The hype’s already started. Now, between the Anfield Acclamation of Arsenal and the Emirates Emasculation of Manchester United we are subjected to a relentless Sky Sports driven promotion of another big four Premiership clash.

Yet these clashes very rarely have any significant bearing on the destination of the title. The results between the top four last season saw Arsenal come top of the pile on the head to head stats. Arsenal won 3, drew 2 and lost just one of their 6 games against the other CL regulars, yet they finished a weary fourth some 23 points behind United.

For the record United lost as many points as they gained in this mini-league winning, drawing and losing 2 of their 6 fixtures, including a humbling double inflicted by Wenger’s men that featured all of Arsenal’s goals being scored in the last 5 minutes of the two fixtures.

So for all the tear inducing hype and heightened levels of commentator overkill, for every pitchside Geoff Shreeves pre-amble and post-match Andy Gray analysis these games really don’t have that much of a bearing other than usually providing a showcase for the defensive minded players of both sides to have their way.This is the mini league as it stands:              

	W	D	l	f	a	pts
United	1	0	0	2	0	3
LFC	0	2	0	2	2	2
Arse	0	1	0	1	1	1
CFC	0	1	1	1	3	1

A better way of discovering who’s going to win the league is to average the number of points gleaned per match in the other 32 fixtures. Last season these were as follows: United (2.53); Chelsea (2.37); LFC (1.93); Arsenal (1.78).

The team winning this particular league table is nailed on to win the league.This season Arsenal average 2.7 pts in these games; United 2.3; LFC 2.25;  Chelsea 2.22 – if all four team’s maintain this average Arsenal will win the league by between 10 and 15 points, although a caveat to this is that Arsenal have played all but 3 of these fixtures at home, a fact apparently lost on their cheerleaders in the press.

Arsenal, Liverpool and the title winners

The press came to laud Arsenal and pen the opening para on the last rites of Benitez’s curious period in office at Anfield. And, while the Monday’s paper’s put phase one of Operation Arsenal: ‘Greatest Team Ever’ into action, I’m still not convinced that they have what it takes to take this title from the current champions or their main challengers, Chelsea.

Let’s start with the fun part – Liverpool were poor, offered little throughout the game and, Gerrard aside, put in a performance that represents the bare minuimum required from the Anfield faithful, ie. they worked hard and got a point. Torres and Alonso, two star players whose absence, LFC apologists claim, is the chief reason for the Anfield club’s faltering form in October, returned and then got injured. Not that they had much of an impact anyway – Torres looked bewildered, perhaps he’d heard the rumours of a proposed return to sunny Madrid while Alonso was swamped by the younger legs and faster brains of the opposition midfield- Fabregas, Flamini Hleb and Rosicky.

For some reason Benitez played Kuyt and Voronin and left their best striker, Crouch, on the bench. The Dutchman and the Ukrainian were spectators for the most part as Liverpool rode their luck as Arsenal made mincemeat of the midfield and back four.  It was ‘only’ Arsenal’s achilles heel, poor finishing, that masked the true disparity between the sides.

LIVERPOOL

So Liverpool are not going to win the league. In fact I don’t think they’ll win anything this season unless they concentrate their resources on a domestic cup. In the last two seasons since the Istanbul ‘miracle’ or ‘disaster’ (depending which side of the fence you’re sitting on) they’ve taken several steps backwards.

An over-reliance on Steven Gerrard is the principle failing of Benitez. A failure to sign and bed in a truly world class striker another. Morientes, Bellamy, Kuyt and now Torres. If you rotate them they lose form. It’s taken Benitez four years and over £50m and he still hasn’t realised that strikers like to play game after game when they’re on form. Rooney would turn out for his pub team if Fergie let him… Torres is probably wondering what he’s done to deserve exile at the ’striker’s graveyard’.

It’s often said that Gerrard is carrying Liverpool, which to an extent is true. But he is also holding them back. Gerrard is not intelligent or skilful enough to play the centre midfield position like Fabregas does, in the opposition box one minute, his own the next. He used to do this before he got too important for that job and now he needs a minder for those occasions he bursts forward. This is normally Alonso but that means that the Spaniard’s game is compromised and so it goes on. Ok, so Gerrard scored in Turkey and again on Sunday but he holds his team-mates back, he’s selfish and doesn’t pose a consistent enough threat for a top player – he’s Liverpool Totti, comfortable at a lower profile club as their star player rather than at a top club where he might have to get his hands dirty.

As if to add to his woes Benitez has still not signed one class winger in his entire time at Anfield and those with potential seem to have had it drilled out of them by adding onerous defensive responsibilities to the plate of creative individuals (one rule for Stevie…).

Another point made about Rafa is his enthusiasm for blaming his players – a failing that, to English players at least, is tantamount to ratting on your grandma. An English dressing room is largely built on trust, a brotherhood unbroken against the outside world, this was why Keane’s outburst at United was so shocking – he broke an unwritten and unbreakable rule and he had to go. Moreover Benitez seems to break this ruke every week. Blaming players is a desperate act for any manager to undertake and that, along with his ludicrous rotation policy, will be the undoing of him.

ARSENAL

For all the plaudits Arsenal received today, I’m still not convinced that they’re nailed on winners of this league. In fact I’m not 100% sure that they’re going to be in contention come March…

Ok, at times they were fabulous on Sunday. For a 20 minute spell after Liverpool scored they embarassed the home team with telepathic passing and sublime movement – but did they score during this awesome period of play? Then in the second half they seemed to have run out of ideas until Fabregas grabbed a deserved equaliser. For a long period before this goal however they huffed and puffed as badly as Liverpool as the game descended into a tense staring match. They then dominated the final 10 minutes and should have scored twice but again, they didn’t do it.

So in a game during which they dominated 70% of possession and about the same ratio of chances/shots they managed one goal – is this the form of a champion team? I would hazard a guess that if United or Chelsea were to enjoy that much of the ball at Anfield they would have emerged with 3 points rather than 1.

Anfield has become the litmus test of championship challenges – win at Anfield and you can feel confident about going anywhere and getting a result. When Chelsea won 4-1 there back in 2005/6 they had effectively won the league in October. United’s win there last March confirmed that we had it in us to get a result on the back of a poor overall performance. In my opinion by failing to win Arsenal missed the chance to really stamp their authority on the league on Sunday.

Also, they showed up the same old weaknesses when it comes to these tricky northern fixtures. Liverpool bullied them in the first 10 minutes, and should really have been two up even though Arsenal looked like walking through the scouse backline at will.

We also saw Aderbayor, a striker lauded by one and all but he is still no Thierry Henry, lacking the finesse and presence of the Frenchman. He maybe good but he doesn’t threatent to turn clued-up defenders into mincemeat like Drogba either.
As shown by his equaliser, Fabregas is the heart, soul, liver and kidney of this team – without him Arsenal are half the team, stop him (and Liverpool failed to do that yesterday) and you stop Arsenal. Hleb and Rosicky look good but tend to play better at home while Flamini’s preferrence to Gilberto remains a bit of a mystery at a place like Anfield where the Brazilian’s experience could have prevented that harrowing opening 10 minutes that cost Arsene’s men the game.

So in a 1-1 draw the winners were United and Chelsea. Both made up ground, and both seem to be recovering from dodgy starts – I expect the title winners to once more emerge from the members of the big four not in action on Sunday.

Club v country

Last Saturday, during the Aston Villa – Manchester United game, there was an unusual but not altogether surprising terrace exchange between rival fans. As Villa fans shouted ‘you let our country down’ at Wayne Rooney, United fans launched into ‘Portugal’ ‘Argentina’ and ‘You can stick your f***in’ England up your arse’ and booed the Villa fans rendition of ‘Swing Low’ sung in support of the rugby team’s imminent World Cup Final appearance against South Africa that night.  

To cap it all when United knocked in a fourth goal against their hapless opponents the home fans were serenaded with ‘Are you England in disguise’. Needless to say many patriots were not impressed. As far as United supporters are concerned, there’s little doubt that a percentage find all this hilarious as it winds up the little Englander brigade.

Yet there seems to be more to it than an attempt to ‘yank the chains’ of home supporters in the English heartlands. Since the Beckham saga following the 1998 World Cup – Hoddle’s criticism, the effigies, Beck’s rehabilitation by winning the treble – there has been a well-publicised antipathy that has festered to become outright hatred of the national team among the followers of the champions. 

Part of this came about when Wembley Stadium stood up as one to declaim ‘Stand Up if you hate Man U’ in the 1990s and has worsened with every perceived slight. As if to underline the antipathy a new banner emerged on the Stretford End last season that read “United>England” – the use of a greater than sign was a clue perhaps to the flag’s internet origins but nevertheless it was warmly welcomed until someone (presumably an away supporter) objected and the banner was removed before the next game.  

It seems that United supporters have come to regard followers of the national team as heretics who emerge once every few months to criticise the heroes they worship every week. Typically supporters of smaller clubs, the theory goes, they really don’t care for football but follow the team out of patriotic duty – hence the hysterical response by some following the Villa game. The England fans for their part regard United as arrogant – supporting the national team is something they regard as a duty, rather than a forlorn quest for glory.

Yet there is little doubt that the two fan groups have reached a point where statistics like the one claiming that United are the most popular club among member of Club England are misleading.  Among match-going reds it’s safe to say that England come bottom of a very long list slightly ahead of city and the scousers. The background for the club v country terrace dispute is the fact that United fans no longer need the national team like they did in the 80s. Until their renaissance in the 1990s, United supporters followed the national team in greater numbers because it was their only escape from the domestic game.

Now of course they get at least three Euro aways before Christmas with the chance for longer distance trips to the Far East in the pre-season.  Perhaps optimistically, some England fans claimed that the songs sung in celebration of England’s defeat were taken up by Irish or Scottish supporters of the champions. They simply can’t believe that a born and bred Englishman could declaim his own country so publicly and with such vitriol. 

Sadly, for the patriots at least, I can confirm this is not the case. The songs were sung with gusto by born and bred Mancunians, Cockneys and Yorkshiremen who all support United and, increasingly, have grown tired of the national team, its supporters and the blame culture that attaches itself to them.  The media withchunt after every game might be hilarious if it were not for the fact that it seems to be a United player that gets it in the neck after every setback – Beckham, the Nevilles, Scholes and now Rooney have all felt the wrath of Fleet Street while the likes of ‘invisible’ Steven Gerrard and portly Frank Lampard are routinely let off the hook. 

Then again, perhaps the city of Manchester is partly to blame for the antipathy. If there is one thing that sets the city apart it is an inbuilt non-conformity – be it the formation of the Chartist movement, the Trade Unions, the Sufragettes or the birth of the PFA in the Edwardian era, Mancunians have always fought against the prevailing mood of the rest of the country. Kicking up a fuss rather than letting things simmer down. 

Not for nothing were United known during the first two decades of the 20^th century as ‘The Outcasts’ following the FA’s clampdown on the player union led by United players Billy Meredith and Charlie Roberts. The antipathy between club and country continued up until the 1960s as numerous stars at the club were passed over for international honours because the club did not have a representative on the International Board. For instance, would any other club have been prevented from appearing in the 1959 European Cup, following an invite from UEFA in the wake of the Munich disaster?   

Moreover, Manchester United are the outcast club in every sense – representing the immigrant side of the city (Irish priests, Jewish businessmen and Chinese traders) in the same way that Manchester City were the team of choice for the city’s founding fathers: God fearing councillors, freemasons and vicars. And, while much of this support may have been diluted as the red diaspora has spread around the globe and the club has become a behemoth of the football business under American ownership, nevertheless the rump remains in the shape of the 1998 defeat of Murdoch and the formation of FC United of Manchester in 2005. 

The origins of the support of both sets of fans is instructive as well. United tend to launch into these tirades at places like Birmingham, Portsmouth and Middlesbrough – well known English strongholds. If they tried the same trick at Liverpool for example they might discover a rare area of unanimity with their north-west rivals, another club whose supporters regard themselves as English only by accident. 

Of course those that follow the national team do not see things like that. The patriot believes that an Englishman is an Englishman whether he’s from Salford or Stevenage. Until recently there was a sense that United fans were rebelling against the supporters of the team – from the media ready to vilify the next United hero to the tattooed supporter crying through ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ – rather than the team itself.

After all there are few more devoted Englishmen than Gary Neville and players such as Bobby Charlton and Duncan Edwards were United and England ‘through and through’ whatever that means.  Yet the outright unpopularity of this England team has only reinforced the antipathy. Why should we, the logic seems to run, transfer our loyalties to a collection of characters we despise on a day-to-day basis. There isn’t even the excuse that they are any good; JT, Stevie G, Lamps, the Coles, even Rio, they’re all playing on a reputation that’s been easily won against sub-standard opposition in domestic football.

Not only that but they are of the generation that big themselves up at the drop of a hat, although at least in the case of Rio performances appear to be finally meeting the hype of the £30m defender price tag.  Which brings us round to the tricky role patriotism plays in the Champions League era. In a sport that transgresses boundaries as freely as football, the days of a 19^th century concept such as the nation state are surely numbered.

There is no longer English football or Brazilian football – clubs at the highest level play in much the same way, a homogenised form of the game that has come about as the wealth of European clubs has sucked in talent from all over the globe. There is simply good football or bad football, attacking football or defensive football, winning football or losing football. Mourinho and Benitez or Rijkaard and Wenger. 

Look at Sven. Villified as England coach but now sanctified at a club starved of success. He has proved to the media, the patriots and the FA that the problem with the national game cannot be laid at his door and that a sow’s ear can never be passed off as a silk purse at the highest level. It’s clear that under McClaren England, although unlucky to a degree, reaped the bitter harvest of their ineptitude in the early stages of the campaign.

Yet if the effect is cathartic and (finally) produces an England team that football fans want to watch then it will have done the national game some good. Yet sadly I think it’s too late for the current generation of football followers to re-discover the patriotic cause. Let’s face it, in an era where the apex is no longer a 4 yearly competition between nations states but an annual tournament between brands and sponsors, the lure of playstations and sexy Barca football is always going to beat a crumby old flag.

How can you watch non-league football?

Well I’ve tried in the past and failed miserably to get into non-league or pub football. When United underwent the Glazer invasion in 2005 I went to a few FC United games, I’ve also watched mates play on the park and I have even reported on my university team for the student paper but (and I don’t know whether this means I’m a gloryhunting JCL or a product of the media age) I have never got my head around people watching for pleasure.

Now the Premiership has many negative sides to it; it’s too commercialised, the tickets are too expensive and the atmosphere is often barely a decible above that at your local library, but at least in this controlled atmosphere you get to watch good and sometimes great players displaying a high level of skill and tactical awareness. On the other hand with non-league or lower league football I get the impression that unless you are emotionally involved with one of the teams and can forego the aesthetic in favour of the right result, you are basically watching a game being played badly. 

Granted, there are occasional glimpses of genius in among the dross. Heroes can emerge from the most unlikely setting and, of course, all success is relative but I’ve never really understood the obssession among a certain group of football supporters for this level of the game.

The best excuse I can come up with is that these folk think that ‘grassroots’ football is how the game should be played at all levels – honest, homely, without the histrionics, controversy or diving and, probably of utmost importance to these people, in front of a handful of coginiscenti who have paid their footballing dues following the team.

I also think that these football follower believe that non-league football is a bit like stumbling upon one of those bars where there’s a house band on and suddenly, after years of listening to ‘established artists’ you get to hear your favourite music, say blues, being played as if Muddy Waters was in the room.

And yet, non-league football is commericalised enough to have it’s own sponsors and, thanks to the Setanta deal, more live matches than teams in League 1 and 2. About half the teams in the Conference are full-time while most take some sort of wage home from the game, so these aren’t tortured artists  or honest amateurs. And, because they get paid and there is a huge bonus for promotion to the next level the ‘under pressure manager’ will persuade his team to play the percentages and eschew the risky dribbles we see so much more of it at the apex of the football pyramid.

Then there is the lack of atmosphere generated when there are at most 2-3,000 people at a game. One of the first things that attracted me to watching United was the adrenaline rush and assault on the senses upon entering the stadium: the bright green pitch, the floodlights, the 40,000 like-minded souls and the to and fro on the terraces as the crowd went through the gamut of emotions.

If football is an emotional rollercoaster and rollercoasters don’t come any bigger than United. The thing is once you’ve been on the main attraction the penny arcades don’t hold much thrill any more. Sure the kids might want to go on the dodgems  and you’ll get a kick out of hooking a duck but when all’s said and done you want to experience the big league thrill again, even if it means you’ll be paying through the nose to re-live it. 

This is isn’t an argument against non-league, semi-professional and amateur football – England has more footballers per head of population than any other country on the planet, including Brazil. But, for the life of me I can’t understand paying good money to watch it and I still can’t get my head around the fact that a satellite broadcaster would want to commit itself to showing 40 matches a season. As for the ardent followers of football at this level – is there really nothing better to do?

and now there’s an international break

United won on Saturday – then the scousers dropped points against relegation haunted Spurs yesterday, so not a bad weekend. The fact United played for about 20 minutes on Saturday in between stops for injuries makes the resulting hoo-har over the 4-0 win all the more bizarre.

Yet there were a great many plusses, not least the coming of age in a United shirt of Carlos Tevez and Anderson, two signings who had hitherto failed to impress in red. Anderson in particular seemed to take the game by the scruff after he came on for O’Shea in the first half. His tackling was a revelation although his distribution and eye for a killer pass should have been expected for a lad bought for the best part of £20m. Nevertheless he set up goals for Tevez and sent Rooney on his way to set-up Ronaldo for the third. The contrast between his energetic performance and another lethargic Scholes showing was vivid.

Tevez took the eye though and his first goal is bound to be a youtube classic for the next week at least. He takes up poistions intelligently and seems to have dovetailed well with Rooney and Ronnie. The 4 goal second half certainly added gloss after a poor first stanza during which United lost Vidic and O’Shea and looked in disarray.

The scousers draw on Sunday highlighted their shortcomings – Benitez’s attempts to bolster the reds title charge with the signings of Voronin and Torres looks doomed to be honest. They are far too reliant on Gerrard and his famed inconsistency will remain an achilles heel. Meanwhile Arsenal struggled to overcome a resilient Sunderland outfit while city kept up an impressive run with Elano scoring two goals…