One thing that struck us this week was that there were an awful lot of goals by debutants in the Premier League this weekend. Dimitar Berbatov, Javi Garcia, Alexander Buttner, Nick Powell and Christian Benteke all scored on their debuts for their respective clubs this week. Obviously this could be (and most probably is, but I've got a nice theory so bear with me) a coincidence, but I think that this is an encouraging sign for the Premier League. I think that this shows the depth of Premier League squads is improving and competition for places is hotting up at almost every PL team. It used to be the case that team's first XI's were strong and were the main focus and the squad was made up of players not quite good enough to get into the starting XI or who were young prospects. Nowadays though there is a lot of more emphasis on the squad and strength in depth is a necessity to compete in the PL. Therefore, new signings are under instant pressure to perform rather than getting into the team by virtue of being a big money or high profile new signing. Dimitar Berbatov has to compete with Mladen Petric and Hugo Rodallega - any one of those could viably start for Fulham. Javi Garcia has to jostle with Gareth Barry, Jack Rodwell and Yaya Toure et al. Alexander Buttner is vying for a place in front of Patrice Evra while Nick Powell has Paul Scholes, Tom Cleverley and Michael Carrick in his position. Christian Benteke is a bit more of an anomaly but he does have Darren Bent and Andreas Weimann in his position and he was arguably not expecting to walk into their first team straight away. New signings are desperate to prove they merit a starting place when they get to a new club and the challenge comes when they are required to keep up their good start and maintain a high level of performance. One thing is for sure though it's good to see top quality players like Berbatov and Garcia come to England (or stay in Dimi's case - and boy he is a joy to watch when he plays), and see good young prospects like Buttner, Powell and Benteke grow and mature in the PL into (hopefully) future stars.
Another interesting point to note is the form of Fulham. They look like they will be a strange team again this season in respect of their home form v away form. Last year Fulham won 10 matches at home and lost just 4. Conversely they won just 4 games away and lost 10. This season so far Fulham have won both of their home games but lost both of their away games. They've scored 8 and conceded 0 at home, whilst scoring just 2 away from home and conceding 6. So that begs the question is Fulham's style too cavalier away from home? At home they play swashbuckling football and look as good as any team outside of the top 4 arguably when they play well, but away from home something seems to go wrong. The answer may be that Martin Jol's style of play, whilst admirable and very attractive, is simply not suited to playing away from home. The likes of Man United and Man City have in recent years adopted stifling tactics away from home similar to their European tactics which is designed to primarily avoid conceding and then grinding out a goal or two at the other end. Fulham are perhaps being a bit naive in thinking they can win away games in the same style as they can at home. The problem is that this will start to put pressure on their home games sooner or later and they will have to win at home just to stay out of a dogfight at the wrong end of the table. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying that they will be in any kind of trouble, I just don't think that their tactics are the smartest way to go about it. But hey, they've had the heart ripped out of their team with losing the likes of Dempsey, Dembele, Johnson and Zamora so it may be that they will start to adopt a more pragmatic approach away from home, and having Berbatov up front will probably help that as well. Either way Martin Jol has done well to keep Fulham's style at home, but may want to consider toning down his attacking away from home.
Roundup
As you will have seen in the excellent match report here QPR got a very credible 0-0 draw against the League Leaders Chelsea. In my opinion, it is the clean sheet that is most impressive about this result for the R's as Chelsea have been popping in goals for fun in their previous games - all in all, a very good debut for Julio Cesar then.
Man Utd beat Wigan 4-0 in a fairly unspectacular contest at Old Trafford. I hope Danny Welbeck gets a dressing down from Fergie about that dive it was embarrassing and the last thing we need is for another one of our players to get a reputation for diving after Ashley Young's shenanigans last year. Welbeck is a good enough player not to have to resort to diving so please stop eh Danny? On another sad note it seems that there were some chants about Hillsborough and I'm not going to debate whether it was referenced specifically or not - as a human being it is disgusting to even make a thinly veiled reference at such a human tragedy and it needs to stop. Please don't think all United fans feel the same and these 'fans' aren't fit to wear the shirt even in the stands. On to the match and the most pleasing thing was that United won without the likes of Rooney, Kagawa and Van Persie. A big effort is needed in Europe this year after last years disaster so it's good these players got to rest for the Galatasaray game. Buttner at left back looked pretty good from the highlights and hopefully now Evra has some genuine competition his form will get back to the high standards it was before it dipped in the last 2 years I'd say.
Crewe drew 2-2 at Stevenage having been 2 goals up after just 10 minutes. AJ Leitch-Smith produced 2 clinical finishes and looked to have put the Railwaymen on the way to a second away victory of the season, but Stevenage pulled one back before half time and then Chuks Aneke's sending off (coincidentally on his debut - so forget what I said above!) put too much pressure on the Alex defence and Stevenage equalised to maintain their unbeaten start to the season. All in all though not many teams will come away from Broadhall Way having taken points off the hosts this season so I think the Alex can be fairly satisfied with that point.
Union Berlin did actually play this week so our German correspondent Hans Vree finally got something right. They did unfortunately succumb to a 90th minute winner by FC Ingolstadt's Manuel Schaffler and they now sit second from bottom in 2. Bundesliga worryingly. They've got a massive match coming up next though against 1. FC Cologne who sit directly above them in the table so let's hope they can get a result from that one.
What we learned this week:
- Peter Crouch doesn't just have the necessary height to succeed in the NBA he's got mad ball skills, as shown by his 'NBA goal' against Man City.
- Andy Wilkinson is still a thug, and he's lucky Balotelli's reputation probably stopped him getting a red card.
- Jermain Defoe is on fire, and how long will Adebayor be willing to wait in his shadows?
- Southampton's defence is shocking - I saw a suggestion of Craig Gordon in goal for them; might not be a bad shout?
- Barnet look very rocky this year - could they finally be going down?
- Gillingham and Tranmere look very good at the top of their divisions.
- Christian Benteke is the oldest looking 21 year old I think I've ever seen.
This week the Champions League proper is back - YAY! - and the standout fixture is obviously Shakhtar v FC Nordsjaelland...I kid, it's obviously Real Madrid v City. I for one can't wait to see the ideas that José Morais picked up whilst scouting Stoke play City at the weekend be put into action on Tuesday night!
We will have a report from the Man Utd v Galatasaray game which yours truly is attending. Crewe are also playing on Tuesday against Carlisle. So enjoy your football this week there's a lot of it!
We will have a report from the Man Utd v Galatasaray game which yours truly is attending. Crewe are also playing on Tuesday against Carlisle. So enjoy your football this week there's a lot of it!
J
No comments:
Post a Comment