Adam Dennehey WAFU manager
So after the latest week of the Premier League season, here’s what we learnt this weekend:
Firstly we’ve learnt that the standard of defending in the league is slipping even more. A week after Manchester United shipped six at home to Manchester City, Chelsea somehow managed to concede five at home to Arsenal who managed to concede three to the hosts in one of the most entertaining games of the season so far.
There’s no doubt that this game was a massive result for both clubs. Arsenal were behind twice in the game and the fact that after conceding Juan Mata’s equaliser to make it 3-3, they didn’t let their heads go down showed how spirited Arsene Wenger’s side are. For Chelsea it was a dreadful result and one that Andre Villas-Boas would not have expected.
We’ve learnt that Luis Suarez will continue to be football’s version of marmite. The little Uruguayan defender cannot escape being in the news and was involved in another piece of controversy this weekend when he went down weakly to win Liverpool an early penalty in their 2-0 win at former manager Roy Hodgson’s West Brom.
Whilst Suarez is continuing to annoy the rest of the division, it was good to see his strike partner Andy Carroll get on the score-sheet. Surely now he has to be a first-choice for Kenny Dalglish. His confidence appears to be back and whilst he’s not the finished article by any means, he will benefit by starting more games. It’s as simple as that.
We’ve learnt that even at this stage of the season, it looks like Roberto Martinez at Wigan has a real battle on his hands if his team are to avoid relegation this season. They look extremely light in all departments and their defending was appalling at the weekend as Fulham barley had to get out of second gear to secure their first away win of the season.
Martinez is a great young coach who has shown that he knows how to handle a relegation scrap in the last two years, getting every ounce of effort from his players. It shall be interesting to see how he handles Wigan’s players over the next month. He may have to refresh the team and play a more defensive style to get points. It may not be pretty but it could just work.
We’ve learnt that you can feel actually feel sorry for Steve Kean whose Blackburn side were cruelly denied a win at Norwich City thanks to an incredibly dubious hand-ball decision awarded against their young French midfielder Steven N’Zonzi deep into second-half injury time at Carrow Road to ‘everyone’s favourite’ promoted team Norwich City.
The decision made by the match’s referee Anthony Taylor to award Paul Lambert’s side a penalty kick was dreadful as the ball only struck N’Zonzi’s arm as the unlucky player was appealing for a foul against him by Norwich’s Steve Morison, who in trying to win a header had his arms all over the back of the Blackburn player. Suffice to say Taylor made the wrong decision.
Lastly we’ve learnt that right now that Scott Parker on current form must be worth about £20-25million, that Connor Wickham after scoring this weekend for Sunderland has to be given a proper run up top to build his confidence further, that Bolton should go back to playing ‘boring’ football in order to improve their results and that Emmanuel Adebayor strangely has the ability to miss sitters.
By Adam Dennehey @ADennehey87
