Five games into the season and we have our first sacking in the Premier League. Sunderlands woes deepen as the league blossoms into life with 28 goals scored over the weekend. Join us for discussion about the results, the tactics, and the departure of Palo DiCanio.
Another weekend wrapped up and it looks as though the Premier League has finally found a higher gear after a slow start. Goals galore, a total of 28 goals scored this weekend, including 5 goals a game in three fixtures.
Arsenal scored exclusively on set pieces against Stoke and John Obi Mikel netted his first Premier League goal after 185 games. You might want to do your reading quickly because these are at least two signs of the Apocalypse, time for week five of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
Man City 4 – Man United 1
Good grief, football. Manchester City who looked labored at the start of the season have controlled the past few matches and delivered results you would expect from a team with such talent. United meanwhile have looked uninspired under the tenure of Moyes but capable enough, especially with Robin Van Persie up top, but fell woefully short in this match. The home side outplayed United throughout the match as the City team surged time and time again in waves of blue. The languid start to United’s season became much more difficult.
Arsenal 3 – Stoke City 0
Three goals, from three dead ball situations. The hype focus in the aftermath of this match has been on Mesut Ozil’s three assists but there was great diversity and good team play from this Arsenal squad. Honorable mention to Stoke who continue to transform their style and play entertaining football. More of the same please.
Crystal Palace 0 – Swansea City 2
Michu bags his second and Nathan Dyer nets his first for the season. The Welsh side look to have gained some momentum after a disappointing start. Another loss for Crystal Palace, though in truth they look the most likely of the promoted sides to go down this season.
West Ham 2 – Everton 3
Goals galore, and two sweet freekicks from Leighton Baines makes this match a beauty. The second win for Everton, coming off their 1-0 defeat of Chelsea, puts some wind in the sails of Roberto Martinez’s squad and makes Baines their top scorer of the season. Even a second yellow for West Ham’s Mark Noble could not drag this game down, though West Ham fans might disagree.
Newcastle 2 – Hull City 3
Hull City overtake Newcastle with their win, becoming the top promoted side at 11th place. Loic Remy bagged two goals to start his league campaign with Newcastle but it was not enough to stop the promoted side from equalizing and taking the lead through a fabulous strike from Nigerian forward Aluko. Huddlestone still remains the steal of the market for the promoted sides, though Danny Graham remains the butt of jokes, the poor man can’t seem to find the net.
Cardiff 0 – Tottenham 1
Cardiff may prove to be a tough side to beat at home so this may be harsh on Tottenham to mark this game down as Bad. But bad it was, Tottenham have a lot of top talent so it was a big ask for Cardiff to get the win, yet the Cardiff fans will be disappointed their side were unable to get a goal. Lloris made some truly odd mistakes and looked to be in such a quirky mood that the home team would have hoped for at least a goal. Tottenham looked much sharper on the attack but a late stoppage time goal against a newly promoted side will not be enough for the London side that hopes for Champions league qualification
Liverpool 0 – Southampton 1
Problems seemed lurking but never present for a Liverpool side who went into the weekend at the top of the table. Some spectacular saves from Simon Mignolet were coupled with head scratching decisions from the keeper when the ball was at his feet. Constant pressure from Southampton forced a great number of errors from the home side but Liverpool made plenty of problems for themselves. Iago Aspas has yet to find rhythm in the league and Coutinho out until the end of October means that a winning, yet unconvincing Liverpool side are eager to bring Suarez back onto the pitch. The Southampton goal was not especially pretty either, great result for the saints but one of the poorer matches of the season.
Norwich 0 – Aston Villa 1
A good debut goal for Villa’s replacement striker Kozak who scored just 90 seconds after replacing Christian Benteke. The ugly here is in the fan reaction to Chris Hughton, particularly after his substitution of Nathan Redmond with chants of “you don’t know what you’re doing” ringing out. The victory was bittersweet for Aston Villa as they await the results of Benteke’s scans.
West Brom 3 – Sunderland 0
I hate to take away from a West Brom victory, especially one where they tripled their goal total for the season. Even without the Sunday announcement of DiCannio’s departure from the club it was an ugly affair. While Tottenham and Manchester City saw their squads begin to sync with one another the 14 new arrivals for Sunderland still struggle to find fluency. The bitter icing on the cake, Sunderland are now the only side in the league without a win.
Chelsea 2 – Fulham 0
Hard to put a game with 2 goals into the bad category, especially when this celebrates the first goal from Chelsea’s John Obi Mikel. But it was an ugly match all around. Chelsea looked sluggish on the ball and continue to lack the cutting edge in the final third with their passing and their shooting. Fulham, I fear, will often be in the Ugly section but a Chelsea squad at home should have done much better. The dismal play could be heard in the silence around Stamford bridge throughout the first half of this match.
Summertime for the Premier league fan is a bit ridiculous. The transfer rumors, the signing fees, the debates over how many millions a player demands, and when we actually get some honest to good football it is usually a lopsided affair. Instead of going for the usual end of summer ritual let’s take a look back at last season, which had a droll title race to be honest, but had, for the neutrals at least, an amusing relegation battle.
This is not an article designed to beat the dead horse QPR any more than has already been done on the internet. Instead I want to take a look at the two clubs who unexpectedly dropped into the relegation zone last season and emerged into the summer as shell shocked survivors. I am, of course, speaking about Newcastle and Aston Villa.
Both teams topped the premier league statistics last season with the number of injuries and not much else. Newcastle had the most players injured for the longest amount of time this season, followed by Aston Villa. Third place goes to Arsenal, but to be fair, they had a month long epidemic, in the locker room, where eight players were struck with illness. In fact, Arsenal lead the season in illness with 16 individual cases, preventing players from making it onto the pitch (I wonder what Arsene has been putting in the water? But I digress.)
First, let’s examine last season with all the injuries, tactical adjustments and mid-season signings; second, we will turn our gaze towards next season and speculate as to how these clubs can improve and avoid late season drama (or continue such drama, as it was the best entertainment in that final week of play).
Newcastle, specifically Alan Pardew, could not change.
The sharp start to Newcastle’s season (a win over Tottenham) rolled into mediocrity and, nearly, tumbled head-over-heels into fiasco. The mid-season signing of Moussa Sissoko brought promise and energy back into a tired mid-year squad late in January, but eventually his high level of athleticism and work rate could not change the paradigm at Newcastle. Pardew still insisted on direct football and could not adapt to get the best out his players.
Given their number of injuries, one would suspect that Newcastle’s squad would have seen a great deal of change in tactical shape. Players either step up to play in unfamiliar positions or Pardew would adjust to match the skills of his fit players.
Instead, Pardew stuck with two formations for 75% of the season, a 4-4-2 and 4-2-3-1. The latter formation is a reaction to Demba Ba’s departure for Chelsea, Pardew’s sole major tactical shift of the season. There are two critical points in this season that I would like to point out.
The chart below details Newcastle’s season, the Toon’s best run of 5 games came towards the second half of the season (arguably when the downward spiral had become a tailspin) but also features the first two games of Moussa Sissoko who scored a goal against Aston Villa and a brace against Chelsea, securing six points in two games. The impact of this player cannot be overstated, Sissoko was unable to maintain such consistent goal scoring after those first two games but without the French midfielder Newcastle may very well have fallen.
The second period comes earlier in the season, Newcastle’s five worst games spanned the month of November. This month not only saw the club drop twelve points out of fifteen but also included the most incidents of injury during the season. There were thirteen injuries in November alone with repeat injuries to both strikers, Ba and Cisse, and ten separate players either missed games or needed to subbed early in a match.
The injuries of last season were, undoubtedly, a bit of bad luck for Pardew and Newcastle, but injuries are never an excuse for poor form in the Premiership. The team had enough depth and talent to finish much higher than 16th and Pardew opened the pocket book during the January transfer window, spending a total of £17 million on Mathieu Debuchy, Yoan Gouffran, Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa and Moussa Sissoko.
Villa: A Necessary Trial by Fire?
Villa’s season is unique from Newcastle’s because the young squad that Paul Lambert often fielded was not necessarily forced. Even with the second highest number of weeks missed through injury, the Aston Villa squad had veteran players who rarely got a start.
Even before the injuries piled up Aston Villa was absent healthy, seasoned talent, notably Shay Given (2 appearances) and Darren Bent (16 appearances). Bent, who has been linked with Fulham and Newcastle, could have made a difference up top for Villa. Goals were at a premium for Villa, but the 24 million signing was spurned for the younger, more exciting, Christian Benteke.
Paul Lambert took the chance with younger, and cheaper, players in the 2012/2013 season. The squad, at times, played dismal football, particularly in defense, but they got the job done and the gaffer can look forward to a fresh season with proven talent. The American keeper, Brad Guzan, had a storming season and his heroics kept a weak Villa defense from conceding more than their already high 1.8 goals per game. )
If the complaint against Pardew was inflexibility then Lambert’s lineups must be scrutinized for their experimental inconsistency. The chart below shows the formations and their associated results; this may reveal a method to Lambert’s formation madness. Consistent lineups are not found here, but the most consistent period, at the beginning of the season, very nearly holds Villa’s worst run of five games with only three points of a possible fifteen.
Lambert took a chance on younger talent and gave them crucial game time to develop (only three players in the Villa squad with over 20 starts were over the age of 24.) This can hardly be described as a juvenile squad but for a club that looked shaky from the start of the season it was a ballsy move by Lambert to tinker throughout the season as the club hemorrhaged points.
The concerning trait that cuts through both season charts of Newcastle and Aston Villa is the lack of winning form. Both teams could barely string together two wins, Newcastle managed this only one time during the season and Villa put together a brace of wins twice at the end. Defensively, both clubs were suspect with only five clean sheets in the season each and both were prone to utter capitulation with high scoring losses to the likes of Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool.
The new season is a chance at redemption for both clubs (actually Villa did better this year at 15th place with 41 points than their 2011/2012 16th place 38 point finish under Alex McLeish). Newcastle may not reach the fifth place finish from 2011/2012 but the club has fired a shot across Pardew’s bow with the appointment of Joe Kinnear as Director of Football. He may be the most influential signing of the summer. Villa’s Paul Lambert has to steady the ship and, perhaps, get involved in some business, shipping off the older and expensive players still on the books. Darren Bent is attracting attention and would be a welcome offload, though it is still important to note that Villa are staring down a £18-19 million loss on the 28 year old striker.
August 17th is just around the corner, 25 days! 25 days!, but let us not forget the past and the mid table teams who made last year exciting with their near death relegation experience.
*Sigh* football.
Stateside Hooligans 
