I must first start by congratulating Man City; in 22 years of watching Utd at Old Trafford I have only seen one other team make such good use of the extra man. The way they clinically punished Utd in the final 4 minutes of injury time was quite astonishing and what dreams are made of......for some. However, as fulgent as City were, Utd were dire in equal measure. The game changed on the Jonny Evans sending off, up until then Utd were the better team but after that, City taught them a lesson. This was the day when an incredibly strong statement was laid out, City are the real deal. 10 wins and 1 draw from 11 league games speaks for itself.
So for the surprise package of the season, Newcastle! No one would have expected after such a turbulent pre-season that they would be third after 11 matches. Ironically the players they lost; Barton, Nolan and Enrique are currently with teams below Newcastle in the table. Not something that great philosopher Barton chooses to tweet about, he much prefers to take cheap shots at The Only Way Is Essex ‘stars’. Just when you thought he couldn’t be more of an obnoxious thug, he outdoes himself yet again. The table never lies as that old cliché goes but their fixture list paints a more appropriate answer. They have not beaten any team from the top half and of the fixtures with teams in the top half, Tottenham and Aston Villa, matches have ended in draws. Let’s not take anything away from Alan Pardew though, he’s done a brilliant job and they boast the league’s meanest defence with only 8 goals conceded. I may point out that had it not been for Utd’s 6-1 thrashing, they would have the most stubborn defence. Not bad considering the negative attention, Ferdinand, Evra and De Gea have been subjected to.
Unfortunately for Wigan and the very amiable Roberto Martinez, it has been an arduous couple of months. 8 straight defeats and no win since August 1954, times are tough for the Wigan faithful. Dave Whelan has recently said that he would never sack the incumbent Wigan head coach, not the wisest statement to make. A quick look at the half time league table tells a sorry story, if games had finished at half time, Wigan would be 16th. Mr Martinez’s half time team talks aren’t looking too great now eh Dave? They even have a decent clean sheet record, they sit a comfortable 13th but the most glaring statistic is the goals scored column. 7 and bottom of the table. So it’s going to be a long and exigent season for the Latics but I hope they pull through, mainly as they have managed to take the princely sum of 0 points off Utd in the Premier League since it’s inception.
We’ve covered the ‘Derby’, the surprise package, the precarious, what’s left is mid-table obscurity (There’s actually plenty more but this is all for now). These places are currently occupied by Norwich, Swansea and QPR, the three promoted clubs. Now anyone who has been watching football for more than 5 minutes will know that traditionally, the newly promoted clubs adapt to life in the Premier League extremely well in the first quarter of the season. It is only the so-called ‘expert’ pundits that pick the obvious same three that came up to struggle and eventually go straight back down. So I am not surprised by this but what is unexpected is that the Swans have the best home defensive record in the Premier League with only 1 goal conceded, something the next visitors (Man Utd) to the Liberty Stadium should bear in mind.
At the time of writing, Carlos Tevez has gone AWOL and the chances of him pulling on the laser blue of Manchester City any time soon look remote. However, I have already dedicated far too much of this blog to that mercenary and this saga is far from over so there will be more to follow. I will leave you with a quote from SAF that perked me up after that Derby debacle, "There is no progress in life without failure".
