IT’S ALREADY A BLUE XMAS!
The question is will City lose a match ... they will, won’t they?
1: CAN MANCHESTER CITY GO PL SEASON UNBEATEN? City currently have the look of a side that could bend spoons and one of their new qualities is stubbornness. their rivals have been waiting for a slump but maybe they have already had it.
Games against Feyenoord, Huddersfield and Southampton saw City below their best but they still won. Nevertheless, City will lose a Premier League game at some point. it may come when the distractions of the Champions League become too great or once Pep Guardiola’s team have sealed the title. But they will lose a game.
they simply have to. Don’t they? 2: WHY IS JOSE MOURINHO SO GRUMPY? tHErE seems to be something awry with the Manchester united manager and the most logical explanation is tied in to question No 1.
Mourinho came to Manchester to restore united to the pinnacle of English football. He has made strides but Mourinho does not live to come second and all he sees when he pulls back the curtains at the Lowry Hotel every morning is Manchester City blue.
Mourinho will not spend the second half of his career looking up to Pep Guardiola and that is why his stay in Manchester may be shorter than we think. 3: HAVE LIVERPOOL SOLVED THEIR DEFENSIVE ISSUES? No. Liverpool’s recent run has been impressive and since their 4- 1 defeat by tottenham at Wembley in october they have only conceded seven times in 10 Premier League games.
But Jurgen Klopp has not ruled out defensive signings and he is right. Liverpool felt they needed a commanding central defender in the summer and nothing has changed. Klopp has one of the most exciting attacking units in European football but it is only Christmas and his team have been out of the title race for weeks. there is a reason for this. 4: WHAT IS WRONG WITH TOTTENHAM? SPurS remain a hugely talented side, one that i would expect to put together a run of seven or eight League wins at any moment. But Mauricio Pochettino’s foundations shifted with Kyle Walker sold, Danny rose unsettled, Victor Wanyama and toby Alderweireld injured and Dele Alli out of form.
that is a third of last season’s team and the club did not invest enough last summer to withstand the blows that tend to strike all top clubs at some point during a long season. From that point of view, tottenham have got what they asked for. 5: WAS WENGER RIGHT TO STAY AT ARSENAL? tHErE will come a time when we miss Arsene Wenger. the wisdom he imparts, the quiet dignity. At Arsenal, though, what changes under his rule? the home defeat by Manchester united — all the possession, no points — felt desperately familiar and this time last season Wenger’s team had more points than his current version. With Mesut ozil and Alexis Sanchez on the way out, how do Arsenal improve? More than ever, a change of manager feels right. 6: WHAT IS THE SECRET OF BURNLEY’S SUCCESS? BurNLEy’S best decision came after 2015’s relegation. By sticking with Sean Dyche, Burnley allowed their structures to grow. tom Heaton, Michael Duff, Ben Mee, Sam Vokes, Ashley Barnes and Scott Arfield were already there so it should not surprise us that a core group should prosper now under the same manager. And Dyche’s team play better football than many admit. two of his greatest admirers are Guardiola and Wenger. Narrow wins may fall away but a top-half finish would be exceptional. 7: SHOULD STOKE CITY EXPECT BETTER? ExPECtAtioN — one of the most crucial words in sport. it does not matter what you do. if you are not doing as well as people think you should then you will soon be in trouble and this is Mark Hughes’s problem.
twice in two years, Stoke finished in the top half under Hughes but a slight drop-off last season and some problems this time mean Stoke are travelling backwards.
Stoke will not go down under Hughes but what may help them is an FA Cup run. Cups bring joy and more managers should realise that. Stoke’s tie against Coventry on January 6 could be more important than Hughes thinks. 8: WAS MOYES A GOOD CHOICE AT WEST HAM? CrEDit to David Moyes for what he has done so far. the Scot has always been a good structural coach and there is evidence of that
already at his new club. The problem with this union is that it is one between a club that will at some stage start to exert enormous pressures on its manager and, by the same token, a manager who has never dealt with those pressures very well.
From that point of view, Moyes seemed a strange pick by West Ham back in November and it still feels that way now. 9: CAN RAFA BENITEZ SAVE NEWCASTLE? WHEN Benitez was appointed by Mike Ashley, I thought it was the worst possible move. One control freak appointed by another and all I could envisage was the future sound of clashing heads. But it turns out that a manager like Benitez was exactly what Newcastle needed, someone strong enough to stand up to the club’s owner.
They are in trouble now — despite their fine win at West Ham — because they came up with a Championship squad and did not invest. But if an impending takeover does not get in the way of a couple of January signings, Benitez will keep them up. 10: DID THE YOUTH WORLD CUP WINS MEAN ANYTHING? YES, they did, because they told us things are changing. To know we are producing technically gifted footballers is encouraging. Just as important, however, is what happens now.
I remember watching Ryan Babel, Maceo Rigters and Royston Drenthe star for a brilliant Dutch team in the 2007 Under 21 European Championship. Babel is now in Turkey, Rigters is playing amateur football and Drenthe has retired.
So two age-group World Cups — at Under 20 and Under 17 levels — show that we have learned to do one important thing very well. Whether English domestic football can provide an environment for this young talent to thrive is another question. 11: SHOULD WE WORRY ABOUT ENGLISH COACHES? THOSE who say the recent appointments of Alan Pardew, Roy Hodgson and Sam Allardyce ended this debate miss the point. That three experienced English guys were given another go by clubs terrified of relegation should not encourage anybody. It was desperate pragmatism at work. Until younger UK coaches are promoted by chairmen with courage and long-term vision then as far as I am concerned not much changes. As we stand, the best chance of a manager like Sheffield United’s Chris Wilder getting in to the Premier League is to take a club there himself. 12: HOW CAN WE SAVE THE ENGLISH CUPS? AND so the debate about the much maligned English cup competitions rages on, but at least we can discuss it in the wake of a brilliant effort in the Carabao Cup by Bristol City, who beat Manchester United and now meet City.
The clear solution to the problem of Premier League clubs not taking domestic cups seriously is to cut the size of the top division to 18. This would free up space in the schedule and improve the low quality of teams at the foot of the Premier League.
But file this idea in a folder with other things that will never happen.