World Football Postulant

Perhaps no match I watched this weekend told me more about two teams than Portsmouth’s 3-0 victory at Goodison Park.

Coming into the match, Portsmouth’s difficulty in opening opponents kept us from knowing if this club was any good.  They had to open at Chelsea and then host Manchester United.  It’s a pair that even Real Madrid would be loathe to play to open a league season.

Everton, on the other hand, managed to give up three goals at home to Blackburn and then get a 2-1 result at West Brom.  Was this club anywhere near the quality of the side that finished fifth last season?

Saturday’s match between two UEFA Cup aspirants gave us all the information we need to know.  Here are the verdicts:

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Like Armand Traore loan to Portsmouth last week, Philipe Senderos has become a happy casualty of Arsene Wenger’s mysterious fascination with Mikael Silvestre. The 23-year-old Swiss center back has been loaned out to Milan for the year after falling to sixth on the Arsenal depth chart.   At Milan, Senderos will have a chance a meaningful playing time, as a combination of injury, age, and lack of quality will put him into the mix.  He has to be encouraged by the move.

For Arsenal, getting Senderos a year’s playing time at an elite club while retaining his rights is good development for what’s still a young player. I am not a big fan of Senderos, but he has all the physical skills, even if he does seems to rarely use them. He had a horrible game in the second match of the Champions League quarterfinals, an unforgettable match which saw Ryan Babel draw that miracle penalty (oh, how I wish I had this blog back then) which put the Gunners out. He immediately lost his spot at the back to Alexander Song and looks unlikely to regain Arsene Wenger’s confidence.

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Due to time constraints, I have published my Manchester United-Portsmouth thoughts directly to American Soccer Reader.  Normally I write the draft here, edit it, and them move it over to ASR, but time has been short over the last day, and routines (which I abhor) have to change.

Here is a direct link to that review.

The determining moment of Chelsea’s 1-0 win at the JJB may have come before kickoff.  Wigan goaltender Chris Kirkland, having missed England’s Wednesday international with back trouble, was ruled out of Sunday’s match a reoccurred in warm-ups.  His absence may have proved costly for a home team whose 1-0 loss fell on the end of an early, possibly savable, direct kick.

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One of the trickle-down effects of Robinho’s potential move to Chelsea will be the renewed availability of Shawn Wright-Phillips. Wright-Phillips was thought to be gone from Stamford Bridge this summer as Luiz Felipe Scolari thinned out the bloated squad he’d inherited. Ultimately, Scolari decided to keep Wright-Phillips as an understudy to Joe Cole. But when Robinho comes aboard Wright-Phillips will lose a rung on the depth chart, becoming an extraneous third option at right wing. So as Chelsea continue negotiating with Real Madrid for their Brazilian target, Peter Kenyon is sure to have a subordinate calling around the Premiership looking for a new home for Wright-Phillips.

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If you read my EPL preview over at American Soccer Reader, you know I think highly of Middlesbrough’s chances this season. I picked them to finish ninth, and the simulation I wrote saw them as having a outside but meaningful chance at finishing in the top seven. But given a chance to pick Boro when they hosted a team of similar standing (by the prediction) to open the season, I picked the visitor.

That’s because that visitor was Tottenham. Continue Reading »

With Mikael Silvestre now second in line at Arsenal’s left back position, 18-year-old Armand Traoré has been loaned out to Portsmouth, where he will be Hermann Hreidarsson’s understudy.

With Portsmouth being a four competition team this year, Hreidarsson’s age (34), and Harry Redknapp probably eager to evaluation Traoré for a permanent move, the French teenager will get ample playing time.  With all of Arsenal’s injuries last season, Traoré got 12 all-competition appearances.  He should get around that many this season should Hreidarsson not be injured.  That would be around ten more appearances than he would have got at Arsenal.

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Manchester United fans may want to bemoan their club’s inability to get three points in their opener at Old Trafford, but solace can be found 930 miles to the southeast, where another storied European club was held to a tie in the home opener of their title defense.

Without three of their best players, FC Bayern Munich held on for a 2-2 victory over Hamburger SV in the Bundesliga opener on Friday,. Munich was playing without leading scorer Luca Toni, German Footballer of the Year Franck Ribery, or their best defender, Martin Demichelis. In other words: It happens.

The Red Devils got the benefit of Newcastle playing without their captain, Michael Owen, but Manchester United were still without Cristiano Ronaldo (injury, long-term), Carlos Tevez (bereavement), Nani (suspension), Anderson (Olympics), and Owen Hargreaves (injury) - all players that would have been expected to contribute in attack. That they were still able to create more and better opportunities throughout the match should be encouraging to Alex Ferguson and his supporters.

The lack of a cutting edge was, however, noticeable. Wayne Rooney played the whole match, whereas he was once thought to be out recovering from an illness acquired in Africa, but he lacked his world-class form, and it was evident when he was unable to make himself dangerous with the ball at his feet around the box. Frazier Campbell had three strong chances and should have had a goal early, but Manchester United’s only goal came when Darren Fletcher, two minutes after Newcastle went ahead off an Obafemi Martins header, guided a Ryan Giggs cross into the net. It was Fletcher’s way of evening the scales after he left Martins alone for a goal off a Magpies’ corner. After twenty-four minutes, the match had it final score.

Giggs was United’s best player during his sixty minutes on the pitch, a good news-bad news proposition for the Devils. The good news is the legendary left winger, who is thought to be in his final season at Old Trafford, looks able to contribute, where many had wondered what he had left in the tank. The bad news for Manchester United is that he was their best player, something (at best) peculiar for a European championship team. It was one example of how Manchester United’s injuries and absences had taken a toll on the pitch.

The injuries for the champions were not limited to before the match. Michael Carrick, who had been named to Fabio Capello’s England national team for Wednesday’s friendly against the Czech Republic, left with an ankle injury and will be out for three weeks. He has been replaced by Tottenham’s Jermaine Jenas for Wednesday, but with Owen Hargreaves still suffering from knee problems, it’s unclear Ferguson will be able to replace his holding midfielder as easily.

Ryan Giggs was not substituted because of age, form or fatigue; rather, he also suffered an injury and had to be removed. At the 2/3 mark of the match, Giggs left the match with a right hamstring injury which will also see him sidelined around three weeks. Late in the second half, center back Nemanja Vidic injured his knee with a supreme effort to get his head on a corner kick. The ball ended up going off the crossbar, and Vidic finished with a noticeable limp after hurting his right knee.

At the end of the match, names like Campbell, Rafael de Silva, and Rodrigo Possebon joined reserves like Fletcher and John O’Shea in United’s side, and while it was a team that was still able to trouble a Newcastle side that played over the last fifteen minutes as if to preserve their point, it was not enough to get a second goal. Newcastle’s two Argentinian imports saw to that.

The Magpies came into the season as the Premiership’s worst returning defense, but summer acquisitions Jonas Gutierrez (right midfield) and Fabricio Coloccini (center back) had a huge impact in preventing the champions’ a second goal. Gutierrez was the match’s best player, having a unparalleled activity rate between the boxes, an adept defensive sense that broke up many Red Devil attacks, and a couple of moments in attack that made him mildly dangerous. Coloccini was active in the middle of the back line - a rangy, physical presence who was frequently finding ways to disrupt the home side’s attack. Those two additions made a profound difference between the Newcastle that finished last season and the team that took a point from Olf Stafford on Sunday.

For Manchester United, the draw stings only because of what happened earlier in the day at Stamford Bridge. In isolation, the draw is defensible, but on the same day that Chelsea put up a 4-0 domination of Portsmouth, the draw becomes a source of worry. Again here, United can look to Germany, where Munich’s draw against Hamburg was made the more worrisome when Schalke 04, the Bundesliga’s third place team last season, dominated Hannover on Saturday. From a distance, it is difficult to convince the casual Bundesliga fan that Munich’s fortunes changed so much after two matches. With the distance of a couple of rounds of the Premiership going by, we will probably be looking on Sunday’s results with the same refrain.

In other words: it happens.

Note: This article will be edited for distribution at American Soccer Reader.

Links
Injury woes for Carrick, Giggs as United drop home points
Manchester United 1 Newcastle United 1: Fletcher spares United’s blushes as urgent need for striker intensifies
Gutierrez the type of player to light up toon
Keegan happy with United point
Magpies frustrate at Old Trafford
Carrick out of England friendly
Jenas replaces crocked Carrick
Fergie reflects on personnel problems
Fergie mulls over ‘credible’ point
Magpies frustrate United
Man Utd 1 Newcastle 1: Man Utd begin title defence in disappointing fashion
Man Utd 1-1 Newcastle: KK’s Toon stand firm
Man Utd v Newcastle stats and ratings
Rusty Manchester United held by Newcastle in opener
United held by buoyant Magpies
Frazier Campbell starts for Man United
Manchester United 1-1 Newcastle: as it happened
United begin title defence with dropped home points

The article’s headline does not do justice to the performance Chelsea side turned in Sunday during the Luiz Felipe Scolari’s managerial debut.  Against Portsmouth, the FA Cup holders who have been tabbed to challenge for European football, the Blues posted a 4-0 win, a score that undersells how convincing they were.

Chelsea nullified the striking duo of Peter Crouch and Jermaine Defoe, exposed a completely undermanned Pompey midfield, and showed no reverence for the respected Portsmouth defense.  Harry Redknapp’s side, for their part, did not play especially poorly.  Save a couple of David James curiosities, there was little the visitors could do to slow down the Blues.  As Roman Abromovich applauded from the stands upon seeing the first returns on his investment, a new, clear Premier League favorites were crowned.

That crown, however long it stays at Stamford Bridge, sits firmly on the head of Deco.  Chelsea’s one high-profile summer acquisition was the man of the match, providing an absolutely scary display of distribution for a team that had lacked a true midfield playmaker in season’s past.  Chelsea has had Frank Lampard, Michael Ballack, and Micheal Essien, all of whom are world-class players, but they have been without somebody like Deco, whose immediate utilization of the hyper-active Joe Cole looks to be a potent (and annoying) combination.  With somebody like Cole willing to work for him, Deco could unseated Cesc Fabregas as the league leader in assists.

If Deco was the man of the match, Cole was not far off, giving a performance that makes all the rumors of a Robinho acquisition seem ludicrous.  Off an adroit pass from Michael Ballack (a one-touch punch off the outside of his foot that found Cole bursting past the line), Cole open’s Chelsea’s book just past the ten minute mark.  It was the type of play that could only come from two, world class players who have played together as often as Ballack and Cole.  The moment Portsmouth gave the ball away to Ballack’s feet, Cole was bursting past Sylvain Distin.  Ballack put him in alone on James.

Unlike the Chelsea FC of last season, this club did not rest on its laurels.  The second goal from Niclas Anelka, a header from a ball popped-up in front of the goal line while David James was out for a walk, was the result of constant pressure.  Rather than attack on turnovers, Portsmouth seemed to exhale in relief when Chelsea gave up the ball.  Without any talent in midfield that could compete with Deco, Ballack, Lampard and Jon Obi Mikel, Pompey was left parrying attacks throughout the first half.  They needed Pedro Mendes. They needed Sulley Muntari.  They needed some midfield help, and they needed it help more Chelsea pressure helped created a penalty kick off a hand ball just before half time.  Lampard’s first goal of the season put Chelsea up 3-0 at half.

It was a scary, relentless performance that hinted at a sea change at Stamford Bridge.  The Chelsea players finally seem convinced at how good they are.  In this window before Arsenal’s youth matures, Chelsea has the most talented collection of players in the league (and have had for years).  Scolari seems to realize this and has encouraged the players to show their skills.  The fluid football the Blues showed in their China tour and during their two matches in Moscow at the Russian Railways Cup was still on display Sunday.  Just like in the preseason, Chelsea’s players looked to be having fun, challenging themselves to play beautiful and (to Abramovich’s pleasure) exciting football.

Even at match’s end, when Pompey had conceded they had no chance to dent Chelsea’s armor, the team’s ambition was on display, with Deco putting a 30 meter shot past James while Portsmouth’s back line stood back, shell-shocked.  As he left the field, Deco shook his teammates’ hands while his teammates shook their heads at him.  Deco’s arrival may have changed everything in the Premiership, and it took two months for us to realize it.

Harry Redknapp needs midfield reinforcements, but will be hard for him to take too much from this match.  Even before stepping onto the pitch, everybody know Portsmouth was short of Chelsea’s class.  The question everybody has as Pompey leaves London:  Is anybody in the same class as this Chelsea club?

That’s how impressive the Blues were.

Note: This article will be edited for distribution on American Soccer Reader.

Links
Scolari warns Chelsea not to rest on their laurels
Scolari Hails His Beautiful Blues
Scolari calls for more
Chelsea answer the call for Brazilian style and move on to another level
Chelsea 4 Porstmouth 0: Scolari’s ‘beautiful game’ brings joy to Chelsea
Chelsea 4 Portsmouth 0: Scolari wants style as well as substance
Redknapp rues defending
Scolari satisifed with win
Scolari: Satisfied and Happy
Lampard: Blues had electric start
Delighted Scolari hails team spirit in Chelsea opener
Frank - As well as we can play
Blues delight on Scolari bow
Player Ratings: Chelsea 4-0 Portsmouth
Lampard Hails Top Drawer Chelsea
Chelsea start Scolari era with win over Pompey
Chelsea 4- Portsmouth
Chelsea begin Scolari era with 4-0 victory
Chelsea 4-0 Portsmouth: Scolari starts in style
Formidable Blues inspired by Deco
Deco inspired imperious Chelsea in Portsmouth rout
Rampant Chelsea rout Portsmouth
Chelsea 4-0 Portsmouth
Blues brush Pompey aside

For a fanbase desperate for some team, any team to unseat one of the Premiership’s Big Four, Tottenham was a beacon of hope.  Over the summer ,the other North London club has been linked with seemingly every wantaway player in Europe, casting hopes and wishes into the minds of those hoping Liverpool could be brought back to the league.  But for all those picking Tottenham to crack the cartel at the top of the table, Saturday at the Riverside proved a rude awakening.

It was a fair result, 2-1, beyond just Middlesbrough outplaying Spurs.  If anything, the 2-0 scoreline posted before Tottenham’s late, resigning goal was more just.  Boro controlled the entire match and truly looked the better team, sending notice to a league fanbase that had overlooked Gareth Southgate’s young squad while swooning over Spurs and Portsmouth.  From the opening lineups, when it was known Dimitar Berbatov would not be playing, when you could make a side-by-side comparison of the teams, you could see how the same Tottenham back line that was so porous last season, Darren Bent as their lead striker, and a couple of unremarkable names in the midfield made for a club not so much different from Southgate’s, who nobody is picking to make the top four.

On the pitch, there were stark differences.  Middlesbrough was able to control the middle of the field, rendering Luka Modric practically invisible.  Whereas Middlesbrough’s defense was efficient in dealing with the few challenges Bent and Giovani Dos Santos provided, Tottenham’s defense showed no improvement over last season.  Middlesbrough scored two goals but had other good opportunities.  It was only poor finishing from Afonso Alves that kept the Brazilian from multiple goals.  Stewart Downing outplayed David Bentley, and David Wheater added to his growing reputation as Middlesbrough showed they may have the best players of the two teams.  The Modric having an off-day and Berbatov on the sidelines for most of the match, Southgate’s stars were shining brighter on Saturday.

This was not just a one goal loss on the road, something that would be forgivable for almost any club in the Premiership.  Tottenham did not play Middlesbrough to within a goal.  Their late tally masks the fact that they were rarely dangerous, and in the second half, when Middlesbrough turned the screws, Spurs had no means of responding.  When Dimitar Berbatov came on the pitch Tottenham’s attack started show the fluidity Juane Ramos wants.  But aside from those twenty minutes, they did not threaten.

That is not to say they won’t.  Switching David Bentley to the left side using his brilliant right foot to put the ball on as opposed to across the net is an inspired choice from Ramos.  Berbatov’s skill makes the team noticeably more dangerous as the speed of Modric and Dos Santos can play off the big target man.  Bent becomes viable when playing off Berbatov.  If Spurs keep the Bulgarian and convince him to play, there attacking problems will be solved.

And they will need to solve those problems if they are to compete.  I’m talking about Middlesbrough here, not Liverpool.  Middlesbrough can be a top ten team, and they played as such on Saturday.  If Alves can finish a bit better and the team (especially the goalies) can learn as the year progresses, Boro will be good.

Tottenham needs to worry more about how they are going to beat the Middlesbroughs of the world than how they are going to execute any Big Four attack plans. With Dimitar Berbatov lost, whether by transfer or by psychology, the top of the table is as far away as it was in May.

Note: This article will be edited for distribution on American Soccer Reader.

Links
Brooding Berbatov confronts club about his ‘dream move’ to United
Middlesbrough 2 Tottenham 1: Berbatov cocktail gives Spurs a bad head
Ramos gives mixed messgaes as Spurs stumble
Southgate delighted with start
Poyet - We must learn
Mido returns to haunt Spurs
Mido returns to haunt toothless Spurs
Middlesbrough 2-1 Tottenham: Mido sinks Spurs
Southgate: We Are A Threat
Poyet Rues Poor Defending
Berba benched as Spurs lose
Mido returns to haunt Spurs