Mark Holmes assesses the problems of the Liverpool and Manchester clubs, blasts some inconsistent refereeing, but praises Newcastle's fans.
Problems widespread among top clubs
Where on earth do you start in summing up that weekend of Premier League football? The self-proclaimed 'best league in the world' almost always throws up at least one talking point per game week, but the start to this season has been quite extraordinary.
Liverpool, last season's runners-up, have lost three of their first five games. Manchester City, the reigning champions, have won only two of theirs, as have Tottenham, while new-look Manchester United and ever-consistent Everton have just one win to their names.
Conversely, Southampton sit in second place despite having the heart of their team ripped out over the summer, while Aston Villa, among the relegation favourites before a ball was kicked, are just below them in third.
Rather than attempt to look for crises, it would perhaps be more sensible to acknowledge this pattern will not continue for much longer.
There are clearly problems for Brendan Rodgers, Louis van Gaal and co. to address, but quality will ultimately tell over 38 games. Chelsea are understandably most people's tip for the title, but Manchester City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Everton and Tottenham will almost certainly complete the top seven behind the Blues. Despite the crazy start to the season, it would take a brave man to predict anything different.
However, with problems so widespread among those six clubs aside from Chelsea, foreseeing the exact order of them at this stage is rather more difficult.
Manchester City boast the only squad that comes close to Chelsea's in terms of quality depth, but their struggle to break down Jose Mourinho's men on Sunday will certainly have concerned Manuel Pellegrini after they had failed to find their way past a similarly obdurate Stoke City side in their previous home game.
The Chilean's comments after the Chelsea game may have been equally concerning for the club's supporters.
"I said last week that it will be very difficult for us to defend the title because every team will play the way Chelsea did," he said.
Concerning because it is hardly a tactic City are only just having to deal with at the Etihad Stadium, yet Pellegrini seemed to be suggesting it is a tactic his side are going to struggle with this season. They were not the comforting words the Blues faithful will have wanted to hear.
Similarly, Liverpool fans will not have been jumping for joy to hear Rodgers discuss the difficulties of competing on two fronts after the Reds followed up a Champions League win over Ludogorets with a Premier League defeat to West Ham.
"It's a tiring competition," said the Northern Irishman.
He is right, of course, but the procurement of eight new players over the summer was meant to relieve such stresses on the squad.
Perhaps Rodgers' mistake has been integrating new players to a successful side too quickly. Six of the summer signings started in the recent defeat to Aston Villa - injuries and the sale of Luis Suarez notwithstanding, such a drastic change was surprising given the success of last season's side.
Arguably even more worrying is that the biggest change has taken place in the defence, which was a problem area last term yet has looked no less of one in the early part of this campaign.
Rodgers' vow to work on defending set pieces will have come as a relief to fans, but many are now beginning to question the role of Steven Gerrard in protecting the back four. The stutters of rivals is allowing Rodgers time to get to the bottom of the problem, but get to the bottom of it he certainly must do if Liverpool are to challenge for the title again.
Although they struggled last season, it is arguably the early poor form of Manchester United under new manager Louis van Gaal that has attracted most attention of all.
The big worry for the Red Devils is clearly that, having spent a huge amount of money in the transfer window, they have addressed the problem of creativity and goalscoring, netting seven times in two games, but have merely replaced attacking issues for defensive ones, with Leicester City putting five past them on Sunday.
Like Liverpool, United's backline is vastly different to last season, and Van Gaal will hope that the problems so far are simply a case of new players bedding into the team - and existing ones getting to grips with a new system and way of playing.
Given the amount of changes they have made, the problems at Old Trafford are arguably the least surprising and least worrying of all the top teams, but that should not detract from the fact that Van Gaal has some serious work to do on the training ground to avoid a second consecutive season without Champions League football.
For Tottenham, the problems are familiar. They won their opening two games only to be dismantled by the first top team they faced, Liverpool, and then followed up a Europa League game with a desperately disappointing Premier League performance which resulted in a 1-0 home defeat to West Brom.
The side that started against Albion showed 10 changes to the one which started against Partizan Belgrade on Thursday night, yet Spurs looked leggy, short of ideas, and were deservedly beaten.
Whether the problem be related to the Europa League or simply to breaking down resolute opponents, it is one Mauricio Pochettino needs to work out if he is to avoid going the way of so many previous Spurs bosses under Daniel Levy.
Everton's inconsistent start, meanwhile, is perhaps the most surprising of all, and certainly the hardest to explain.
Roberto Martinez has changed little at Goodison Park, but nine goals conceded in two home games would certainly suggest there is a problem defensively. Were those goal-laden defeats to Chelsea and Crystal Palace simply early-season anomalies? Is age getting the better of the Phil Jagielka and Sylvain Distin partnership? Is there a different problem altogether?
Martinez will be keen to find out the answers sooner rather than later, but the Premier League has been so brilliantly unpredictable so far this season that we're likely to be mulling over a completely different set of questions this time next week.
Refereeing shambles
While it was a bad weekend for many of the big clubs, it was equally bad for many of the country's top referees.
There seemed to be big decisions in every Premier League game leaving various teams feeling hard done by this Monday morning, but the ones that have understandably attracted the most attention were those to award Leicester their first penalty against Manchester United and to send off Manchester City's Pablo Zabaleta for a second yellow card against Chelsea.
At the King Power Stadium, Mark Clattenburg's decision to penalise Rafael for bringing down Jamie Vardy was not actually that controversial. It was the sort of soft penalty I have said already this season should be stamped out, but it is common to see referees blow up when a forward gets in front of a defender and falls to the floor following contact. Rightly or wrongly, those sort of penalties are given regularly.
The controversy, of course, came because Vardy had got away with giving Rafael a much stronger and much more obvious shove seconds before to get himself into the position. You will struggle to ever witness a referee showing such a lack of inconsistency in such a short space of time.
The Zabaleta red card, meanwhile, was yet another example of a yellow card being shown too easily. The second booking he received was fair, but they are being handed out so easily these days that far too many players are seeing red for two pretty minor infringements.
It is a subject that always divides opinion on these pages - some will argue that the rules are there to protect players, and that Zabaleta, for example, only has himself to blame for committing a risky challenge whilst on a yellow card - but surely every football fan would prefer games to finish 11v11 unless absolutely necessary?
Unfortunately, the results of far too many games are being affected by soft decisions, and the situation looks certain to get worse rather than better.
Praise for Newcastle fans
Regular readers will know I am not the biggest fan of Alan Pardew, but I find it ridiculous that any manager should find himself under pressure after just four games of a league season.
In Pardew's case, it must be particularly galling that, having kept the club in the Premier League despite a lack of transfer funds, some fans have given him remarkably little time to bed in new signings after finally being allowed to spend some money.
A massive well done must go, therefore, to the vast majority of Newcastle fans that ignored the 'Sack Pardew' protests during Saturday's game against Hull City to instead focus on giving the team the support it needed.
It paid off in the end, and the likelihood is that Newcastle will soon begin to climb the table and make the early-season panickers look rather foolish.
petikan dari LiverpoolTeamTalk
About the Author
0 comments: