This time, IT MATTERS

 

My scorn for the League Cup knows no bounds. 

I have always - always; ever since I was a child - felt that a second domestic cup competition is otiose, and ridiculous. I am rarely even aware of the earlier rounds being played, and I seldom bother to watch the Final (except in that one glorious year, back in the 1980s, when second-tier Oxford United managed to win it - one of the great small-club triumphs in English football history; just a pity it wasn't in the proper cup...). 

The tournament's flimsy credibility hasn't been helped by having a succession of unlikely sponsors insist on splashing their name on the trophy - a somewhat contemptible one in the gambling company Littlewoods, along with simply ludicrous ones like its current backer - the energy drink that isn't Red Bull; and, back in the day, the Milk Marketing Board supported it for a long while: calling it the 'Milk Cup' made it sound like some sort of confectionary...). 

My feeling is that the competition could become more useful and relevant - and less of a strain on an already dangerously overstuffed top-flight schedule - if it were restricted to clubs outside the Premier League.

However, we do have an unusually significant match-up in this Sunday's Final: Arsenal and Manchester City, the two teams vying for this year's Premier League title. And the game happens to come at a particularly crucial moment in that title race, as City's challenge seems to be evaporating after they tamely dropped points in their last two games - to allow the leaders to pull out a rather daunting 9-point gap.

I have an inkling, therefore, that this year's League Cup might actually decide the League title as well. City, I think, really, really, really need to win this game - to lay down a marker that they're not giving up the challenge yet, to try to put a bit of a dent in Arsenal's growing self-confidence. They still have a game in hand over their rivals, and they are slated to play them at home in Gameweek 33. If they could win both of those, Arsenal would be facing a very nervy run-in.

But if Arsenal can beat them on Sunday, they'll go to The Etihad in a month's time with no fear - and they'll probably win again there. City NEED to win this game - not for the worthless 'consolation prize' trophy, but to keep the title-chase alive.

So,... I might actually watch the game this year!  [Well, I'll try. Since the UK coverage is on the dreaded ITVX, I very much doubt if I'll be able to get a viable stream.]

[Well, what do you know? ITV seems to have upped its game - at last. It has been so notorious for so long for not having sufficient server capacity to maintain a stable stream on popular live events that I've largely given up even bothering to try it over the last few years. But it worked a treat last night! (Maybe only because comparatively few people are interested in watching the League Cup Final, even when it is between the two best teams in the country??)

I confess, I am pleased to see Arsenal 'wobble' a bit, and City re-energise their title challenge. Arsenal fans should probably be a little worried by the manner of the defeat: their team was completely dominated in the second-half, and had no response. It was a performance so lacking that it suggests they might struggle in a number of the remaining games, not just the crunch match at The Etihad. It is uncertain, though, whether the long wait before they play in the league again will amplify or diminish the psychological impact of this result.

Of course, my man Adam Clery has already put out an excellent video examining how City were able to control the game so emphatically.]

Ha-haa!

Arsenal get an 'early' double gameweek, against middling and weak opponents,... and get held to a draw by both,.... pissing away a two-goal lead against bottom-of-the-table Wolves!

The vaunted Arsenal defence returned very little in FPL from the double-fixture (apart from the unexpected Piero Hincapie, who wasn't even a shoo-in for a start, but ended up playing almost the whole of both games, and coming up with a goal against Wolves); the much transferred-in Martin Zubimendi and Viktor Gyokeres returned bugger-all.

Oh, schadenfreude, we do love you.

Missing the 'linchpin'....?

 

We all use the term 'linchpin' all the time, often, perhaps, without fully appreciating its original meaning. In the physical world, rather than the realm of metaphor, it is the simplest form of mechanical fastening - usually securing a wheel to its axle. So, yes - it is the thing without which the wheels fall off...

In the football context, it is most often applied to the industrious, combative central midfielder who tends to sit fairly deep and fulfill a mostly defensive role (providing cover in front of the back-line to stop or disrupt or at least slow down counter-attacks, and trying to get back to provide an extra body in the box if such a break does slip past him), but also often being mainly responsible for setting the tempo of the game (knowing when to move the ball on quickly, and when to pause for a few seconds to allow teammates to recover their positions or catch their breath; knowing when to go for a progressive pass, and knowing when it's more sensible to opt for a low-risk, time-buying layoff sideways or backwards...), as well as being a crucial steadying, confidence-building influence in the team (Pep memorably said earlier this season, of Rodri, that his players would be far less nervous when protecting a narrow lead in the closing phase of the game if they knew the Spaniard was there to receive the ball from them - with absolutely no chance that he would give it up to the other side cheaply),... and also, perhaps, just tending to set the psychological tone of a game (establishing the level of competitiveness, the intensity of energy and desire - and sometimes just making it clear how much it's going to hurt opponents to try to get past your team or to take the ball off your team...).

I have always felt that players like this are key to the success of any top side. Rodri, or Vieira or Keane back in the Noughties, or (going right back to my childhood) guys like Graeme Souness and John McGovern and Billy Bremner.... were not the most attractive ball-players or the most idolised members of their teams; but those teams would not, I think, have enjoyed much or any of the success they did without them.

Few people - other than particularly astute Villa fans - would probably have appreciated that Boubacar Kamara was one of their 'most important' players now. But I fancy his loss is likely to be more keenly felt than that of Tielemans or McGinn (also ruled out recently), or even than the absence of one of their main creative players - Rogers, Buendia, Watkins - would be. Similarly, we have seen a number of times that Chelsea usually struggle to assert themselves in games when Moises Caicedo is injured or suspended. And I recently learned the astonishing statistic that, since the Brazilian joined the club four years ago, Newcastle have never yet managed to win a league game without him!

This is the importance of the central defensive midfielder for FPL; you won't often want them in your squad for their points potential (because, even with the handy lift of the additional 'defensive points' this season, as well as a few untypical little sprees of goalscoring from some of them, which have significantly elevated the totals of players like James Garner, Elliot Anderson, and Moises Caicedo, a primarily defensive player is rarely going to be anywhere near as much of a points-producer as a regular goalscorer classified by the game as a 'midfielder'*). However, you should be very alert to the impact that their fitness, and their level of performance, can have on those around them. [I commented last week on how Pascal Gross, Angel Gomes, and perhaps Douglas Luiz, were for me the most 'interesting' of this year's mid-season transfers-in, precisely because of this potential knock-on effect they might have, which could boost the FPL value of certain of their teammates.]

And this is now my only major worry for Arsenal as they seek to realise the potential for a multi-trophy season. Declan Rice, fabulous and versatile player though he is, has repeatedly shown that he was not able to fulfill a holding midfield role for them, when Partey was missing (at least, not on his own; he can contribute usefully to this task when paired with someone whose natural strengths are more suited to it). Meanwhile, Martin Zubimendi, good though he is, is not yet, I think, quite as impressive in this niche as Thomas Partey was at his best. And they don't have any cover for him...

People always focus on the more obviously influential players at the club, and fret how an injury to Raya or Gabriel or Rice or Saka might upset their title charge. But if they lose Zubimendi to a serious injury,..... I think they might be f@*ed!

*  Yes, I know Rice and Guimaraes and Enzo Fernandez are up near the head of the FPL midfielder rankings at the moment; but they are players who do provide a well-above-average goal threat, as well as being a major source of potential assists from set-pieces. And yes, even the less obviously 'box-to-box' Garner, Anderson, and Gravenberch are quite well placed too, having climbed above 100 points for the season. But the big difference in the game this year is not the supposed impact of the new 'defensive points' (nice to have, but you wouldn't, shouldn't be putting any player in your starting eleven purely for this), but the fact that - for a wide variety of reasons - almost all of the 'usual suspects' we'd usually look to among the goalscoring midfielders to be our major points-returners for the season... have failed to come up with much. There have been a few (Antoine Semenyo, Bruno Fernandes, Harry Wilson, Morgan Rogers) who've done pretty well; and there are some more we can still have hopes for (Wirtz, Cherki, Palmer, Saka..., maybe even Mo Salah??). But, compared to most recent years, the 'midfielder' category is almost devoid of any significant returns this year: Garner, Guimaraes, et al are not up near the top of the tree because they've been outstanding; even with a fat boost from 'defensive points', their current totals would be nothing to get excited about in any other year.

Is the title race 'over'.....?

We all thought it might be such a thrilling battle for the Premier League crown this year! 

Liverpool had finally broken City's long and rather tedious dominance of the top spot, and looked like they should have a good chance of defending the title in style. The young Chelsea squad seemed to have taken a massive step forward with their impressive triumph in the summer's Club World Cup tournament. City, of course, were not to be written off, despite a few teething troubles as Pep laboured to reconstruct their approach to the game. And Arsenal keep relentlessly getting harder and harder to beat each year. Perhaps even Manchester United, after their summer acquisition of a daunting new attacking trident of Cunha, Sesko, and Mbeumo, might be able to start challenging the top of the table again? And a few other teams had shown themselves capable enough last season to at least be able to nibble at the heels of these big boys, and perhaps nick a Champions League qualifying place off any of them who faltered from their highest standards - Bournemouth, Palace, Villa, Newcastle....

But it just hasn't panned out like that. Chelsea, unsettled by critical injuries (Colwill, perhaps, just as big a miss for them as Palmer), have been weirdly inconsistent, and have suffered a rancorous managerial departure in mid-season. Manchester United shackled themselves to the millstone of Amorim's perverse tactical rigidity for six months longer than they should have done, and are only just now starting to show what they should have been capable of all along. City, struggling with so many different issues of tactics and personnel, are once more very good - but not quite consistent enough, or robust enough in defence, to mount a powerful challenge. Liverpool miserably failed to integrate any of their expensive new signings, and are only slowly starting to find their feet again in mid-season. And the chasing pack have disappointed too: after promising starts, Bournemouth and Palace have slowly fallen apart, as their best players are progressively stripped from them; Newcastle continue to be plagued by injuries and inconsistency and weak away form; only Villa, recovering impressively from a dreadful start, had briefly threatened to break into the outer fringes of the title scrap - but they were probably punching above their weight somewhat during that extraordinarily successful run, and are likely to fall back quite a way, now that they've suddenly lost their entire central midfield - Tielemans, Kamara, and McGinn - to long-term injuries in January.

At the moment, Arsenal are looking set to win the title by default - not because they're incomparably brilliant (they are pretty damn good; but they have a lot of flaws too), but because none of their expected rivals have been able to step up to the challenge so far.

I - and most neutrals, I'm sure - would like to see a closer battle: one or more of the rivals pushing the presumptive Champions right up to the final weekend. But it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

Arsenal under Arteta have become notorious for suffering a 'winter wobble', a significant, sometimes calamitous dip in form at some point around the turn of the year. And they've just had another one this year. But we hardly noticed. 

They lost each of their preferred starting defenders for a spell, and, on occasions, the back-up players in those positions too - so that, through December and January they were rarely able to field a settled back-line. For a team that depends so heavily on its defensive cohesion, this lack of continuity could have been disastrous; but it wasn't - they had a few struggles, but somehow they came through. 

It's been in attack where they've often looked to have more serious shortcomings lately. And even their fans are starting to fret about their low number of chances created, the extreme shortage of goals from open play. But they've repeatedly found a way to power through: games they looked like they could lose, they somehow managed to win after all; games that they were losing, they somehow saved a point from. During what might, to their fans, and probably to Mikel Arteta, have seemed like a fairly terrible run of games over the past two months, they lost to Villa at the beginning of December and to a rejuvenated Manchester United in that great game the other week, and were held to draws by Liverpool and Forest.

That was this year's 'winter wobble': they dropped 10 points.

All of their rivals dropped as many or more.

I feel City's rather pitiful second-half collapse against Spurs last weekend may prove to have been the decisive moment of the season. Pep's men were so comfortably on top in the first half, they really should have been ahead by a landslide by the interval. But they somehow got pegged back to a draw - allowing Arsenal to stretch their lead to 7 points.

Now, 7 points isn't that much of a gap, with just over a third of the season still to be played.

But Arsenal are so good defensively this year, it's difficult to imagine where they might drop points. Most of their tougher opponents for the second half of the season are already behind them. Only a visit to The Etihad in mid-April looks likely to be a major test of their confidence. And even if they are feeling under a bit of pressure by then, or start to feel it because of a good result for City in that game, their run-in to the end of the season is one of the softest we've ever seen: they have a sequence of fixtures in May that they probably ought to be able to win with their youth team.

And City, Chelsea, Liverpool, alas, are just not looking strong enough to be able to mount a sustained challenge. At this point, if I were going to bet on anyone else to win the title other than Arsenal,.... it would be Manchester United! They're 12 points behind, which is a very big ask. But I have a feeling they might just about be capable of making up that ground now; the others, I'm afraid, don't look like they are.

But yes, it is silly to talk of the season being 'over' when there are still 14 games to play for everyone (that's why I used the inverted commas). Arsenal might get hit by multiple injuries to key players again (they're rather more vulnerable in other areas of the pitch than they are in defence: Rice and Zubimendi are pretty much irreplaceable). Nerves might get the better of them, if someone manages to close the gap going in to the last few gameweeks. The physical and psychological toll of going deep in three or four different competitions might gradually overwhelm them.

But it is going to take something pretty damn drastic for them to lose that lead now. And I doubt if it's going to happen.

But we'll see.....