In it’s third week of the season, the Premier League found a middle ground. Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester United still top the league on points and performance, but instead of that trio being joined by Manchester City and Tottenham, Spurs and the Citizens have decided to stay the bridge linking the title contenders to Premier League’s middle. At least, that’s what we might infer after each club lost this weekend against bottom-half teams.
English Premier League, Weekend Review: Tottenham, Manchester City Step Away From The Top
Calling Wigan Athletic bottom-half is a huge upgrade for the Latics. Last week, they were being compared with Derby County’s 11-point team of 2006-07. People were speculating as to whether this Wigan team woudl be amongst the worst to ever compete in the Premier League. Allowing ten goals (which scoring none) in two matches tends to spur such discussion.
That gives you some perspective on how shocking it is to see a (now properly qualified) Champions League team lose at home on Saturday to Wigan. Hugo Rodallega’s 80th minute goal gave Wigan a 1-0 win, their first points of the season, and us a number of questions about Spurs: How did this happen? What happened to their attack? Is this team really that good? How did Harry Redknapp let this happen?
Tottenham has the talent to win the Premier League. Go player-by-player, and while they may not be the best team in the league, they’re certainly within a reasonable range of the most gifted sides. They have the depth to meaningfully compete in all competitions, and as they showed at the end of last season, their top-shelf talent can bite the best.
Yet few consider them serious title contenders, and with results like Saturday’s, perhaps they shouldn’t. If you’re hosting a team that’s -10 in goal difference after two matches and you - a Champions League team - find a way to lose 1-0, then you’re probably not a title contender. You have bigger fish to fry.
And as it concerns those fish, Tottenham’s developing quite the collection. Spurs laid an egg in Bern against Young Boys, and then Stoke City nearly took something out of them last week. After their loss to Wigan, Spurs have more questionable performances than good ones, and the sample size is growing. Five matches against a range of opposition, and Tottenham’s only truly convincing performance was at home against Switzerland’s second place team. True, they inspired us against Manchester City, but they also only got one point.
While Saturday’s result at the Lane only furthered out doubts about Spurs, it alleviated some worry surrounding Wigan. Before Rodallega’s goal, the season was thought hopeless. Now, Wigan is back to where they were last season. Then, they were inexplicable, battling relegation in the same season they’d defeated Chelsea and Arsenal. It looks like Roberto Martínez has set his team up for a similar season, but give the Spaniard credit. While the inconsistency is befuddling, getting a team ready to beat Spurs after Wigan’s two preceding matches is a small managerial feat.
On Sunday, Manchester City joined Spurs as surprise losers, dropping their match at Sunderland 1-0 after a late Darren Bent penalty kick conversion. This always looked like a trap-match for City, though traps are something that shouldn’t effect a team with City’s spending. Sunderland had underperformed through two matches, City was coming off a dominant Liverpool win and Europa League qualification, so a trip north to the Stadium of Light looked like something Roberto Mancini and squad might take for granted. Perhaps that happened, or perhaps Mancini needs to not start three defensive midfielders against less talented teams. Either way, City lost a match they should have won.
Two weeks ago on the Football Weekly podcast, one of the pundits made a point that seems more salient by the moment: Roberto Mancini may not be used to managing in a league where you need 85 to 90 points to win the league. His approach, one that got him titles in Italy, tries to steal points on the road and max-out points at home. This lead him to starting very conservative teams away from Eastlands, though in his defense (if this is a defense), he started a conservative team against Liverpool. Regardless, the effect is a lineup that features all of Nigel de Jong, Gareth Barry, Yaya Toure, and James Milner. That’s either an obsession with prevention or a very high estimation of Carlos Tevez’s capabilities. It's starting to look like the former, which means City will probably battle at the edges of Champions League again.
Mancini has to change. With this approach, it’s difficult to see him keeping his job beyond this season.
Across the big three, it was a straight-forward week:
Chelsea remains the only perfect team in the Premier League after their 2-0 win over Stoke City. Afterward, it was announced Frank Lampard’s suffering from a hernia and will be miss time, starting with England’s first Euro 2012 qualifiers (which start Friday). Lamps missed an early penalty kick, with Florent Malouda and Didier Drogba (penalty kick) goals sending Stoke to their third loss in as many matches.
Arsenal went to Ewood Park, where they lost last season to Blackburn, but a second half goal from Andrei Arshavin pushed the Gunners to a 2-1 victory. Arsene Wenger’s passing game has traditionally struggled against Sam Allardyce’s tactics, but with Saturday’s win, Arsenal stays second in the league, holding seven points and a plus-seven difference.
Manchester United rebounded from last week’s disappointment at Craven Cottage by dominating West Ham at Old Trafford. Wayne Rooney ended a half-year-long goalless drought with a first half penalty kick conversion. Nani added the second after half, while Dimitar Berbatov finished the 3-0 win with his third goal of the season. They send West Ham to the bottom of the table: three losses in three matches, being outscored one-to-nine.
The weekend’s five other results, listed as close to chronologically as possible:
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