That's Just Champion!

Not Very Italian

Perhaps the most exciting last 22 minutes of a football match you're likely to see kicked off the 20th season of the Champions League as Manchester City came within a defensive mistake and 5 minutes of a famous victory away to Real Madrid.

That City came within 5 minutes of winning was incredible testament to their effort although, as Joe Hart said and I suggested in a previous blog post, simply going to the Bernabéu and coming close is not enough for a team of City's current stature. That the 'Blues' lost because of a serious of defensive errors is almost baffling. 

On the way to winning the league last season City conceded just 29 goals, already this season they have seen the opposition score 6 times with Arsenal to come on Sunday. Only two season's ago it was being suggested Roberto Mancini would never lead City to the Premier League title as he was too defensive, last season Mancini was able to combine defencive stability with flair and attacking prowess to win the league. Tonight, in the Champions League City looked terribly poor at the back especially Vincent Kompany, the captain and usually a rock at the back. 



It seems worrying for City that they have looked so oddly weak defensively because it is not one or two mistakes creeping in they look, as a unit, to be poor. Joe Hart has made mistakes, Vincent Kompany too, whilst Joleon Lescott looks less assured than last season- a knock on effect from Kompany's form- and the full backs have never settled under Mancini as he enjoys rotating them.

Fortunately for City their title rivals weaknesses are also prominently defensive, it means that games between the top four may turn out to be just as exciting as last season's 8-2's and 6-1's.

We're Not So Different You and I

I said in my last blog post that I thought AVB just needed time and, though the turnaround is nowhere near complete, my faith does seem a little vindicated already.

It is not just the win that has led me to gleam over AVB this week but also the manner of the football, the ex Porto manager seems to have got his system correct with Sandro and Moussa Dembele creating a fantastic midfield partnership. Villas-Boas also had a good week in the press managing to hit back at his predecessor, the shadow that is Harry Redknapp, after Harry had criticised his style of management. This was also, accidentally, a response to Martin Keown who had suggested on BBC Radio 5 Live that Villas-Boas was 'too tactical' and 'confusing' his players. 

Surely though the most pleasing thing for Spurs fans and, even more so, the manager will be the excellent form of Jermain Defoe who already has 3 league goals this season and 2 for England (which should have been 3 against Ukraine). Defoe's goals have kept Emmanuel Adebayour on the bench and the ex Portsmouth striker looks full of confidence unlikely to stop scoring.

Ironically Defoe's upturn in fortune seems to have come from AVB's man management skills and decision to give the Englishman an extended run in the team meanwhile Harry lost his job after being unable to keep his player's focus once he was convinced he'd get the England job.

Pick Your Words Wisely

Joe Hart was rightly a little mad at the end of his teams match versus Spanish champions Real Madrid. Not only had City seen their 2-1 lead to turn to a 3-2 deficit in only 5 minutes but Hart was also partially at fault for the last goal.

Hart was interviewed after the match and suggested in his answer that the interviewer wanted him to say that the team could go away from the match with their heads held high instead he apologised and then, rightly said, they were annoyed they lost from 2-1 up with 5 minutes to go and lost. He even questioned it "how can you be 2-1 up with 5 minutes to go and lose 3-2?", the answer to winning from 2-1 down is; with the will and determination to win no matter what, but then I guess he should know that after May 13th 2012!

Retain or Regain?

We're in our 20th year of the Champions League, in its current guise, and still no club has managed to defend their title as best team in Europe. On Wednesday night Chelsea begin their challenge to become the first.

Chelsea's group is tricky with Juventus and Shakhtar Donetsk to play but they should still qualify for the knockout stages. Roberto Di Matteo's side should arguably be better equipped to win the Champions League this season as their new players have made them into a dangerous attacking outfit, however this new setup will work adversely against the likes of Barcelona and this season they will also have a Premier League title challenge to contend with.

It looks like we'll be waiting till at least the 21st year till we get a defending champion!

Manager of the Season!

Yet another week when football, and the Premier league in particular threw up a whole load of headlines. From weather based cancellations, more injuries to David Moyes' Everton, Lionel Messi picking up yet another award after winning the World Club Cup for Barcelona, 3 time taken penalty, the Spurs' players 'golfing' trip to Dublin and of course unpredictable results by the bucket load.

Ok granted the bucket maybe wasn't as deep as in past weeks but there was still losses for Liverpool, Manchester United, and Celtic whilst Chelsea dropped points at could be relegation fodder West Ham.

Chelsea were looking invincible just a few weeks ago and suddenly, having lost to Blackburn on penalties in the League cup, they seem anything but. Petr Cech would find it difficult to get into the England squad on current Chelsea form, if England had any goalkeeper they could rely on, and John Terry is playing at his worst for some time. Tony Cascarino said on Sky Sports News today that he couldn't see Chelsea playing worse than they currently are but he seems to forget that in January some of there most influential of players will be jetting off to Angola to take part in the African Cup of Nations. It may of course have little effect on the Blues but it will leave Carlo Ancelotti looking over his shoulder at United and Arsenal.

Talking of the champions, that's United of course and not Arsenal, their title defence is starting to look a little nervy to say the least. When Sir Alex says "there's no light at the end of the tunnel" you can't help but listen. Of course just a day or so later the Glaswegian was stating that many of his defensive injuries were nearly back and he wouldn't be swooping into the market to pluck out and defensive cover come January.

The fact is thought that whilst United lost for the 2nd time in 3 league games they once again lost to an in form side. Fulham are transformed under Roy Hodgson, from a team who would have been relegated had it not been for Rafa Benitez resting all is players in a match against them a couple of years ago (don't remember Arsene Wenger complaining then), into a side who look at home in Europe and are easily disposing of the champions. At this point you'll all be looking at the title and thinking something along the lines of "Oh he's going to say Roy Hodgson is manager of the season. Bit premmature but fair enough." You're wrong of course, the Premier league 2009/2010 Manager of the season goes to either....

Roberto Mancini- Manchester City's new manager is going to have an incredible season, winning the Carling Cup having beaten city rivals United in the semi final and then going onto finish 4th in the league. Oh no the future's not been decided yet?!? I thought it had, I thought that's why City sacked Mark Hughes. Wait so Mancini hasn't already won the league cup and got to 4th? He's done nothing in English football so far you say? Well I am mistaken. So Mark Hughes leads his side to 6th in the Premier league, a good position to find yourself in just before Christmas, and a league cup semi final and still gets sacked! He wasn't managing United or Chelsea, teams who would frown on being 6th at any time of the season passed the third game, he was managing at City, a side who have never finished inside the top 6 in Premier league history.

For those of you who didn't work out the last paragraph was written slightly tongue in cheek. I'm also not a big fan in the way Manchester City have gone about sacking a manager who, though he hasn't blown the Premier league away, has done little wrong to get sacked. I'm especially not a fan of Garry Cook, who is chief executive down at the City of Manchester Stadium. In the past he has been referred to as the David Brent of football, watching him in Monday's press conference acting arrogant and passive aggressive towards journalists you can see why. Cook was unflappable in suggesting the club were right to sack Sparky and did nothing wrong with the way they went about it. For me though deciding you're going to sack a manager three weeks before you actually sack him and then doing it after a victory is almost definitely the wrong way to go about it! I'm not saying that sacking a manager needs to be an impulse decision but that victory over Sunderland should at least have bought him some time and having the new guy in place almost by the time Hughes had left the changing rooms for one last time must have been a kick in the nads for the Welshman. In the end though it will be City who may well regret Hughes' sacking most, if rumours are to be believed then should Mancini fail to make the top four he'll be sacked and the Blues of Manchester and their fans will once again be green with envy over the stability just a few miles away.

But why stop there! We have another nomination to come....

Ladies and Gents I give you, Rafa! Well what a season, back in November they were knocked out of the Champions League and found themselves in near disarray in the Premier league. Then came wins against Arsenal, Wigan and Portsmouth in a week and the whole season turned around. They surged up the table into fourth place and won the FA Cup and Europa League double. Ok so granted just like the Mancini hypothetical situation it could end up not being so hypothetical, but again like with Mancini I can't see it happening.

The reason I'm picking on Benitez, other than it being fun, is he just makes it too easy. About 10 days ago the Scouse Spaniard said "the season starts here", in which case he's started with 3 points from a possible 9 with a goal difference of minus 1, and judging on how badly the real seasons gone so far he may just take that.

We were led to believe at the beginning of the season that if Torres and Gerrard were fit then it would be extremely difficult to stop Liverpool finally winning the league, they haven't stayed fit and it has exposed the holes in the squad and specifically the Rafa made problem of having few strikers after selling Robbie Keane, Peter Crouch and Craig Bellamy in the last couple of seasons. Indeed even with El Nino and Stevie G fit they have been anything but firing, as on Saturday when they were well out played and out gunned by south coast strugglers Portsmouth. I know only a few short weeks ago I said Liverpool were dangerous in the race to the top four as a wounded, out of Champions League, animal type way but having seen them continue to struggle and Spurs and Villa looking just as strong or stronger I'm starting to believe they'll be lucky to finish ahead of City, Birmingham or Manchester.

With the end of the year and in fact end of the decade approaching it's only inevitable we start to reminisce over the last 10 years of football. Personally I'll be blogging about it next week but for now with the exciting Christmas schedule to come over the next week or so I'd like to look forward, after all the season truly starts here!