Why We Should be Scared of Clubs Like Manchester City

What a start to the season! It’s not often we sit three rounds into the new season with only one team having secured all nine available points. To compound that, Tottenham and Liverpool have yet to win a match, with Liverpool sitting uncharacteristically in the drop zone, normally free-scoring Arsenal began the season without scoring in it’s first two games, had Manchester United not picked up the talisman Van Persie, they would be sitting with two losses in three, and Swansea sit in second place in this young table with the highest goal difference out of all 20 Premier League teams.

Lest you think that I am prematurely jumping to conclusions (as if that wasn’t what the media world is when it comes to soccer) let’s take it farther back to the close of last season, if I am allowed to compare the two. Manchester City and Manchester United were grappling at the top of the table until the last breath of the season, with the closest competitors a full 19 points adrift, Chelsea was busy proving everything we ever knew about the game to be false by winning the Champions League, while sitting in sixth place domestically, and Liverpool were an amazing 17 points off a Champions League spot. Not very reflective of a team that has held the Champions League trophy aloft 5 times and, until very recently, held the record for the most times as champions of England.

What does all this mean? I have no idea. It is unlike anything I have ever seen in my seemingly brief history with the beautiful game. But I, as always, have my theories. Let’s start with this power shift that is happening in English, and perhaps soon European, soccer. We are witnessing a veritable food chain as teams are bought by the vastly-rich of our world and an astronomical amount of money is poured into buying the world’s best talent. Chelsea, once the top (and perhaps beginning) of this pattern, seem now to be old players in this monetary game, so let’s go back to right before they began playing.  Two seasons before Chelsea won their first (within the modern era) title the top five looked like this: Manchester United, Arsenal, Newcastle United, Chelsea, and Liverpool. That is what I expected it to look like when I first started to watch soccer. The super-powers of English soccer consistently taking the top four or five places and no one else really allowed to ever think otherwise. Then in stepped Roman Abromavich (perhaps we can blame him for recent atrocities in league table placement?). Chelsea won the league back to back in 05 and 06, finishing a vast 12 points above the nearest competitor and 18 above Manchester United in 2005, and then winning again in 2010 and finishing runners-up in 04, 07, 08, and 2011.

We can consider Chelsea lucky to catch onto the game a bit quicker than others that are just becoming first or second-year players. See, it isn’t just enough to buy bags of talent and create a large enough chasm between yourself and the competition to ensure victory. Take Paris-Saint Germain or even Manchester City for example. Although City won the league last year they failed to convince in the Champions league and were out before Mancini could say “we are underdogs.” Paris-Saint Germain have been large spenders but have failed to compete with even the most elementary opposition within the French league(they currently sit ninth).

Chelsea managed to immediately compete with their instant influx of talent thanks to, don’t tell Abromavich I said this, Mourinho and Ranieri. But they are quickly coming to understand that buying skill doesn’t translate into buying silverware. Take Anelka, Alex, Schevchenko, Shaun Wright-Phillips, and, until recently, Fernando Torres (we have Roberto Di Matteo and Del-Bosque to thank for his turnaround in my opinion) for example. Huge players with bags of talent but they faltered when it came to helping Chelsea win trophies. Fast-forward to Chelsea’s recent transfer market activity: David Luiz, Gary Cahill, Juan Mata, Oscar, Ramires, and the new terror to premier league defenses: Eden Hazard. We can even include Torres on this list if we consider his recent transformation. We have yet to see Moses in action but I have my hopes. These are all players that contributed to Chelsea’s Champion’s league success last season and to their dream start to this season.

Is it all coming together? It's not enough anymore to be the big kid on the block that can buy any player he wants. Manchester United, Real Madrid, Liverpool, and Arsenal used to be able to dominate their respective leagues with this method. Chelsea, although more recently, also used this method. Because of the number of super-rich clubs cropping up lately, one must buy the right players now, not just the most expensive. The players have to fit the team and vice-versa. Now that Chelsea have learned it they hold the ever-elusive Champion’s League Trophy; Barcelona have known it for a while and have had to buy a new trophy cabinet or two, and the teams that try to stay naïve on this principle (Liverpool, Real Madrid, PSG) will continue to suffer at their expense. This same principle can be applied to the MLS and the time it took the Los Angeles Galaxy to start consistently winning after they became the big spenders (I’m looking at you, Beckham), and to European soccer as well. Personally, with the amount of money possessed by the owners of Manchester City, Real Madrid, and PSG, I fear the day they learn this lesson. When that day comes, we can say goodbye to the “traditional table” we oldies are used to. Until then, we might as well get used to the present state of confusion that occupies world soccer.

Joga Bonito

Dallin Lindstrom

What I learned from the Chelsea vs. Manchester City Game (3/21/12)

I diverge from my two-part series for this post. The second half will be posted shortly.

What I learned from the Chelsea vs. Manchester City Game (3/21/12)

#1- A coach can make a big difference, but the players ultimately decide a team’s fate.

I don’t intend to embark on anything close to discussing the Andre Villas-Boas sacking and all that led to it. That is a topic for a different post; but who can argue that Chelsea have made an incredible turnaround in a matter of days? After dropping points in numerous league clashes with lesser sides and standing at the brink of elimination from the Champions League and FA cup, Chelsea turned round their fortunes by nabbing two league wins and forcing decisive victories against Birmingham and Napoli to progress in the FA cup and Champions League, respectively. Many would venture to mark this renewal at the Bridge as evidence that AVB needed the sack and once he was gone and Roberto Di Matteo stepped in, the rot that had been causing Cobham to stink so badly was finally on the mend. Similar situations were witnessed at Chelsea when Jose Mourinho was sacked and Avram Grant took the helm for the remainder of the season as well as when Luiz Felipe Scolari was shown the door and the ever-popular Guus Hiddink called the shots until the end of the season.

Of course, a coach makes a load of difference, but I would venture to guess that in some situations, especially those in which the players often exert an incredible amount of influence in the dressing room on account of their experience and personality (such as the case at Chelsea), the players may have even more pull than the coach. Call me crazy, but there was a very visible and distinct difference in not just the playing style of Chelsea, but also the attitude and moral of the team from under the last days of the Villas-Boas reign to these first few days of life under Di Matteo. To take it one step further, Chelsea’s performance against Stoke in their second game under the interim manager was dismal; the player’s attitudes reminding me of the previous weeks under AVB. The coach made some difference but it was the players that needed to change to gain big wins over Napoli and Leicester City.

To make my point clear, I take you back to when Chelsea played Manchester City earlier this season. I saw a Chelsea side that made me long for previous winning seasons. AVB was still there, and I highly doubt he completely changed his coaching style for the second half of that match, but the players changed their outlook and got the 3 points they were looking for, playing a style that was so familiar from their previous title-winning seasons, a style that Villas-Boas had never even tried at the club. I saw many similarities between the home and away fixtures these clubs played this season. Unluckily, Chelsea fell short in the latter one, but they played much the same because they decided to.

#2- You can pay for talented players, but you cannot pay for class.

Don’t worry, not all my points will be as long as the first. Me being a Chelsea fan put aside, I was extremely disappointed with some of the performances made by Manchester City players in Tuesday’s game. First: I am sure I was not the only one to see Toure push Mata in the face and kick him when he did not even have possession of the ball. There is absolutely no reason for that, and it goes to show that talent does not always equal class on the soccer pitch. Second: It is no secret that Mario Balotelli has a sketchy attitude, at best, but seeing him give up several times on chasing a loose ball for no apparent reason, and rarely show any desire to be on the pitch was only affirmation that a paycheck does not determine if you are going to get a good showing from your stars.

My third and final example is (do I really want to start this conversation?) Carlos Tevez. The form and length of his punishment is not my decision to make and I admit he did have to sit out for a while, but after what he did to that club, and continued to do after his first offense would have been more than enough for me to give him the sack, and I cannot believe that they put him back on the field, and to applause! If this was the first and only time something like this had happened in his career it would be different, but isn't that why he left Manchester United? Don’t be surprised to see similar outbursts from the “superstar” in the future. Manchester City have certainly paid for bags of talent but in the process have been unable to harness the class required for world-class squad. Why do you think they have been knocked out of two European competitions this season? Because raw skill alone cannot compete against teams that have skill and class.

#3- A player’s form and confidence can change in a very short period of time, and just because a substitution has worked in many games does not mean it will work in every game.

I bet you can’t guess who I’m talking about. I was never one to give up on Fernando Torres. His motivation was never lacking, or his work ethic. What was lacking was his confidence. I will speak more on him in another post, but that confidence was vastly improved as a result of his two goal two assist showing in the FA cup. He was looking extremely sharp and for every minute his regular hard working self in the Manchester City game, even coming back on numerous occasions to play defense. In so many situations in the past, Didier Drogba has been brought on as a substitute in the closing minutes of a game (often for Torres himself) and has changed the course of the game into a win. I do not doubt his immense skill, but it was only five minutes after the bringing on of Drogba for Torres that Manchester City staged their comeback. I feel the substitution was a deciding factor in the outcome of the match.

As well, from the look on Torres' face when he was being brought off, it was a blow to the player's confidence when he was doing so absolutely well. A substitution working many times in the past does not warrant it to work every time, and each game and substitution decision needs to be made in context and taking into consideration the current performance of the player on the field, and the difference he is making.

Joga Bonito

Dallin