February 7th-9th, 2009

United In Control; Adams And Scolari Sacked.

The Premier League threw up more talking points than usual over a frantic weekend of action, on and off the field, the major upshot of which was the sacking of two more managers, neither of whom was allowed a full season to make their mark.

At the top of the table there were dispiriting draws for Chelsea and Arsenal, which leave them almost certainly out of the title race, and although Aston Villa recorded another unfussy victory it would appear that the destination of this seasons' championship will be either Manchester United or Liverpool.

Both the main contenders registered wins at the weekend but the manner of these victories seemed to give further evidence that it will be Manchester United who will end up being crowned champions. Again.

Liverpool visited a Portsmouth side woefully short on form and confidence and Rafa Benitez decided on an untried team in an unusual formation.

For twenty minutes his side looked bright and breezy but, having failed to score in this period, they soon became the cautious, uninspired collection of spare parts that characterize so many of Benitez's teams.

Portsmouth began to grow, slightly, in confidence and actually took the lead twice in the second half only for Liverpool to end up winners after being gifted equalisers by two heinous Pompey errors before Fernando Torres, on as a substitute, headed the winner in a frantic climax.

Manchester United then went to West Ham, a team full of form and confidence, the following day and came away with a 1-0 win. Without playing anywhere near their best United gained their victory without any serious alarms and with an authority that suggested they will remain ahead of the pack over the coming months.

Liverpool remain overly reliant on certain individuals, singularly lack the collective authority that comes with the consistent winning of trophies and do not have the flexibility of personnel or styles available to United.

Their lack of width has been criticised consistently despite the fact that they have been having a far better league season than usual and they certainly lack any real creative players who can unlock the packed defences that are increasingly put before them.

Manchester United, like Liverpool, prefer it when teams try to come at them a little and they can hit on the break but they have the players who can unlock the bolted door or thread the needle when the situation demands it.

They also have the patience to stick to their gameplan and the belief that they will ultimately prevail which Liverpool are without.

As I said, for twenty minutes Liverpool were all over Portsmouth and a goal looked certain to arrive at any moment. When it didn't come quickly, however, they seemed to lose all the courage of their convictions and their performance subsided alarmingly from that point on.

Manchester United also have the advantage over Liverpool, and all their other potential rivals, in that they can adapt their game to suit any occasion.

They can mix it with the Bolton's of this world but are more than happy to meet a West Ham side, intent on making it a passing contest, on their own ground and their own terms equally confident of coming out on top in either scenario.

I have always liked United as they have played the game the right way for as long as I can remember and provided superb entertainment.

One thing I would say about the game at West Ham, however, is that while it provided lots of moments that the "purist" might have enjoyed it was almost totally without incident or excitement and is not the sort of game I would want to watch too often.

As I've said, West Ham seemed intent on pitting their wits in a passing contest, in keeping with the playing style of their manager Gianfranco Zola, but the result was basically a foreign game of football and English football can do without many more of the same.

For all the faults, and possibly because of them, the game between Portsmouth and Liverpool made miles better viewing.

The most serious consequences of this weekends' action was the sacking of two managers; Portsmouth's Tony Adams and Chelsea's Phil Scolari.

Taking Adams first,the only real surprise about this decision was that I actually ended up feeling sorry for the guy.

This appointment always seemed a disastrous error of judgement from the word go. A major part of management has got to be communiaction. Putting ideas and instructions across clearly and logically must be important and so has the ability to motivate.

Adams has got to be one of the most dull and depressing speakers I have ever heard. Of course he could be different in and around a football club but it is hard to imagine he can be markedly different to the person you hear occasionally mumble something indecipherable on television.

Personally I don't think Adams will ever make a good manager because of these personal limitations.

Then again he took on the Portsmouth job at just about the worst possible time and faced a thankless task. And you could only feel real sympathy for someone who ultimately got sacked because Peter Freaking Crouch suddenly decides to come back and "help out" his defence while the apparently shellshocked Sylvan Distin somehow misses a routine interception.

I also thought that it was good to see Adams finally losing the plot and taking out his frustrations on the Fratton Park dugout as this game slipped away in tragi-comic circumstances.

This is something he should have done earlier. All this "new man" garbage, leaning against the dugout with an air of unconcerned existentialism, was never going to inspire anything from his players. A few random acts of violence might have given Adams the eloquence denied him by nature as an orator and actually given his players some idea that what they were doing wasn't good enough.

It might also have frightened them into pulling their socks up.

Too late now, I'm afraid, and the chances of Adams landing anything resembling a top managers' job appears extremely remote at the moment.

More surprising, perhaps, was Chelsea's sudden sacking of Phil Scolari.

Perhaps not, however, as Roman Abramovich has already seen fit to quibble with the jobs being done by Jose Mourinho and Avram Grant.

Scolari's Chelsea have now plumbed depths never even neared when those two men were in charge.

Recent results have certainly been bad but it has been the manner of recent performances that have been particularly damning. There has been little invention or spark at Stamford Bridge while the team were reduced to a shambles by Manchester United at Old Trafford and never looked willing or able to make a real game of it at Anfield last week.

Who Abramovich turns to next is anyones' guess but they had better make things happen quickly or they will obviously find themselves out on the pavement again sharpish with only a suitcase full of pounds sterling, or Russian bullion, to keep them company.

It's a tough life, isn't it.