An Increasingly Familiar Sight

OK. First things first. We’re out of the Champions League, Arsenal are still in the Champions League. Financially, we’re operating against a backdrop of hundreds of millions of pounds worth of debt whilst Arsenal’s finances would appear to be the healthiest in Britain so this might seem like unnecessary and unwanted concern but I can’t help but wonder what is going on down there.

For all our battles down the years – particularly during the period between the late 90s and early 2000s – Arsenal are probably the side I have the most respect for.

Over the last twenty years or so, we have consistently been challenged in the league by Arsenal with appearances by teams such as Blackburn, Newcastle, Chelsea and now Manchester City.

However, what all those teams (except Arsenal) have in common is that their success was built to a greater or lesser degree on the bankrolling of a rich owner. Like ourselves, Arsenal have generated their own finances but they have probably done things even better than us in that respect – certainly with Arsene Wenger at the helm.

It is in this area that I have always had a lot of respect for Arsene Wenger as I will touch on in a moment.

When Arsene Wenger first arrived at Arsenal back in 1996, he took over a decent, albeit ageing, team (they had won the Premier League in 1991 and the FA Cup in 1993) and they probably had the best defensive line-up in the league with the likes of Seaman, Adams, Keown, Winterburn, Dixon, Bould etc. Add to that the superb Bergkamp assisting Wright in attack and the exciting Merson in midfield, he arrived with work to do but the basics of a side capable of challenging for the league.

Over the next few years, he used his knowledge of French football to bring in players such as Viera, Petit, Grimandi and his best to date – Henry – as he started to dismantle the old and build the new Arsenal of his own vision.

He did this with incredible success winning three Premier League titles and four FA Cups over the next seven years or so culminating in their last league success with the team that became known as “The Invincibles” having gone through the entire league campaign without losing a match.

I think it is fair to say that at this stage, most people expected Arsenal to go on winning for years to come but an FA Cup the following year has been their only silverware since the year of the Invincibles and whichever way Arsene Wenger dresses it up, that has to be viewed as failure.

As I said, one thing that I was always very impressed with Wenger about was his uncanny knack of buying players for a relative pittance, getting their best years out of them and then selling them on for a profit when they were just edging beyond the crest of their wave.

I would love to see some figures for Wenger’s net transfer balance in the sixteen years or so that he has been at Arsenal and I don’t believe that he has paid over £20million for any one player which is extraordinary for a team that has been a regular in the top four for as long as Arsenal have.

However, it is this that has perhaps caused Wenger to come in for the most criticism. The building of the Emirates stadium did, for a time, suck up a lot of money and so Wenger could be forgiven for not splashing the cash – he probably didn’t have it in abundance but I simply cannot believe that a club which has participated in fourteen consecutive Champions Leagues and has operated so prudently in the transfer market has no money for transfers new stadium or not.

I know that this has been a source of bewilderment amongst the press down the years and, probably, some frustration amongst the fans and it has largely been put down to Wenger’s stubborn attitude to do things “his” way i.e. youth, youth, youth.

But I’ve been watching Arsenal from the outside for several years now and it seems almost as though Wenger gets a bunch of kids, they don’t win anything, they (obviously) get older and are then replaced with a younger model. The word appears to be “potential” but potential is worthless unless realised and Wenger never seems to give the potential the best environment in which to thrive and become realised.

Youth is great and with the likes of Wilshere, Ramsay and this new lad Oxlade-Chamberlain (who was a joy to watch on Sunday, I have to admit) Arsenal have some riches to be envious of but Alan Hansen, for all the stick he has received since, was not entirely wrong when he said “You can’t win anything with kids”. For every Neville we had an Irwin/Pallister/Bruce, for every Scholes we had a Cantona/McClair, for every Beckham we had a Robson/Keane/Ince etc. The young replaced the old but there was always a period of overlap.

Of the current crop, Robin van Persie is probably the exception to the rule in that he did come along as a youngster, served his time backing up the likes of Henry et al and is now the main man there but at 28 years of age and at the height of his powers, he seems a prime candidate to either be sold by Wenger or seek a move elsewhere of his own accord – I would not be totally shocked if he is not at Arsenal next season.

At United, we are constantly bringing “kids” through the ranks into the first team and we also buy some in from abroad. It is probably fair to say that at least 95% of them don’t make it but those that do come through in a team full of players brimming, not just with playing experience but, more importantly, winning experience. As a result, we have continued to win things whilst Arsenal have spent much of the last six or seven seasons missing out and it is perhaps this which separates the exceptional manager that Wenger undoubtedly is from the truly great manager that is Sir Alex Ferguson.

That’s not to say that Fergie has always got it right and has finished above Wenger every season. In the 2004-05 season, we finished a distant third behind Chelsea and Arsenal but Fergie saw what was wrong and quickly went about putting things right and within a couple of years, we were back on top.

Looking at Arsenal now, they look no better or further on than they did five or six years ago. It has been a period of consistency for them but they have consistently been second, third or even fourth best.

If anything, it could be argued that they have actually been going backwards. Certainly the table today makes for grim reading for anyone Arsenal-related as they sit in fifth and five points behind four teams who are all playing better football and have better squads than them and Newcastle and Liverpool are now breathing down their necks.

The Champions League places are obviously still not totally out of reach for them but some bookies are offering as much as 5/2 on them to finish in the top four.

On the subject, Wenger was recently quoted as saying, “For me, not making the top four would be a disaster. Because I want to play with the best. We want to play in the Champions League and anything else would not be good enough.”

I have no doubt that it would be a disaster for Arsene but not necessarily for Arsenal FC. One way or another, a failure to finish in the top four (or worse) could be seen as a watershed moment and would surely have to make Arsene Wenger finally realise (or, at least, reluctantly acknowledge) that his policies aren’t working and persuade him to revise his principles which, whilst admirable, would have been proven to be flawed… again.

Of course, the other option, would be for the decision to be removed from Arsene Wenger’s hands altogether. At this stage, it is only his reputation that is keeping him in position and that reputation is becoming more and more tarnished with every passing season.

It does seem that since City took top spot in the league it seems that we have, more often than not, had to play our games after theirs and so have always been playing “catch-up” – I don’t know if this actually is the case or whether I am just imagining it – but it does seem this way.

However, there was a bit of a turnaround this weekend as we got our match out of the way on Saturday to reduce the deficit to two points whilst City had to sit around for two whole days awaiting their crunch match against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

So, I had to watch the match last night, just to see how Manchester City coped with leading from the front in a tricky fixture against a top side which had begun to rediscover form.

And I must admit that it seemed like Manchester City were coping very well – they were 1-0 up with less than two minutes played and really should have put the game to bed within the opening twenty minutes or so – it really could and probably should have been 3-0.

However for the next seventy minutes or so, I became a honorary Chelsea fan for the evening and, whilst this sounds strange to admit, I actually punched the air when Meireles knocked in the equaliser just before half-time. Chelsea had turned the tide and City seemed to be losing the plot a bit.

The second half was almost exclusively Chelsea’s as City dropped deep and, to me, seemed more interested in maintaining their unbeaten record than actually winning the game and by the time Lampard converted his penalty kick to put Chelsea 2-1 ahead, City were in some disarray and had been down to ten men following Clichy’s sending off just before the hour mark.

At this point, I actually thought that they were destined to end the game with just nine men. Clattenburg had been producing the cards like Dynamo the magician on speed for much of the game and several City players were sailing close to the wind.

But it all ended 2-1 to Chelsea which was as good a result for us as it was for Chelsea and we now find ourselves in a position where we can actually take top spot if we can beat QPR on Sunday (which won’t be an easy task, let me add) before City take on Arsenal at the Etihad a couple of hours later.

It’s a peculiar state of affairs because we have been grinding out the results of late and generally seeming to be struggling whilst City have been blowing everyone away and it is amazing that we are still within touching distance. However, the destiny of the title is back in our own hands as we come to this crucial Christmas period where fixtures come thick and fast and generally in the type of playing conditions that some City players might not fancy too much.

Fergie said last week that he’d be happy if we’re there or thereabouts on New Years Day and at this stage, I’d wager that he’s going to get his wish.

Tonight I’ll be watching our lads try to overcome Basel en route to the last sixteen of the Champions League but there’ll be someone missing, someone who normally sits beside me during every United match – my son.

No, he hasn’t died. It’s worse than that.

You see, my son plays football for a local U14s team and someone there won a competition meaning that the team gets to wave that big circular Champions League flag which appears in the centre circle prior to kick-off.

Unfortunately, it is at City’s ground – Eastlands/The City of Manchester Stadium/The Etihad Stadium (or whatever the hell it’s called this week) and filled with the exciting prospect of appearing on telly, plus the possibility that he might actually “meet” some of the Bayern Munich players (he tells me he’s not too bothered at meeting any of the City players but I’m not sure I believe him) and it was an offer too good to refuse for the little fella.

So I’ll send him off to City’s ground with the warning to try not to laugh at the end of the match when it is confirmed that City’s Champions League dream is over at the group stage.

Meanwhile, I’ll be watching United and hoping that ours isn’t over at the group stage too.

I’d been out with my family today, as I usually do on Sundays when there’s no United match on and so had not heard any news at all all day.

On arriving home, I booted up the Sky Sports page to see what had happened in the Liverpool v Manchester City match only to be greeted by a story saying that Gary Speed had “passed away”.

Huh? Passed away? 42 year old ex-footballers in the prime of their lives don’t just “pass away” – surely something was amiss here?

However, on further reading, it was confirmed that Gary Speed had died in what looks to have been suicide.

Sometimes in life, things happen which stop you dead in your tracks – and this is one of those times.

Now, obviously, I cannot claim to have any personal attachment to Gary Speed in any way – he wasn’t even an ex Manchester United player – he was actually an ex Leeds player – an integral part of the very Leeds team that pipped us to the League title way back in 1992, no less. But I do know that he was one of the most likeable men in football and, from all accounts, seems to have been just as popular with everyone off the pitch, as it were.

Happily married with two kids, having what must have been his dream job and seemingly a generally enviable lifestyle, it is hard to imagine what drove Gary to this but I suppose the full details will surface at some point in the future.

In the meantime, for what it’s worth, RIP Gary Speed and condolences to his family.

Apparently Liverpool and City drew 1-1 …. but on a day like today, who cares?

Ashley Young continued his impressive scoring form as he scored England’s winner against Wales in our Euro 2012 qualifying match last night.

It wasn’t a great performance by England and Young’s goal was by far the best moment as he finished off Stewart Downing’s cross with great confidence. Not only was the finish excellent but the fact that he got himself into the right position to be on the end of the cross was good to see.

Wayne Rooney was one of our other representatives in the England side and it speaks volumes for how well Rooney is currently playing that it is something of a surprise to see him fail to get his own name on the teamsheet.

Chris Smalling’s meteoric rise continues as he played in the right-back role us United fans are becoming somewhat accustomed to seeing him in. It wasn’t his best performance but, to be fair, his England teammates didn’t use him half as much as his United teammates do and on several occasions he made overlapping runs which were completely ignored by the midfield which meant that he often had to check back and get back into a defensive position.

Still, Smalling remains an inspirational figure to any young player as he continues to break the rule that says that to make it to the very top in football, you must have been spotted by one of the big teams by the age of eight!

I was checking out the photo’s from my recent trip to Spain last night and there was one taken right at the start of the trip which I had completely forgotten about but I had to put it on here.

It is a photo from inside Reus airport and it was one of the first things I saw on landing in Spain and I remember thinking to myself, “Yep – I’m in the right place!”

I think the picture speaks for itself…

Well, I finally got back from my Spanish sojourn on Friday night and I did manage to get myself over to the Nou Camp whilst I was there.

My initial plan was to do the stadium tour and the museum but, as it happened, Barcelona were playing their annual Joan Gamper Cup while I was over there and I was fortunate to get a couple of tickets to go and watch that so we (myself and my son) did.

Chaotic But Good-Tempered Scenes Outside the Stadium before the Match

For those who don’t know, the Joan Gamper Cup is a friendly match that Barcelona play every year against invited opposition in memory of Joan Gamper who was a founding member, player, and later president of the club. The competition has been held forty-six times now and Barcelona have won it thirty five times.

On this occasion, the opposition was Italy’s Napoli and Barcelona ran out very convincing winners.

Pre-match Dancers - Note the Years on the Blue Balloons

The whole thing is one big celebration for Barca and their fans. There’s a parade outside the stadium before the match, there’s a choreographed dancing display before the match and all the players and main coaching staff are announced one by one. Pep Guardiola gave a rousing speech (which was obviously in Spanish so most of it was lost on me but I think his final words were, ominously, something along the lines of “more, more, more” which received an enormous cheer from the crowd!) Captain Puyol also said a few words which were similarly well received from the adoring crowd.

What was quite intereting was the order in which the players were announced and the cheers that each received from the crowd. Favourites such as Puyol, Iniesta and Xavi received enormous cheers but Messi was the last to be announced and the cheer he received would have lifted the roof (had the Nou Camp had a roof!) – it is clear that he enjoys almost God-like status at Barcelona. Guardiola is also similarly revered for the success he has brought to the club since becoming manager and his ovation was on a par with the likes of Iniesta.

Anyway, after all this, it was time for the football to get underway and Barca’s starting line-up was impressive with players like Iniesta, Villa and new signing, Fabregas, all making the starting eleven. I was interested to see how Fabregas would fit into this Barca team and initial signs are “very well”. He missed an early chance which he probably should have buried but he soon got another chance which he put away after twenty-five minutes.

Keita made it 2-0 after thirty minutes and that’s how it stayed until well after half time. Around the fifty-five minute mark, the crowd got what they wanted and Messi came on for Fabregas and within seconds, he hit the crossbar with a free-kick and moments later, scored the first of two goals.

Few Things Prepare You for This Sight

Watching Messi play is an absolute joy. We’ve all seen him a hundred times on TV but to see him “in the flesh” is something else. He spends most of his time just walking around, sometimes stood completely still but the second there’s a sniff of a chance brewing in the air, he starts into a little jog and the next thing you know, he’s right in the thick of the action and putting the ball in the net. He really does make it all look so incredibly easy and I felt privileged to have watched him play.

Shortly after Messi came on, Xavi made an appearance but by this time, Iniesta had departed so I never actually got to see the three of them in action together but even so, Barca won the match 5-0 and by the end of the game were passing Napoli off the park, the crowd were doing Mexican waves and it was just pure, frightening Barca play. Already they are looking like the team to beat again this season.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable evening and one that I hope to repeat at some point in the future. For those of you who have yet to go to the Nou Camp then I would recommend it without reservation – I will never forget walking through the typically concrete corridors and stairwells before making that last climb through the entrance to our seats – that second as you enter the actual stadium is simply breathtaking.

Floodlit and mostly full (this was taken at half-time) and it gets even better!

That I was able to watch one of the best teams ever assembled, including arguably the best player ever to play the game grace the stadium was the icing on the cake.

I still think we’ll do ‘em this year though!

I don’t normally focus on players at other clubs on this site but I felt that an exception had to be made for Carlos Tevez who does, of course, have some connection with Manchester United because he’s been at it again. Moaning, that is. Only this time he is moaning about Manchester in general and that, to a person born, bred and still living in Manchester is not going to go un-noticed.

Appearing on some chat show in his native Argentina, Tevez says that Manchester has “nothing”, there’s nothing to do and there are only two restaurants. Apparently he has no friends (no comment!) and he doesn’t even go to the cinema because he doesn’t understand it.

And herein lies the problem with Carlos Tevez, I feel.

Ever since he rolled up in England with Mascherano and his pimp agent, Kia Joorabchian way back in 2006, Tevez has been a controversial and enigmatic figure. On the one hand, the fans have loved his all-action, 100% commitment performances but have, at the same time, had to swallow the nonsense that comes with Tevez off the field.

That he left West Ham and came to Manchester United in 2007 was not much of a surprise. Joorabchian’s plan all along was to bring him to England in order to put him in the shop window. Tevez duly delivered at West Ham and United were the club to offer what Tevez and his owners wanted.

For his first season here, it looked like a fairly healthy relationship. Most United fans loved Tevez and Tevez appeared to be happy with life in Manchester and at United. During his second season here, however, things started to take a turn for the worst as rumours started to surface that Tevez wasn’t a particularly happy bunny.

Trying his best to make Fergie out to be the bad guy, Tevez suggested that it was “ver difficul” for him to stay at United as he apparently felt undervalued by Fergie because United had left it until his contract had virtually ran out before offering a new one and that his only course of action would be to leave – for Manchester City.

Now, Tevez had lived in Manchester for two years at this point. Surely more than enough time for him to realise just how “bad” it is here in Manchester. How little there is to do. How difficult it is to find somewhere to eat (blah blah blah). After three years in the country, you would have also thought that he may have realised that here in England we do speak in an obscure tongue known as “English” and he might have taken some of those millions he had earned and used some of those dull, lonely hours to perhaps hire a private English tutor which would not only have helped him professionally but would have opened up a whole new world of possibilities out and about in the streets of Manchester.

No longer would he have to visit only Italian restaurants (because those are the only places where he knows how to order food), he could have visited the myriad other restaurants and take-aways of all kinds of national cuisines that can be found in their thousands in and around Manchester.

With a bit of English under his belt, he could have visited the cinema on a more regular basis without the need for a translator sat by his side and he could have even made a few friends while he was here.

If all this sounds a bit too obvious and perhaps even patronising then that’s because it is. Carlos Tevez is just one of those people in life who is never happy. Presumably when he was playing in Argentina for Boca Juniors, he wasn’t happy about something and so transferred to Brazilian club, Corinthians. Then he wasn’t happy there and so came to West Ham then United and then City.

The ultimate happiness that he seeks where all is perfect both professionally and personally has remained elusive, however, and only Carlos Tevez seems unable to understand why.

My advice to Tevez would be that he ditch Joorabchian, learn some English, realise just how lucky and priveleged he is to be playing for a club like Manchester City who are very much on an upward curve at the moment with Champions League football beckoning next season and undoubtedly a proper Premier League challenge to boot – possibly even another FA Cup. That he earns more in a week that most Mancunians earn in years and that he is, when doing his job, idolised and respected as one of the best players in the world.

At 27 years of age, he probably only has a handful of years remaining at the top end of football – he has always expressed a desire to retire at a young age in any case. After that, he will be able to live anywhere he wants and fill his days with whatever makes him happy.

Perhaps during those days when the roar of the crowd has faded to silence and the glory of winning is a distant memory, Tevez will actually start to appreciate just what he had… and then he might get sad all over again.

The difference then, of course, is that no one will care.

What was I saying yesterday about the tiny margins between success and failure?

Not a Goal

In the end, I didn’t actually watch the match between Chelsea and Tottenham last evening, preferring instead to go out for an Indian with my family and I’m glad I did because I’m pretty sure that I would have done some terminal damage to my telly had I been watching this abomination.

When I saw the timings of Chelsea’s two goals – just on half-time and just before full-time, I thought, “typical Chelsea” but when I actually saw the “goals”, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. One “goal” didn’t cross the line and one “goal” was quite clearly offside.

Long-time readers of this site will know my feelings on video technology but just to avoid any confusion, I’ll repeat it… it should be brought in immediately. In fact, it should have been brought in several years ago.

Sepp Blatter won’t have it because he feels that this kind of nonsense is good for the game because it gives people things to talk about (or something).

That’s all well and good if you don’t mind people talking about how they feel that this makes the game possibly corrupt, how this makes FIFA a laughing stock and how people come away from a match that they have paid good money to watch feeling absolutely robbed.

Let’s not even get onto how much of an impact these decisions had on the outcome of the Premier League title because it isn’t yet known and, for the same reason, let’s not speculate on how many tens of millions of pounds that this might have cost Spurs should they fail to qualify for the Champions League.

We don’t need to speculate about the impact it has on people, though. It makes people angry, disillusioned and sick.

Perhaps there are other crazy sado-masochists out there besides Blatter who feel that this kind of thing is good for the game but, in all honesty, I have yet to meet one.

It is now down to Manchester United to restore some credibility to this shambles by beating Arsenal today and beating Chelsea next week and it is more than my love for Manchester United that makes me want that to happen right now.

Madrid Bound Mesut Ozil

One of the longest drawn-out transfer sagas of the Summer finally reached its conclusion today as Mesut Ozil signed for Real Madrid and will undoubtedly join a cluster of stars sitting on the bench for some of the biggest games in La Liga this season.

Personally, I never felt that we would sign Ozil after Fergie decided to keep Tom Cleverley at United rather than send him on loan but that won’t stop legions of Manchester United fans from being disappointed at this development, especially as the fee is believed to be around £12million (a far cry from the £25-30million quoted during the Summer when the World Cup was on).

What would be nice to see now is for young Cleverley to be actually brought through into the first team. The game against Newcastle seemed to be the perfect game to give him a chance but he wasn’t even listed amongst the subs which was a strange one.