By Leigh Sanders
Saturday saw the widely anticipated return of the English Premier League, largely considered the greatest domestic football competition the world over.
In a small corner of London two teams hotly tipped to trouble the usual ‘Big 4’ at the top of the table locked horns on day one with many anticipating a magical display of artful passing and aesthetically pleasing flicks and tricks to whet the appetite.
Well, one side read the script anyway. It was Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City at White Hart Lane. One side full of British stars equipped with pace and guile, the other a hotchpotch of global talent expensively assembled on the double in a world where wages really seem to be no obstacle for their multi-billionaire Arab owners.
But despite what you might be expecting to hear next, it wasn’t the latter that excelled on the pitch. Yes, this was a tremendous victory for whole-hearted advocates of the old-fashioned “English” free-flowing wing play where the ball is spread wide at the first opportunity and the wing-men bombard the penalty box with cross after cross where the waiting target men hope for aerial dominance.
On the one side we had Aaron Lennon. Dropped at the World Cup after England’s first couple of despondent displays he looked full of running once more on Saturday and if he can just finally work that final ball out in his mind he could be one of the world’s most dangerous wingers.
On the other there was Welsh whizz-kid Gareth Bale who added to his ever-increasing stock with a tantalising display of touch and move football where his dribbling constantly left City right back Micah Richards looking like a lost sheep.
Holding down the fort in central midfield are Tom Huddlestone and the dynamic Croatian maestro Luka Modric. Huddlestone is a giant of a man whose long-range passing and shooting has opponents cowering on the field. Modric may be shorter and slighter but he is no less of a combatant. His quick feet and seeming ability to pass with either foot allows him to spray the ball right and left looking to unleash Lennon or Bale at the earliest opportunity.
Once out wide, either man will look for the best opening to swing the ball in for the giant Peter Crouch or Roman Pavlyuchenko, depending on whom Harry Redknapp picks, in the hope of headed goals or scraps for the sprightly Jermain Defoe to pounce upon as he does so well.
On the other side we had Manchester City who looked every part a collection of big-name individuals rather than a star-studded team. Boss Roberto Mancini chose to deploy two holding midfielders in the shape of Nigel De Jong and Yaya Toure with Gareth Barry on the left and Shaun Wright-Phillips on the right. Considering Barry doesn’t really play as a marauding winger then you could argue that there were actually three holders with David Silva popping out to the left to provide width.
This left new skipper Carlos Tevez up front on his tod. While his work rate is second to none and the talent in his feet is exceptional he prefers to play off a bigger man as he did Emmanuel Adebayor last season. He loves to feed off flick ons and interlink the midfield and attacking areas. He is not suited to playing the lone role and this became more and more evident as the game wore on.
Mancini’s answer? Take Tevez off and put Adebayor on. He was still sticking to that rigid 4-5-1/4-4-1-1 formation which was lapped up by the men in white all day long. Is this the kind of play you would expect from a team who has once again spent £100m on new talent this summer? I think not.
After bombing out Craig Bellamy and Stephen Ireland – two attackingly magnificent, if emotionally volatile, facets – from their squad this season they looked hugely short of ideas at times. The full backs seemed to just want to bomb forward, often caught out of position, and very little help was given to Tevez. On the rare occasions Toure bounded up field the end result often left City supporters wishing he hadn’t bothered.
I feel for Mancini. He has a hugely difficult task controlling all those egos at the club while he has outlandishly big expectations placed on him by the owners in return for their cash. But these tactics won’t help his cause and if things continue like this for a couple of months, particularly when playing at home, Mr. Mancini may soon be joining the ever-growing queues at the Manchester job centre.
