F365 Winners and Losers

As we are wont to do when time is not on our side, here is a reprint of Football 365′s excellent Winners and Losers feature, which generally gives an accurate review of the impact of the weekend’s matches. Tottenham were obviously the biggest winners… Here is the original article if you’d rather read that.

Winners

Jermain Defoe
Would there still be a fuss about Michael Owen’s World Cup prospects if he did not now play for Manchester United? But for the media glare that is automatically directed on a United player, Defoe’s exploits this season would have consigned Owen to the status of an afterthought. One has 15 goals to his credit since August; the other has four and even fewer league starts.

Why is there still a debate as to which one Capello should take to South Africa? Owen had another chance on Saturday and didn’t take it. Defoe took five and was annoyed at not scoring from a sixth. If England can only take one finisher south next summer then the argument is currently over.

Tottenham Hotspur
To score nine goals is exceptional but the exceptional feature of Spurs’ season to date is that such days are not unusual. Spurs have scored five or more goals in a third of their 15 games played to date and are regularly unstoppable. When Tottenham are hot they are burning and they are burning often these days.

A total of 24 shots rained down on the Wigan goal on Sunday and if there was a general criticism of the Spurs performance then it was that their chances-to-goals ratio was merely average. They could and should have reached double figures, though saving a few goals for the matches to come may have been sensible. For a number of leading clubs a pivotal period of the campaign now looms and Spurs are among those set for a test which could have a decisive bearing on the outcome of their season. Between next Saturday and December 19, Spurs must travel to Aston Villa, Everton and Blackburn and host Wolves and Manchester City as well as take on Manchester United in the quarter-final of the Carling Cup. If they’re serious about being a serious player, then they can’t catch a cold now.

Darren Bent
A scorer against Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool this season, having scored against three of the Big Four last term.

Chelsea
January delusionists, take note: Deprived of Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, Michael Ballack, Ricardo Carvalho and Jose Bosingwa this weekend, Chelsea were without a group of players superior to the quartet bound for the African Nations Cup at the start of 2010 but still had the three points wrapped up within 22 minutes. Wolves were feeble, inadequate opponents but Chelsea’s strength is in exposing the weaknesses of bottom-half teams and three of the four teams they will face in the league during January are currently tenth or below.

If Chelsea do have a critical period in their season then it may be about to begin. All of their next four matches are to be played away from Stamford Bridge, though just two, at Arsenal and Manchester City, are league fixtures. The rest of the Premier League will have to wake up to the reality that Chelsea could run off into the distance if they come through those games unscathed. With Manchester United away to Portsmouth next weekend, it’s not inconceivable that the leaders will be eight points clear on Sunday night and 11 in front of the team in third place.

The Home Side At Stamford Bridge
Since the goal of Stephen Hunt on the opening day of the season, Chelsea have scored 31 goals at Stamford Bridge without reply in all competitions.

Manchester United
Unbeaten against Everton at Old Trafford in the noughties, United’s Saturday night cruise will not live long in the memory other than for Darren Fletcher’s strike and the addition of three goals from midfield. Given a choice of scorers, perhaps Sir Alex Ferguson would have preferred evidence that Michael Owen’s penalty-area sharpness has not declined but the United manager stressed the importance of goals from midfield during the summer as he plotted life without Ronaldo.

“Going back a few years, we could always guarantee goals from Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and David Beckham, who always pitched in with about ten a season,” said Ferguson. “Those goals from midfield have dried up a little in recent years, so we have to address that.” Saturday’s delivery had been overdue with Carrick doubling his tally for the season and Fletcher doubling the number of games in which he has scored. Valencia, so delighted with his third goal in the last five weeks that he actually commemorated it with a smile, has three. It may pale in comparison to the regular exploits of his right-wing predecessor but it’s as many as he scored in the whole of last season for Wigan.

Hull City
Jimmy Bullard is making a difference at Hull and his return to fitness has probably proved the difference between Phil Brown being on the dole and seemingly slipping the noose.

Emmanuel Adebayor
His first goal in two months, marked by a rather more circumspect celebration than followed his last.

Losers

Manchester City and Liverpool
Tottenham probably can’t believe their luck. In total, City, Liverpool and Aston Villa have won just three of their last 18 games and the surprise is that Spurs’ hold on fourth place remains so slender.

But the pressure on Mark Hughes and Rafa Benitez is becoming acute and something – or someone – will surely have to give. It was less than a year ago that Roman Abramovich sacked Felipe Scolari having grown fearful that Chelsea would fail to qualify for another season in the Champions League and neither Benitez nor Hughes can have valid reason for complaint if a similar fate awaits. Both managers will almost certainly survive until the end of the season to prove their mettle but if either survives beyond that, then it will be at the other’s expense. There are too many clubs chasing too few Champions League football than is sustainable.

The only current consolation for both Hughes and Benitez is that the other is providing a buffer from criticism. But for Liverpool’s woes then it would be more widely appreciated that City are currently falling short. Likewise, but for City and Villa’s moderate run of form, Benitez would be in genuine jeopardy of becoming this season’s Scolari.

The other shared denominator is that they both badly need a victory and gained precious little from Saturday’s draw. It was, though, a better result for City than it was for Liverpool and, whilst his management has not impressed this season, the criticism Hughes received for his supposedly negative tactics was unfair and misdirected. The omission of a striker who reputedly cost a great deal more than £25m was a brave move, especially in the week that followed a meeting with the club’s benefactors, and found room instead for the under-rated Stephen Ireland. As there is no obvious place for him in the City side whenever a second striker is included as a partner for Adebayor, the accommodation and use of the Irish midfielder represents a significant test for Hughes – and, given the deemed precariousness of his position, one he must pass.

Arsenal
If they win next weekend then the defeat at Sunderland will merely be a blip. But having lost this weekend, nothing other than a victory over Chelsea will suffice.

Manuel Almunia
‘Yet a crash is just a matter of time if they continue to only field outfield players’ – Winners and Losers.

Manuel Almunia was not culpable for Darren Bent’s winner, though he was slow to react, but the fact remains that he conceded to the one and only shot on target Sunderland produced during the 90 minutes and that the number of games in which the Gunners have conceded to either their opposition’s only shot on target or first shot on target this season is already in double figures. In only one game this season, at Fulham when Vito Mannone was between the sticks, has Arsenal’s goalkeeper been a participant. In all the rest, he has been a passenger.

We’ll keeping repeating it because it gains in truth every time there’s a reason to repeat it: No side has ever been successful without a goalkeeper and Arsenal’s season will end prematurely unless Almunia, or whoever is between the sticks, starts to make a regular contribution.

West Ham
2-0 is an odd score when West Ham are involved. The Hammers rescued a point against Arsenal a month ago having trailed by that score with 20 minutes remaining, were then pegged back in opposite circumstances a week later at Sunderland and found themselves 3-2 down at Hull, before ultimately rescuing a point, this weekend having scored twice in the first 11 minutes.

Wigan Athletic
Even their status as the league’s most unpredictable side does not account for the bafflement of how their first 13 games of the season includes deserved wins over league leaders Chelsea and Aston Villa as well as defeats of 0-4, another of 0-5 and a 9-1 humiliation at White Hart Lane.

Wigan were so bad on Sunday that, even after he conceded nine goals, The Times still awarded Chris Kirkland seven out of ten. The next highest grade any of his team-mates received was three.

Mark Clattenburg
A liability to the league. His weekly inconsistency was so glaring this weekend that even Match of the Day spotted it.