The season is only six games old, but already the managers are experiencing the extreme ups and downs of life in the English Premiership, writes Gavin Evans
Back-to-back victories over two of the Premiership’s big five, and in both cases the scoreline was unflattering to Grard Houllier’s Liverpool lads, suggest title contention potential. Not winning the Premiership, obviously, not this year anyway, but perhaps a decent FA Cup run and a Champions League place.
So far, after a mere six games mind, it is starting to look hopeful, and if they win, or even survive, against Manchester United at home next Saturday, there is good cause for serious revivalist hope at Anfield.
Last season Liverpool’s strength was their attack. They were, in fact, the second highest-scoring team in the Premiership, and they should be even more powerful in this department in future with Robbie Fowler back on form and Michael Owen back on the field after his hamstring injury (at least for the final few minutes against Arsenal).
Their weakness has long been their defence but with Houllier spending 20-million in moulding his side to his own, pan-European image after cutting ties with former co- manager Roy Evans, this problem seems to be sorting itself out as the team begins to learn to work together and overcome the language barrier.
Most encouraging was the way they outplayed Arsenal in midfield, partly through Houllier out-strategising his friend and fellow Frenchman, Arsne Wenger, by placing Titi Camara just behind Fowler, effectively giving him five men to Arsenal’s four.
One should not get too excited, with only nine points in five games, compared, say, to West Ham United’s 10 in four, but while it is hard to imagine Harry Rednapp’s rejuvenated squad producing more than the occasional nose tweaking for the big boys, at least once the season gets serious, Liverpool have the depth to return to the top three.
At the moment at least, the team is finally beginning to achieve the thing that has been so lacking from Newcastle United ever since Kevin Keegan’s departure in January 1997: cohesion. It’s hard to know where to begin when considering the blame for the black-and-white nosedive -you could start with the board, and particularly the Geordie-despising chairman Freddie Shepherd, throw a few barbs in the direction of the overpaid, overrated Alan Shearer, but in the end you have to settle on Ruud Gullit, a brilliant footballer in his day, but an overhyped and over-rated manager.
After his acrimonious departure from his beloved Chelsea, the St James’s Park offer must have seemed like the kind of gift he couldn’t refuse, but it was not meant to be.
Cosmopolitan, sophisticated Gullit – brash, warm and funny in public, introverted in private – cut a lonely figure at Tyneside, holed up in his hotel, playing golf alone, eating by himself, constantly commuting home to Holland, forever bickering with his captain.
It was never going to work, and so, after that 5-1 shocker against Manchester United, he decided to jump, not even waiting to secure a lucrative severance deal (much to his agent’s displeasure). So once again, the Newcastle United board is on the hunt for what will be their fourth manager since 1997, and the football question of the week is will-he-won’t-he get it – 66-year-old former England manager Bobby Robson, that is.
Robson, a personal favourite of club president Sir John Hall, turned down the job two years ago, preferring to see out his time at Barcelona, followed by a return to PSV Eindhoven, but as he keeps on stressing, he is now a free agent, and “a Geordie, a Durham boy, and I bleed black and white”.
Aside from his vast experience, record of success and reputation as a team moulder who can turn water into wine, he is deeply routed in the European game – a vital asset now that the little Englander days of British football have finally ended. Despite having a malignant tumour removed from his cheekbone four years ago, he swears by his health, but the real issue is his age.
It is often forgotten Keegan took four years before he moulded Newcastle into a side strong enough to challenge for the Premiership, and their new manager may need a similar leeway, as well as an equivalent budget, before he has much hope of guiding them to the top.
Whoever they choose will have a terrible job turning it around, in the short term at least. Aside from their defensive frailties, Newcastle have developed a habit of falling to pieces whenever they run into a problem, usually in the second half, which reflects a collective confidence deficit of ridiculous proportions.
With the Premiership taking a break for a week, to make way for the national squad and its European ambitions, Newcastle remain side by side with pathetic Sheffield Wednesday at the bottom of the league – six games, no wins, one draw, and to compound their misery, their next outing, on Saturday week, comes against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.
ENDS