Premier League football is back! It feels like only yesterday that I was finishing off last season’s write-ups and I am back again this year to continue the monthly format. August saw us get through the majority of 4 rounds of fixtures but some things never change as Manchester City and Liverpool already occupy the top spots, with Liverpool the only team on maximum points with 4 wins including a 3-1 victory against Arsenal. A 2-2 draw for City at the Etihad sees them 2 points behind but still unbeaten, while Leicester City are the only other team in the league to still be unbeaten. At the other end of the table, Watford’s lone draw sees them bottom, with newly-promoted Aston Villa and Norwich City also occupying the drop zone.
VAR from the finished article
After the amount of time that I have spent in the last 2 seasons complaining about the number of wrong decisions and lack of support for officials, I couldn’t really talk about the first month of the season and not take a moment to give my thoughts on how VAR is getting on.
Though many people seem to be completely against it and now willing to give it a chance, I think that VAR has done a generally good job so far. The vast majority of its decisions have been spot on and I would not say that there have been any monumental errors from VAR.
Many people (fans, players and pundits alike) debated the merits of VAR after Leander Dendoncker’s disallowed goal for Wolves in Round 1 at Leicester and Gabriel Jesus’ disallowed last minute winner against Spurs in Week 2. In both cases, the goals were disallowed as the ball came to the scorer after contact with the hand of a teammate – though in both cases it looked unintentional. VAR came in for a lot of grief for these decisions, but it worked perfectly and any criticism should instead be directed towards the new handball rules, which state that any contact with the hand or arm by an attacking player in the build-up to a goal is an offence. This rule was made very clear to everyone throughout the summer, yet the sight of Wolves and City players arguing with the referee was disgusting and I was furious with the way the media focused on the merits of VAR – big shout-out to Sam Quek who did correctly state in her column that it was the handball rule that was wrong not VAR – when discussing these decisions rather than the unfair handball rules, which will only feed into the public’s dislike of VAR.
Unfortunately there are still situations where the decisions are horribly wrong. The Premier League appears to have decided that any subjective decisions will not be overruled, so any incidents like players being dragged down in the box at set pieces. The introduction of VAR is a step in the right direction, now the league needs to make sure offences are being picked up appropriately.
Early days
August was a very mixed month for Chelsea. With a new manager arriving in the form of Frank Lampard, a transfer ban until next summer and star player Eden Hazard leaving for Real Madrid, this was never going to be easy. Their first 4 league matches have resulted in a big loss to Manchester United, 2 draws and a win over Norwich. Across all competitions, Lampard became the first Chelsea manager to go winless in his first 3 games since Rafa Benitez, and just 2 weeks into the league season, the morons on social media had already started the hashtag #LampardOut.
Personally, I think that while the team has not got off to the best start, there is plenty to be happy about. The transfer ban has led to Lampard giving a chance to a number of young English players and we are already seeing some great performances from Tammy Abraham and Mason Mount among others. The team still has much to learn, but they will learn quickly from playing in these matches and though the first couple of months may be hard, I feel confident that they will come through and be all the better for it.
This is a team that needs time. Providing the improvement is clear as the season goes on, Lampard should be given a free pass this season given he was unable to sign any players, allowing him to focus on building the team this season for a title challenge in 2020/21.
Pick one… Liverpool edition
In Mo Salah, Sadio Mané and Roberto Firmino, Liverpool have one of the best front lines in European football. But if you had to pick just one of these players to build a team around, who would you go for?
Since the start of the 2017/2018 season, each of the players has almost the same number of appearances. Mané’s played the least games (69) but has an impressive 34 goals – almost 1 goal every 2 matches. Salah has an incredible record of 57 goals in 78 games. Surprisingly considering he is the central striker, Firmino has the worst return of the trio with 29 goals from 75 matches.
On those figures, Salah would be the obvious pick, however I would actually go a different direction if forced to pick just one. His diving issues aside, whenever I watch Salah, I find myself disappointed by how selfish he can get in the final third. Mané is another who I have often looked at and thought to be quite selfish and while I completely agreed that he should have been given the ball when wide open against Burnley, I thought his strop after being substituted was childish. If I was going to pick one of these players to build the team around, it would be Firmino, The Brazilian is a highly skilled front man and a proven goal scorer, but more importantly than that, he always looks like he is putting the team above his own personal success, being fully willing to turn provider if one of his teammates is in a better position to score, probably in part due to his versatility, being able to play a wider or slightly deeper role as well as leading the line.
If I was building a XI, Bobby Firmino would be my man. Who would you pick?
Eyes on the Ball 