Where's The Midfield? (Not Quite) Live Edition 26/10/13

It's not really live given it's two days later that I'm writing this post, but in all likelihood my trip to BD8 on Saturday afternoon will be my only live football of the season. Short of them making another Wembley appearance, I suppose. After Tuesday's creditable performance at Preston in drawing 2-2 after two 1-0 defeats, pre-season favourites Wolverhampton rolled into town. The visit of Wolves conjures memories of Edinho punching Keith Curle in the kop end penalty area, a thunderous near post free kick from Nigel Pepper, Robbie Blake completely stealing Robbie Keane's thunder, and of course, the 9th of May, 1999. Well, technically that was in Wolverhampton, but you get the idea. Wolves have fallen on hard times of late, with two successive relegations from the Premier League to the old Third Division.

Football is a funny mistress though, and we are continually reminded that the biggest wage bills and largest supports are no guarantee of success. Though Wolves were making a nonsense of that cynicism with 10 league wins from 13 games before Saturday. Over 18,000 packed into Valley Parade for the game, and it was somewhat strange to see a side with one defeat all season being, to be blunt, bloody awful for the first 25 minutes. Sat in a 4-5-1 formation, they seemed content to sit behind the ball, hoof it down the inside left channel and let their prematurely balding striker Griffiths take terrible shots at goal from the corner of the area. I kept asking myself "how on earth have they won 10 games. They're rubbish". City took the lead 15 minutes in when Kyel Reid's cross to the far post dropped to Rafa De Vita on his home debut, and after his first shot was kicked off the line, he scored with the rebound. It was no more than the home side deserved.

Wolves manager Kenny Jackett ditched his formation and gameplan after 25 minutes, bringing on six-and-a-half million quid's worth of striker in Irish international Kevin Doyle. And within a couple of minutes, Wolves led 2-1. First, for about the third time in the afternoon two City players ran into one another, the ball ran loose and a Wolves player shot from distance, only for Jon McLaughlin to dive over the ball. If you've seen that before, you were probably watching me play football on a Wednesday night. And then not a minute later Richard Stearman had the freedom of the six yard box to head in a left wing cross after a corner had been blocked. Up to half time, Wolves marginally held the edge, but they were OK, nothing special. They'd been gifted the lead. It's slightly worrisome the number of bad goals we're conceding from set pieces at the moment. It's a far cry from last year. 

So at half time, the emergency signal was sent up from the Valley Parade floodlights. Enter, stage left, Nahki Wells, out for four weeks with an ankle injury. And for much of the second half, we penned Wolves in without creating many clear scoring opportunities. The positive: Wells is back, looked sharp and gave the side the pace up front it was sorely missing, Hanson was a monster in the first 25 minutes, the crowd were patient and supportive. The negative: Kyel Reid had one of those days when he wanted to beat his man a second or third time instead of putting the ball on Hanson's head. His dive in the penalty area when he could probably have rounded the Wolves keeper and crossed instead of falling into him showed poor decision making. And how many times can two professional players run into one another during a game?

Three defeats in four, after one in the first 10. The games are harder at present, for certain, but there's a little bit of luck not going in their favour at present. Maybe it's just evening itself out after two or three sides pressed the self destruct button against them earlier in the season. Hopefully they can get back to winning ways in the upcoming weeks.

Oh and we've apparently drawn the fat crooked alleged-flasher man in the FA Cup in two weeks. That'll be nice.

Elsewhere: Man Utd won but weren't very good again. Liverpool appear to be 'for real' as pundits over here like to say, and Joe Hart dropped the latest in a series of high profile clangers in a last minute defeat at Chelsea. Not that I saw it, being sat over Greenland on a plane at the time (Greenland is very pretty from 40,000 feet). England have something of a problem in goal ahead of the World Cup. They have a lot of problems, so the more the merrier, I suppose.

Where's The Midfield? 5/10/13

Proving that I'm at least keen to do this for at least another week, more rambling nonsense about the beautiful game.

That team in BD8: This week they were actually in WS1. As someone who went to Walsall to watch them play there in the Spring of 2006 when it was pretty much my local game, it's not a trip you make more than once. Being over here also makes it hard to repeat. Back then, seeing David Wetherall score an overhead kick remains one of the more bizarre things I've seen at a game. Today, I had to make do with the radio. Well, 80 minutes of the radio. For whatever reason, when I logged into Bantams Player this morning, having been up, as usual, at 7:30 on a Saturday morning, there were no virtually no games accessible. I'm puzzled why, at virtually the only time in the week that the Progress Group (also responsible for the appalling individual Football League club website redesign two summers ago) has any sort of product to maintain basically had nobody at work to realise the whole thing had come crashing down. I'm no fan of the Pulse's commentary, but after about ten minutes, it was sweet music indeed to hear them via their online channel (usually blacked out because of "Progress" Group's commercial rights). 

Fortunately, I didn't miss much. The team continues on its merry way, and to bag a 2-0 win away at a team that had lost 3 of its last 24 games is another impressive feat. I keep thinking the bubble is about to burst, but maybe it isn't going to quite yet. In any other year, 21 points from 10 games would probably see them top, except that thanks to Leyton Orient's freakish 8-wins-from-8 start and the moneyed Wolverhampton and Peterborough, this time they sit in a relatively anonymous 4th place. They have now lost just 3 of the last 25 league games. Kyel Reid scored a wonder goal by all accounts, to add to his divisional player of the month nomination. All those people on the interweb that pull him to bits are very quiet at present. His crossing is a bit erratic, yes, but you don't get complete players at this level, there is usually a flaw somewhere. I'd also like to point out that the first two goals at the playoff final at Wembley came because his crosses were overhit. It pays off sometimes! And you can relive them in one week. Dead excited to get my hands on one.

Elsewhere: Another round of European games this week. Being the gentleman of leisure means that my lunchtimes are spent on the sofa watching games, and not keeping abreast of things on the internet or sitting at my laptop with one earphone craftily out of view. Two things: Firstly, the complete spanking that Manchester City received at the hands of Bayern Munich this week was glorious. They seem to have taken up the mantle that the first-Mourinho-era Chelsea had that no matter how much money you spend, you can't spend your way into the storied company of the continent's best clubs. That you can spend a gazillion pounds on a team and still be made to look like a fourth division side gladdens the heart. I hope the Sheikh was there to see the hilarious spectacle in person. Now I know that Bayern are not for nothing known as FC Hollywood in Germany, but they do possess several German internationals that were developed through their own youth system. They at least realise that as one of the duties of clubs in the Bundesliga is to develop players capable of representing the national side. I think the most humiliating part was that Bayern essentially said at 3-0 "OK, we're done now" and started showboating instead.

Also, Swansea continue to look at home in Europe after their League Cup final win. And though I've seen games of theirs on the TV since that hiding at Wembley, the game the other night brought back the bewildering off-the-ball movement they displayed that miserably cold February afternoon. I couldn't tell you what formation they were playing with the ball, the strikers ended up in midfield, the wingers were the furthest players forward. It must be like chasing shadows for the opponent.

Ship O'Clock: This week's action in the Ship was the Sunderland-Manchester United game. The prospect of a shock result with the amusing consequences of unhappy armchair fans was too enticing. And in the fifth minute, some Keystone Cops defending left bottom side Sunderland (1 point thus far) with a shock lead. And but for ablinding save from De Gea, they might have been too far into the hole before they eventually responded with two strikes from young prospect Adnan Januzaj. The thing that struck me most was the lack of tempo in their attacks. There isn't the cavalier attitude to getting players into the penalty area which ultimately is how they were successful late on in games, in so-called "Fergie time"; opponents were just too punch drunk to hang on for the full 90+ minutes. Moyes seems to be slightly recasting them into a more upscale version of his Everton side of the last 10 years. That might work against the lesser lights, but it's already not worked against Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City. It'll be interesting (read: very amusing if they can't) to see how they address this in the coming weeks.

Another Non Running Post

Two non running posts in a row! To save you all from being bored by another post about transatlantic saucepan shipments, there's been almost no discussion about football here at all over the last few weeks. So I'm going to at least make an effort to discuss football once a week. Maybe I'll call it "Where's The Midfield?" for old times' sake, though the joke is largely redundant now since a certain team in BD8 has a midfield again. It only took them ten years to find one.

Firstly, the continuing good start by that side in BD8. If you'd told me at the outset we'd have 18 points from 9 games, having only lost once by (nearly) October, I'd have called for the men in white coats. It's still somewhat misleading in that we have lost to the highest placed side we've played (the grim Port Vale side of Micky Adams, purveyor of route-one hoofball, 10th), and gained points from sides currently 11th (albeit their keeper was sent off after 25 minutes), 13th, 14th, 15th, 17th, 19th, 20th and 24th. But at the same time, it shows that (touch wood) the side is more than capable of holding its own at this level and should be looking to make the top 6. Today's game demonstrated the character in the side. 1-0 down to a goal in the second minute, having lost your top scorer injured after 20, and not playing at all well; to still dig in and play to the 94th minute in search of a winner speaks volumes about the mentality of the players, something Parkinson spoke of at length when he first arrived at the club just over two years ago. The current team are anything but nervous about playing in front of a large crowd. They've scored in nine league games in a row, which I don't remember happening much in the last 15 years.

Elsewhere: Whisper it quietly, but are the first cracks appearing in the walls of the red half of the Manchester empire? Between van Persie's goals and the motivational powers of Ferguson, a title was won last year with a really quite ordinary team, van Persie and Rooney (and, arguably, De Gea) apart. But now? If there's one thing apparent this year, it's that absent the reign of terror in the dressing room and on the training ground (and the threat of being sold to whichever side is currently managed by Steve Bruce or Mark Hughes), the dead wood at Old Trafford that should have been shipped out years ago (Jones, Anderson, Buttner, Cleverley, Welbeck, Young, Ferdinand off the top of my head) are a damned sight less effective now there's not the morbid fear of the famous hairdryering anymore. Fellaini? In the right circumstances, yes. But at 27.5 MILLION POUNDS? The 1994 and 1999 sides would annihilate the current side without breaking sweat. Bleating about the fixture list is fine and dandy when the fixture computer man gives you Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool in the first five games, but West Brom? At home? The next few years of Saturday mornings in the Ship as the armchair Manchester United fans plaintively plead "but.......but....." at the TV as they finally realise every sporting dynasty ends sooner or later are going to be glorious.

Also: Chelsea. It annoys me no end that the English football media continues to breathlessly flirt with Mourinho like some infatuated teenage schoolgirl with a crush, instead of querying his bonkers idea that leaving Juan Mata out of the side is a good one. They were unambitious to the point of cowardice at Old Trafford in August given how pedestrian Manchester United are these days. Fortunately, last week on the edge of CRISIS they met a Fulham side even less ambitious than that. His teams play an awful, cynical, not-remotely-entertaining, do-just-enough brand of 'football' that would be pilloried if he were, say, Sam Allardyce, Tony Pulis or Neil Warnock, but because he's some tanned, suave fashionably greying continental, the press love him. I didn't read much critique about his team essentially playing without a left hand side for the final 30 minutes at Everton two weeks ago. You're so dreamy, Jose.

If you'd asked me before the start of the season who'd win the league, I'd say Chelsea, with Manchester United second. Because they're both presently as formidable as Sheffield United are in the third division, a side might win by default this year. But who? Manchester City spent another squillion pounds of the Sheikh's money to lose at notoriously tough away venues like Cardiff and Aston Villa (!). Even Fourth Division sides beat Aston Villa. Spurs will always find interesting and creative ways to muck things up. Liverpool, well, they're on the brink of becoming the Toronto Maple Leafs. It might just be Arsenal's turn to win the whole thing by default, if they can keep the ball out of the net enough. Though with Per Mertesacker (turning circle of an oil tanker, terrorised by ex-supermarket shelf stackers), and Laurent Koscielny (generally an accident waiting to happen) in their defence, that's easier said than done. Wenger inherited a defence from George Graham that won him three league titles, bolstered it with Sol Campbell for a bit, but they've been a clown-shoed circus troupe at the back for years and you know they'll revert to type eventually.

Best League in the world? Pffft.