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Saturday March 28, 2009

Title Race Back On?

Just when it looked as though the 2009 Premier League title race had been prematurely settled a sudden surge of form from Liverpool, combined with successive defeats for Manchester United, have opened things up again.

Liverpool went to Old Trafford knowing that they needed to win to retain any chance of securing a first Premier League title and, despite falling behind to a Ronaldo penalty, they gained the required victory in some style and comfort, running out 4-1 winners.

A woeful defensive performance from United helped their arch rivals towards this victory in no small measure. Vidic cocked up horribly and inexplicably to let in Torres for Liverpool's equaliser, which arrived vitally soon after United had taken the lead, Evra rashly brought Gerrard down for the penalty with which Liverpool's captain gave them the lead and Vidic was then sent off for hauling down Torres after another spot of indecisive defending.

One of Liverpool's foreigners, probably Arbeloa, stepped forward to curl a sweet free kick past the stationary Van Der Sar and that was that. Except for a cool finish from another of Liverpool's foreigners, probably Dossena. Is that how you spell it? Liverpool need to calm down or else it will become necessary to actually work out which of their players are which and learn their names.

While you could point fingers at United's defenders for these mistakes that would blur the fact that Liverpool dominated this game, after the first five minutes or so, throughout and were patently the better team.

United stuck with two wide players, Ronaldo and Park, who were never really able to influence the game, while Liverpool, as usual, went for strength through the middle and, consistently outnumbering Anderson and Carrick in midfield, took a grip on the game and never relinquished it.

Having gained the upper hand Torres went on to terrorise the United defence and Gerrard was able to get forward with real menace to a degree he has never before achieved against United.

This Liverpool win came on the back of a thumping Champions League demolition of Real Madrid and they then emphasised their momentum with a 5-0 spanking of Aston Villa in which Gerrard, with two more penalties, helped himself to a hat trick.

None of this would have seemed of too much importance had United not then gone to Fulham and imploded badly in losing 2-0 and having two men sent off into the bargain.

Liverpool are the team who normally blow their chances by over-rotating but United might be the ones to fall into the trap this time. Fergie has shuffled his pack to good effect so far this season but there seemed little reason for wholesale changes going into the Fulham game with no midweek fixtures either side of it.

Out, however, went Carrick, Anderson, Rooney and Tevez and in came Scholes, Giggs, Fletcher and Berbatov.

It's easy being wise in hindsight but it was surely a blindingly obvious fact that when United thumped Fulham at Craven Cottage in the cup a few weeks ago Carrick, Anderson, Rooney and Tevez had run amok.

Of course Ferguson wasn't to know that Paul Scholes would choose this as the day to hone his volleyball skills and, once he had been sent off for conceding the penalty from which United went one down, his team were always up against it.

It was still almost shocking to see how little United were able to do about their situation in a first half that was embarrassingly one sided. I know you're a man short but it's still only Fulham for Christ's sake.

Ferguson obviously got into them a bit at half time and brought on Rooney which inspired a much better United performance in the second half but they couldn't force an equaliser and the game ended in traumatic circumstances with Fulham notching a second and Rooney getting a second yellow card to follow Scholes down the tunnel.

Personally I wasn't happy with Rooney's sending off. He reacted badly to a free kick given to his side that they didn't actually want but all he really did was hurl the ball back to where the free kick had been given. The fact that there was no United player there to receive it merely emphasised the fact that the referee should have been playing an advantage.

So, true to form, a referee who had just made one bad decision then goes and compounds it by further punishing the side that had been wronged in the first place.

And why is it always Rooney who gets singled out? I know he wears his heart so far on his sleeve that it's practically visible (like a loony tunes cartoon character who sees another loony tunes cartoon character it really fancies) but this should be tolerated to a greater extent in English football than the continual unpleasantness that Ronaldo keeps getting away with.

If the ref really wanted to send a second United player off why didn't he choose that arsehole? He was giving him every opportunity but that slimeball seems to be able to get away with anything.

The ref would have been doing everyone, including United, a massive favour if he had slapped a red card under Ronaldo's put out nose instead of Rooney's.

I don't know if Ferguson will ever take off his tinted specs when looking at Ronaldo but if he does he will see a selfish, spolied "superstar" who spends most of his time on his backside, more often than not for no reason whatsoever, who thinks he is better then his teammates and better than his club.

120 million looks an even bigger amount than it did last summer to me.

Despite all the hot air coming out of Anfield since these spectacular results, however, it is still United who have a one point lead and a game in hand (I have just checked the table to make sure) and they remain strong favourites to retain the title.

Liverpool do have every reason to feel confident about their own form, however, and United will have to react like champions if their nearest challengers can maintain their momentum.

Of course Liverpool will now face their biggest challenge of all. The international break and the return of the Champions League will provide distractions which have proved fatal in the past. In fact Rafa often seems to forget that the Premier League exists when he gets the sniff of European football into his nostrils.

What odds a shock recall for Jack Hobbs for the next league game?

Chelsea's title ambitions seem to be over after they fell to a 1-0 defeat at Tottenham who look to be finishing strongly and will certainly not be going down.

Arsenal are now on a long unbeaten run and looking formidable as they get most of their injured players back in contention. They will definitely take their place in the top four again and, with fixtures to come against the three teams above them, it is still possible that they could finish higher than fourth.

North London is certainly going to have a say in the destination of the title as Tottenham, having just spiked Chelsea, have also still to visit United and Liverpool. What price a Robbie Keane hat trick at Anfield on the last day of the season?

At the bottom the waters are still muddy (or should I say dirty in homage to the classic girl group single by Made In London?).

Having given Spurs the all clear that leaves anyone from Bolton (in 12th) down still in danger. The Trotters are five points above the relegation places so they along with Hull, Sunderland, Stoke and Blackburn will still be concerned about their proximity to the drop zone.

We all know that a run of victories at this stage of the season (remember West Ham in 2007 and Fulham last year) can see you climb out of trouble but it is now time for Newcastle, Middlesbrough and West Brom to start making that run if they want to avoid the dreaded drop into the real world of The Championship.

West Brom have been given up on by just about everybody, and rightly so, but they can cling on to the fact that they have a generous looking run in. Unfortunately The Baggies simply do not look good enough to put a run of victories together at this level whoever is put in front of them.

Middlesbrough will surely need to take at least seven points from their next three games (against Bolton, Hull and Fulham) or else they are dead men as they then face a testing run in.

Gareth Southgate's men have consistently flattered to deceive this season and their soft underbelly will surely count against them in the final reckoning. They gave their strongest performance of the season a few weeeks ago to defeat Liverpool but have not won since and losing to Stoke in their last game was a hammer blow.

One goal settled that game. It came late on from, not surprisingly, a long throw in by Rory Delap. Everybody knows what's coming and it's not easy to deal with but most teams try. For a team supposedly scrapping for their lives to stand still en masse and watch Ryan Shawcross glance in a header unchallenged from six yards out was a damning indictment on the men from Teesside.

Newcastle also have a tough looking run in but games against Stoke, Portsmouth,'Boro and Fulham offer obvious clues as to where their road to redemption might lie. The way things are going at the moment a last day trip to Villa Park might also be a handy fixture to have up their sleeves.

At it stands it looks as though we might have an interesting run in to the season at both ends of the Premier League table.