Right. Deep breath…
First off, nobody bother calling me a happy clapper, because I’m not fucking happy, and I’m not fucking clapping. Definitely not.
Three defeats in about three weeks. That’s abysmal for a team that has any kind of title pretensions, and there’s no two ways about it. But the thing that’s really doing my head in, I’m having real difficulty putting my hand on my heart and saying that we were actually dominated in any of those three matches. Far from it. Of course, the results say we were. But in fact, at Chelsea, we played them off the park right up until the moment they scored. Even in the second half, in fact, I have it even. That’s the match I saw. Against Palace, we’re clearly dominating them, same against Leicester yesterday. That’s why we go a goal up. Our goals didn’t come out of the blue, they were the result of the sort of patient, precise work that we’ve become famous for. But literally as soon as the other side attacks, it’s a stupid fucking goal (o.k, one world-class goal by Palace, one very, very fine strike by Leicester in the mix). Walker was lousy the other day, Delph made a howling, pub side mistake in his positioning yesterday. But you play as a team. More times than people care to recognise, there was at least one player on the pitch having a poor game even last season. But it was not particularly noticed, because we were playing as a team in every sense of the word. You run for your team-mates; you pass for them; and you cover for them when they make a blunder, which they’re going to do. It’s definitional. That’s what a team is. Simply. We’re not cohering properly as a team at present. But in none of the three matches we’ve just thrown away would I allow that we were dominated, in overall play. That is not an excuse, or a justification for what’s just happened.
I’m not convinced by the Fernandinho argument. Yes, he’s a superb player. Yes, he’s very important in the way we play. Last season, we went through a long period in mid-season without David Silva, who is one of the greatest players in the world, and the best player who’s been at this club. We sailed along, winning all the way. Even without him. If anything, winning for him. One player does not make all that difference. Not in a team as good as ours.
One negative advantage of the situation now is that everything is beautifully simple: if we lose the next two matches (and nobody needs telling what the second one represents), then I honestly think it’s gone. Thirteen points? No, really, not possible. Dippers will drop points here and there, sure. But they’d have to fall off a cliff. And we’d have to win virtually every single match till the end of the season. Do we look like a team that’s going to do that, at present?
So we have to win the next two matches, just to tread water.
Oh, and yes, it’s on another thread. But for me, winning a back to back premier league title is definitely more important than winning the CL (not that that’s not important).
