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EV-ATONING FOR ERRORS? 11-11-05
Last month it was tenth, this time it's thirteenth although that means little with the erratic timing of my column of late. Indeed it's been more erratic than the average menstrual cycle and in a similar vein, a lot of blood has been shed in order to succeed in my aim.
But enough of the period analogies, they're not acceptable for such a high-brow column as this and I doubt you care too much anyway. So let's dust off a towel and absorb current events as we delve into the murky depths that is our dribbling crimson army.
On Recent Performances
Frustratingly erratic is how to sum up the last month, and indeed the season as a whole so far. There have been positives and negatives and quite how this season is going to pan out is difficult to discern. We have still won all our games in Europe this season which is a major confidence-boosting plus. We are also still in the Carling Cup and barring any major mishaps I would expect us to proceed into the last eight by beating Crystal Palace at home, a draw that was probably one of the more favourable out of the hat (well plastic bowl thing...).
However our league form has been disappointing to say the least and we find ourselves considerably adrift from the top-six at this early stage of the season. This is even more frustrating when it is considered that many pundits believe that after the first ten games one can assess about where a club is about to finish come May. And all that can be said after twelve games now is that it looks like we are going to finish around about tenth. Which simply isn't good enough with the aspirations of both the fans and the club. But there are positives so lets focus on those, beginning with our progress in the Carling Cup and Europe.
A favourable draw in the last sixteen of the Carling Cup makes us odds-on favourites to proceed into the latter stages of this competition. And from there anything is possible, particularly as Chelsea are out of the competition. Having beaten Arsenal and Manchester United so convincingly in recent weeks, there is little for us to fear in this competition and there is no reason why we should not be able to go all the way and win it.
Indeed we may have to believe that we HAVE to, as it may be our only way of assuring European football again next season, judging by our dismal league form. So I just hope McClaren continues with the policy he employed so effectively at Everton, playing his strongest squad (or a strong squad with two or three players who are determined to prove themselves- I am aware of the need of squad rotation to some degree due to the volume of games we have to play) and going full-out to try and win the competition.
The other benefit of this is that winning breeds confidence which in turn breeds winning, and the high that can be taken from pushing forward in any competition should be enough to invoke a greater determination to keep the streak going in subsequent matches. Unfortunately things don't often work like this, as our League performances after Europe have shown, so McClaren needs to think long and hard about what policy to adopt before deciding on his team.
This raises an interesting point however as our one game after a mid-week Carling Cup game was the 4-1 demolition of Manchester United, a game that was played three days after the mid-week game. I say this is interesting as all our League matches subsequent to a European game take place on Sundays and thus the same three day lag time between fixtures is present. This makes our poor performances after European games more difficult to explain, particularly when I do not believe that Dnipro at home was any harder than the game against Everton in the Carling Cup. Results and performance suggest that the Everton match was the harder game.
I accept that there may be more tiredness after European away games as more travelling needs to be done but even then, if we were to look at the statistics on this so far, we would find that our results after home European games compared to results after away European games are so similar that this does not appear to be a significant factor. Now I accept that SOME of the games in Europe are harder than their Premiership counterparts, and I also accept that a different style of play often needs to be adopted to counteract the opposition but this on its own still does not warrant our poor performances in the League.
Maybe it's just a psychological factor in the minds of the players- that European football is one stage above its domestic equivalent. But that doesn't wash either really for reasons discussed- Dnipro or Manchester United the more difficult game? Kinda obvious really isn't it? A further nail in the coffin of this excuse - which is quite common of McClaren for some reason - is assessing Bolton's form after Europe.
A 1-0 win against a strong Spurs side was their doing after the St. Petersburg game , a game admittedly that was on the Monday night rather than a Sunday possibly giving the Bolton lads more time for recovery. Then a 2-0 home win against West Brom after their previous European game away at Besiktas, never an easy place to go and get a result and a game that did take place on a Sunday afternoon like ours.
A 2-1 away defeat to Wigan after their second leg match against Lokomotiv Plovdiv and a 1-0 away win at Manchester City after their first leg match. Compared with the Boro after European matches we therefore have this (Bolton/Boro scores given first):
| BOLTON |
BORO |
| Manchester City (a) 1-0 |
Everton (a) 0-1 |
| Wigan (a) 1-2 |
West Ham (a) 1-2 |
| West Brom (h) 2-0 |
Aston Villa (a) 3-2 |
| Spurs (h) 1-0 |
Wigan (a) 1-1 |
| P4 W3 D0 L1 Pts 9 |
P4 W1 D1 L2 Pts 4 |
On the face of it it looks like Bolton are far more successful after their European adventures but closer analysis may provide a few reasons for this. Firstly all of our games after Europe have been away from home whereas Bolton have had an even mix of home and away games. This travelling will add to the tiredness factor of the team, particularly if the team had just got back from playing somewhere in Europe, as was the case for the Villa and West Ham games.
Interestingly then, our one victory came off the back of our trip to Zurich although that may have had more to do with the paucity of the Villa defence rather than anything to do with our own motivation factors. It could also relate however to the fact that our away form at that point was significantly better than our home form. Away games may also engender a different psychological positioning in the minds of the players which again could effect the validity of my comparision above.
Secondly unless we are talking about like for like opposition it is difficult to assess precisely who is better after Europe. Looking at the lists of teams above, it looks like we have had similarly matched fixtures when compared with Bolton's although injuries to key players in any of the sides above will obviously skew the results in favour of the opposition. The best like-for-like comparison that can be made is the Wigan results, which, with our away draw compared with Bolton's away defeat could be used to show that Boro have fewer problems than Bolton after European games. Our draw at Wigan - Wigan's only dropped points in ten games - is looking ever increasingly like a good result.
But even then this is comparing two random events, a month apart so how much can be discerned is debatable. Furthermore we can turn to the West Ham result and say we were robbed of a point there but in all honesty, we didn't really deserve it on the performance that day and refereeing mistakes happen all the time in football anyway. So all that can really be said of this is that four points out of a possible twelve after European games is unacceptable and that it needs to improve if we have any chance of qualifying for Europe again through our League position.
The team is noticeably more lethargic after European games and this suggests that perhaps more rigorous squad rotation policies should be employed but with the injury situation as it is this squad is beginning to look rather thin on the ground, particularly in terms of quality. Nemeth and Doriva shall never quality players make.
But what else can be done? If the players play too much they become lethargic and we get results which defy all form of logic (Sunderland at home, Everton away etc) yet if we rotate the squad a bit we get lower quality players coming in and little if any overall improvement. Maybe a blend is the best way to go with some complicated system at work but even that is difficult at the moment because of our deficiencies in available players.
On Mendieta, the Near Future and the Importance of Motivation
This has most clearly been highlighted by the Mendieta situation who is the only creative midfielder we have who is fit at present. Now I'm all for pushing Pogatetz into the midfield and playing Queudrue at left back, particularly as I believe the Frenchman is a far better defender than the Austrian and should be played far more regularly than he has been of late. But then I also think that Parnaby is a pretty average player who should be replaced by the impressive Bates - who should feel very aggrieved not to have played against Everton after his stirling performance against Manchester United the previous week - at every available opportunity, so what do I know?
Still back to Mendieta. As McClaren said this week, he looks like a different player now he's come back and bedded himself into the side again. And that is true, he took a few games to get match fit and since then has steadily improved but he also looks like a different player now because he's being played in a different position- central midfield.
This has enabled him to link up more easily with the players around him and has allowed him to act as the creative foil to Boateng's midfield industry, providing a strong balanced central midfield. Playing in this position has also given Mendieta options both left and right allowing us to be more creative as the number of options we now have has been doubled. This is what happened against Manchester United where practically everything went through the Spaniard.
Unfortunately that result meant that other teams started to sit up and take notice, and Everton did their homework particularly well, nullifying Mendieta at Goodison to good effect. Indeed the substitution that Everton made to allow for this nullification policy highlighted the contrast in our own game, that a) we can make no such substitution to change tactics as we simply do not have the players available yet to effect it and b) we have become somewhat reliant on Mendieta to provide the creativity that we have been lacking from elsewhere.
This has partly been our problem this season, we have not been as incisive as we should have been. It can be argued that many of our goals (I'm thinking Villa and United particularly) have been scored due to gifts from the opposition rather than anything decisive. This was highlighted by the possession statistics at Goodison Park and also during other matches too. We can retain the ball but at the final third we have no creative nous to be able to be a real threat, despite the strikers we have.
This has been exasperated by some of McClaren's bizarre tactical policies, including pushing Mendieta further out wide for the Everton game, which made us a less potent attacking force. Fortunately however things are starting to look up as like with last season, injuries have threatened our season once more. Which is very annoying- aren't lessons learnt?.
Downing should be back in the near future, as should Morrison and thus the creativity problem will hopefully become a problem no more. And once this happens then we should expect to climb up the table once more, possibly challenging for the top six. But we need to get our act together, we have lost far too many games we should have won and we have been giving away some very sloppy goals in the process. We are only five points behind sixth but unless we act now this gap will only increase, making it harder for us to further our evolution into one of the top clubs in the English game.
And we have a great opportunity to effect this. Our next two matches are Fulham and West Brom at home, both of which we should take maximum points from. We have to as our subsequent two are Liverpool and Chelsea away, which are considerably more difficult. However in a season where we beat Arsenal and Manchester United at home, anything is possible and it wouldn't surprise me if we could get a result at Chelsea. On our day we can beat anyone but those days have not come too often.
Maybe it is a motivation thing? Maybe it is easier to raise our game for the likes of Arsenal and United and maybe that is why we have done so well against them. Admittedly scoring a first minute goal against United helped. But we should be motivated for EVERY game. The three points against United are worth the same as those against Sunderland at the end of the day and I just hope that McClaren can motivate the players more than they seem to be at the moment.
It is for these reasons why the crowd have booed the players this season- particularly after the early season Charlton debacle and showing the world that they can beat a top three side so convincingly will only increase this expectation and the derision it is attached to should things go badly. So it's time for all the players to stand up and be counted and push on for a great final two thirds of the season. All is not lost yet but at present we are too close to the bottom three for my liking.
On the Xavier Steroid Situation
I have neglected to comment on this situation largely because in such matters you need to be very careful with what you say. I know very little about how such a drug could be present in Xavier's system but there often seems to be a grey area with respect to the sources of such drugs, sometimes with the body being able to manufacture these compounds itself. I know nothing about steroids and thus am not willing to reflect on the nature of this one.
Xavier's protesting his innocence and the club are behind him. I hope for his sake, and that of the football club, that he is exonorated as it will do them or us no favours whatsoever if he is found guilty. Remember if he is he will be the first player in the Premiership to be found guilty of using performance enhancing substances. I suppose all that we can do is to wait and see what transpires.
Until next time...
Packwolf.
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