Weird weekend for big four

Rooney is having trouble getting his aiming scopes right

It's a very unusual weekend with Man Utd, Chelsea and Liverpool all getting goalless draws and the Gooners had it the worse after being thumped 0-3 by the blue half of Manchester. Amazingly, none of the traditional top four scored a single goal this weekend! Since Man Utd was the latest fixture on Saturday, they had knowledge that both Chelski and the Scousers had dropped points and it would be a good chance to close the gap with a win at Villa Park. Berba's injured during the internationals, so Tevez gets to start today. Interestingly, Fergie had placed Giggs in the center midfield role. Ferdinand gets to start although he was touted to be doubtful for the match.

For the first 45 minutes, United had a majority of the possession but they just couldn't break down Villa's stubborn defence. Martin O'Neill seems to have ideas to stop the United attack and his tactics are certainly working well. The Villa players were organised and had awareness of their positions even though Man Utd seemed to dominate at the midfield. On every occassion that Man Utd manages to breach into the Villa half, there seems to be an understanding that at least two players will come towards the Man Utd player to choke him into releasing to ball. For Ronaldo, they need at least 3..haha. There were a few speculative shots but Brad Friedel handled it well. Villa did have their share of going forward and Agbolanhor's pace was especially threatening. Since Villa wanted to play defensively, they could only afford a solo striker upfront and when the Agbolanhor did beat the defence, there was no one to support him to finish the strike.

Hmmm..United's strikers were awfully quiet as I would say, most of the hard work were done by the midfielders. Giggs was working hard to provide the crosses and it was Park who manages to break past the Villa defence most of the time. Ronaldo had some free kick shots but his passes nowadays seem to be rather off. He shouldn't be giving away possession cheaply by doing things like back flick when Villa is playing defensively to restrict play and space for the other players. When he does those back flicks, it sometimes looks like he's not aware of his team mates' position. Sometimes, it's good to keep it simple. I believe that Tevez should do more to prove that he deserves to be in the first eleven now that he has his chances following Berbatov's absence. He's not that impressive during the Villa game. He doesn't look threatening at all and most of the time he's just doing these "duracell bunnies" run at Villa players instead of having a keen eye for the timing to whack the ball in. For Rooney, his blitzing form has come to an end and it's now his drought period. He was certainly guilty for squandering the best chance in the game. It was just a simple push of ball into the net but he had to blast it over. Hmmm..it's always being Rooney's constitution in the game where he will get a period superb form and then some long period of lousy form and then comes the superb form again. It's like a funny cycle. The fans would be hoping that the drought would end soon for Wazza because goals gives them points.

In the end, the Villa game ended with a goalless draw and Fergie would be frustrated at yet another opportunity loss at catching up with the leaders. Uhhh..seriously, when the opportunity comes, it is proper that Man Utd pounce on it. I really do not know when we would have another auspicious timing where all 3 other rivals falter at the same time. But I would say Villa deserves credit for their string of performances and before long, they would oust Arsenal from the top four.

This leads me to my next point on the Gooners. It was a time of crisis for the Gooners. Tales of dressing room harmony being broken down are raised in the tabloids and the press. To make matters worse, captain Gallas went public regarding those bust-ups and even gave a specific age of one of the unhappy players. In my opinion, Gallas is not cut-out to be the skipper in the first place. His skills as a defender is useful for the Gooners but not his leadership. It was poor leadership. At a time when he's supposed to be covering and shielding his team-mates from unwanted media-limelight, he's made it worse! Many are calling for Gallas' head to be rolled and the Professor thought so when he dropped Gallas from the starting eleven and gave the armband to Almunia. It was later announced that Gallas would be stripped of his armband forever and Cesc Fabregas would be the permanent captain. I guess the Professor realised at alarming rate that there must be some decorum in the dressing room if they are going to salvage anything out of this campaign. This mutiny at the Gooners was just the perfect condition for Man City to blast in 3 goals past the Gooners. There was always a feeling among football watchers that Man City was going to get the win at the rate the Gooners were going. Lol, given my deep-seated animosity for the Gooners, I won't be hiding the fact that I'm laughing loudly at their troubles! Now that Spurs has gotten themselves off the shithole, let's see how deep the rabbit hole goes for the Gooners.