This must be a great season to watch if you are a neutral. The race for the title is exciting, and the relegation battle will be extremely tense and will probably be undecided right up to the last minutes of the final game. There has been some great attacking football, and each week there seem to be inexplicable shock results. (You heard about the Chelsea result last week? Yes? Just checking)
Thankfully the season hasn’t gone according to the narrative set out in the much of the media, where simple arguments are accepted all too easily and there is a lack of desire to go against the grain.
To be fair Palace’s narrative moved a little through the season from ‘the worst team ever to play in the Premiership’ through the ‘Transfer Deadline Day Clowns’ and the ‘Club no-one wants to manage’ to the current ‘Pulis genius to keep them up’ stage we have been in for a while now.
It would be churlish to demean anything Pulis has done, and his record stands up incredibly well against the other replacement managers who have come in (Meulensteen, Poyet, Mel, Magath, Solskaer) but even that positive narrative underplays the efforts of the players. It takes a hell of a lot of discipline, concentration and teamwork to pull Pulis’s plans into practice, and I don’t think the national press have acknowledged the weekly efforts of the likes of Speroni, Ward, Delaney, Jedinak and Bolasie.
But Palace are not alone in challenging the narrative.
Of course we all know that “Liverpool can’t defend”. They have conceded 40 goals, ironically one less than us, but that misses the point. They are playing two upfront unlike anyone else and have challenged the accepted norm of defending first and trying to play on the break. Instead they are backing their attacking formation to always outscore the opposition. It is the most outrageously positive tactic seen in the Premier League since Keegan’s Newcastle side of the mid-1990’s. Good luck to them. Hope they only drop three more points for the rest of the season (specifically on Saturday May 3rd).
“That Tim Sherwood at Tottenham has revived Emmanuel Adebayor’s career and is done all right, except when he plays the top teams.” Sorry, but Tottenham are a mess. They have managed to do what Palace did when they sold Ian Wright but on a financially embarrassing scale. When Ian Wright left for Arsenal in 1990/1, Palace immediately re-invested almost all the fee on a replacement Marco Gabbiadini, who had been a prolific scorer at York then Sunderland, where he scored a goal every two games. Gabbiadini was not as prolific at Palace – far from it. He left for Derby after 4 months.
Tottenham have taken this to another level with the way they have spent the proceeds of the Bale transfer. They bought Soldado, Lamela (for £30m!!!) Chiriches, Chadli, Paulinho and Christian Eriksen with the Bale money. Of those, only Eriksen looks like a successful buy, but many of those players haven’t been given a chance. It seems crazy to invest such huge sums in new players then appoint a new manager who only appears to want to play two of the signings in his ‘Best’ XI. Someone at Tottenham has got it completely wrong! It might end up that Tottenham gave Bale away for next to nothing.
Do you remember when the Southampton’s Chairman resigned and everyone said that Pochettini would leave and the team fall apart? Not heard that one for a while now though. Not only have they not collapsed, they appear to be providing half the England side for the opening game of the World Cup.
And there’s the one about Sunderland improving under Gus Poyet. Well, they had an excellent run in the Carling Cup, including that epic penalty shoot-out victory at Old Trafford, which also means they are the team at the bottom with games in hand. The point is that they are still at the bottom. We are told that Adam Johnson is an England player one week, a substitute the next. Lee Cattermole, never more than 30 seconds away from his next awful tackle, appears to exist because he runs around in an aggressive fashion and shouts a lot. They should give Liam Bridcutt more responsibility, he’s a far better player, but not until next season!
The press have had a field day mocking Vincent Tan and his strange superstitions and his unique dress sense. His replacement of Malky Mackay with Solksjaer was clearly a mistake, but one he has only made once. Shaheed Khan and his advisors at Fulham have got rid of two managers this season. Perhaps Martin Jol was too laid back for the challenge ahead but why appoint Meulensteen if you weren’t convinced he was the right guy? And why bring in Curbishley only to fire him before he did anything wrong (maybe that was just to give us a laugh!)
At Hull, the owner has got himself on the wrong end of the narrative as he has foolishly escalated a dispute over ground revenues into one about a name change. And yet, he has backed the manager all the way in terms of funding the team. Hull bought a ready-made midfield from Spurs in August and then a brand new forward line in January. Hull were no better than Cardiff last season but are in a much better state on the field now, thanks to the owner’s generosity.
It just looks like the ire directed towards owners is misplaced.
Truth is that football is chaos. Players make mistakes. Players lack discipline and sometimes lack motivation.
The scoring of an early goal can be crucial. It can ruin tactical plans and leave players confused and demotivated. That explains Arsenal’s recent demise at Chelsea, but even then chaos kicked in – otherwise why would Oxlade-Chamberlain do what he did and why did Kieran Gibbs get sent off instead of him.
Referees make mistakes and can be influenced by reputation, surroundings and the expected outcome. Owners may be great at making money in one line of business, but clueless when it comes to applying their talents to football.
Challenge the Narrative! Celebrate the chaos! Just like we have all done since the end of the Chelsea game.
Otherwise there would be no point watching.
