Freaky Deaky
Photo: @BBCSport | Twitter
It feels very strange indeed to write this – spooky, you might say – but Newcastle United head into their weekend fixture against Liverpool as an in-form team. They’ve won their last three games, including a convincing 2-0 victory over the league champions (albeit in the Capital One Cup), and they have the most prolific striker in the Premier League: Papiss Cisse is averaging a goal every 61 minutes of football he’s played this season.
It feels equally disturbing to say that Mario Balotelli will travel to St James’ Park off the back of a goal-scoring performance, though it did come against a relatively weak Swansea, again in the Capital One Cup. He’s still without a Premier League strike to his name, but if ever he’s going to break that duck (though we’re well aware we’ve said this at least twice before) then a trip to Tyneside is the game in which to do it: no Premier League fixture has produced more goals than Newcastle vs. Liverpool, and there hasn’t been a scoreless tie between the two in 40 years.
Cult of Personality
Photo: @premierleague | Twitter
Manchester United are enduring their worst start to a Premier League season ever. Yes, even worse than under David Moyes.
You’d be excused for thinking, therefore, that Louis van Gaal’s side heads into this weekend’s Manchester Derby as the underdogs. After all, they’re travelling to the reigning Premier League champions, who currently sit third in the league and four points above the Red Devils.
You’d be excused, but you’d be wrong: arguably it is City that prepares for Sunday’s clash at the Etihad with the most questions to answer. After all, they’ve lost their last two games to teams (West Ham and Newcastle) that, last season at least, they would have swatted aside. As manager Manuel Pellegrini has said, City are “not playing well.”
At least part of the explanation is City’s defensive frailty: Vincent Kompany continues to make Eliaquim Mangala and Martin Demichelis look like footballing pygmies. But it’s broader than that. Going forward, City are too reliant on the individual brilliance of Sergio Aguero and David Silva. Aguero has scored nearly half of all City’s league goals this season, while no player has created more chances (389) than Silva since he joined the Premier League in 2010-11. The Spaniard is an injury doubt for Sunday, and thus a major headache for Pellegrini.
By contrast, there’s a sense that United are starting to turn a corner under van Gaal, in terms of self-belief if not results. However unconvincing their overall performance against Chelsea on Sunday, their ability to eek out a point against the league leaders, and in typical last-minute “Fergie time” fashion, suggests a returning confidence not seen since Sir Alex. Throw in a fit-again Radamel Falcao, and possibly Wayne Rooney (though there are odd rumours he has a “limp”), and United undoubtedly have enough firepower to trouble City’s creaky defence.
All of which leads The18 to spare a (very) brief thought for Moyes. After all, the Scot had racked up one more point than his Dutch successor this time last season, from a far tougher run of fixtures and having spent considerably less money in the transfer market.
Would Moyes’ United have been afforded such optimism? Not likely.
Impotent Villains
"Is this how we football?" Photo: @AVFC_News | Twitter
The list of individual players to have scored more goals than Aston Villa this season is becoming longer and less distinguished by the week. While the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo has scored 400% more goals says as much about him as it does The Villains, being outscored by Leonardo Ulloa, a man who plied his trade exclusively in the lower leagues until August this year, is considerably more damning.
Villa have now lost five consecutive Premier League fixtures without scoring a goal. The record, set by Ipswich Town in 1995, is seven. They were duly relegated at the end of the season.
Ghost Goals
"Calm down, guys. I got this." Photo: @swfc_ben | Twitter
One of the many upsides to referee Mark Clattenburg being suspended from this weekend’s EPL fixtures (following his mad dash to an Ed Sheeran concert) is the return of Stuart Attwell, the man responsible for arguably the worst refereeing decision ever made in the history of both football and decision-making.
In 2008, Attwell became the youngest referee ever to officiate a Premier League fixture at the preposterously young age of 25, but just four years later he was demoted to the lower leagues following a string of sub-standard performances. The pinnacle of his awfulness came in a tie between Watford and Reading, when he inexplicably awarded a goal to The Royals for a shot that didn’t even come close to troubling the back of the net. Stephen Hunt called it “probably the worst decision I’ve ever witnessed in football,” and he played for Reading, the beneficiaries of Attwell’s incompetence.
By all accounts, Attwell’s performances have improved markedly since those dark days, hence his promotion to officiate Leicester’s home tie against West Brom on Saturday.
We hope he hasn’t improved too much.
The Damned
"My God...they do not stand a chance." Photo: @BXSport | Twitter
Burnley are on the verge of joining an elite list: just nine teams have failed to win a single game in their first ten Premier League fixtures; all were subsequently relegated. This weekend they travel to an Arsenal side unbeaten in their last 22 home EPL fixtures.
It doesn’t look promising, does it?
