Holy Cow! We Actually Learned Something!

Yes. In contrast to the last couple of weeks, where the opening skirmishes only revealed the bleeding obvious – Wigan and West Ham are in deep, deep trouble; Blackburn, Birmingham, Wolves, Stoke and Sunderland are Championship teams hoping to prolong the inevitable relegation for another season playing unattractive, clumphumper football; the top three are head and shoulders above the rest – this week provided a few genuine ripostes to the status quo.

The Battle For Fourth Is Hotting Up (Again)

With Man City losing to Sunderland, Mancini’s safety first away policy is starting to look ever more ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as Carlos Tevez’s outstanding balloon over the bar when faced with the openest of open goals. Man City certainly don’t look like the unstoppable juggernaut we all thought they’d be when they signed half the eligible footballers in the world over the summer. Only Tottingham‘s unsurprising loss to goal-shipping Wigan saved City’s blushes. At this rate they’re both going to be feeling the heat from on again, off again teams like Villa and, er, Bolton. Oh and by the way Ya-Ya Toure is enormous.

That European Hangover Is A Bitch

Rapid Vienna fans demonstrate a level of wit and organisation far beyond their team's on pitch performance.

Not just for Villa, who were comfortably outplayed by Rapid Vienna for the second year in succession and failed to qualify for the Euro Little League, but for some of those who actually won their qualifiers. Step forward both Man City and Tottingham, who’ve moved into the proper first stages of the Little and Big Cups respectively. Spurs, in particular, are learning that the euphoria of a midweek Euro rave (and their 4 – 0 spanking of the Young Boys was certainly euphoric) is quickly met by the bowel-loosening lurch of a weekend Premiership defeat (in this case at home to double six nil losers Wigan). Still, if you want to play with the big boys…

Have Arsenal Finally Grown Up?

Usually an Arsenal trip to Blackburn means only one thing. An ignominious defeat and a motorway journey filled with the sounds of Arsene Wenger bemoaning the kick-tastic defending style of his opponents (which actually sounds like two things but they’re clearly related). This time, however, not even the full might of Fat Sam’s legion of cloggers could defeat him and Arsenal ground out a valuable and stylish win. Admittedly the defence still looked shaky, especially for the Blackburn goal, where all but one of the back four were well out of position, but it’s still points gained where previously they’ve been dropped. If this continues Arsenal will start looking the business.

Will No One Rid Me Of This Turbulent Priest?

With a round dozen bookings (that’s almost a team’s worth), only two goals and precious little good football, Wolves and Newcastle set new standards for on pitch kicknology. Now Newcastle may be coming in on the back of a 6 goal hammering of Villa, but they’re no total football outfit and it was a shame that Wolves should play a home match in such dismal fashion. This isn’t ‘committed defending’, whatever that is, it’s just shite, late, aggressive lunging at opposition players in the vain hope of either intimidating or injuring them out of the game. The sad thing is that there are at least three teams markedly worse than either of these two no hopers.

Villa Might Not Be Fucked After All

Having lost another star midfielder, been pounded at Newcastle and dumped out of the Little League (so much for finishing sixth last season), you might be forgiven for thinking that Villa‘s season is all but finished. However, a well played win against Everton suggests that not everything is over, although it might be for the boys in blue.

Not A Lot Learned From

Man U‘s win over West Ham, Chelsea‘s win over Stoke, Blackpool‘s draw with Fulham (suggests that Blackpool have a bit of hope at home, while Fulham haven’t lost their away resilience), or Liverpool‘s win over West Brom. While the only interesting thing about Bolton‘s draw with Birmingham was which Scottish manager was going to explode first over their team’s poor performance.

Crazy title, great book

In a world full of drugs, where obsessed readers gorge down on Lee Child, Michael Connolly and James Ellroy like they were amphetamine coated candy pops, discovering Don Winslow is like getting your first sniff of crack cocaine. It’s fast, it’s all encompassing and when you’ve finished voraciously cramming The Power of the Dog down you just can’t wait to get another hit.

This is a two and a half day book, which isn’t to say it’s short, just that it’s compulsive. You’re totally hooked on Don’s decades long epic on the rise and fall of the Mexican cocaine cartels and the attempts of the authorities to put them out of business. There’s corruption a-plenty along with lashings of claret and more containerloads of coke than you can shake a nosespoon at.

But it’s not the subject matter that’s so compelling as much as it is Don’s ability to craft real, believable characters, each of whom speaks with a wholly unique, identifiable voice. You sympathise with each of them, whatever their status, and their hopes, ambitions and fears all seem thoroughly real. In this way it reminds me of Ellroy’s LA Confidential, a grand, sprawling behemoth of a novel that interlinks story after story into a powerful narrative that evokes both time and place and gives you a sense of really being there in amongst the action.

This is one of those books you just devour and, having finally consumed it, immediately want to  begin again if only to recapture the sensation of reading it once more. Depending on your character, you’re torn between immediately lending it out to your very best friend so they can share the experience and never mentioning it to anyone and hoarding it all for yourself.  I’m of the former disposition and have already lent it and by god I’m almost regretting it. There’s only one thing left to do and that’s to get stuck into all Don’s other work. Like crack, one dose is not enough.

Still Early Days, But It’s Taking On A Familiar Feel

Difficult to say we learned anything from Arsenal vs Blackpool, except possibly how utterly forlorn Wigan are. Blackpool were completely out of their depth and performed about as well as a bunch of practice ground dummies as Arsenal pretty passed and tikki takked their way around them. Rosicky was commanding in the number 10 role just in front of Blackpool’s defence and Theo Wallchart took full advantage of their lack of pace and understanding. 6 – 0 didn’t flatter Arsenal, but somehow neither did it make them appear totally dominant in a cruel, kill the opposition off and leave them to die sort of way.

Wigan meanwhile were well on their way to achieving their goal of continuing to look even less likely to stay up than Blackpool. Apparently they held their own against Chelsea for a good half hour before being comprehensively run over by the Chelski juggernaut.  Drogba looked back to his old, club self and once they had scored, Chelsea never looked like getting less than a hatful.

Man U proved what we’ve all suspected for a while, that Fulham at home are a tough team to beat. In a man of the match performance Brede Hengerland, who’d previously stated that he didn’t like getting noticed, scored at both ends, his final goal an outstanding header to deprive Man U of two points.

Man City showed us nothing special, there still doesn’t seem to be a coherent team there, but they were still more than enough for them to turn over Liverpool, who look like a team requiring major surgery to get back to their old top four status. I can see both struggling to find a consistent run of form, let alone a consistent team. Liverpool don’t have the cash to invest at present, while Man City have too much to be sensible and with Mancini’s play it safe away from home philosophy, they might have a tough time nicking that top four space from Spurs.

If last season was their breakthrough season, qualification for the Champions League being the equivalent of being promoted to the Prem, then this season is critical for Spurs. They have to get into the group stages and stay in the top four to begin to reap the benefits of last year’s hard work. Based on their defeat of Stoke, they look to be a good attacking team certainly capable of challenging for the top four, but with ‘Arry’s preference for a 4 – 4 – 2 lineup they may have problems in the Big Cup.

Aston Villa by contrast are looking more and more like one of them yo-yo sides. One week they put on a good show, the next they’re torrid. And you can’t put it down simply to the loss of Milner. They were simply awful defensively against Newcastle, who like Blackpool are showing that the best in last year’s Championship can take the rubbish Prem sides relatively easily. You feel that if Villa were to lose against Rapid Vienna and be eliminated from the Little Cup, then their season would effectively be over and it wouldn’t even be the end of August.

Birmingham and Blackburn played yet another one of those Why-The-Fuck-Are-They-In-The-Prem matches featuring two teams whose football is based on ‘character’ rather than any display of skill or attractiveness. Like the ugly girls at the disco, they’re always there being picked up last of all by the Match of the Day crew.

You could say much the same about Sunderland, who look every bit as ghastly as a Steve Bruce team can be, and Wolves, who still haven’t managed to get a competent goal scorer. Admittedly both West Brom and Everton look like they might show a bit of promise on a good day, while bizarrely Bolton look like they might break with their tradition of lumpen prole play and actually pass it around a bit.

Finally West Ham are this year’s Team That’s Too Good To Go Down. They aim to eliminate any credit Avram Grant got for taking Chelski to the Big Cup final all those years ago.