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The New League Leaders
The surprise wasn't that United left it so late at Bolton but that they made their move to the top so early. Late goals have long been a United trademark. Leading the league in January hasn't.
The relentless march of 2006/07 was an exception to the general rule, but in 2003 they first went top in March and last season saw Arsenal lead United by five points in mid-February before being overtaken a month later. Given their pre-eminence in the English game, it's a peculiarity that United have looked down on the rest from the top of the league table for only approximately six of the last 52 weeks.
Manchester United
Once the calling-sign of their foremost rivals, 1-0 has become United's scoreline of choice in recent weeks with six of their last eight matches ending that way. Goals are in short supply at both ends and but for a record-equalling tenth successive clean sheet United's recent lack of scoring prowess would be a matter of concern.
It is not for want of trying. At the Reebok, United produced 16 shots, 13 on target. Against Middlesbrough two weeks ago, 28 were recorded. And before that in a run that has seen just nine goals in eight games, 27 against Sunderland, 16 at Tottenham and 17 at Stoke.
Of all the figures swirling around Old Trafford at present - five: the number of first-teamers currently injured; eleven: the number of games United are required to play in a 42-day period - it is this tale of profligacy that will bother Sir Alex Ferguson the most because it is neither a recent affliction nor confined to the English league.
Of all the teams in the last sixteen of the Champions League, United, with a ratio of twelve to one, had the worst conversion rate from shots to goals. To date, they haven't paid for their wastefulness. But sooner or later, either when the Champions League resumes or beforehand, they surely will if it continues.
Aston Villa
Forget the trite nonsense about spirit and character. Villa are a good team currently experiencing very good results due to a massive amount of good fortune. They - whoever 'they' actually are - say that luck evens itself out over the course of a season. That being so, Birmingham should be put in quarantine and its inhabitants vaccinated against the plague.
Spirit and character is 'trite nonsense' but 'good fortune' is FACT.
Playing To The Final Whistle
The late, late comeback of Chelsea and Manchester United stole the headlines but Aston Villa have scored in the 78th minute or later in six of their last seven matches while Arsenal's last three victories have been from goals after the 82nd minute.
And then the cretin contradicts himself completely by implying 'playing to the final whistle' is a winning tactic which Villa have exploited - is he saying it is luck rather than character which has caused Villa to keep chasing goals till the end?
Robin van Persie
Responsibility has been the making of Van Persie. In the long-term absence of Cesc Fabregas, Van Persie has emerged not just as Arsenal's most influential performer but also a contender - alongside Xabi Alonso, Nemanja Vidic and Frank Lampard - for the player of the season award.
Although the woodwork has frustrated the Dutchman in successive matches, assists for each of Arsenal's last four goals means that only Nicolas Anelka (with fourteen strikes and three assists) has been involved in more goals than Van Persie (with eight in both categories) in the league this term.
As this column has previously remarked, all that separates Van Persie from the league's absolute elite is his injury record. If he can prove for the first time that he can withstand the demands of a full campaign - the only games he's missed so far being the result of suspension and rotation - there will be no reason not to give him full marks.
Juliano Belletti
Having began the move from deep in Chelsea's own half from the position of right-back, Belletti assumed the station of a left-winger to score the equaliser against Stoke around fifteen seconds later. The transformation befitted his status as Chelsea's utility man this season but, with Jose Bosingwa now devoid of his early-season zip, Phil Scolari could do worse than give Belletti the promotion his fighting qualities deserve.
Frank Lampard
The identity of Chelsea's match-winner will be subject to the scrutiny of the Dubious Goals Panel but even if Lampard's shot did take a deflection off Michael Ballack it would be a travesty if the Englishman is not listed as the scorer. His capacity to keep driving Chelsea forward in match after match, season after season puts the vast majority of his profession - and team-mates - to shame.
West Brom
The three wins and a draw from their last four home fixtures account for half of their total points for the season.
Carlton Cole
Five goals in five games represents the best run of his professional career. On a very incidental note, not one of those five goals was scored before half-time.
Jason Roberts & Benni McCarthy
Roberts and McCarthy have made the imminent sale of Roque Santa Cruz no loss and all profit to Rovers by scoring a combined total of eight goals in the four matches since Sam Allardyce's appointment.
Manchester City
It was less than a year ago that Sven-Goran Erikkson was reported to have met with then City owner Thaksin Shinawatra to discuss a slump in the regular attendance at Eastlands. From an average gate of 46,384 in 2003/04, the number fell to 42,120 last year despite Sven's team threatening to break into the top four for most of the campaign. The remedy decided upon by the Swede and the Thai was a superstar signing - a capture so exciting and high-profile that it couldn't fail to fill out their 48,000-capacity stadium.
Following a change in ownership and management, the undertaking may not have been theirs but the £32.5m signing of Robinho fulfilled the intention.
And solved little.
Even with the most expensive player in British football as a tempter, this year's average attendance of 43,455 represents an increase of just over 1,000 - an insignificant and disappointing return on such an expensive investment. Watching Kaka in the flesh may prove irresistible, but that particular piece of mind-boggling transfer talk failed to spark much interest this weekend with seven thousand seats left empty for the encounter with Wigan.
Losers
Liverpool
Saturday's late drama must have been gut-wrenching. Or worse.
Richard Dunne
The City captain now holds a unique double: the joint-equal most dismissals of any player in Premier League history (eight, along with Patrick Vieira and Duncan Ferguson) and the joint-equal highest number of own-goals (six, along with Jamie Carragher and the long-gone but never-forgotten Frank Sinclair).
Sod's Law And A Level Playing Field
Pity Joe Kinnear. Whilst the rest of the planet concerned itself with the dubious ethics of spending £110m on a single football player at a time of worldwide economic recession, the reaction of the Newcastle manager this week to Manchester City's £110m pursuit of Kaka was altogether personal.
'Manchester City could have the best team in the world when we go to play them [on January 28]. It could be Kaka's first game against us. It's just Sod's Law."
In his self-interested concern, Kinnear inadvertently made a pertinent argument against the January transfer window. One of the overriding principles of any league ought to be that it plays on a level field. Yet the transfer window, and its potential to radically alter the quality of teams mid-way through a season, is situated in direct conflict to that principle. Put simply: with teams possibly much better (or much worse) after the window, the worth of points, but not their value, could be grossly distorted.
To date, the irregularity has tended to be more theoretical than actual - although that might soon change. Yet one abuse of the 'level playing field' principle has already been permitted to occur this month.
Last weekend, Jay Simpson, on-loan from Arsenal, made his debut for West Brom and almost succeeded in preventing victory for Aston Villa - the team his parent club are most obviously in league competition with. But when the Baggies play Arsenal in March, Simpson will be ineligible on account of the rule, introduced in 2004 by Premier League authorities, that states 'during the period of the Temporary Transfer of his contract registration, a Player shall not play against the Transferor Club'.
It is written in law, therefore, that the West Brom team that Arsenal face will be weaker than the one Villa encountered.
Meanwhile, in almost identical circumstances, Manucho, on loan from Manchester United, made his debut for Hull on Saturday against Arsenal - the team identified by Sir Alex Ferguson, the manager of his parent club, as one of their title rivals twenty-four hours previously. Had Manucho 'won' the penalty that Hull claimed for, that threat may have diminished to the point of non-existence.
There, is of course, no suggestion that anything untoward or underhand has been committed with either transfer.
But nonetheless, confirmation from Phil Brown that the transfer was instigated by a phone call earlier in the week from Old Trafford - 'Sir Alex Ferguson has stirred up the title race by sending out a 'secret agent' to help wreck his rivals' declared The Daily Mirror - only added to the unease that the current system, allowing loan deals to take place between Premier League clubs in the middle of the season, is liable for brazen exploitation.
Luiz Felipe Scolari
The Brazilian's escape should convince nobody. Asked to explain the omission of Didier Drogba from the squad to face Stoke, Scolari insisted it was nothing personal. "I have nothing against Drogba". Was he being made a scapegoat for the debacle of Old Trafford? "No". So it was a football decision? "Drogba is training very well but today it was better to pick two young kids". Better how? Franco di Santo and Miroslav Stoch, with a combined total of six substitute appearances, or a striker with 51 goals from 119 Chelsea appearances? No answer.
Scolari's bewildering description of Stoke as "more dangerous than all the teams in England and the world" can be excused on account of his unfamiliarity with the English language but the language of a team-sheet is universal. And Saturday's made no sense.
Alan Shearer
Shearer's punditry - if that is what it can be called - on Match of the Day does not deserve to be dignified beyond a few brief remarks. His claim, for instance, that Villa's penalty at Sunderland was legitimate defied both the referee clearly indicating he had penalised Paul McShane for raising his foot and the absence of any evidence to indicate contact inside the box. No matter. If people are foolish enough to consider Shearer worthy of their attention then they ought to consider his explanation for why Arsenal won at Hull having lost the reverse fixture in September:
"[These are] two unrecognisable sides from the first game at the Emirates. Hull were on fire then and Arsenal were on a poor run."
And to think he had all week to prepare his research. In fact, Arsenal's 'poor run' consisted of back-to-back wins at Bolton and Blackburn beforehand meaning they topped the table when Hull journeyed south, while the Tigers' burning form was one win in five.
It would be funny if we didn't have to pay his wages.
Second-Guessing Sir Alex
Anderson and Michael Carrick certainly started Saturday's game there, but with Carrick, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs on the pitch at the final whistle it was difficult to be sure who was designated by Sir Alex Ferguson to finish match in the centre of United's midfield. But then it's been difficult all season, and particularly since Christmas, to be sure what Ferguson has been thinking in that regard.
Scholes and Carrick started in midweek versus Wigan, Ryan Giggs and Darren Fletcher against Chelsea, Carrick and Fletcher against Boro, and Scholes and Fletcher on Boxing Day against Stoke.
With at least six different combinations tried out in the last five league matches, it would appear that Ferguson's preference is not to have a preferred selection.
Tottenham Hotspur
Be careful what you laugh at. The non-stop, all-risk entertainment in the 1-1 draw with Pompey was a reminder that Spurs' relegation would be a disaster for the league.
Bolton Wanderers
Without a goal since scoring two in the first three minutes of their encounter with Portsmouth on December 20.
Amr Zaki
That's the Miss of the Season award secured then.
From the player who scored seven goals in his first eight matches in England, Zaki is now unrecognisable. Although his tally now stands at ten, it flatters to deceive: the only goals he has scored since October's high have been from the penalty spot.
Hull City
Phil Brown's complaint at referee Alan Wiley not awarding his side a penalty against Arsenal would be worth listening to if only Hull hadn't scored their equaliser a few minutes later and deserving of sympathy if only their solitary victory in thirteen matches was not the direct consequence of a terrible misjudgement by officialdom in December's game against Middlesbrough.
Middlesbrough
Without a league win in ten games.
MORE WILL FOLLOW...
The New League Leaders
The surprise wasn't that United left it so late at Bolton but that they made their move to the top so early. Late goals have long been a United trademark. Leading the league in January hasn't.
The relentless march of 2006/07 was an exception to the general rule, but in 2003 they first went top in March and last season saw Arsenal lead United by five points in mid-February before being overtaken a month later. Given their pre-eminence in the English game, it's a peculiarity that United have looked down on the rest from the top of the league table for only approximately six of the last 52 weeks.
Manchester United
Once the calling-sign of their foremost rivals, 1-0 has become United's scoreline of choice in recent weeks with six of their last eight matches ending that way. Goals are in short supply at both ends and but for a record-equalling tenth successive clean sheet United's recent lack of scoring prowess would be a matter of concern.
It is not for want of trying. At the Reebok, United produced 16 shots, 13 on target. Against Middlesbrough two weeks ago, 28 were recorded. And before that in a run that has seen just nine goals in eight games, 27 against Sunderland, 16 at Tottenham and 17 at Stoke.
Of all the figures swirling around Old Trafford at present - five: the number of first-teamers currently injured; eleven: the number of games United are required to play in a 42-day period - it is this tale of profligacy that will bother Sir Alex Ferguson the most because it is neither a recent affliction nor confined to the English league.
Of all the teams in the last sixteen of the Champions League, United, with a ratio of twelve to one, had the worst conversion rate from shots to goals. To date, they haven't paid for their wastefulness. But sooner or later, either when the Champions League resumes or beforehand, they surely will if it continues.
Aston Villa
Forget the trite nonsense about spirit and character. Villa are a good team currently experiencing very good results due to a massive amount of good fortune. They - whoever 'they' actually are - say that luck evens itself out over the course of a season. That being so, Birmingham should be put in quarantine and its inhabitants vaccinated against the plague.
Spirit and character is 'trite nonsense' but 'good fortune' is FACT. Playing To The Final Whistle
The late, late comeback of Chelsea and Manchester United stole the headlines but Aston Villa have scored in the 78th minute or later in six of their last seven matches while Arsenal's last three victories have been from goals after the 82nd minute.
And then the cretin contradicts himself completely by implying 'playing to the final whistle' is a winning tactic which Villa have exploited - is he saying it is luck rather than character which has caused Villa to keep chasing goals till the end?
Robin van Persie
Responsibility has been the making of Van Persie. In the long-term absence of Cesc Fabregas, Van Persie has emerged not just as Arsenal's most influential performer but also a contender - alongside Xabi Alonso, Nemanja Vidic and Frank Lampard - for the player of the season award.
Although the woodwork has frustrated the Dutchman in successive matches, assists for each of Arsenal's last four goals means that only Nicolas Anelka (with fourteen strikes and three assists) has been involved in more goals than Van Persie (with eight in both categories) in the league this term.
As this column has previously remarked, all that separates Van Persie from the league's absolute elite is his injury record. If he can prove for the first time that he can withstand the demands of a full campaign - the only games he's missed so far being the result of suspension and rotation - there will be no reason not to give him full marks.
Juliano Belletti
Having began the move from deep in Chelsea's own half from the position of right-back, Belletti assumed the station of a left-winger to score the equaliser against Stoke around fifteen seconds later. The transformation befitted his status as Chelsea's utility man this season but, with Jose Bosingwa now devoid of his early-season zip, Phil Scolari could do worse than give Belletti the promotion his fighting qualities deserve.
Frank Lampard
The identity of Chelsea's match-winner will be subject to the scrutiny of the Dubious Goals Panel but even if Lampard's shot did take a deflection off Michael Ballack it would be a travesty if the Englishman is not listed as the scorer. His capacity to keep driving Chelsea forward in match after match, season after season puts the vast majority of his profession - and team-mates - to shame.
West Brom
The three wins and a draw from their last four home fixtures account for half of their total points for the season.
Carlton Cole
Five goals in five games represents the best run of his professional career. On a very incidental note, not one of those five goals was scored before half-time.
Jason Roberts & Benni McCarthy
Roberts and McCarthy have made the imminent sale of Roque Santa Cruz no loss and all profit to Rovers by scoring a combined total of eight goals in the four matches since Sam Allardyce's appointment.
Manchester City
It was less than a year ago that Sven-Goran Erikkson was reported to have met with then City owner Thaksin Shinawatra to discuss a slump in the regular attendance at Eastlands. From an average gate of 46,384 in 2003/04, the number fell to 42,120 last year despite Sven's team threatening to break into the top four for most of the campaign. The remedy decided upon by the Swede and the Thai was a superstar signing - a capture so exciting and high-profile that it couldn't fail to fill out their 48,000-capacity stadium.
Following a change in ownership and management, the undertaking may not have been theirs but the £32.5m signing of Robinho fulfilled the intention.
And solved little.
Even with the most expensive player in British football as a tempter, this year's average attendance of 43,455 represents an increase of just over 1,000 - an insignificant and disappointing return on such an expensive investment. Watching Kaka in the flesh may prove irresistible, but that particular piece of mind-boggling transfer talk failed to spark much interest this weekend with seven thousand seats left empty for the encounter with Wigan.
Losers
Liverpool
Saturday's late drama must have been gut-wrenching. Or worse.
Richard Dunne
The City captain now holds a unique double: the joint-equal most dismissals of any player in Premier League history (eight, along with Patrick Vieira and Duncan Ferguson) and the joint-equal highest number of own-goals (six, along with Jamie Carragher and the long-gone but never-forgotten Frank Sinclair).
Sod's Law And A Level Playing Field
Pity Joe Kinnear. Whilst the rest of the planet concerned itself with the dubious ethics of spending £110m on a single football player at a time of worldwide economic recession, the reaction of the Newcastle manager this week to Manchester City's £110m pursuit of Kaka was altogether personal.
'Manchester City could have the best team in the world when we go to play them [on January 28]. It could be Kaka's first game against us. It's just Sod's Law."
In his self-interested concern, Kinnear inadvertently made a pertinent argument against the January transfer window. One of the overriding principles of any league ought to be that it plays on a level field. Yet the transfer window, and its potential to radically alter the quality of teams mid-way through a season, is situated in direct conflict to that principle. Put simply: with teams possibly much better (or much worse) after the window, the worth of points, but not their value, could be grossly distorted.
To date, the irregularity has tended to be more theoretical than actual - although that might soon change. Yet one abuse of the 'level playing field' principle has already been permitted to occur this month.
Last weekend, Jay Simpson, on-loan from Arsenal, made his debut for West Brom and almost succeeded in preventing victory for Aston Villa - the team his parent club are most obviously in league competition with. But when the Baggies play Arsenal in March, Simpson will be ineligible on account of the rule, introduced in 2004 by Premier League authorities, that states 'during the period of the Temporary Transfer of his contract registration, a Player shall not play against the Transferor Club'.
It is written in law, therefore, that the West Brom team that Arsenal face will be weaker than the one Villa encountered.
Meanwhile, in almost identical circumstances, Manucho, on loan from Manchester United, made his debut for Hull on Saturday against Arsenal - the team identified by Sir Alex Ferguson, the manager of his parent club, as one of their title rivals twenty-four hours previously. Had Manucho 'won' the penalty that Hull claimed for, that threat may have diminished to the point of non-existence.
There, is of course, no suggestion that anything untoward or underhand has been committed with either transfer.
But nonetheless, confirmation from Phil Brown that the transfer was instigated by a phone call earlier in the week from Old Trafford - 'Sir Alex Ferguson has stirred up the title race by sending out a 'secret agent' to help wreck his rivals' declared The Daily Mirror - only added to the unease that the current system, allowing loan deals to take place between Premier League clubs in the middle of the season, is liable for brazen exploitation.
Luiz Felipe Scolari
The Brazilian's escape should convince nobody. Asked to explain the omission of Didier Drogba from the squad to face Stoke, Scolari insisted it was nothing personal. "I have nothing against Drogba". Was he being made a scapegoat for the debacle of Old Trafford? "No". So it was a football decision? "Drogba is training very well but today it was better to pick two young kids". Better how? Franco di Santo and Miroslav Stoch, with a combined total of six substitute appearances, or a striker with 51 goals from 119 Chelsea appearances? No answer.
Scolari's bewildering description of Stoke as "more dangerous than all the teams in England and the world" can be excused on account of his unfamiliarity with the English language but the language of a team-sheet is universal. And Saturday's made no sense.
Alan Shearer
Shearer's punditry - if that is what it can be called - on Match of the Day does not deserve to be dignified beyond a few brief remarks. His claim, for instance, that Villa's penalty at Sunderland was legitimate defied both the referee clearly indicating he had penalised Paul McShane for raising his foot and the absence of any evidence to indicate contact inside the box. No matter. If people are foolish enough to consider Shearer worthy of their attention then they ought to consider his explanation for why Arsenal won at Hull having lost the reverse fixture in September:
"[These are] two unrecognisable sides from the first game at the Emirates. Hull were on fire then and Arsenal were on a poor run."
And to think he had all week to prepare his research. In fact, Arsenal's 'poor run' consisted of back-to-back wins at Bolton and Blackburn beforehand meaning they topped the table when Hull journeyed south, while the Tigers' burning form was one win in five.
It would be funny if we didn't have to pay his wages.
Second-Guessing Sir Alex
Anderson and Michael Carrick certainly started Saturday's game there, but with Carrick, Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs on the pitch at the final whistle it was difficult to be sure who was designated by Sir Alex Ferguson to finish match in the centre of United's midfield. But then it's been difficult all season, and particularly since Christmas, to be sure what Ferguson has been thinking in that regard.
Scholes and Carrick started in midweek versus Wigan, Ryan Giggs and Darren Fletcher against Chelsea, Carrick and Fletcher against Boro, and Scholes and Fletcher on Boxing Day against Stoke.
With at least six different combinations tried out in the last five league matches, it would appear that Ferguson's preference is not to have a preferred selection.
Tottenham Hotspur
Be careful what you laugh at. The non-stop, all-risk entertainment in the 1-1 draw with Pompey was a reminder that Spurs' relegation would be a disaster for the league.
Bolton Wanderers
Without a goal since scoring two in the first three minutes of their encounter with Portsmouth on December 20.
Amr Zaki
That's the Miss of the Season award secured then.
From the player who scored seven goals in his first eight matches in England, Zaki is now unrecognisable. Although his tally now stands at ten, it flatters to deceive: the only goals he has scored since October's high have been from the penalty spot.
Hull City
Phil Brown's complaint at referee Alan Wiley not awarding his side a penalty against Arsenal would be worth listening to if only Hull hadn't scored their equaliser a few minutes later and deserving of sympathy if only their solitary victory in thirteen matches was not the direct consequence of a terrible misjudgement by officialdom in December's game against Middlesbrough.
Middlesbrough
Without a league win in ten games.
MORE WILL FOLLOW...
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