Truly a United City

After 4 games, Manchester has two unbeaten teams at the top of England's top division. With a combined goal difference of +27. Re-read that sentence. Yes, that's right. A year is a long time in football, to paraphrase a wise man, but the difference in the way these two teams are playing is surely one of the most impressive things to be drawn to by these statistics.

Last season, despite winning the title, Manchester United won once away all year. They relied heavily on being hard to beat, and scored their usual amount of late goals with their usual "never know when they're beaten" style. City were even more entrenched in not losing, often getting criticised for negative tactics even at home.

This season, it's all changed. I was highly critical of Mancini's cautious style, and everyone hated the way in which United ruthlessly closed down game after game. Now, though, both sides are playing with an attacking fluidity off which even the best teams in Europe would be proud. The credit has to be given to the managers.

Sir Alex Ferguson looks to be well under way with building his 5th or 6th United side. The old guard have pretty much gone (Ryan Giggs being the sole reminder of years gone by). In their place are a very well selected group of young players, who could almost all be in United's first team for another ten years. The recruitment of Smalling, whilst initially baffling, has looked a masterstroke. We all liked the look of Phil Jones, but with his raw edges have already smoothed, he looks like the unflappable Rolls Royce of a defender Rio Ferdinand once was. Ashley Young, a slightly older recruit (a grandfatherly 26), looks like he's been playing with Wayne Rooney for several years, and is now making the most of his undoubted talent in a team which isn't afraid to give him the ball. Rooney himself is enjoying his football again - the smile is back, and the ball again appears glued to his feet. And the Little Pea has returned and is unsurprisingly right amongst the goals.

The best thing for United is however, that despite Paul Scholes retirement, their midfield still dominates anyone they've come across. They can play 4-4-2 with 2 wingers, and be utterly irresistible. Anderson is again showing he has all the talent to be a seriously good midfielder. And Tom Cleverley has made the most of his opportunity, probing and passing away in a Scholes-like fashion until a bad injury yesterday. The question will be who replaces him in the heart of the United Machine. I'm sure Ferguson has an inspiring idea. Or Michael Carrick.

City, on the other hand, had very little need for a rebuilding/replacement programme over the summer. Their recruitment policy had already meant the gears were in place, they just needed time to mesh together, and a little lubrication to free them up. Cue Kun Aguero, already looking like a bargain at £38million (him or the lumbering Andy Caroll for £35m?). Edin Dzeko has had time to settle into the system, and now looks the epitome of the modern leader of the line (Caroll take note). He looks fitter, has great control, links play, and is lethal in the box. He doesn't need to be quick, he has the speed of thought and foot around him of any one from the three of Silva, Nasri, Aguero or the somewhat sheepish Tevez. Watching City ruthlessly cut Spurs apart time and again, and follow it up with a dose of the same against Wigan was a joy for any believer in passing football.

City's strength is the way their players are comfortable with the shape of the team and their role in it. Their defence is solid, with Kompany and Lescott repelling all comers, covered by 2 defensive midfielders, the outstanding De Jong and the immense presence of Yaya Toure. The full backs are fast and powerful, providing width to stretch the opposition, allowing the room for the attacking 3 to move into, whilst a centre forward (Dzeko/Balotelli/Tevez) occupies the centre halves. It must surely have been a frustration for Mancini that he obviously had this plan in his head but didn't yet have the personnel he wanted to play this way.

As good as this all is for English football, my worry is that despite these two modern giants playing this way in the league, there will be an element of caginess creeping back into their games when they inevitably progress to the latter stages of the Champions League. Changing their game to counteract Barcelona has not benefitted United on the two recent occasions they have tried it. I would sincerely hope that whichever of these teams (or Chelsea) eventually face Barcelona, that they continue to play in their own way and let Guardiola worry about their style. Matching up with Barca only allows them to play the way they want. If they had to think about another team's system, and quality, it may make for a different game.

We need to realise that the strength of the English game is the pace and tempo, hopefully the Red and Blue halves of Manchester will demonstrate this to a triumphant conclusion this season.

Thriving Under No Pressure?

It's that time again. In most major sports, every couple of years, there is some form of major International championships. 2011 is no different, this summer we have proudly sent our Rugby Union teams crusading off to New Zealand in the quest for the holy grail of the Rugby World Cup (RWC).

Although this time there does appear to be a difference. England are travelling, not as holders as they were 4 years ago, but with a somewhat lower weight of expectations. Of course we expect our boys to go over there and show those colonials a stiff upper lip and a resolute defence, but from the point of view of actually winning the tournament, this must be the least pressure these players have faced for several years.

We all know that whenever England sends a team off to a world championships with any expectation, in almost any other sport, it's practically a national characteristic that they'll stutter unconvincingly through the early phases, lurch into the quarter finals to renewed optimism before crashing out dramatically in a choice of one of half a dozen self-inflicted disasters.

This mainly comes from the football team's (still) amazing inability to match hype with talent every 2 summers. However, this has also recently reared its head in Athletics, with a much-hyped Team GB managing to spectacularly shoot itself in the foot, whilst still achieving the "goal" set for it in terms of medals (a paltry 8). The England cricket team pretty much epitomised the stumble and fail model in the recent ODI World Cup, despite a previous impressive, and unlikely, victory in the less vaunted Twenty20 World Cup.

The Rugby World Cup of 2011 has also got off to the same kind of start as England usually bless us with. A ship shod and indisciplined performance against a spirited Argentina had many supporters purely thankful for any win. A demolition of the two minnows in the group, Georgia and Romania, will not serve to mask the deficiencies of this team, but will set up a clash with Scotland to decide who avoids New Zealand in the next round. At the moment, this is as far as most England fans are bothering to look.

Which all perhaps points toward a lack of expectation which can benefit Martin Johnson's team. In 2007, as holders we were crushed by South Africa in the group stages and barely rated comment for the next 3 weeks before upsetting Australia and France only to lose heroically in the final.

It would seem that this inability to live up the intense media scrutiny and hype, causes pressure which your average Englishman doesn't appear to handle well at all. For us amateurs, think of those missed blacks at snooker or pool, those double faults at critical times on the tennis court, or speaking from personal experience, the complete inability to take a penalty kick (happily not just us amateurs). Even the serene Jonny Wilkinson appeared to get the yips at exactly the wrong time yesterday.

We can hope however, that this national trait can actually be beneficial this time; can England without expectation manage to achieve as much as they did in 2007? Surely the team may start to enjoy the freedom to be less predictable than we've seen so far? It must certainly mean that plan B, and perhaps plan C will be developed. Let's allow the flair players (we have a couple) to get their hands on the ball with no fear of failure. And if we lose spectacularly playing high-risk rugby against the likes of Australia or South Africa, let's at least say that's how we want to play and praise their efforts. I know we'd all rather go down in a blaze of glory.

New Year, New Money Worries

As the Abba song goes, "Money Money Money, must be funny, in a Rich man's world". Football is certainly a tale of two extremes in early 2010. With Rich Man City now able to gamble with their wealth on Patrick Vieira at a reported £100,000 per week, contrast their financial fortunes with the "new skint" of Portsmouth, Cardiff and Notts County who haven't been able to pay their players, have been issued winding up orders and high court writs respectively. Certainly the desperation for success in football has led to some (retrospectively) poor choices being made by each of those three clubs.

Of course hindsight is a wonderful thing, but the alarm bells should certainly have rung loudly for Portsmouth fans with the Comical Ali of football owners, Dr Suleiman Al-Fahim regularly proclaiming that "funds will be in place soon". Methinks he doth protest too much. It does seem strange that the man who got the Abu Dhabi United Group involved with Manchester City was not retained by that new regime. His emergence at Portsmouth over the summer asked more questions than it answered; who was this unshaven, overweight guy dressed like a tramp, looking less like a wealthy Arabic investor and more like the chancer he obviously turned out to be. The board got rid of Al-Fahim, brokering yet another takeover, this time from Saudi Arabian Ali al-Faraj, who has also struggled to find the finance to pay the players, pay off the transfer fees owed to other clubs, and has been unable/unwilling to put the fans in the picture regarding his future financing plans. It does appear that Portsmouth are not so much knocking on the door of the administrators, as battering it down with the sort of oak previously only seen in the Marie Rose.

I wrote some months ago on the subject of Sven's Notts County revolution, and the somewhat mysterious nature of the consortium taking over at Meadow Lane. Little more than 4 months into the experiment, Munto Finance have withdrawn their backing and Notts have descended into chaos. Players weren't paid, rumours were rife that Eriksson would follow his manager Hans Backe out of the revolving door, and the expensively assembled squad looked like being broken up in a huge fire sale. The Chairman, Peter Trembling, who was the mouthpiece for the shadowy Munto operation, has suggested that he has some new investors lined up (a line that Portsmouth fans will be able to relate to), so it remains to be seen if Eriksson remains to see out the season. I would suggest there is little or no chance of that.

Cardiff's problems are much more mysterious, and as a result should really give even more cause for concern. Despite regularly selling off their best players (Ramsay, Chopra, Parry, Johnson to name but a few) netting more than £15m in income and having had a cup final appearance 2 years ago, they have today been issued another winding up order by the Inland Revenue over unpaid tax. The Cardiff Chairman, Peter Ridsdale, has previous for this situation having presided over the meltdown at Leeds which eventually led to two relegations, administration and the sale of their ground. It must be stressed that Cardiff were in a vulnerable position when Ridsdale arrived, and it does appear that he's managed to keep them ticking over, but the rot at the heart of the club seems to be a long-term problem. Even their move to a new ground, with all the commercial advantages that gives, has not eased their woes. Cardiff fans must surely be worried that they'll not see out the season.

There must be something that the football league can do to ensure that clubs don't overstretch themselves (salary caps as in Rugby League?), but there must also be a crackdown in the irresponsible ownership that can lead to such circumstances. The fact that the Notts County owners never publicly declared themselves must be an indicator of the fact that their activities weren't in the interests of the football club.

Even England's most successful clubs, Manchester United and Liverpool, aren't immune. Significant debts were placed upon them both by their new "owners" who mortgaged the clubs and their future incomes to the banks in order to have a fashionable Premier League toy. I remember in the 1980s, one of the major London banks had the power of life or death over Spurs, but chose to allow them to continue to dig themselves out of their financial hole as they didn't want to be known as the bank who killed a famous football club. The current financial climate means that this almost certainly won't be the situation this time around, so the loans secured on these two famous clubs must be a source of concern.

It seems that the haves are now proportionally richer, and the have-nots are ever nearer extinction. I completed a football league survey several months ago where one question addressed "what should the priority be for The Football League". One option, and the answer I selected, was "ensuring the survival of the 92 football league teams". I've previously blogged about how the fall through the divisions can affect teams, and the threat of administration is currently hovering over several clubs. Southampton and, Darlington started the new season with points penalties for entering administration, but there are also several league clubs under transfer embargos, including Portsmouth, due to financial irregularities.

If nothing is done to safeguard the future of the football league, we'll eventually end up seeing American Football style franchises, the playthings of billionaires in major cities, with the smaller towns reduced to watching primarily amateur teams. That would be return to how football first started. Maybe not a bad thing...

Tiny Tom and the fake blood

In response to the revealing of the final judgement and transcript of the Bloodgate affair, I thought it only right to publish a verdicty myself. The following also appeared on the bbc website.

Having followed this debacle pretty much throughout, I was looking forward to hearing the "whole story". First up I'd have to say that Tom Williams comes out of this rather less covered in glory than he'd have hoped by coming clean/shopping his colleagues and employers.

As Simon Austin on bbc.co.uk points out, Harlequins offered him financial inducements not to fully disclose, but I for one would have thought that everything he has revealed (his blackmail of the club for a mortgage pay off included) should have resulted in a longer ban rather than a reduction. When this wasn't forthcoming he blew the whole story out of the water which seems like a criminal case to answer if Harlequins want to pursue this (which I guess they won't).

Not that it matters, as I'm sure he'll not be playing in the premiership for quite a while - I can't think of any team wanting to touch him. For someone who was told he was "on the fringes of England squad", he seemed quite prepared to knife in the back the guy who'd got him there. He comes across as a bit of a weasel with no backbone. As a professional, and a grown adult more to the point, he had the option to say no, and if the coach then wouldn't pick him, move to another club because he was "on the fringes of the England squad". It all seems like excuses and a poor attempt to save his own skin, which will hopefully have ruined his career as much as a year ban would have.

At least Dean Richards has taken his medicine, which sadly may be career-ending. All the Quins fans who've jumped on the bandwagon to talk about him as a domineering ogre have conveniently forgotten where they were when he took over, and where he has led them to. You can't have it both ways folks - good cop obviously doesn't work, but bad cop managed a great deal of success, both at Leicester and Quins.

It's a shame Richards got involved in this, as I think he'd have made a great England coach, but I would suggest that as this seems to be the tip of an iceberg, a 3 year ban does seeem excessive. I would argue that it was a case of a streetwise coach exploiting a loophole in the laws which needs to be closed. This is no different in my opinion to Batsmen in cricket being offered the light and taking it when it's still fine for play, or a football manager getting a 5th player sent off or injured to get the game abandoned (I think Sheff Utd did this once).

It seems like English Rugby needs a clean up after this blood letting, but I'm absolutely positive that we're not on our own.

Magpies and shiny things

Finally, the start of the new football season has arrived, and men everywhere can stop annoying their wives and girlfriends and enjoy control over the remote control again.

Obviously the main areas of interest over the summer have revolved around finances. Those clubs with money and those clubs feeling the strain of having none.  For every Manchester City there is a Portsmouth, for every Notts County, a Chester City.  The summer has seen some intriguing developments, but surely none more astounding than the arrival of the Munto consortium in Nottingham, offering Sven Goran Eriksson the chance to end his exile from club football.

I've previously mentioned the decline of Notts County, from the top tier of English football in the mid-1980s, to almost going out of the football league and out of business several times since 2000.  As a football fan there are two things to think about in the Notts County equation. Firstly, what are the implications for the team themselves, and secondly, what does this mean for the game as a whole.

The Notts County team finished near the bottom of the entire 92 team league pyramid last season, but seems to have been picked specifically for the potential they have.  They are the 2nd team in a major city so have a large potential audience, have a ground much larger than most of the teams in the division above, were owned by a fan group and therefore had no chance of any major cash injection, and most importantly were so low that the only way was indeed "up".

Whatever your view of Sven Goran Eriksson, and I for one would consider him a one-dimensional tactician as a manager, he certainly has the contacts you would need when looking to re-build a club.  It's interesting that he's seen fit to join such a project, regardless of the £2m salary, which I'm sure he doesn't need anyway after his England pay-off.  He's rumoured to have taken shares, a seat on the board and a performance related contract.

The incumbent manager Ian MacParland has, for now, retained his job in charge of what, at league 2 level at least, is an all-star equivalent of Manchester City squad.  Their strikeforce alone were all plying their trade 2 leagues above just  season ago, which is apparent from 9 goals in their first 2 league games.

It will be interesting to see how MacParland fares if results start to go a little awry, or Notts aren't running away with the league come Christmas.  Come to think of it, the case will be almost identical for Mark Hughes if City aren't achieving their goals by transfer window time. Undoubtedly both clubs will have the finance in place to make extensive signings to strengthen the charge for play-offs/promotion or European places (or even the title), and will want to make sure the right man is in place to carry them onwards.  It is difficult to see how either could fail with bottomless pits of cash to spend, but there will still be a test of their respective coaching abilities.

Strangely a stated objective of Munto is to get Notts back in the Championship within 5 years. Strange because it's not overly ambitious, if anything it's somewhat conservative, but it does seem that the UAE backers are looking to rebuild the club as a whole rather than gloss over the longstanding cracks with superficial (and transient) signings.

Whatever happens with Eriksson, and however long he stays, the spotlight shining on Notts County has almost certainly saved the world's oldest football league club from the ignominy of relegation to the blue square premier or administration.  Who would have thought that they'd be mentioning Pavel Nedved and Luis Figo in the same breath as the magpies.

Whilst a new generation of football fans in Nottingham will randomly grow up enjoying the glitz of the black and white half of town for a few years, it can't be a bad thing for football if one more club is saved from going out of existence, and more clubs benefit from Notts being able to throw a few Emirati pounds around.

Lions roar at last

Finallly, a Test victory for the British and Irish Lions to celebrate.  Despite a slightly under-strength South African team, the squad can feel justifiably proud of their performance, and can also banish the doubts which have recently surfaced about the value of the Lions tour, and the fears for its future.  

The success in the final test followed a determined and disciplined performance, punctuated by some of the fast handling and running rugby we craved.  Within the duration of the tour, players fortunes have radically changed.  The World Player of the Year, Shane WIlliams, has seemingly emerged form the purgatory which followed the award, which should be great news for Wales.

The emergence of a new Irish superstar seems assured after Rob Kearney's 2 superb performances at Full Back.  The verve he brings to the attack with his choice of running lines is impressive, and his rock steady ability under the high ball settled the nerves.  He even added try scoring ability and a massive boot, all of which would make him the stand out star of the tour in many opinions.

The two first choice centres were also excellent, O'Driscoll and Roberts were in a different class to their Springbok counterparts and Tommy Bowe again impressed with his elegant style.  So in terms of the backs, a reasonable success.  Certainly the tourists were able to score tries fairly easily against the world  champions.

Not far behind  in the success stakes would be Simon Shaw, the monstrous England second row, whose inclusion in the second test squad added power and aggression to the Lions, helping to counteract the Boks forwards, disrupting the rolling maul.  Gethin Jenkins and Adam Jones also made a huge difference in the scrum, and were dynamic in broken play. Mike Phillips had a decent enough time at Scrum Half, admittedly outplayed by the awesome Fourie Du Preez, but serviced his backs well enough. 

The problem for the Lions has been in the forwards, who seemed less than cohesive as a unit. The lineout caused concern, especially the inability to disrupt Victor Matfield's dominance which allowed Du Preez quick and easy ball.  The well documented scrum problems may have been laid at the door of Lee Mears and Phil Vickery, but it would appear that it was purely symptomatic of the overall power problem.  The back row didn't do enough in the loose, and the Boks ruled the ruck seemingly unchallenged.  Andy Powell may feel a little unlucky not to have even made a bench spot - although his problems with losing the ball in contact in a couple of warm up games will have counted against him, and Martyn WIlliams played well when he came on, so could he have replaced Wallace at an earlier stage?

Finally it would be a fair time to assess Paul O'Connell's captaincy.  The leadership of a Lions tour is a prestigious appointment, but with it comes significant responsibility.  It did at times appear that O'Connell retreated into his shell somewhat under the weight of expectation, and the players needed more from him.  Certainly Brian O'Driscoll played much more like a captain, filling the void which O'Connell seemed to leave.  Happily, O'Connell stepped up to the plate in the 3rd Test, and the players followed to gain a terrific victory.

Picking a team to win

Listening to Fabio Capello refuting claims that England squad players have come to blows in training makes the average England fan start to sit up and take notice.

Matthew Upson/Gary Cahill vs Gareth Barry (dependent on who you listen to) is something you've never seen or heard before in an England training camp.  It seems a strange thing to say but it's starting to seem like England players actually want to contest a shirt.

We're going to have a change of keeper.  Thankfully.  Rob Green deserves his chance for 2 excellent seasons; Paul Robinson will hopefully get back to being one of the best in the world, but Scott Carson needs lessons in concentration. Seems like a decent contest with 3 great keepers stopping David James ever filling that gap again.

Centre half will also be different; Rio Ferdinand seems never to be 100% fit these days, which will eventually allow either the admirable Phil Jagielka (long term after current knee injury), Cahill (for now?) or more likely Joleon Lescott to play alongside Terry. Full backs offer the now much more relaxed Ashley Cole, or Wayne Bridge (who seems to have regressed at City), with the Glen Johnson project, which still offers doubts, ahead of Gary Neville's steadiness.

The midfield picks itself; Beckham, Lampard, Barry, Gerrard.  Gareth Barry being totally wasted but effective in a holding role; with Steven  Gerrard being allowed to play wherever he wants.  David Beckham is still the best English right sided midfielder, with the athleticism to track back, and the desire to do so.  Frank Lampard's drive as Chelsea vice-captain will mean that we have 5 Captains on the field, which is something Manchester United sadly lacked recently.

Up front, Wayne Rooney and Peter Crouch should be pairing number 1, rather than Crouch being plan b) long ball, as under previous managers.  Capello is brave enough to change his mind about Crouch and vocalise his new opinion.  Rooney having the freedom to run off Crouch's hold-up ability should really make England's link play prosper.

I'm still optimistic that England under Capello can still improve the way they keep possession. The way England pass the ball and don't give it away for the first half hour is starting to look superb. What we need to learn is how to do the same whilst killing off a game. Then we might win something, with a proper manager involved.