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Fish & Chip Shots: Sir Alex’s Tactical Failings, Arsenal’s Inferiority Complex & The Wacky Week That Was In English Football
From the Champions League to the Premier League to the FA Cup, I’ve got you covered on all fronts.
Mar 10, 2011 3:46:00 PM
By Shane Evans
Getty
It’s not even Friday yet and I’m already in full-on footy meltdown mode. So so much has gone down over the last few days it’s hard to keep track.
Luckily for all you lot out there on the interwebs, it’s my job to do so and because of this will be providing you with an overdue dose of dang good diatribery. I just made that word up.
I’ll obviously begin with the weekend’s now-ancient EPL matches that brought us a few shocks and a large number of goals. Then we’ll transition to the cosmopolitan, so-hot-right-now tournament that is the Champions League. To cap it all off, there will be some FA Cup talk in there as well, given that I don’t write TFEs on those particular matches. Yes, no column tomorrow. No crying, please. You’ll just have to read this baby twice. Or three times, even.
So rewind your minds back to last Sunday. You got up early (or late) depending on what part of the globe you are reading this. Flicking on the TV, you get yourself ready for the always-entertaining fixture between bitter rivals Liverpool and Manchester United. You are ready for this one. More than you’ve been ready for anything in your life. Even more so than when McDonald’s announced they were bringing back the McRib. Maybe that was just me…
In preparation for the match, you’ve thoroughly read my TFE on Friday and schooled yourself on what you would likely see from the match. Tactics, the teams, the final result. You did your homework.
Then absolutely none of it happened.
I’ll be the first to admit I was wrong with my predictions as to how things were to go at Anfield on Sunday. I got it all backwards. In a weird twist however, the way Sir Alex did things, which contrasted with what I wrote, may have cost him the result. Maybe if he would have listened to my suggestions, the final score would have gone in their favor instead of the other way around.
Let us investigate these bold claims. I’ll preface all of this by saying I never have and never will claim to know more than Ferguson, but in this case, maybe my tactics would have worked more than his. Just this once.
I said: ManU should start with one striker. Sir Alex: Let’s pop on three instead, see how that works out.
Putting in Javier Hernandez wasn’t necessarily the worst idea ever, but we have seen before that Sir Alex doesn’t mind playing the lone striker up top and given how little Hernandez was able to do in this one, it might have been a good idea. He may be the hot hand, but he’s been scoring against lesser teams and with the extra midfielder they really could have closed off the supply to Luis Suarez and Dirk Kuyt.
As we saw, they did a pretty good job of cutting the Manchester United defense to shreds.
I said: ManU should have started John O’Shea. Sir Alex: Give the boy Rafael a go. See how he does.
Sure, another decent decision, but really, speed isn’t everything. O’Shea is arguably a more defensively sound player and won’t get lost running up and down the field as he knows where he belongs. His experience is invaluable and would have done much more to stop Suarez early in the match. He should have been in the team.
I said: Darren Fletcher is the man. Sir Alex: I gave Michael Carrick an extension first. He starts.
Carrick is nowhere near the player that Fletcher is and when you’re in a midfield with Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs, you have to do quite a bit of defending. Personally, I feel that one of the latter should have been dropped in favor of a more athletic center. They were just no match for the amped-up and agile Liverpool frontmen.
Who knows, had Sir Alex fielded a different squad things may have ended up completely different. Had I not gone on that field trip to the science museum, I would have never been bitten by that radioactive spider and never became...well, you get the point.
Can’t change the past now. Move on and reflect on what has come to pass, that’s how you improve. Words to live by, my people.
The irony is that Liverpool put a big dent in Manchester United’s bid for a 19th title. That 19th trophy would surpass the 18 that the Reds have currently. It’s like a curse or something. Still plenty to play for this season, thanks to this match.
Trailing United in the title race are the team that are dropping out of more tournaments than Lindsay Lohan has rehab programs: The Arsenal. Le Prof’s men had a great chance to put the pressure on the leaders with their home match against an out-of-form Sunderland side. What happened? A bore draw. Obviously not enough tiger blood in their veins.
Props to the Black Cats for their brave performance, but Arsenal need to win matches like that. Stuff of champions and all that noise. In an effort to keep this retrospective tone going, when Arsene and the boys look back on their season that yielded another third place finish, he’ll see matches like this one and West Brom and Wigan and Newcastle and think what could have been. Unfortunate really, as I’d like to see them win something the title this season.
Time for the Onions before I piss off Gunners fans even more. More on them soon, though.
Pickled Onions
The weeks just get harder and harder. A full split this time around as I incorrectly picked the score of the Liverpool-ManU match but correctly picked the tactics (as I’m sure you’ll all agree).
In the second match, I had Arsenal over Sunderland. They faltered and were held by a very resolute Black Cats group. Good for them.
Finally, in the cake walk of the week, I went with Chelsea to beat Blackpool and thankfully that came to pass. I wouldn’t say it was an easy one to look at but it wasn’t difficult either. Give me a break, I needed some help given my recent form.
Overall: 24-20-2
If this were hockey, I’d be the Columbus Blue Jackets. THE BLUE JACKETS!
Mushy Peas
I told you we’d talk some Champions League. We’re also going to gab about the FA Cup. Should be some tasty peas. We’ll start with Michel’s baby.
And then there were three. Yes, three English teams remain in the tournament, and if you’ve been living under a rock for the last three days, the teams left may surprise you.
Yes, we are living in a world right now where Arsenal are out of the tournament and their arch-rival and first-time entrants in the tournament, Tottenham Hotspur, are marching on. Funny how that works. First the Gunners.
Given the tallest task of all our beloved English squads, Arsenal were fabulous in the first leg and unfortunate in the second. Robin van Persie’s red card was an absolute joke and the visitors should have felt hard done by with that one. It didn’t help that Barcelona are the best keep-away team in the world. Give them an extra man and it’s like trying to pry Charlie from his ‘jelly beans.’
Oh well, at least it’s another excuse for the Gunnervse to feel sorry for themselves. Totally the appropriate attitude.
As for Spurs, jubilation. Great result for them and am proud that they are moving on to the next round. I mean how can you ever beat a team like Milan? They have Zlatan! He always shows up in games that matter. Robinho? Absolute class at this level. It’s that team versus individual argument, I suppose.
I didn’t think they’d make it this far, and I find it hard to believe they’ll advance to the semis, but hey, if you play as soundly as they did the other night and really test a team with the talent that Milan has, anything is possible. What if they get Barcelona and beat them? North London would go crazy. I would also chuckle at the situation, though just for a minute or two.
Shifting our attention to this weekend and to more domestic bliss, we have the oldest club football competition the world has ever known, the FA Cup.
To potential further Arsenal’s misery, they have to travel to Old Trafford and take on a very displeased Manchester United in what could be the third knock-out game in as many weeks. They’ll also be without Fab, who’s been hobbled once more, and that goalie whose name I don’t feel like spelling.
It’s definitely going to be a tough ask for the disheartened crew as they’re struggling right now and Manchester United are hungry. I’m not going to openly predict who I think is going to win because I’m no good at that anymore, but it should be an exciting match. Would just stink if Arsenal lost, for their sake. Hopefully they don’t pull a Miami Heat if they lose…
There are some other good matches, too, as Birmingham are still alive, along with Man City and Stoke. My sleeper pick to win it though is Bolton as I think they are built for a nice cup run. Would be good to see a ManU-Man City final though. And when I say good, I of course mean, annoying as hell.
The Fixins’
The No Job Security Of The Week Award
Fabio Capello, England: Our Italian leader has been speculated to leave the post of Three Lions boss since the World Cup ended. Despite signing on for another two years to (hopefully) lead our boys into the Euros, Capello has been speculated to take every open and possibly open spot in the game. What’s the point? I mean, if you aren’t going to be committed to the job, why do it? Sure, he’s guaranteed to leave after it’s over, but it just irks me that there is talk this soon. Come on now. 2012 is a long ways away. Plus, there won’t be much football being played during the apocalypse.
Tweet of the Week: @jacobdfriedman
“@shanevans On EPL replay on FSC was the 97/98 Arsenal game with LCFC where you scored 2x in the last 10 to draw 2-2. Just 1 of those days…”
A disappointing Arsenal performance and a Leicester mention in one tweet. All kinds of winning going on there.
Player of the Week: Dirk Kuyt, Liverpool
It’s not often that Dirk Kuyt is considered the best at anything. Best Sloth lookalike? Maybe. Best finisher in the Prem? Hardly. Gotta hand it to him, though, he works his bum off and this week it paid the bills with a pretty little hat-trick. Can’t not like him. That’s why he’s always in the team.
Rotten Egg of the Week: Spurs
Sure, they put down AC Milan in the Champions League. Great. Days before, however, they were in the midst of a 3-2 game against bottom-feeders Wolves and couldn’t see it off. Steven Fletcher decided to give his side a point late on, thus frustrating the bejesus out of ‘Ol Harry. Not a great result to say the least. They may have to win the CL if they want back in it next year.
Gaffe of the Week: Manchester United’s defense
Were they even on the field? Just an ugly display. Luis Suarez made them look rather stupid on that one goal and you could tell that SAF was smarting on the sidelines, “Why didn’t I listen to that Goal.com fella?!” If this match wasn’t an indication of how incredible Nemanja Vidic is, then I’m not sure what other proof you can present.
Game of the Week: Wolves 3-3 Tottenham
Yeah, that’s right. This was a better game. Lots of lead changes, lots of nice goals, lots of Harry’s ugly mug. Had it all. Everything except three points for either side. Basically bi-winning.
Shane Evans is Deputy Editor of Goal.com. His feature, "Fish & Chip Shots" appears weekly. Contact Shane at shane.evans@goal.com with questions, comments and concerns, follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/shanEvans or join the TFE/FCS Facebook fan page!
For more news on England, visit Goal.com's England section!
Luckily for all you lot out there on the interwebs, it’s my job to do so and because of this will be providing you with an overdue dose of dang good diatribery. I just made that word up.
I’ll obviously begin with the weekend’s now-ancient EPL matches that brought us a few shocks and a large number of goals. Then we’ll transition to the cosmopolitan, so-hot-right-now tournament that is the Champions League. To cap it all off, there will be some FA Cup talk in there as well, given that I don’t write TFEs on those particular matches. Yes, no column tomorrow. No crying, please. You’ll just have to read this baby twice. Or three times, even.
So rewind your minds back to last Sunday. You got up early (or late) depending on what part of the globe you are reading this. Flicking on the TV, you get yourself ready for the always-entertaining fixture between bitter rivals Liverpool and Manchester United. You are ready for this one. More than you’ve been ready for anything in your life. Even more so than when McDonald’s announced they were bringing back the McRib. Maybe that was just me…
In preparation for the match, you’ve thoroughly read my TFE on Friday and schooled yourself on what you would likely see from the match. Tactics, the teams, the final result. You did your homework.
Then absolutely none of it happened.
I’ll be the first to admit I was wrong with my predictions as to how things were to go at Anfield on Sunday. I got it all backwards. In a weird twist however, the way Sir Alex did things, which contrasted with what I wrote, may have cost him the result. Maybe if he would have listened to my suggestions, the final score would have gone in their favor instead of the other way around.
Let us investigate these bold claims. I’ll preface all of this by saying I never have and never will claim to know more than Ferguson, but in this case, maybe my tactics would have worked more than his. Just this once.
I said: ManU should start with one striker. Sir Alex: Let’s pop on three instead, see how that works out.
Putting in Javier Hernandez wasn’t necessarily the worst idea ever, but we have seen before that Sir Alex doesn’t mind playing the lone striker up top and given how little Hernandez was able to do in this one, it might have been a good idea. He may be the hot hand, but he’s been scoring against lesser teams and with the extra midfielder they really could have closed off the supply to Luis Suarez and Dirk Kuyt.
As we saw, they did a pretty good job of cutting the Manchester United defense to shreds.
I said: ManU should have started John O’Shea. Sir Alex: Give the boy Rafael a go. See how he does.
Sure, another decent decision, but really, speed isn’t everything. O’Shea is arguably a more defensively sound player and won’t get lost running up and down the field as he knows where he belongs. His experience is invaluable and would have done much more to stop Suarez early in the match. He should have been in the team.
I said: Darren Fletcher is the man. Sir Alex: I gave Michael Carrick an extension first. He starts.
Carrick is nowhere near the player that Fletcher is and when you’re in a midfield with Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs, you have to do quite a bit of defending. Personally, I feel that one of the latter should have been dropped in favor of a more athletic center. They were just no match for the amped-up and agile Liverpool frontmen.
Who knows, had Sir Alex fielded a different squad things may have ended up completely different. Had I not gone on that field trip to the science museum, I would have never been bitten by that radioactive spider and never became...well, you get the point.
Can’t change the past now. Move on and reflect on what has come to pass, that’s how you improve. Words to live by, my people.
The irony is that Liverpool put a big dent in Manchester United’s bid for a 19th title. That 19th trophy would surpass the 18 that the Reds have currently. It’s like a curse or something. Still plenty to play for this season, thanks to this match.
Trailing United in the title race are the team that are dropping out of more tournaments than Lindsay Lohan has rehab programs: The Arsenal. Le Prof’s men had a great chance to put the pressure on the leaders with their home match against an out-of-form Sunderland side. What happened? A bore draw. Obviously not enough tiger blood in their veins.
Props to the Black Cats for their brave performance, but Arsenal need to win matches like that. Stuff of champions and all that noise. In an effort to keep this retrospective tone going, when Arsene and the boys look back on their season that yielded another third place finish, he’ll see matches like this one and West Brom and Wigan and Newcastle and think what could have been. Unfortunate really, as I’d like to see them win something the title this season.
Time for the Onions before I piss off Gunners fans even more. More on them soon, though.
Pickled Onions
The weeks just get harder and harder. A full split this time around as I incorrectly picked the score of the Liverpool-ManU match but correctly picked the tactics (as I’m sure you’ll all agree).
In the second match, I had Arsenal over Sunderland. They faltered and were held by a very resolute Black Cats group. Good for them.
Finally, in the cake walk of the week, I went with Chelsea to beat Blackpool and thankfully that came to pass. I wouldn’t say it was an easy one to look at but it wasn’t difficult either. Give me a break, I needed some help given my recent form.
Overall: 24-20-2
If this were hockey, I’d be the Columbus Blue Jackets. THE BLUE JACKETS!
Mushy Peas
I told you we’d talk some Champions League. We’re also going to gab about the FA Cup. Should be some tasty peas. We’ll start with Michel’s baby.
And then there were three. Yes, three English teams remain in the tournament, and if you’ve been living under a rock for the last three days, the teams left may surprise you.
Yes, we are living in a world right now where Arsenal are out of the tournament and their arch-rival and first-time entrants in the tournament, Tottenham Hotspur, are marching on. Funny how that works. First the Gunners.
Given the tallest task of all our beloved English squads, Arsenal were fabulous in the first leg and unfortunate in the second. Robin van Persie’s red card was an absolute joke and the visitors should have felt hard done by with that one. It didn’t help that Barcelona are the best keep-away team in the world. Give them an extra man and it’s like trying to pry Charlie from his ‘jelly beans.’
Oh well, at least it’s another excuse for the Gunnervse to feel sorry for themselves. Totally the appropriate attitude.
As for Spurs, jubilation. Great result for them and am proud that they are moving on to the next round. I mean how can you ever beat a team like Milan? They have Zlatan! He always shows up in games that matter. Robinho? Absolute class at this level. It’s that team versus individual argument, I suppose.
I didn’t think they’d make it this far, and I find it hard to believe they’ll advance to the semis, but hey, if you play as soundly as they did the other night and really test a team with the talent that Milan has, anything is possible. What if they get Barcelona and beat them? North London would go crazy. I would also chuckle at the situation, though just for a minute or two.
Shifting our attention to this weekend and to more domestic bliss, we have the oldest club football competition the world has ever known, the FA Cup.
To potential further Arsenal’s misery, they have to travel to Old Trafford and take on a very displeased Manchester United in what could be the third knock-out game in as many weeks. They’ll also be without Fab, who’s been hobbled once more, and that goalie whose name I don’t feel like spelling.
It’s definitely going to be a tough ask for the disheartened crew as they’re struggling right now and Manchester United are hungry. I’m not going to openly predict who I think is going to win because I’m no good at that anymore, but it should be an exciting match. Would just stink if Arsenal lost, for their sake. Hopefully they don’t pull a Miami Heat if they lose…
There are some other good matches, too, as Birmingham are still alive, along with Man City and Stoke. My sleeper pick to win it though is Bolton as I think they are built for a nice cup run. Would be good to see a ManU-Man City final though. And when I say good, I of course mean, annoying as hell.
The Fixins’
The No Job Security Of The Week Award
Fabio Capello, England: Our Italian leader has been speculated to leave the post of Three Lions boss since the World Cup ended. Despite signing on for another two years to (hopefully) lead our boys into the Euros, Capello has been speculated to take every open and possibly open spot in the game. What’s the point? I mean, if you aren’t going to be committed to the job, why do it? Sure, he’s guaranteed to leave after it’s over, but it just irks me that there is talk this soon. Come on now. 2012 is a long ways away. Plus, there won’t be much football being played during the apocalypse.
Tweet of the Week: @jacobdfriedman
“@shanevans On EPL replay on FSC was the 97/98 Arsenal game with LCFC where you scored 2x in the last 10 to draw 2-2. Just 1 of those days…”
A disappointing Arsenal performance and a Leicester mention in one tweet. All kinds of winning going on there.
Player of the Week: Dirk Kuyt, Liverpool
It’s not often that Dirk Kuyt is considered the best at anything. Best Sloth lookalike? Maybe. Best finisher in the Prem? Hardly. Gotta hand it to him, though, he works his bum off and this week it paid the bills with a pretty little hat-trick. Can’t not like him. That’s why he’s always in the team.
Rotten Egg of the Week: Spurs
Sure, they put down AC Milan in the Champions League. Great. Days before, however, they were in the midst of a 3-2 game against bottom-feeders Wolves and couldn’t see it off. Steven Fletcher decided to give his side a point late on, thus frustrating the bejesus out of ‘Ol Harry. Not a great result to say the least. They may have to win the CL if they want back in it next year.
Gaffe of the Week: Manchester United’s defense
Were they even on the field? Just an ugly display. Luis Suarez made them look rather stupid on that one goal and you could tell that SAF was smarting on the sidelines, “Why didn’t I listen to that Goal.com fella?!” If this match wasn’t an indication of how incredible Nemanja Vidic is, then I’m not sure what other proof you can present.
Game of the Week: Wolves 3-3 Tottenham
Yeah, that’s right. This was a better game. Lots of lead changes, lots of nice goals, lots of Harry’s ugly mug. Had it all. Everything except three points for either side. Basically bi-winning.
Shane Evans is Deputy Editor of Goal.com. His feature, "Fish & Chip Shots" appears weekly. Contact Shane at shane.evans@goal.com with questions, comments and concerns, follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/shanEvans or join the TFE/FCS Facebook fan page!
For more news on England, visit Goal.com's England section!
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