultimately mean no Champions League football, and that’ll mean less revenue, and that’s when the Glazers will start to care. United is their golden goose, who lays the golden eggs which props up their floundering Mall empire in the US. And there’s also the issue of United being able to sustain the interest payments on the purchase debt the Glazers landed them with. Once that’s paid off, United will be worth fortunes, but only if they’re still a top club, in fact it can only be paid if they’re dining out at the top table financially. Moyes is more a McDonald’s man.

Thinking about it, the ideal decline for the United detractors would be slow and insidious, or anything that leaves Moyes in charge for as long as possible. The longer Moyes stays the more damage he’ll do. So ideally they’d finish fourth this season and trophy-less. The Glazers would be happy for Moyes to retain his position for another season because ‘Champions League soccer, good job, great profit margin’. Next season would see more deterioration in the squad through Moyes getting his type of player (shudders), then they’ll finish outside the top four the following season. Moyes would be sacked, at a great cost (six year contract) and the replacement would have a harder job turning around Moyes’s mess.

If they fail to make the top four this season I just can’t see Moyes surviving, as that would likely mean they’ve been mediocre, as they largely have been so far, for most of the season.

Leaving fantasy behind, do I honestly think they’ll finish outside the top four? Not really. It’s still more in hope than expectation, at this stage. At worst, this is the third best squad in the league. That should transcend the ineptitude of their manager.

Even so they’ve been that average so far that they deserve to be dropped down a place. What I am sure of is that they’re not winning the title. All thanks to ‘The Winner’. The chosen one? If you mean by fans of other clubs? Too right.

LIVERPOOL

Current League Position: 3rd

Pre-season Prediction: 5th

Revised Prediction: 4th

Here’s a few stats:

Number of minutes Luis Suarez, Philippe Coutinho and Daniel Sturridge have spent on the pitch together this season: zero.

Number of goals scored by Suarez and Sturridge in the four games they’ve started together in the league: Ten. Six for Suarez, four for Sturridge.

Nothing emphasises Liverpool’s progress better than this stat I saw on Twitter: even if Liverpool lost their next six games, they’d still have one more point this season than they would after the same number of games (fifteen) last season.

It’s not all peaches and cream though, the football’s been less aesthetically pleasing (less possession) and less statistically efficient (allowing more shots on goal), which makes the progress seem less emphatic and perhaps more circumstantial and as such unsustainable.

The good news is that stats, by their very nature, are subject to the inevitability of change and the application of different parameters. The different parameters in this case being Suarez and Sturridge both being excellent players, and them developing an instant understanding. Brendan Rodgers deserves some credit here for deciding to accommodate them both centrally at the expense of his favoured formation.

I think everyone would agree that the top five strikers in the league are Luis Suarez, Daniel Sturridge, Sergio Aguero, Wayne Rooney and Robin Van Persie, in some order.

However, Luis Suarez is clearly the best of the five. Yes, I’m a Liverpool fan, but anyone who disagrees, well, I’ll be polite – they either don’t watch football or know much about it. Simple. Suarez and Sturridge aren’t the only strike partnership in that top five, but unlike Van Persie and Rooney they have the advantage of not being managed by David Moyes.

It’s understandable that Suarez and Sturridge have hit it off, both, as a first instinct, look to eliminate defenders with their first touch. Get facing the goal is always the goal for both. They have tricks, awareness and speed, and in Suarez’s case his supreme balance gives him immense strength while dribbling. Is there another player in the league who’s as terrifying in possession? Defenders don’t know what’s coming next because Suarez probably doesn’t. And if Suarez isn’t enough to cope with, Sturridge looks world class these days. Just as well Chelsea have all that money given how foolish they can be.

Liverpool’s best performance this season was in their most recent game. Against West Brom we saw high pressing all over the pitch, and Sturridge and Suarez running riot. West Brom were made to look extremely average even though the Baggies have already drawn at home to Arsenal and beaten Manchester United at Old Trafford. However, this performance needs to be the norm moving forward if we’re to finish in the top four.

I’m a Liverpool fan, and believe me I want to believe that we could genuinely be this good. But I simply can’t, not at this point. Why? This team finished seventh last season (and I’m being kind when I say we’ve been mediocre for the last four years), has no European football as a result and flunked out of Europe and the domestic cups early last season. There’s a lack of depth up front, an injury to Sturridge or another Suarez flaky and we’re short. I thought Fabio Borini was harshly binned after an injury riddled first season. He’s in the same position at Sunderland as he was here – on the bench, so what was the point of loaning him out? Iago Aspas hasn’t looked up to scratch so far – what is he? Bonus points here, as I saw someone ask if ‘he was named after that bloke in Othello?’ Majestic stuff.

Now it’s time to pose the crucial question – how does Coutinho fit in, given Brendan Rodgers has gone three at the back since Coutinho got injured?

The two events might be linked. Perhaps Brendan will go back to a back four at some point, so Coutinho can play in the number ten role while maintaining the Suarez and Sturridge partnership, where they can continue to go when and wherever they please as they do now. I think Rodgers will want to keep the midfield three of Henderson, Gerrard and the essential Lucas in place. If Rodgers and the players can pull it off, well, I’m salivating at the thought of an attacking axis of Coutinho, Suarez and Sturridge. Premier League defences certainly won’t be.

My only gripe with Rodgers so far is him persisting with Martin Skrtel, who is poor footballer, and even worse a defender prone to ghastly errors. Part of Liverpool’s problem in recent years is they’ve had to carry too many mediocre players in the first eleven. We’ve almost reached the point where that’s no longer necessary. So it’s frustrating watching Skrtel dither in possession, take poor angles to the ball and generally look all at sea and an accident waiting to happen when Daniel Agger is being left on the bench. Hopefully Brendan sees sense quickly, Coutinho’s reintroduction will force a change, somewhere, so perhaps, hopefully, it’ll be at the expense of Skrtel.

Still, I’m going to remain positive, and there’s plenty to be positive about. I want to thank Manchester City for letting us have Kolo Toure for free, that was dead nice of them. Sakho’s far better than I thought he would be in possession, he has the capability to change his mind, most centre backs don’t. The team spirit looks great and so do Brendan’s new pearly whites. We’re grinding out results when we need to. I’m enjoying this season. We are contenders for a top four place. Right, I’ll stop now before I say something silly about us being genuine title contenders or something.

The Title Contenders (yet I don’t really ‘rate’ any of them):

MANCHESTER CITY

Current League Position: 7th

Pre-season Prediction: 1st

Revised Prediction: 2nd

Pfft. I’m not impressed. With their resources they should be better than this. Much better. Both on paper and on the pitch.

It’s one thing to have money, it’s quite another knowing how to spend it, and City certainly haven’t maximised their immense financial advantage as well as they could. Just look at some of those signings. Jack Rodwell, Alexander Kolarov, James Milner and Javi Garcia. That’s €80m on those four if you’re counting. Like Chelsea it’s just as well they can absorb such mistakes. An outlay that has produced such average returns would be near fatal for quite a few clubs.

Still, those responsible for those mistakes and for packing City’s squad with too many marginal talents have now gone. So what of Txiki Begiristain and Manuel Pellegrini, the new Director of Football and Manager respectively? Have their signings been an improvement?

So far, not really. Stevan Jovetic is clearly a very good player, but he’s barely played so far due to injuries.

I’m not sure why they went for Jesus Navas and Alvaro Negredo. Well I tell a lie, I know why they went for them, because they know them. But Negredo and Navas, while both good players, are firmly in the second tier of Spanish talents. Navas always struck me as a decent player, nothing more, and City already have plenty of those in their squad. He’s better than James Milner, for example, but not by much. Navas is a head down winger who occasionally gets tunnel vision. There’s nothing worse in a winger. I could easily see Samir Nasri playing more games as the season wears on, he’s a far superior footballer.

Fernandinho is an upgrade on Gareth Barry, but given Barry’s slower than the proverbial these days that wasn’t going to be hard. He probably won’t justify that laughable fee, but at least Fernandinho is a more cerebral technically accomplished midfielder than City have tended to sign in the recent past. Yaya Toure aside, they’ve been big lumps who were average in possession. Coming from the Barcelona school Begiristain is looking to shift the emphasis more towards skill and intelligence.

Which brings us back to the new team in charge of City. I’ve never seen the fuss with Pellegrini. Getting Villarreal to the European Cup semis was a good achievement, he couldn’t win the title with Real Madrid, though there’s no shame in getting sacked by them. His teams have a reputation for playing a good style of football. However, so far I see no difference in style or the infuriating propensity for inexplicably bad results that we saw under Roberto Mancini. Perhaps it would be sensible for me to wait and see at the end of the season if things have improved. But let’s not forget that Mancini did win the league for them. Pellegrini’s not won anything in the ten years he’s been managing in European football. Pellegrini was brought in because his philosophy closely mirrors that of Txiki Begiristain, and you suspect to get Manchester City past the group stages of the Champions League for the first time. Look, regarding Txiki Begiristain, I’ll come clean, I copy and pasted his name from Google. I’ve looked at it twenty times and I still can’t spell it. I feel like a dyslexic, yet I can spell dyslexic, look, see, I did it again. There’s hope for me yet.

You suspect if City are to go close that Yaya Toure, David Silva and Sergio Aguero will be the ones doing most of the heavy lifting, again. All three were inherited by the new so called brain-trust. I can’t see any of the new signings becoming as integral to the side as they are and will continue to be.

One final point, it’s easy to mock Joe Hart right now. So I won’t do it. He’s another in a long line of English players who got overhyped, which leads to them becoming overrated, and when they fail to consistently reach that artificial expectation they become the subject of ridicule. That’s the better scenario, somehow, it’s worse if they continue to succeed or should I say exceed expectations. That’s when people resort to tearing them down for petty irrelevant things that have absolutely nothing to do with their main talent. It’s a British disease and I despise it thoroughly. You can see it happening with Russell Brand right now. People are using his irreverent quips as evidence of him being a bit of a misogynist. It’s a way of sounding intellectually relevant, and or being contrarian to hide their jealousy. Even if Brand is a bit of misogynist (I don’t know if he is or not), does it make what he’s saying any less valid? Perhaps it’s just a lot simpler than that, and that Brand’s success, especially if you don’t rate or like him as a comedian, and his ability to articulate himself, just makes people feel inferior and or inadequate.

What isn’t easy to figure out is how Man City’s season will pan out. I’ve put them in with the title contenders out of respect for the talent they do have and the fact that they’ve finished in no lower than second in each of the last two seasons. But I’m not convinced they’ve improved since last season, and so essentially any improvement in position will be as a result of teams getting worse.

ARSENAL

Current League Position: 1st

Pre-season Prediction: 4th

Revised Prediction: 3rd

Ahhh, vindication. I fucking love it.

Of course Arsenal were always going to sign someone, or more than one before the end of the summer window. They had to. The fans were rabid. Mutiny beckoned. And of course Arsenal just happened to get the best player who was readily available late in the window. Mesut Ozil fell into their laps and they smashed their transfer record. Questions will remain as to why Arsenal pissed about all summer though. First with the haggling for Gonzalo Higuain, and then with those derisory bids for Luis Suarez that in turn practically ended any chance of them having a bid accepted by Liverpool.

Given all that the fee for Ozil was surprising, Manchester United passing on Mesut Ozil for Fellaini wasn’t a surprise given the ‘winner’ they’re now managed by. Even so I felt the signing of Ozil alone wasn’t enough to turn Arsenal into title winning side. But now, seeing how United have struggled and City look desperately unconvincing, well, who knows? Even if Arsenal don’t win the league the Ozil signing is a start to rebuilding fan confidence that Arsenal can genuinely challenge, and maybe just maybe it could change the mood around the club itself. Being practical, of all the positions that Arsenal were deficient in, creative midfielder wasn’t high up the list, in fact it wasn’t even on it. However, you don’t turn down quality like that when you can get it.

Quick tangent, but what the fuck were Real Madrid thinking? They sold one of the best number tens in world football, to buy the homeless man’s version of Cristiano Ronaldo. Ronaldo certainly wasn’t pleased. Madrid should’ve built the side around the Ozil, Isco and Ronaldo axis. Still, Madrid’s stupidity is Arsenal’s gain, and long term, if Wenger can find a way to get Ozil, Cazorla and Wilshere on the pitch at the same time, without compromising shape or solidity and allowing Giroud and Walcott to also play, maybe, just maybe, Arsenal can go close.

Still, this is a work in progress (Arsenal fans are getting sick of it) but this side could develop quickly with the right signings. It then becomes a question of whether Ozil was a one off, or the start of a new transfer strategy? By failing to get either Suarez, Higuain or any half decent striker Arsenal went into the season with Nicklas Bendtner as their backup striker. NICKLAS. BENDTNER. Perhaps we’ll see a bid for Christian Benteke or Jackson Martinez in January? Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker have formed a decent partnership, but another reliable centre back will be needed at some point. A holding midfielder will surely be on Wenger’s to do list. There was a reason Mathieu Flamini was a free agent. Mikel Arteta is decent but over thirty now and Aaron Ramsey is woefully miscast as one, even more so that he’s scoring goals when playing further forward. Ramsey’s general play has been excellent so far, a mistake against Dortmund not withstanding, even if his shots on target to off target ratio, and his shots on target to goals ratio are probably unsustainable.

I have to say I’ve enjoyed watching them so far this season, mostly because I’ve been vindicated in my defense of Wenger. You never get rid of someone like him for a maybe.

In recent seasons Arsenal’s have tended to go the way of a flasher with erectile dysfunction, first they tease, then they fail to please. Usually around late February early March time. Perhaps, perhaps, this time will be different.

CHELSEA

Current League Position: 2nd

Pre-season Prediction: 2nd

Revised Prediction: 1st

Jose Mourinho is a sociopath, can we agree on this?

Right, with that settled, can those who obviously dislike him and who choose to obsess over his record as manager, please stop doing this? I can’t stand him but I don’t resort to that nonsense. The pathetic attempts to weave a narrative that he’s somehow not very good at his job, that’s he’s lucky, or that his success is purely down to the fact that he’s always managed clubs with money (like he did at Porto?), or that he’s just a motivator who relies on defensive football, are all pathetic arguments. So just please stop it. It’s embarrassing drivel.

I was sceptical that his return to Chelsea would work for either party. I wondered from afar whether his vulgar tantrums and hate inducing shtick were finally starting to wear thin with everyone in football. Or maybe a return to Chelsea, where he’s adored by their appropriately cuntish fans and a fawning Sky Sports, who have a twenty-four hour news channel to fill don’t forget, was just what he (and they) needed?

Early returns provide no evidence either way. They’re joint second, where I expected them to be.

Chelsea certainly need to do better in the league than they have in recent seasons. Abramovich’s insatiable need to have a go at Football Manager in real life and his occasional vanity signings haven’t helped. When Mourinho returned I felt their summer transfer business would make sense again, but it didn’t. They didn’t address their biggest deficiency: central midfield. Frank Lampard is still a good player, but he can’t play as often as Chelsea need him to. Ramires still isn’t a central midfielder. Michael Essien is ghost of the player he was in his pomp and John Obi Mikel just never lived up to the hype that caused Chelsea and Manchester United to fight over him. Nemanja Matic was linked, and while I’ve never seen him play, perhaps Chelsea would feel a bit embarrassed for selling him for £5m, only to buy him back a couple of years later for the asking price set by Benfica at £30m. Even billionaires have a limit, or so it seems.

Chelsea also needed to get better up front, but they haven’t. While allowing Sturridge to leave to sign Demba Ba made sense at the time, and didn’t happen on Mourinho’s watch, he has no such excuse in deciding to loan Romelu Lukaku to Everton to sign a past his best Samuel Eto’o. It’s good for Chelsea that Fernando Torres has looked sharp recently, but Chelsea fans and the rest of us have been here before. He’s had patches like this before returning to a state of indifference, which has been the norm during his time at Chelsea.

Many, mainly jealous fans of other clubs, have bemoaned the marginalisation of Juan Mata. But I wasn’t surprised. Mourinho likes his attackers to have pace, as Mourinho places a great importance on the effectiveness of the counter attack and part of that is the threat of the counter attack permeating the approach of the opposition. Mata is a player who prefers the slow build-up into feet, Chelsea do that too, but Chelsea have other attacking midfielders who can do this and are quicker than Mata, particularly Oscar and Eden Hazard.

Chelsea’s biggest summer signings were Andre Schurrle from Bayer Leverkusen, and Willian from Shakhtar Dontesk. Fair enough, both good players and significant improvements over Victor Moses. Problem is they’re best used on the left wing, and so is Eden Hazard. Oscar and Mata are best in the middle and nobody of the five prefers to play on the right, yet someone will have to. I suspect Chelsea didn’t have a strong inclination to sign Willian. But because he was available for less than expected and Spurs were close to signing him, they decided to buy him anyway, because they could. Moderation seemingly isn’t easy in the face of temptation when you can afford anything.

One thing Mourinho does deserve great credit for is fomenting a seemingly permanent winning mentality in Chelsea’s squad. It has lived on without him for six years. They never act like they’re beaten, they never show mental weakness. I don’t see this quality at the other top clubs in that abundance. So because of this, despite their individual flaws, and uneven squad, I expect those plastic flags to be flying high in May. Jose Mourinho and John Terry will still be cunts though.

So there you have it, a team whose owner ripped off thousands of working class people, and who spends his stolen billions on a football club with some of the most cuntyish cunty cunt fans in Britain, and who are relatively mediocre given the amount of money that’s been spent on them, and are managed by an unbearably smug, snide sociopathic cunt, will win the richest, greediest and seediest league in the world. The Premier League, don’t ya just love it?

Posted in Sports | Tagged Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Premier League, Premier League Quarterly Report, Tottenham Hotspur | 1 Comment

The Premiership Quarterly Report – Part Two

Posted on 30/10/2013 by Wichita Lineman Was A Song I Once Heard

Yesterday I looked at the Riff-Raff of the Premier League, today it’s the varying degrees and forms of middle class existence. I bet you can’t wait, so without further ado:

Midtable Mediocrity

ASTON VILLA

Current League Position: 14th

Pre-season Prediction: 14th

Revised Prediction: 14th

You don’t know how tempted I was to throw this lot in with the relegation contenders. I do of course reserve the right to change my mind, and I just might. The deciding factor in putting them in here? I didn’t finish writing their section in time for yesterday’s column. Honesty eh?

Still, I struggle to see them finishing below three of my projected bottom six, but for only one reason: they still have Christian Benteke, god knows why he stayed another season. He’d easily be first choice for Spurs or Arsenal, for example.

So relegation most likely won’t beset Villa this season. However, an extended injury to Benteke would make things interesting. I reckon it’ll be next season, by which time Benteke will have inevitably departed that Villa fans will be shitting themselves. Why? Paul Lambert’s signings since he took over as manager have been uninspiring. The counter argument is that Lambert signed Benteke, but looking at all of his signings as a group Benteke’s the exception, not the rule. This is in part due to Randy Lerner not sanctioning much spending, another worrying sign. That gives Lambert little margin for error. So given those two realities are Villa fans confident that the Benteke money will be wisely invested? Not only will they have to improve a dismal squad with that money, but replace Benteke adequately too. That’s a scary proposition.

Yesterday I talked about the league wide inefficiency, or ineptitude if you prefer, of the quality of midfield play in the Premier League. Well Villa are its worst offender. Stoke are the other ‘contender’, though for a different reason: they deliberately try not to use theirs. Villa’s are a listless bunch. There’s no semblance of ingenuity or diversity in skill set from one player to the next. There’s nobody seemingly capable of seeing an early pass let alone having the skill to deliver it. All of them seem to be built from the same template and provide the same function; running, brainless running, reactive running, and yet more running. Add in a smattering of under hit passes, over-hit passes, and my personal favourite – passes which pass on responsibility, and you have incompetence. Oh, and last but by no means least, they also, from time to time, stand still and ball-watch, leaving opposition players free to run in behind, unmarked, to attack their defence, which yet again, as per the standard for most Premier League clubs, is populated by leaden footed yard-dogs.

Lambert’s tactics and planning also come under question. Villa are only capable of playing a brand of football that can come close to being categorised as effective on the counter-attack. Given the pace and strength of their first choice frontline, this isn’t a terrible tactic for a middle of the road side, as Villa are now, at best. But there are a lot of other mediocre sides in the division, and at times you’ll come across a side, likely protecting a lead, who’ll sit deep and ask the question, can you break us down? Villa’s main tactic when faced with a condensed pitch and a deep lying defence is to get the ball onto Benteke’s chest as quickly as possible and have Andreas Weimann and Gabriel Agnonlahor making out to in runs from the flanks to match his flick ons. It’s essentially low percentage hit and hope stuff.

That Lambert has built a side without any semblance of the holistic abilities required to allow him any form of in game tactical adaptation has only further entrenched Aston Villa into the morass of Premier League nothingness and hopelessness.

I saw a fellow Liverpool fan on Twitter suggest that Andreas Weimann ‘would be a good signing’. It made me regret my self imposed ban of discussing football on Twitter. Such comments deserve derision. They’re also the sort of tweets that get retweeted by some smart-arse two or three years later, so the whole world can see how daft your opinion was with the benefit of hindsight. Meh. If I had to describe Weimann it would be Dirk Kuyt but with the pace and without the toadying seal-clapping of the fans after the game. As for Agbonlahor, he’s quick, and that’s about the size of it. Oh and these two become your best players if and when Benteke departs.

I’ve heard people defend the rank abjectness of this Villa side by saying that this is a young team, but it isn’t as young as you think. It’s an illusion really, which is appropriate as something has to underpin the Villa fans’ delusion that their club is still relevant, and has a chance of being so any time soon. What good is having youth, if it a) lacks the technical and or intellectual quality that’s likely to see it improve, and b) whatever talent is there is unlikely to be maximised by mediocre coaching?

It comes back to the same question, with Randy Lerner seemingly unwilling to seriously invest, just exactly where is this going?

FULHAM

Current League Position: 13th

Pre-season Prediction: 13th

Revised Prediction: 12th

Martin Jol’s jaw line is odd and mesmeric, oddly mesmeric, especially when he talks. It just doesn’t look right and its rectangular shape reminds me of Richard Kiel who played Jaws in the James Bond movie ‘Moonraker’. Mohamed Al Fayed, and Mohamed Al Fayed’s boring conspiracy theory surrounding the death of his son have both gone, mercifully, and so soon will Michael Jackson’s statue outside Craven Cottage, ditto. The end of an era. RIP.

Fulham have survived in the Premier League for quite a long time, and for the majority of it they’ve managed to do so with a side largely built with the aging rejects from bigger clubs. Throw in a few canny Bosman’s, a few loans every season to fill out the squad, and the odd signing – because even though they’re cheapskates they still get that obscene Premier League TV windfall like everyone else – and you have the formula that so many small clubs attempt but ultimately fail to emulate.

That they’ve been in the Premier League for twelve uninterrupted years is commendable. It probably helps that I have little interest in their fate. They’re just there, every season, like an unobtrusive piece of furniture that you never use. Because it never gets in your way and it doesn’t spoil the room’s ambiance you accept its existence and have no motivation to move it. I believe you call that apathy.

I recognise the hypocrisy of my position towards Fulham given my derisory comments yesterday about the ‘pointless’ relegation fodder attempting to do the same thing, but this is my review and my blog, and I’ll be as hypocritical and myopic as I like, so get stuffed.

Fulham are different in that they make a smart move or two every summer transfer window. So I do have a reason to view them differently. Good. This time they took advantage of Spurs’ attempts to sign every midfielder they conceivably could by getting a discarded Scott Parker on loan. Parker has a place in England’s World Cup squad to fight for, and in Darren Bent they have, and this isn’t hyperbole, a player fighting for his top flight career after a disastrous spell with Aston Villa. Their main financial outlay was on Dutch international goalie Maarten Stekelenberg from Roma. They needed to replace Mark Schwarzer, who was excellent for them and a large part of why they’ve survived relatively comfortably in recent years.

The rest of the side is solid and unspectacular, and aging, which could lead to problems in the near future. But in the here and now Fulham have a variety of attacking options with varying degrees of pedigree – Dimitar Berbatov, Darren Bent, and Bryan Ruiz. On any given day one of those three are liable to come up with something. Did you know that Darren Bent is the seventh highest active goalscorer in the Premier League, and is twenty-first overall, all time? Mind you that looks less impressive when I tell you that Emile ‘Ivanhoe’ (not joking) Heskey is seventeenth all time (again, not joking).

Regardless, Fulham’s universe still revolves around Dimitar Berbatov, as it should. As a Liverpool fan partisanship should make it harder for me to admire Berbatov’s game. It did with Eric Cantona, but not here. He’s one of my favourites.

One more mini rant regarding Berbatov, any footballing opinion espoused by anyone who is openly a detractor of his is to be immediately distrusted. The people who choose to ignore his immense technical ability and ingenuity to deride him for being lazy are probably the same kinds of people who religiously watch X-factor. Maybe they partake in the mindless hysteria surrounding its auditions; a phenomenon that Charlie Brooker rightly observed as ‘the Nuremberg rallies for dummies’. They’re also liable to believe that Gerry and Kate McCann killed Maddie. It’s not nice when someone’s judgment of you is predicated on silly prejudices and a lack of objectivity, is it?

WEST HAM UNITED

Current League Position: 15th

Pre-season Prediction: 11th

Revised Prediction: 11th

Does anyone else think of there’s some credence to the suggestion that Sam Allardyce’s reputation has exponentially improved due to the existence of the Big Sam parody account? Like all parody accounts the notion that it’s in anyway based on even the slenderest of realities makes it that bit more enjoyable. For example, I could easily envision Big Sam relaxing naked on a leather sofa watching Corrie thinking that Nigel Havers really is a loser.

Allardyce’s standing has also improved massively with me and other Liverpool fans since he gave us a combined £23m for Andy Carroll and Stewart Downing this summer. Cheers Sam.

One thing I will say about Sam Allardyce is that he is unfairly accused of being averse to flair. He’s always been a manager open to new ideas and employing a holistic approach tactically, especially at set pieces, albeit this ingenuity is an accompaniment to his main overarching ethos of direct balls to the target man. When Allardyce was at Bolton people focused on Kevin Davies as being symbolic of the agricultural football Allardyce looked to foment. The stat that was always brought up to support this accusation was that Davies was perennially the most fouled player in the Premier League, and the player who committed the most fouls. But Davies was merely one facet of Bolton’s side. It’s clear that Allardyce recognises that playing in straight lines all the time is predictable and without the unpredictability of the unaccountable you’re going nowhere. He always found a space for, and more importantly gave artistic licence to the likes of Jay-Jay Okocha and Youri Djorkaeff.

This current West Ham side doesn’t have anyone remotely that gifted or mercurial. Unless you count a clearly past his meridian Joe Cole. This side is certainly more functional, and Allardyce has clearly attempted to recreate the Davies-Nolan dynamic with Andy Carroll and Nolan here. Carroll’s injured again and West Ham don’t really have another striker of note, unless you count Carlton Cole, who couldn’t find a club after his contract expired, and Mladen Petric, who wasn’t retained by Fulham. So I’m giving them a slight pass for their mediocre start.

Mohamed Diame continues to surprise me, and it’s good for West Ham that he does. He often didn’t start for Wigan when he was there, yet ultilised further forward since moving to West Ham he’s been their best player. He has skill, power, and drives through the middle of the pitch at speed with the ball, which is one of the more difficult things to do in modern football. I think of him as a poor man’s Yaya Toure. It’s strange how certain players get typecast into one position, but then flourish when moved to another. How many talents have been wasted down the years because of this?

Talking of talents nearly wasted, perhaps Ravel Morrison will provide the unpredictability element for this side. The hype has started since his goal against Spurs. Knowing how short termist and easily swayed by public and media sentiment the mediocres at the FA are, he should get a call-up soon. On a more serious point its another feather in Sam’s cap of reclaiming lost causes. How often did you see an Alex Ferguson lead Manchester United just give up on talent like they did with Morrison? Aside from allowing Paul Pogba to leave for Juventus for nothing, okay maybe I’m overdoing it with this point. Do you think there’s any chance Ferguson mentioned that in his autobiography?

What we do know is Sam Allardyce does one thing: he gets clubs promoted and then keeps them up, and he’ll continue to do it here.

WEST BROMWICH ALBION

Current League Position: 12th

Pre-season Prediction: 10th

Revised Prediction: 10th

Just imagine if the league only consisted of sixteen teams, with three teams still being relegated every season, as I propose it should, West Brom would probably be a fringe relegation candidate. That seems unfair, but when you consider that the Premier League’s motto is greed is good, and that they shamelessly encourage their clubs, sorry members to rip off their own fans, and then they run condescending and patronising adverts like this, well, why should I, in my idealist worldview, be charitable and allow for mediocrity in any form? Fuck it, make it a fourteen team league. Now that would be the Endlösung for the riff-raff. I’m not a racist or a fascist by the way.

Back in reality, West Brom are a decent team, who are well coached and who apply themselves. So they deserve their place in the Premiership. Steve Clarke has done well to maximise what he has, because on paper what he has isn’t that impressive. I can see a slight regression from last season. Lukaku and Lukaku’s goals have gone and have been replaced by a past his best Nicolas Anelka. It’s always fun to see how parochial the Irish become when you criticise Shane Long for being average. Anyway the clock’s due to strike twelve any second now and he’ll turn back into a Championship level pumpkin. Even though he made a complete tit of himself at the January transfer window deadline, Peter Odenwingie was actually pretty good for them during the first half of last season. I do like the signing of Stephane Sessegnon, he’s different to Odemwingie, which is a euphemism for ‘he’s a player with more subtlety in possession’, so that’s an upgrade.

Like Fulham this is a team that relies heavily on valuing what other sides fail to appreciate. And that means maximising the loan market. Morgan Amalfitano (on loan from Marseille), Scott Sinclair (from Manchester City) and Matej Vydra (from Udinese) are this season’s loan batch. Amalfitano has already made his mark with a goal at Old Trafford, like Sessegnon he’s crafty. Sinclair’s no Laurie Cunningham, but he is a decent winger with something to prove. Vydra scored lots of goals on loan at Watford last season. It’ll be interesting to see how he gets on if and when he’s given a chance. Looking at the Anelka, Long and Victor Anichebe (a waste of money – hey you can’t win ‘em all) group, Vydra should see game time sooner rather than later. The same goes for Saido Berahino, who looks a decent prospect. It just struck me that Colin Wanker would blow his load if he took over as manager with all the strikers West Brom have. Yeah, moving on…

Along with Southampton, West Brom are one of the few sides in the Premier League’s bottom two thirds who are strongest in midfield. That starts with Mulumbo and Yacob. As individuals they’re probably not good enough to play for one of the top six teams, but together they make an effective combination. More importantly they protect West Brom’s first choice centre backs; Jonas ‘Dickhead’ Olson and Gareth McAuley, who are both in their early thirties and couldn’t be categorised as good at any point in their careers. I bet Steve Clarke would love a bit of cash to invest here, and I reckon it’ll be his main focus by next summer.

What separates West Brom from the bottom feeders, and sides like Villa, is they have greater diversity of creative and defensive options in midfield. And this group was assembled without spending more money than their direct competitors. So if you’re a fan of a midtable side, and your midfield is rubbish, you shouldn’t accept the usual excuses of a lack of funds, or the club’s inability to attract players due to its size. In recent years West Brom have shown what proper organisation and astute scouting in the transfer market can achieve. I also want to thank them for revitalising Roy Hodgson’s career to the point that he was given the England job. We have a summer of high comedy awaiting us.

I derided unimaginative chairmen yesterday for taking the easy way out and hiring someone ‘proven’ from the managerial merry-go-round. But Jeremy Peace deserves credit for picking Steve Clarke. Clarke had been an assistant manager for over a decade, albeit a well respected coach at a number of clubs (Chelsea, Wet Ham and Liverpool). How often do we see clubs, particularly mid-table clubs, working on sustainable budget, who can easily be an injury crisis away from a relegation dogfight, go for someone completely unproven? West Brom deserve the reward of good manager for taking a risk, instead of plucking for the illusion of safety that has become fallaciously synonymous with experience. What good is experience if it’s of failure? It would be nice if other clubs investigated how and why West Brom came to choose Steve Clarke when faced with other more obvious alternatives. But that requires humility and curiosity and cutting short your holiday in the Algarve to do some work, doesn’t it?

NEWCASTLE UNITED

Current League Position: 11th

Pre-season Prediction: 12th

Revised Prediction: 13th

It’s hard not to laugh at this mob, but I’ll try.

I could make some French jokes here, but that’s gotten beyond boring now, just as this column has for anyone reading it. Right back to being judicious, the state of their club certainly isn’t a laughing matter for Newcastle fans.

Why? We have the three stooges. The gifts that keep on giving.

Stooge number one is Mike Ashley. He is the chairman and owner of Newcatsle United, here he is downing a pint in one, while wearing a replica kit. Look at the state of that fat bastard. Here’s his latest faux-pas, which is clearly a pathetic attempt to control the spreading perception among many fans that he’s a clueless cunt. They believe he’s either incompetent at running a football club (true), or doesn’t give a shit about Newcastle’s prosperity (also true), just as long as his millionaire life isn’t interfered with by being made aware of fan unrest (true again). He wants all of the social glorification that comes with owning a football club with none of the responsibilities.

The alternative, more interesting, explanation is that Mike Ashley may have a passing interest in chaos theory and or is a disciple of Albert Camus’ Absurdism. Having a hierarchical structure that consists of himself, Joe Kinnear and Alan Pardew is his attempt to tear through the fabric of the universe, and or it is a coded message that life is essentially meaningless, so let’s just take the piss and see how long people can stand it. Or maybe the maxim that leadership and success starts at the top is true, and well, in this case I think we can judge Ashley’s leadership credentials emphatically.

Okay, so maybe I lied about trying not to laugh at Newcastle United. You just can’t not laugh at this.

Anyway, moving on to stooge number two. Director of football Joe Kinnear. Here he is, sounding slightly pissed where he pronounces the name of Yohan Cabaye, who only happens to be Newcastle’s best player, as ‘Yohan Kebab’, never mind, ‘water off a duck’s arse’, as they say. Here is a gory transcript of the bogus claims he made about his career in the same interview. And yet Kinnear was immensely unpopular with Newcastle’s fans before this even happened. That he was largely responsible for getting them relegated four years ago is. Mind you I look at this differently, his sacking coupled with Ashley’s complete disregard for reason meant we finally saw Alan ‘Emperors New Clothes’ Shearer as manager of Newcastle United. As far as schadenfreude goes, it was glorious.

Kinnear’s futility as Director of Football is less glorious. Newcastle failed to improve their squad beyond getting Loic Remy on loan, a move that has actually worked. You do wonder if there’s any credence in the conspiracy theory that Kinnear was planted as an excuse for Ashley not to spend anything. Kinnear’s likely incompetence would be the immediate focus and thus would shield Ashley from any blame. True or not, at this point you can understand why Newcastle fans would be inclined to believe such a theory.

And finally to stooge number three. The manager, Alan Pardew. Let’s start with this and with this. People in many walks of life would be considered toxic by potential employers for hypocritical xenophobia, or is that selective xenophobia? Failing that a deeply inappropriate jibe, which could easily be construed as misogynistic or homophobic, or both. But at Newcastle United, things are done differently. Mike Ashley doesn’t mind tainting Newcastle United’s rep by hiring someone like Pardew.

Random detour, but is Alan Pardew a draw for you ladies? The reason I ask is his time as Southampton manager was ended due to him (allegedly) porking one of the player’s wives. And then there’s this. I’m not sure what it is, if it’s a parody, a desperate attempt to seek attention, or just flat out desperate. Whatever, without a doubt it’s unsettling. This I know.

Perhaps I’m being unfair focusing on that. What is fair game is Alan Pardew’s managerial credentials, and Alan Pardew’s contract. So how is that eight year contract working out?

The Answer? No better than the man he replaced, who in the eyes of many, and critically many Newcastle fans, was unfairly sacked. Many suspect that Alan Pardew got the job because he was an acquaintance of Mike Ashley’s. True or not, Pardew has been no better or worse than Chris Hughton, it should be noted that Hughton got them promoted back to the Premier League at the first attempt. Until Pardew does do significantly better he’ll live under the pall of that accusation, fairly or unfairly.

Some of Pardew’s tactics can be charatiserised as illogical. Recently against Liverpool we saw playmaker Hatem Ben Arfa used as a centre forward. Maybe Pardew started studying Barcelona and felt he’d give Ben Arfa a go in the Messi role? Despite strange tactical choices thankfully Newcastle have some good talent at their club to compensate for Pardew’s tactical egotism, largely thanks to Graeme Carr’s scouring of the French league. You do wonder how long some of the French lads will put up with the circus though as they clearly have no allegiance to Newcastle. Cabaye nearly joined Arsenal in the summer, and Moussa Sissoko and Loic Remy could probably find themselves places in the squads of one of the top six clubs if they were so inclined.

I don’t think Pardew’s a bad manager, but nor is he a good one. He’s the epitome of a middle manager, managing a middling club to middling results. Perhaps Newcastle fans should be relieved by this outcome.

The reason I say that is just look again at three people responsible for the all major decisions at this club. Newcastle aren’t going anywhere fast until they get a proper owner who’s concerned more about success on the pitch, than hiring his mates and finding obsequious ways to be one of the lads living the dream of owning a football club. I’m not sure whether the Newcastle fans deserve to be derided or applauded for not airing their displeasure at the expense of supporting the team during games. It’s a tough spot they’ve been placed in. Ashley should go, but he won’t. Short of picketing the ground there’s not a lot Newcastle fans can do to get rid of him and his fellow stooges. Where there’s tragedy there’s usually comedy, but not here, this situation is just sad.

The Europa League Scramblers

SWANSEA CITY

Current League Position: 9th

Pre-season Prediction: 7th

Revised Prediction: 9th

Unlike Mike Ashley, Huw Jenkins is a chairman who actually gives a shite about how well he runs his football club, and he’s clearly a man with a plan. He’s thoroughly entrenched a progressive ethos at the club through purposely hiring a series of managers whose philosophies are very similar: Roberto Martinez (now managing Everton), Paulo Sousa, Brendan Rodgers (now managing Liverpool) and Michael Laudrup.

Only Paulo Sousa’s reign failed to drive the club forward in any demonstrable way. Martinez got them promoted from League One (that’s the third division in old money), Rodgers got them promoted to the Premier League, and Laudrup has helped the club to their first major trophy (The League Cup) and their first appearance in Europe in over twenty years.

So how much further can they go?

In the short term, probably not much higher in the league. I fully expect them to prioritise the cup competitions once they have enough points on the board to ensure safety. If they progress in the Europa League, and it’s looking good on that front, the squad will be taxed in the Spring. They understandably don’t have much depth. The further they go in the Europa league, the more that competition is likely to be emphasized. If it’s a decision between prioritising the league just to finish seventh instead of finishing twelfth, or going full tilt for a European trophy, then it’s a no contest.

Once again, this is a club who is smart in the transfer market, you’ll notice that this is the recurring theme that differentiates the middle class from the bottom feeders. Laudrup’s used his intimate knowledge of Spain’s La Liga to unearth some real gems. Pablo Hernandez wasn’t one of them, it shocked me that he was available for only €7m and that nobody else outbid the Swans. Swansea have one of the best value for money signings in recent memory in Michu, who would cut the mustard for any Premier League club. I defy anyone to say that they’d heard of him before he arrived in England, yet they’re now moaning that their club didn’t sign him. Hindsight isn’t only pointless, it’s boring. I liked the fact that Michu was so categorical in deciding to stay another season, and it’s paying off too. He’s now in the Spain squad, and deservedly so. He’s the closest thing to Dimitar Berbatov in the land.

As a Liverpool fan I’ll be keeping an eye on Jonjo Shelvey’s development. There’s a player in there for sure. Let’s not forget he’s still only twenty-one. What he lacks in athleticism he more than makes up for in goalscoring instincts and a creative brain. He is, as we saw against his old club a few weeks ago, prone to brain farts, and the odd dangerous tackle. But he also scored Swansea’s first and created their second in the same match. I can’t think of a better mentor for him than Brian Laudrup. If he can’t learn anything from him about clever midfield play then Jonjo should pack it in.

Even if you’re sceptical of the signing of Wilfried Bony, and I agree that anyone’s goal record in the Dutch league isn’t an indicator of success in better leagues, his acquisition does at the very least allow Michu to play in favoured withdrawn strikers role, and Bony will surely be an upgrade on Luke Moore and that Israeli fella that Swansea had as their back-up strikers last season. He can play with his back to goal, and he has pace and strength. And remember, not all players adapt or settle into new clubs in a new league immediately. Sadly both patience and reason stands little chance in the era of instant gratification, where the incessant need to promote instant opinions on social media rules the day.

Whether Swansea can accommodate Shevley, Michu and Bony successfully, and get the best out of all three, will determine how well they do this season.

I’ll be watching as many of Swansea’s games as I can. I appreciate any side who looks to fill their side with pace, technique and creativity. They’ll be tough to beat at home, and at the very least will probably cause a few shocks, as they did last season when they beat Arsenal at Ashburton Grove.

EVERTON

Current League Position: 6th

Pre-season Prediction: 8th

Revised Prediction: 8th

How about Bobby Martinez? He had the unenviable task of replacing ‘The Winner’, even though ‘The Winner’ in question has never won a trophy of any significance, and Martinez has, at a much smaller club too. So if ‘The Winner’ is a winner, what does that make Martinez? A champion?

It’s certainly been a champion start by Everton. Even if this has been skewed slightly by their favourable schedule thus far. That win over Chelsea was good though, any time Mourinho loses, football wins.

What Martinez has done is improved the style and standard of Everton’s play. He’s a better, more discerning coach than ‘The Winner’, clearly. Everton’s passing is crisper and there is more movement in attack and more options for the man in possession. Part of this is down to the departure of the statuesque Marouane Fellaini, who was a central figure to Moyes’ direct style. Youngster Ross Barkley, clearly a gifted player, has been entrusted by Martinez to fill the void left by Fellaini, albeit to interpret it vastly differently, and he hasn’t let him down. Not that he was going to, as a bollard would be an improvement on Fellaini.

Everton have clearly improved their central midfield options. Gareth Barry may be past his meridian now, and as slow as ever, but by just having a pulse he’s a significant improvement over the recently retired Phil Neville and the laughably bad Darron Gibson. He also cost nothing. James McCarthy is a good young player who Martinez knows well. Leon Osman is still around and it’s clear that Martinez’s approach already suits him better.

Everton had an excellent transfer window overall. They get an A+ alone for rope-a-doping Manchester United’s ‘Winner’ of a manager into buying his favourite illegitimate son Fellaini for £27.5m. Essentially Everton replaced Fellaini and Phil Neville with two superior players in Barkley and McCarthy while netting a £13m profit. Getting Lukaku was a massive coup too. I’ll get to what Chelsea were smoking later on, but Everton are certainly having a celebratory toak on a Cuban at Lukaku’s performances so far. He’s isn’t just an upgrade on the Anichibe/Jelavic shite sandwich of last season, he’s a Royale With Cheese, if you catch my drift.

The sad fact is Everton need to operate this well in the transfer market just to maintain themselves as a top half team. This isn’t a club likely to go any further until Bill Kenwright stops his self serving dream of owning his club. His lack of financial knowledge or clout means that Everton’s first concern is making sure they can repay their annual debt on their overdraft. This, more than anything shows why Kenwright, if he’s a true Evertonian as he says he is, should sell. On the other hand I can understand his trepidation of selling his controlling stake to what would likely be some foreign Johnny come lately. English football is littered with horror stories of foreign owners buying clubs, ciphering off money for their own financial gain, before leaving the club as a husk. Kenwright got a close look at this process at neighbours Liverpool. Though in Everton’s case, given the existing state of their finances and the decrepit and embarrassingly dilapidated Goodison Park, if it went all Pete Tong the result would probably resemble the precipitous decline that befell Portsmouth. Knowing this, and knowing Kenwright, I’d imagine Evertonians would be nervous about Kenwright being largely responsible for picking the right owners.

In the near future Everton will continue to tick over, finish somewhere between sixth and ninth, with maybe the odd cup run thrown in. Long term things look at bit dicier. A large portion of the squad is aging, and inevitably their most sellable assets are their younger players like Baines, Barkley and Mirallas. There’s virtually no chance that Lukaku stays beyond this season. Perhaps ‘The Winner’ who’s never won anything will help them out by overpaying for more of their players? Bill Kenwright could help Everton a lot more if he sold the club to someone with the money and business acumen to drive it forward.

SOUTHAMPTON

Current League Position: 5th

Pre-season Prediction: 9th

Revised Prediction: 7th

This is what Everton could easily be, if they had a relatively new stadium and an owner who has the ability to invest in players.

They’re also another team who are very well organised. They play with an excellent defensive structure and all the players exhibit a good level of tactical awareness. Their team pressing is some of the best in the league. Oh, I do love me a well coached team. The keystone to their success is in midfield. Morgan Schneiderlin and Victor Wanyama aren’t likely to create much, but individually, and as a pair, imbued by Southmapton’s well regimented off the ball work, they form the best defensive shield in the league. This is backed up by Southampton’s defensive record – fewest goals conceded thus far.

Because Mauricio Pochettino has instilled, impressively quickly, a successful tactical structure, the biggest improvements will come through upgrading the personnel. Particularly in attack. Rickie Lambert and Jay Rodriguez are decent strikers, but the signing of Pablo Osvaldo from Roma suggests that Pochettino isn’t satisfied with them. I’m not sure he will be with Osvaldo in time either so expect Southampton to make another signing in attack soon. Gaston Ramirez is the only genuine playmaker at the club, what’s the harm in adding another? Ramirez may be on his way out anyway as he’s been used sparingly by Pochettino this season and last. Celtic fans will tell you that Artur Boruc isn’t to be trusted, how about a bid for Asmir Begovic? Jose Fonte seems a bit average, Maya Yoshida is shite, and that Norweigan lad (what was his name again?) has already been and gone. So another centre back, perhaps two, is needed. The flanks will certainly see investment at some point as Pochettino has mostly used Rodriguez and Lambert in wide areas, due to their tactical reliability and goal threat, but he’ll want bespoke options. And given Southampton’s strong financial backing they’ll be under no pressure to sell their best young players like Adam Lallana or Luke Shaw, should some of the richer clubs make a move, and they will, soon enough.

Southampton are set up to be a contender for a Europa league place, perhaps this season. Much will depend on whether they can sign the right players in January and if they settle quickly.

Last summer Southampton rightly elected to concentrate their spending on quality rather than quantity. They should do so again in January. If you have no money it’s often better to take a scattergun approach, particularly in the loan market, but if you’ve got the resources, you have to back your own judgment. That’s if you have designs of being anything other than an also-ran.

Clearly Southampton do, hence the sacking of Nigel Atkins. Typically, the drones in the media and on social media inevitably misunderstood the motivation behind the change of manager, bemoaning it as ‘unfair’. Well it’s now become clear that the decision makers at Southampton knew what they were doing, and what they wanted. They wanted a manager who could drive the club on, not barely keep it afloat. Because those running the club know what they’re doing and they’re ambitious, there’s a very good chance that Southampton will be a good side for a while. Pochettino’s success has already vindicated the veracity of everything in this paragraph. What a guy.

In the short term I fully expect them to hover around sixth place contention for most of the season, and if they improve again, in January, and next summer, and retain their best players, they could challenge for, and gain European football through the league. A lot ifs there I know. But it would be good to see a team, any team, actually attempt to break the top six monopoly and bloody a few noses through building conscientiously. Southampton have already served notice that they can mix it with the best and get a result so far this season. The hard bit is turning those isolated results into being a consistent expectancy and then dominance.

That’s the bloated middle class of the premier league dealt with, I’ve gone from those with a mild case of pramface whilst shopping in Asda, to the dickheads rocking a V-neck with a double height fridge full of goods from Waitrose. Tomorrow I’ll be looking at the Bankers and Hedge Fund Managers of the Premier League – the rich cunts who buy who they like whenever they like and whose fans act with a voraciously tactless sense of entitlement. More life affirming stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Posted in Sports | Tagged Aston Villa, Everton, Fulham, Newcastle United, Premier League, Premier League Quarterly Report, Southampton, Swansea City, West Bromwich Albion, West Ham United | 2 Comments

The Premiership Quarterly Report – Part One

Posted on 29/10/2013 by Wichita Lineman Was A Song I Once Heard

We’re a quarter of the way through the Premier League season, and at this point we start to get a reasonably accurate idea of who’s what and who’s not…well, particularly good.

One of my vices is watching football, sadly, and because I write a lot…well, yeah, you end up with naff articles like this. There is a more important reason for me doing this: I haven’t quite finished an album review which I intended to be my next post on the blog, so this is me essentially waffling away to cover my arse.

I’ll go through all twenty teams, and subdivide the teams into five categories. This will be based on a combination of their performances and results so far, my always shitty and pointless pre-season predictions, their summer transfer business, and a bit of projecting going forward based on the aforementioned criteria. If a team has had a good start, or has underachieved, am I buying it? Under each team’s header I’ll include league position, where I felt they would finish before the season and my revised prediction. Having all the information localised makes it easier to decipher just how clueless I am and how preposterous a concept predictions are.

Today I’m focusing on those likely to be involved in the annual quagmire of insufferable ineptitude.

The Riff Raff – The Relegation Candidates

CRYSTAL PALACE

Current League Position: 20th

Pre-season Prediction: 20th

Revised Prediction: 20th

As I wrote here about the cascade of middle managers in the Premier League, there’s no shame in being one. But clearly Ian Holloway feels he’s not cut out for the despair of presiding over another inevitable relegation campaign. Shame really. Getting Blackpool and Palace promoted to the Premier League, given their meagre resources, was a commendable achievement.

Palace have a great core of supporters, it has to be said. They should be managed by a figure who’ll inspire the fans, who in turn will help inspire the team.

However, it sounds suspiciously like they won’t be getting this calibre of person. As such this is where I cease to be kind to Crystal Palace.

So in the name of petty vindictiveness let’s start with this rancid chicken nugget:

Steve Parish, the Crystal Palace chairman, has confirmed that he will seek talks with Pulis but does not want to rush the appointment and will also interview a long list of what he calls the “usual suspects”.

Fuck sake. First things last, the ‘Usual Suspects’ is a great movie, but it’s not the sound byte you want to be hearing from your club’s main decision maker in relation to the search for the club’s next manager. Those who exist on the managerial merry-go-round do so for a reason: they’re periodically available due to their rank mediocrity, and often dull football. It stands to reason that mediocrity attracts its like. Steve Parish is probably a wealthy man, and he probably considers himself a success, but sadly for Parish imagination costs nothing and it is not a quality that you can earn or buy. Football isn’t really a business, even though businessmen like to believe it is or could be. Some of them crudely assume the processes that made them a success in business will translate to football. The clubs whose chairmen or owners lack the imagination, the capacity and the humility to think differently than what they’re used to, tend to struggle, regardless of resources, and they tend to hire managers who also lack these qualities.

So it’s no surprise that Parish has identified Tony Pulis as his prime candidate. That skip-hat wearing cunt. If they hire Pulis they’ll be replacing Holloway, one of the few genuinely affable and likeable characters in game, with one of dullest and intrinsically morose. It’s bad enough that the ghastly Stoke City side Pulis built is still functioning ‘as is’ under the feckless Mark Hughes. But to have two sides in the Premier league playing this brand, his brand, of (literally) smash mouth Charlie ‘longball’ Hughes football in the year 2013 is pitiful. What a fucking eyesore for the ‘greatest league in the world’.

I will however take solace in the inevitability of Pulis failing, as on paper, Palace, alongside Hull, have the least talented squad in the league. The only times I’ve seen them play this season were away to Liverpool and at home to Fulham and Arsenal. Against Liverpool they should’ve been seven down at half time, and they collapsed pitifully at home to a mediocre Fulham side after going in front. Their best performance was against Arsenal, immediately after Holloway’s departure. But Palace never looked like getting anything from the game. This despite playing against ten men for the final twenty-five minutes, and with Arsenal having suffered an energy sapping defeat to Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League only a few days earlier.

Will things get better? Doubtful. This squad doesn’t appear have the attributes that would be conducive to ‘Pulisball’, aside from Cameron Jerome, who is on loan from Stoke (of course). So at least there’s one person who should be happy with Pulis arriving. What use will the likes of Campana, Jonathan Williams and Barry Bannan, all small, slight and technically proficient, be to Pulis?

And yes, I will keep banging on about this – Tony Pulis is a virus, a destroyer of hope and ambition. When people bemoan England’s failure at international level, that the likes of Pulis are lionised for getting results, and placing functionality (at best) over any semblance of art and ingenuity, is one of the reasons. He’s defended by mediocre pundits, whose opinions are perversely and undeservedly elevated by virtue of being delivered from the pulpit of a garishly lit television studio. They empathise with Pulis’s defeatist ethos, and then perpetuate it by defending it, as that’s all they themselves can understand. This permeates the behaviour of the even more moronic pushy parents who shout at their kids to ‘hav’ it’ from the sideline. Because winning is more important than learning through failure, innit?

I feel bad for the Palace fans, if Pulis takes over they’re going to be mirroring this sort of degradingly moronic behaviour from the stands, because when it comes to the crunch, loyalty, and the success of your team always transcends any desire for the aesthetic. In choosing Tony Pulis Palace will be choosing defeatism, they’ll have chosen against their own fans, against all of us, against football. Palace will be relegated playing one of the most reductive and depressing forms of football known to man.

If they don’t hire Pulis they’ll just be relegated. But at least, at least, in failure they won’t be despised.

SUNDERLAND

Current League Position: 19th

Pre-season Prediction: 15th

Revised Prediction: 18th

Oh my. What a shambles, or is calamity a more appropriate noun?

The good news is that fascist maniac Paolo Di Canio is gone, and it can’t get any worse than being badly managed by a circus, right?

Di Canio is the sort of cartoonish character who attracts the worst kind of voyeuristic navel-gazing, which Sky Sports delights in and believes their audience wants. Perhaps they’re right about that, I suspect they are, but it does Sunderland no good to be the collateral damage in such a ghastly spectacle. At least Sunderland’s board rightly realised that if they intend to get out of trouble, it’s better for your manager to be a stabilising influence rather than a corrosive one.

I don’t know if Gus Poyet’s the man to ‘stabilise’ things, but by making the change now Poyet has three quarters of the season left to rectify things. It also gives him a chance to assess what he has, or more likely needs ahead of the January transfer window, where he’ll need to be busy. Even if Ellis Short’s taste in managers has been rotten, he hasn’t been Steptoe & Son with the cash, so Poyet should be backed. Poyet’s biggest challenge in the interim is changing the culture at Sunderland. Morale is dreadfully low. The players (well some of them) have been exposed for not trying hard enough. Even after Poyet’s arrival they mailed it in against Swansea. There was more effort against Newcastle at the weekend, but that was a local derby. Let’s see if it continues, it had better.

Poyet did well at Brighton, and almost got them promoted last season playing good football. All prejudices aside, Di Canio was looking enact a similar change with Sunderland after Martin O’Neill had left yet another wretchedly uncultured aftermath in his wake. Poyet has inherited some players who should fit well with his preferred style of play.

Looking at things in the abstract, they’ll (probably) need forty points to survive, which means they need another thirty-six points from twenty-nine games. That doesn’t seem too problematic when you take into account that they’ve played Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United (all at home admittedly) already.

Now to the problems; their upcoming league fixtures, on paper at least, don’t hold the promise of many points: Man City (H), Stoke (A), Villa (A), Chelsea (H), Spurs (H) and West Ham (A). Ouch.

They need Stephen Fletcher to stay fit, which is an issue, as he’s clearly their best striker. Jozy Altidore has strength and Fabio Borini has effort, but both lack finesse. What is Conor Wickham good for exactly? Not goals, which Sunderland desperately need. They clearly need more from Adam Johnson. I like Emanuele Giaccherini, a versatile and creative player, who has the skill to both create space and utilise it. I suspect he likes his bank balance even more since he moved to Sunderland from Juventus in the summer. But is this remuneration enough to offset the brutal reality of leaving one of the best clubs in Europe, where he got game time no less, for this? He’s their best player, and Sunderland need him to be engaged. Is he up for the impending dogfight? Are any of them? In Giaccherini’s case there is a World Cup finals squad place with Italy to play for, and he’s probably playing for another move if and when Sunderland get relegated.

Poyet’s limited in ways to improve them defensively. I’m not averse to analytics or stats, even though I’m suspicious of the value they’ve been attributed, by some, when applied to analysing football. Quick tangent – football isn’t baseball, a sport predicated on isolated individual duels. Football is about eleven men and how they co-exist and function, individually and collectively. The attempt to quantify individual value in particular is subject to too many random variations and tactical permutations to ever come to a decisive conclusion using stats alone. I think stats are best used to either validate or question your existing perception of events. In this instance the stats can certainly go swivel, I don’t need to see them to know that O’Shea and Cuellar are the worst centre back pairing in the league. They’re immensely vulnerable on the break, especially when isolated in space, or in wide areas. They’re both awful footballers too. Central defenders usually have the most time in possession of all the outfield players. When you’re a struggling side you’re asking for it if your centre backs are unable to defend in space and are incapable of using the ball constructively. Modibo Diakite will surely get his chance. He better be, at worst, decent.

Things aren’t much better in midfield. Options are aplenty, but Craig Gardner is average and Lee Cattermole is a persistent liability. Poyet must rue Di Canio’s decision to jettison Stephane Sessegnon, even if it was characteristically mad. Their best pairing is probably a combination of Ki Sung-Yueng (on loan from Swansea), David Vaughan or Sebastian Larsson. Larsson is a decent winger, but is barely passable as a central midfielder. Sunderland need better.

You wonder how much the loss of Simon Mignolet to Liverpool, when coupled with Di Canio’s destructive man-management, has affected the psyche of the whole team. Kieren Westwood is a decent keeper, but Mignolet is one of the best in the league. Knowing you have one of the best keepers in your side can only increase confidence in your ability to be secure and keep the opposition scoreless, which is the platform for results and points. Sunderland need to start picking those up sharpish, but looking at their overall predicament you wonder when and how they’re going to do that before it’s too late.

HULL CITY

Current League Position: 10th

Pre-season Prediction: 20th

Revised Prediction: 19th

I’m certainly not anti-American, but these insidious attempts to homogenise football clubs through ‘franchising’ wants to fuck off right now. Hull City’s name change is the latest cringe worthy transgression. Let’s hope the ‘Hull City’ fans succeed in getting it changed.

Apart from that I don’t have anything insightful to say here, though that arrogantly insinuates that I usually do. I haven’t seen Hull play this season. The only time I will go out of my way to watch them will be when they face my team, Liverpool, home and away, which hasn’t happened yet. Other than that I have no idea. Their squad appears to be a conglomerate of no-names, castoffs from bigger clubs and people who I’d never heard of before. But they’ve started reasonably well and have the most points of the three promoted clubs thus far.

Don’t let Steve Bruce’s comically disgusting appearance fool you, he’s a canny operator. He has a tendency to keep teams in the Premier League. Either that or he uses his innate capacity for ominous precognition. He always seems to correctly sense that the ship is sinking long before anyone else, and jumps before it goes under. That he’s largely responsible for it going south is completely beside the point. His perceived self sacrifice allows him to insulate himself from blame, and ultimately it will ensure he ensnares another unimaginative chairman into giving him another job on the managerial road to nowhere.

Regardless, I reckon this start of theirs is a bullshit mini-mirage. I’m putting them in the relegation mix until they prove otherwise. I doubt they will.

NORWICH CITY

Current League Position: 18th

Pre-season Prediction: 17th

Revised Prediction: 17th

They say, whoever ‘they’ are, that continuity in football is advantageous. This is a misnomer, having quality and the resources to purchase quality players and pay them, that’s what’s truly advantageous. Norwich are clearly doing everything they can to make the case that continuity is as trite and baseless a cliché as you’ll find. As a footballing meme, I have it right up there alongside some lofty company, other belters include; that you need no nonsense centre backs, you can’t play two left footed centre backs together, all black goalkeepers are rubbish, or anything ever said by Jim Jefferies. The best is Lionel Messi not being able to handle playing Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium on a cold Wednesday night in November, you can’t top that one. Ever.

Back to continuity and Norwich City, Chris Hughton has remained in charge, and has spent a decent amount of cash, yet they’re still awful defensively and a relegation contender, as they were last season. Granted, the awfulness is largely due to personnel not tactics. Hughton can’t be excused however, as he spent all their cash on forwards this summer. The defence is spearheaded by Michael Turner, deemed not good enough by Sunderland. True story. Bassong, their best centre back, and by some distance, is a Newcastle reject and Spurs squad player reject, nuff said.

Their biggest conundrum becomes finding the right balance in midfield to supplement their strength, the attack, and their weakness, their defence. Last season Hughton vacillated between a flat four and the dreaded and distrusted, in English football parlance at least, midfield diamond that the previous manager Paul Lambert preferred. Norwich certainly lack a player with the specific qualities of a number ten to justify playing the AC Milan diamond system. But, as a practical compromise, its use would allow them to use both Hooper and Van Wolfswinkel through the middle while affording the greatest amount of freedom to their most creative midfielder, Robert Snodgrass. You could make the argument Snodgrass is their best player. However, Snodgrass is best utilised on the left of a front three, which means in that system one of the two strikers they bought last summer either sits on the bench or is on wing duty. If results don’t improve relatively soon expect Hughton to go four-four-two at home more often.

Speaking of the new signings getting Ricky Van Wolfswinkel (great fucking name) and Leroy Fer (not bad either) were coups, and maybe, just maybe that, in combination with Sunderland, Palace and Hull being in the same league, will be enough to keep them up. Gary Hooper, predictably, has been rubbish thus far. Yet more fools gold from the SPL.

Bottom line – I’m picking them to survive, by default.

This might be an opportune time to broach the issue of why only three teams are relegated from the Premier League each season, and why we have a twenty team league.

So far, not that you’re counting, I’ve already covered four teams who, in truth, are poor enough that they drag the quality of the league – or product, if you prefer, but only if you’re an absolute cunt – down a notch or two. In truth I’d love to see the back of all the sides in this section of the review. Twenty teams is too many, far too many. It should be shrunk to sixteen, at most. This will never happen, as that’ll mean less games, which means less home gates, less worldwide betting, less television revenue and ergo less money for everyone. On the bright side it allows me to perpetually resent Sky Sports for their shameless gall in attempting to sell me the excitement, and the glamour, of Super Sunday games consisting of Fulham versus Sunderland, and Norwich versus Hull. It’s a pitiful spectacle, and so are Norwich City, though probably not pitiful enough. But they should be.

STOKE CITY

Current League Position: 17th

Pre-season Prediction: 16th

Revised Prediction: 16th

It’s good to see Mark Hughes back standing on the sidelines of football pitches with his hands in his pockets wearing that permanently half confused half irritated look on his face. This only changes to an incredulous wide eyed and mouthed shock, with his arms aloft, when a refereeing decision goes against his side. Which given he’s now the manager of the dirtiest team in the league will be a more frequent occurrence.

Still, Hughes should be thankful, refereeing ineptitude, and in some instances aptitude, allows him to indulge in his only area of managerial expertise: blaming the refs in the post-match interview. His inability, after almost fifteen years in management, to conceptualise any new tactical paradigm and, in general, showing a complete lack of imagination have nothing to do with it, obviously. It’s hard to imagine a more uninspiring person in a leadership position, in any vocation.

And, honestly, that’s good news for Stoke. As they also have set style of play which suits the limited abilities of most of the players they have. Hughes will be incapable of knowing how to sabotage it, though that doesn’t preclude us from daring to dream that he’ll somehow find a way.

Stoke do have some things of value, they have one of the best goalkeepers in the league in Asmir Begovic, though for how much longer? Steven N’Zonzi, or to give him his full title, Steven N’Kemboanza Mike Christopher N’Zonzi, when he’s not elbowing, kicking and pushing, can actually play a bit. Peter Crouch could never be accused of lacking technique and composure. And to their credit, as a group, they’re one of the hardest working sides in the division.

Looking at their squad page, two of their loan signings intrigued me. Perhaps these are the human interest stories that will soften my dislike for this revolting incarnation of StokeCity? First is Marko Arnautovic, who has a tendency for the occasional Ibrahimovic-esque moment. He’s already played for Inter Milan and Werder Bremen, and he’s still relatively young. Secondly, it came as a complete surprise to me that Stephen Ireland has joined Stoke on loan from Villa. What happened to him? He looked reasonably good at Manchester City, and while he wasn’t going to develop into a top player his career has nose dived into abject irrelevancy since. He’s better than that, than this. It’s a worrying sign that so many managers seem to distrust him. Perhaps distrust is too strong a characterisation, but a lot of managers certainly prefer others to him. I just wonder what good joining Stoke will do? He seems to have been a victim of circumstance (Manchester City being taken over by the Abu Dhabi group) and bad career choices (getting a hair transplant, which failed, then joining Aston Villa). Careers are ruined on much less.

Anyway Stoke are yet another example which strengthens my argument for shrinking the number of teams in the Premier league. Aside from Stoke City fans, does any sane person want to watch them? They’ll survive, but in the most perfunctory and ghastly way possible. That’s the summation of their ambition, every season. All in all, they’re utterly pointless.

CARDIFF CITY

Current League Position: 16th

Pre-season Prediction: 18th

Revised Prediction: 15th

The last of the promoted sides, and it’s no surprise that of three they have the best chance of survival given they easily invested the most cash during the summer. Even so, in relation to the preposterous fees that are commonplace in today’s market, they didn’t spend that much.

I’ll give Malkay you in Maryhill MacKay credit here. There’s a recurring theme among Premier League sides, most of them are proportionately weak in two primary midfield functions – ball retention (composure) and winning it back (effort and tactical organisation). Even the top sides in England suffer to varying degrees, though in their case I’m talking comparatively to the other top European clubs and leagues.

Anyway back to MacKay, he rightly eschewed the Colin Wanker doublethink that many of the managers promoted to the Premier League succumb to. The notion that I need strikers, lots of strikers, strikers who can score goals, strikers who are strikers like, and that having a glut of attacking options, more than anything else, leads to survival. Instead McKay recognised the league’s midfield inefficiency and targeted it, spending most of his cash on Gary Medel. Medel, a Chilean international, is a bit of a looney tune, and more of a destroyer of shinguards than an artiste with the ball, but he’s also a strong player who wins back possession and never stops running. The impressive home win over Manchester City saw Medel thrive in his typical casting as rabid underdog. When your best player also happens to be a leader who plays like that, it’s infectious, and Cardiff are certainly a side who work hard and stick together. When you lack the quality you need in many areas to compete at this level, at the very least, you need Medel’s attributes and attitude to stand a chance. Sunderland in their current state are indicative of what you look like without having either enough skill or application.

Their other main summer signings were Stephen Caulker from Spurs and Andreas Cornelius from FC Copenhagen. I personally think Caulker’s overrated, but he’s an upgrade for Cardiff in defence and he’s clearly a Premier League calibre player. Cornelius is a mystery to me. He’s highly rated by the those who fawn over the opinions of the celebrity scouting intelligentsia on Twitter, but as their main summer attacking purchase Cardiff need Cornelius to prove himself. Which brings us to their biggest issue – a consistent source of goals.

They do have options up front, Colin Wanker approves. Craig Bellamy, by default, is their best attacker. He’s still effective due to his pace, albeit he’s now in his thirty-fifth year and he needs to have his minutes managed. Peter Odenwingie is another who’s past his best now. However he’s younger than Bellamy and can be productive out wide. After that it’s Frazier Campbell, the sort that’s probably too good for the Championship but not good enough for the Premiership. That Korean lad is a good dribbler, though not the prolific sort. You suspect that MacKay will hope that Cornelius proves himself. Regardless I think MacKay will bring in another forward in January, perhaps on loan if nobody separates themselves as the clear first choice. It’s a World Cup year and there will be players available who need to play. Cardiff’s owners to their credit, when they haven’t shamelessly pissed about with the club’s colours, have helped prevent this team from hitting any sort of plateau, or regressing, through consistently investing in players.

I’ll be a lot more confident in my prediction of their survival if they improve the squad again in January, and unlike the other two promoted clubs I’m fairly certain they’ll be trying to.

If we go by sample size, in this case one that’s too small, the bottom seven clubs are currently projected to have the lowest amount of points, per those positions, in years. The disparity between the Premier League’s upper class and the middle and lower classes seems to widening. Now what does that remind you of? Tomorrow I’ll review the Premier League’s bloated middle class. They say art imitates life, well Premier League football imitates the mediocrity, greed and cuntishness of it.

Posted in Sports | Tagged Cardiff City, Crystal Palace, Hull City, Norwich City, Premier League, Premier League Quarterly Report, Stoke City, Sunderland | 7 Comments

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