Home
Winners
Manchester United
The champions of Europe have always been the team to beat in the Premier League this season. Very soon, they'll be the team to catch.
For all of Ferguson's claims to contrary, an unbalanced fixture-list is working out to their advantage. All of their difficult away fixtures are out of the way and with Old Trafford now fixed as the venue that will determine the destination of the league title switching focus to both the FA Cup and Champions League should prove less problematic.
August's European Super Cup marked a rare setback but with the Club World Championship already secured and the League Cup likely to follow, the potential for United's season is unprecedented. A treble was served in '99 and the ultimate double last May, but a repeat may not sate their thirst this year. Nevermind the quadruple, start practicing your pronunciation of 'Quintuple'.
The United Defence
United haven't conceded a league goal since Samir Nasri scored for Arsenal on November 8.
Wigan Athletic
The run will most probably come to a shuddering halt this week - with Wednesday's trip to Old Trafford followed by Saturday's game at Manchester City - but Arsenal are the only side to have beaten Wigan since October.
Michael Owen
He's not as quick on his feet as he once was but even in a struggling Newcastle team his statistics stand up: eight goals from thirteen starts this season, 17 in his last 29 appearances, 26 in 60 overall for the Toon.
The foreboding reality for Newcastle, however, is that whilst Owen's goalscoring record is the principal reason they should avoid relegation, its continuity and/or improvement between now and May will only increase the likelihood of him departing in the summer on a free transfer.
Aston Villa
The beneficiaries of incredible - and, probably, unprecedented - good fortune with each of their last three victories being secured by own-goals.
Everton
Yet to concede a goal since embarking on a five-match unbeaten run with all of their first-choice strikers on the treatment table. Now for the real test: two Merseyside derbies, both on the red side of Stanley Park, followed by Arsenal and then Manchester United.
Mikel Arteta
Arsenal are supposedly interested in the £12m-rated Spaniard. No wonder. If Wayne Bridge costs £11m, Arteta would be cheap at twice that price.
Only four players in the league have made goalscoring assists to their credit this season than Arteta - Dimi Berbatov, Emmanuel Adebayor, Ashley Young and Steed Malbranque - and only two midfielders - Frank Lampard and Stephen Ireland - have scored more.
Arsenal
It is an odd measuring gauge to employ, but Arsenal's relegation to the final slot on Match of the Day is a telling illustration of their descent towards irrelevancy and insipidness.
Arsenal have lost their colour and, even if eclipses may be as common as glittering performances against the grit of Bolton, Saturday's grey at the Emirates has become a regular occurrence. Deprived of their creative sparks, the Gunners have only scored more than one goal twice in their last nine matches - at Villa and against Plymouth in the FA Cup - and Arsene Wenger's pursuit of Andrei Arshavin remains the appropriate course of action. Otherwise, the excuse of prioritising entertainment won't even be available come the season's end.
Not that Wenger requires excuses at present, however. Even after losing William Gallas and Mikael Silvestre to injury this week in addition to their entire first-choice midfield, victory over Bolton extended Arsenal's unbeaten run to a season's-best seven games. Despite being in a continuous sate of flux, an element of defensive stability has somehow been introduced since the low of November's defeat at Manchester City.
Stoke City
A quick line in perspective for Liverpool's disappointment at the Britannia: Stoke boast a home record this season that is bettered only by the league leaders, the champions, Arsenal, Fulham and Aston Villa.
Losers
The Poor Sods Who Travelled Down From Blackburn To Fulham For A Top-Flight Match That Was Postponed Less Than Two Hours Before Kick-Off
If the game still possesses a modicum of respect towards the supporters who fund it, Fulham and - albeit to a lesser extent for reasons stressed hereafter - Portsmouth should face a full enquiry - and the ultimate sanction - relating to Saturday's postponements.
It is an illustration of how little regard is given towards supporters that, so far, the only penalty being mooted as potential punishment is financial. Frankly, if either club are unable to provide adequate explanation then a points deduction is the only appropriate response.
"We will certainly be asking the clubs concerned, and the match officials, to give their accounts of what happened," said a Premier League spokesman on Saturday night. "If it was found that inadequate precaution was taken then it would be referred to the Premier League board. We stipulate that clubs should be able to stage games when the temperature drops to -3C."
Fulham's own website confirms that the temperature was -1C at the time of the postponement and their excuse of inaccurate weather reports was made feeble by QPR, a couple of miles down the road, hosting Coventry at Loftus Road on Saturday afternoon in the Championship.
Portsmouth are believed to be the only Premier League club without undersoil heating - it isn't technically mandatory but a club has to provide an alternative system to the approval of the league's board - but, with temperatures on the south coast falling to minus seven, they had at least provided prior warning their game with Manchester City was under threat and it was called off following a pitch inspection at 9am. At Fulham, the first word of a problem was the postponement itself less than two hours before kick-off. At that time, the majority of the Blackburn fans who had embarked on the four-hour journey south from Lancashire were already in London.
Ten years ago, Middlesbrough were relegated as a consequence of being deducted three points after failing to fulfil a fixture against Blackburn within 24 hours of the scheduled kick-off. With precedent set, it is difficult to fathom why any club should escape similar censure if they are unable to provide proof of 'adequate precaution' for a postponement on the day of a game.
Chelsea
Six points from their last five Premier League encounters, just one from four games against the rest of the Big Four.
Luiz Felipe Scolari
The scale of Chelsea's inadequacies against United were shocking to behold - particularly because, of their first-choice eleven, only Michael Essien was missing - but it cannot be said there was no prior warning. After producing just one half-chance against Liverpool and a solitary shot to trouble Arsenal, a complete blank at Old Trafford was the natural, depressing progression.
Devoid of ambition, imagination, spirit, flair, pace and competence, Chelsea suffered a complete sporting failure. From back to front, in the air and on the deck, they ceased to function. The scoreline might have spelt out humiliation but it was generous nonetheless. A nil was more than they deserved.
The players - with Deco, Didier Drogba and Michael Ballack the worst of a wretched bunch - must accept the brunt of the blame but their manager cannot be immune from criticism. Scolari's well-paid job is to facilitate their best form but, deprived of the threat of bringing in expensive new additions, it appears he is struggling to motivate his squad of millionaires. Nor, it seems, has anything been learnt since Rafa Benitez revealed that Scolari's wingless, one-paced wanderers could be blunted by neutering their full-backs, while his faith in Deco has proved to be one of the season's most damaging mistakes. Having built Chelsea around the 31-year-old, Chelsea's own credit crumble started when Deco's form began to decline approximately six games into the campaign. Plan B remains conspicuous by its absence.
Deco aside, Chelsea's predictable undoing at Old Trafford was at set-pieces. That aspect of the game used to be a strength but is now their main weakness. With nine goals conceded from set-pieces in their last eight matches, Chelsea have conceded a higher percentage of their league goals this season than any other team in the league. Scolari's Portugal were eliminated from Euro 2008 after three of Germany's quarter-final goals came from free-kicks and he did little to inspire confidence two weeks ago at Fulham when he responded to the puzzled observation that neither post was guarded as the home side scored an 88th-minute equaliser by declaring "players score goals, not posts." They do, but had a Chelsea player been on the line for United's 44th-minute corner then Vidic probably wouldn't have scored and the outcome of the game might have taken a new course.
Then again, perhaps not.
Rafa Benitez
The risk taken with Rafa's Rant is that it has made Benitez a hostage to success. If Liverpool go on to win the title having led the table at the time of its deliverance, it will be cast aside as an irrelevance. If they don't, it will be held up as the moment they began to crack up.
Even if the facts proclaimed do not all stand up to proper scrutiny, there was much to be said for what Benitez himself said - particularly his inference that United and their manager enjoy special treatment. What is in doubt, even now, is the wisdom of Benitez himself going public with his grievances and the timing of his outburst. Fate generally proves to be an unwelcome companion at uncomfortable times and from the moment he plucked a piece of paper from his coat pocket on Friday afternoon, a setback at Stoke twenty-four hours later was writ large.
Liverpool
Already guaranteed to be regarded as one of the season's most influential players, Xabi Alonso's reputation enjoyed a hefty enhancement on Saturday. Nothing of the sort could be said about any other Liverpool player - including the benched Robbie Keane - in a disjointed and guileless 90 minutes at Stoke that only served to highlight the Spaniard's worth. With the benefit of hindsight, it was no coincidence that Liverpool lost their zip at Preston a week ago in the immediate aftermath of Alonso's enforced substitution.
The replacement of Alonso's creative output with the more prosaic offerings of Lucas Levia made the confinement of Fernando Torres and Robbie Keane to the substitutes' bench all the more baffling. Having already recorded five stalemates, it is not difficult to identity Liverpool's weakness yet Torres was only introduced after an hour and Keane not at all. Nobody, it seems, is questioning the wisdom of paying more than £20m for Keane in the summer more than Rafa himself but the Liverpool manager's refusal to introduce the Irishman begged the question of what exactly was the point in naming him as a substitute. Even if Benitez does not rate Keane, it was impossible to fathom why he rated Yossi Benanyoun, an average player flattering to deceive, worth 80 minutes.
Marouane Fellaini
Any sympathy for Fellaini should be in short supply even after he was booked against Hull for lifting his foot to a height that could have only threatened a dwarf. Even in the knowledge that that another caution would result in his suspension from the forthcoming Merseyside derbies, Fellaini had already committed five fouls before the sixth snapped the patience of referee Martin Atkinson.
As managers tend to do, David Moyes saw matters in a different light. "It seems like there was a lot of fouls, but they're actually mistakes by the referee," he complained. Fellaini's first 21 matches in England have seen him penalized on no fewer than 60 occasions so either Premier League referees are making a huge number of mistakes or Moyes is defending the indefensible. As much as we admire the Everton manager, we're assuming the latter.
A tenth booking of the season triggers an automatic two-match suspension but it is just as well for Fellaini that the league's disciplinary process does not take into account the small print. Rather than be harshly treated, Fellaini's ratio of matches to bookings and fouls to bookings proclaims leniency. If the league is inclined to mete out a suspension more commensurate with his serial foulery, a probe into his apparent elbowing of Ian Ashbee out of Atkinson's sight during Saturday's game may prove convenient.
Tottenham Hotspur
So where are all those idiots who proclaimed Harry Redknapp as Houdini and reckoned that all of Tottenham's problems could be fixed with a bottle of tomato ketchup? Redknapp's record as Spurs manager after 20 matches is now inferior to that of both Martin Jol and Juande Ramos and his much-trumpeted 'arm-round-a-shoulder' style, which was supposed to have cured all of his squad's ills, has been replaced by the complaint they lack character and fight.
Bolton Wanderers
A sixth consecutive defeat against their bogey side from North London.
Gary Megson
Bolton haven't been cursed by the manager of the month award - they've collected just six points from the six matches played since Gary Megson was given November's gong - but an unequal fixture list. After picking up cheap points against Hull, Middlesbrough, Sunderland during their monthus mirabilis, their position in the league has been corrected by engagements with Liverpool, Chelsea, Aston Villa and Arsenal.
West Brom
In their eight Premier League matches with Aston Villa, the Baggies have drawn four and lost the others all by a scoreline of 2-1.
Scott Carson
Even at a conservative estimate, there are fifteen goalkeepers superior to Carson starting on a regular basis in the Premier League.
Pete Gill
Manchester United
The champions of Europe have always been the team to beat in the Premier League this season. Very soon, they'll be the team to catch.
For all of Ferguson's claims to contrary, an unbalanced fixture-list is working out to their advantage. All of their difficult away fixtures are out of the way and with Old Trafford now fixed as the venue that will determine the destination of the league title switching focus to both the FA Cup and Champions League should prove less problematic.
August's European Super Cup marked a rare setback but with the Club World Championship already secured and the League Cup likely to follow, the potential for United's season is unprecedented. A treble was served in '99 and the ultimate double last May, but a repeat may not sate their thirst this year. Nevermind the quadruple, start practicing your pronunciation of 'Quintuple'.
The United Defence
United haven't conceded a league goal since Samir Nasri scored for Arsenal on November 8.
Wigan Athletic
The run will most probably come to a shuddering halt this week - with Wednesday's trip to Old Trafford followed by Saturday's game at Manchester City - but Arsenal are the only side to have beaten Wigan since October.
Michael Owen
He's not as quick on his feet as he once was but even in a struggling Newcastle team his statistics stand up: eight goals from thirteen starts this season, 17 in his last 29 appearances, 26 in 60 overall for the Toon.
The foreboding reality for Newcastle, however, is that whilst Owen's goalscoring record is the principal reason they should avoid relegation, its continuity and/or improvement between now and May will only increase the likelihood of him departing in the summer on a free transfer.
Aston Villa
The beneficiaries of incredible - and, probably, unprecedented - good fortune with each of their last three victories being secured by own-goals.
Everton
Yet to concede a goal since embarking on a five-match unbeaten run with all of their first-choice strikers on the treatment table. Now for the real test: two Merseyside derbies, both on the red side of Stanley Park, followed by Arsenal and then Manchester United.
Mikel Arteta
Arsenal are supposedly interested in the £12m-rated Spaniard. No wonder. If Wayne Bridge costs £11m, Arteta would be cheap at twice that price.
Only four players in the league have made goalscoring assists to their credit this season than Arteta - Dimi Berbatov, Emmanuel Adebayor, Ashley Young and Steed Malbranque - and only two midfielders - Frank Lampard and Stephen Ireland - have scored more.
Arsenal
It is an odd measuring gauge to employ, but Arsenal's relegation to the final slot on Match of the Day is a telling illustration of their descent towards irrelevancy and insipidness.
Arsenal have lost their colour and, even if eclipses may be as common as glittering performances against the grit of Bolton, Saturday's grey at the Emirates has become a regular occurrence. Deprived of their creative sparks, the Gunners have only scored more than one goal twice in their last nine matches - at Villa and against Plymouth in the FA Cup - and Arsene Wenger's pursuit of Andrei Arshavin remains the appropriate course of action. Otherwise, the excuse of prioritising entertainment won't even be available come the season's end.
Not that Wenger requires excuses at present, however. Even after losing William Gallas and Mikael Silvestre to injury this week in addition to their entire first-choice midfield, victory over Bolton extended Arsenal's unbeaten run to a season's-best seven games. Despite being in a continuous sate of flux, an element of defensive stability has somehow been introduced since the low of November's defeat at Manchester City.
Stoke City
A quick line in perspective for Liverpool's disappointment at the Britannia: Stoke boast a home record this season that is bettered only by the league leaders, the champions, Arsenal, Fulham and Aston Villa.
Losers
The Poor Sods Who Travelled Down From Blackburn To Fulham For A Top-Flight Match That Was Postponed Less Than Two Hours Before Kick-Off
If the game still possesses a modicum of respect towards the supporters who fund it, Fulham and - albeit to a lesser extent for reasons stressed hereafter - Portsmouth should face a full enquiry - and the ultimate sanction - relating to Saturday's postponements.
It is an illustration of how little regard is given towards supporters that, so far, the only penalty being mooted as potential punishment is financial. Frankly, if either club are unable to provide adequate explanation then a points deduction is the only appropriate response.
"We will certainly be asking the clubs concerned, and the match officials, to give their accounts of what happened," said a Premier League spokesman on Saturday night. "If it was found that inadequate precaution was taken then it would be referred to the Premier League board. We stipulate that clubs should be able to stage games when the temperature drops to -3C."
Fulham's own website confirms that the temperature was -1C at the time of the postponement and their excuse of inaccurate weather reports was made feeble by QPR, a couple of miles down the road, hosting Coventry at Loftus Road on Saturday afternoon in the Championship.
Portsmouth are believed to be the only Premier League club without undersoil heating - it isn't technically mandatory but a club has to provide an alternative system to the approval of the league's board - but, with temperatures on the south coast falling to minus seven, they had at least provided prior warning their game with Manchester City was under threat and it was called off following a pitch inspection at 9am. At Fulham, the first word of a problem was the postponement itself less than two hours before kick-off. At that time, the majority of the Blackburn fans who had embarked on the four-hour journey south from Lancashire were already in London.
Ten years ago, Middlesbrough were relegated as a consequence of being deducted three points after failing to fulfil a fixture against Blackburn within 24 hours of the scheduled kick-off. With precedent set, it is difficult to fathom why any club should escape similar censure if they are unable to provide proof of 'adequate precaution' for a postponement on the day of a game.
Chelsea
Six points from their last five Premier League encounters, just one from four games against the rest of the Big Four.
Luiz Felipe Scolari
The scale of Chelsea's inadequacies against United were shocking to behold - particularly because, of their first-choice eleven, only Michael Essien was missing - but it cannot be said there was no prior warning. After producing just one half-chance against Liverpool and a solitary shot to trouble Arsenal, a complete blank at Old Trafford was the natural, depressing progression.
Devoid of ambition, imagination, spirit, flair, pace and competence, Chelsea suffered a complete sporting failure. From back to front, in the air and on the deck, they ceased to function. The scoreline might have spelt out humiliation but it was generous nonetheless. A nil was more than they deserved.
The players - with Deco, Didier Drogba and Michael Ballack the worst of a wretched bunch - must accept the brunt of the blame but their manager cannot be immune from criticism. Scolari's well-paid job is to facilitate their best form but, deprived of the threat of bringing in expensive new additions, it appears he is struggling to motivate his squad of millionaires. Nor, it seems, has anything been learnt since Rafa Benitez revealed that Scolari's wingless, one-paced wanderers could be blunted by neutering their full-backs, while his faith in Deco has proved to be one of the season's most damaging mistakes. Having built Chelsea around the 31-year-old, Chelsea's own credit crumble started when Deco's form began to decline approximately six games into the campaign. Plan B remains conspicuous by its absence.
Deco aside, Chelsea's predictable undoing at Old Trafford was at set-pieces. That aspect of the game used to be a strength but is now their main weakness. With nine goals conceded from set-pieces in their last eight matches, Chelsea have conceded a higher percentage of their league goals this season than any other team in the league. Scolari's Portugal were eliminated from Euro 2008 after three of Germany's quarter-final goals came from free-kicks and he did little to inspire confidence two weeks ago at Fulham when he responded to the puzzled observation that neither post was guarded as the home side scored an 88th-minute equaliser by declaring "players score goals, not posts." They do, but had a Chelsea player been on the line for United's 44th-minute corner then Vidic probably wouldn't have scored and the outcome of the game might have taken a new course.
Then again, perhaps not.
Rafa Benitez
The risk taken with Rafa's Rant is that it has made Benitez a hostage to success. If Liverpool go on to win the title having led the table at the time of its deliverance, it will be cast aside as an irrelevance. If they don't, it will be held up as the moment they began to crack up.
Even if the facts proclaimed do not all stand up to proper scrutiny, there was much to be said for what Benitez himself said - particularly his inference that United and their manager enjoy special treatment. What is in doubt, even now, is the wisdom of Benitez himself going public with his grievances and the timing of his outburst. Fate generally proves to be an unwelcome companion at uncomfortable times and from the moment he plucked a piece of paper from his coat pocket on Friday afternoon, a setback at Stoke twenty-four hours later was writ large.
Liverpool
Already guaranteed to be regarded as one of the season's most influential players, Xabi Alonso's reputation enjoyed a hefty enhancement on Saturday. Nothing of the sort could be said about any other Liverpool player - including the benched Robbie Keane - in a disjointed and guileless 90 minutes at Stoke that only served to highlight the Spaniard's worth. With the benefit of hindsight, it was no coincidence that Liverpool lost their zip at Preston a week ago in the immediate aftermath of Alonso's enforced substitution.
The replacement of Alonso's creative output with the more prosaic offerings of Lucas Levia made the confinement of Fernando Torres and Robbie Keane to the substitutes' bench all the more baffling. Having already recorded five stalemates, it is not difficult to identity Liverpool's weakness yet Torres was only introduced after an hour and Keane not at all. Nobody, it seems, is questioning the wisdom of paying more than £20m for Keane in the summer more than Rafa himself but the Liverpool manager's refusal to introduce the Irishman begged the question of what exactly was the point in naming him as a substitute. Even if Benitez does not rate Keane, it was impossible to fathom why he rated Yossi Benanyoun, an average player flattering to deceive, worth 80 minutes.
Marouane Fellaini
Any sympathy for Fellaini should be in short supply even after he was booked against Hull for lifting his foot to a height that could have only threatened a dwarf. Even in the knowledge that that another caution would result in his suspension from the forthcoming Merseyside derbies, Fellaini had already committed five fouls before the sixth snapped the patience of referee Martin Atkinson.
As managers tend to do, David Moyes saw matters in a different light. "It seems like there was a lot of fouls, but they're actually mistakes by the referee," he complained. Fellaini's first 21 matches in England have seen him penalized on no fewer than 60 occasions so either Premier League referees are making a huge number of mistakes or Moyes is defending the indefensible. As much as we admire the Everton manager, we're assuming the latter.
A tenth booking of the season triggers an automatic two-match suspension but it is just as well for Fellaini that the league's disciplinary process does not take into account the small print. Rather than be harshly treated, Fellaini's ratio of matches to bookings and fouls to bookings proclaims leniency. If the league is inclined to mete out a suspension more commensurate with his serial foulery, a probe into his apparent elbowing of Ian Ashbee out of Atkinson's sight during Saturday's game may prove convenient.
Tottenham Hotspur
So where are all those idiots who proclaimed Harry Redknapp as Houdini and reckoned that all of Tottenham's problems could be fixed with a bottle of tomato ketchup? Redknapp's record as Spurs manager after 20 matches is now inferior to that of both Martin Jol and Juande Ramos and his much-trumpeted 'arm-round-a-shoulder' style, which was supposed to have cured all of his squad's ills, has been replaced by the complaint they lack character and fight.
Bolton Wanderers
A sixth consecutive defeat against their bogey side from North London.
Gary Megson
Bolton haven't been cursed by the manager of the month award - they've collected just six points from the six matches played since Gary Megson was given November's gong - but an unequal fixture list. After picking up cheap points against Hull, Middlesbrough, Sunderland during their monthus mirabilis, their position in the league has been corrected by engagements with Liverpool, Chelsea, Aston Villa and Arsenal.
West Brom
In their eight Premier League matches with Aston Villa, the Baggies have drawn four and lost the others all by a scoreline of 2-1.
Scott Carson
Even at a conservative estimate, there are fifteen goalkeepers superior to Carson starting on a regular basis in the Premier League.
Pete Gill
