Manchester United‘s moribund showing at Sunderland told us much of what we already know, namely that Michael Carrick‘s side are far from an elite outfit and that the likes of Liverpool and Chelsea should be feel embarrassed that they trail in their wake.
It also underlines how well Bruno Fernandes has done to shine this season to such a degree that he has just been announced as the Football Writers’ Association player of the year. It is a thoroughly deserved nomination and one that has provoked much outrage on that part of the internet occupied largely by those who don’t know very much about football.
My social media feeds were lively on Friday night after I endorsed Fernandes’ triumph and revealed that I had voted for him last season too. This was proof – so the accusations continue to go – that I was anti-Liverpool, anti-Arsenal, anti-Manchester City and indeed on the pay roll of Manchester United.
Strange that so many people seem to believe that in order to be the season’s best player, you have to play for one of the best teams, a team that win something. By that rationale, it would have been okay to vote for Fernandes last season had United won the Europa League, but not because they lost it. It’s a ridiculous notion.
The whole concept of winning footballers picking up the big awards is fundamentally full of holes and it amazes me that people can’t see it. Surely it’s easier to shine in a team that wins every week than one that struggles? Surely it’s harder to lift your own levels of play when everyone else is dropping theirs?
United could have been sucked in to a relegation struggle last season without Fernandes. Similarly, they would not be in a Champions League position this time round had they let him leave for Saudi Arabia last summer. What a sliding doors moment that was.
The outcry against Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes winning Football Writers’ Association player of the year has been baffling to see
Fernandes is a consistently excellent footballer, one who would make an Arsenal or Man City XI
Fernandes still has bad days. He still has days when his leadership is undermined by his own frustrations. Eight days ago against Liverpool, for example, he could easily have been sent off for a stupid tackle on Dominik Szobozslai while his conduct towards referee Anthony Taylor could have been better.
But on the whole the United captain has improved as a person, a captain and as a player since joining United in 2020. This season he has scored eight Premier League goals but needs only one more assist to equal a record of 20 held by Thierry Henry and Kevin de Bruyne. That says a lot.
Suggestions he only started playing once Ruben Amorim was sacked are patently untrue. Fernandes is a consistently excellent footballer, one of the two or three from Old Trafford who would get a place at a club like Arsenal or City.
The fact his success has provoked such vitriol tells us how divisive and unpleasant social media has allowed so many of us to become. It bleeds poison into our game. The annual writers’ award certainly didn’t used to be received in this way.
Equally it outlines how the very fundamentals of our game continue to escape so many people. Fernandes is among the favourites to pick up the PFA award also, by the way.
Maybe those who play the game for a living don’t know what they are talking about either.
IT WAS A FOUL
I have been saying for two years that much of what Arsenal have been doing at corners and set pieces has been illegal.
Blocking, baulking, grappling. While the football intelligentsia has lauded the work of Arsenal’s set piece coach Nicolas Jover and credited him for reinventing the game, it seemed clear that much of what I was watching was stretching the boundaries of fair play to so far that they were broken.
The longer all that went on and the more it was left unchecked by on-field and VAR officials, the more we were heading down the road to where we ended up at West Ham on Sunday. The more likely it was that Arsenal were going to get the benefit of a big one in their own penalty area and the whole football world would explode with rage and a sense of injustice.
And all that’s fair enough. Arsenal have pushed refs to the edge at one end of the field and have now successfully cried foul at the other. It feels wrong.
But the truth is that the challenge by West Ham striker Pablo on Arsenal goalkeeper David Raya was illegal. It was a foul.
Just because the officials have failed to spot so many Arsenal infringements at corners over the course of the season, it doesn’t mean they should have ignored this one committed against them.
Just because they got it wrong so many times before, it doesn’t mean they didn’t get this one right. It was a foul.
But we are only at this juncture because the Premier League and its referees have ignored the curse of penalty area wrestling for so long. It should have been dealt with months ago. Fouls and yellow cards were what we needed.
But on we went. On Arsenal went while the rest of the league tried to mimic and catch up.
Arsenal’s league season began with a victory earned at Manchester United on day one while the home team cried foul from a corner. Now, nine months on, its decisive moment has arrived with their own goalkeeper lying on the ground in a heap.
Football should have seen this coming. It stood by and watched for too long.
It was the right decision to rule out West Ham’s goal due to this foul from Pablo on David Raya
ARTETA COURAGE REWARDED
Among the many brave, gut instinct calls that have led Arsenal to the brink of the Premier League title, Mikel Arteta’s decision to replace goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale with David Raya early in the 2023-24 campaign has proved to be among the most important.
Now that Ramsdale is sitting on the bench at Newcastle and Raya has established himself as one of the best goalkeepers in the world, it seems an obvious choice to make but at the time it was contentious and far from straight forward.
Decisions like this have characterised Arteta’s time at Arsenal and speak of a manager who has the courage of his convictions. Players such as Ramsdale, Granit Xhaka, Kieran Tierney, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Gabriel Jesus have served a purpose and then been moved on – or out of the team- when a better alternative emerged.
In football, loyalty is fine as long as it’s not blind.
Arteta has continued doing making decisions shorn of sentimentality this season, too.
Few people at the start of the season would have imagined the Arsenal manager would have picked a team for a must-win game at West Ham with Martin Odegaard, Martin Zubimendi and Gabriel Martinelli on the bench.
The spot on the left flank is of particular interest here. Leandro Trossard had the look of a squad player at the start of the campaign but was Arsenal’s best performer at West Ham on Sunday.
As the pressure has grown towards the season’s end, Arteta has got most – if not all – of his big calls right.
David Raya receives a big hug from Mikel Arteta after another brilliant display in the Arsenal net
WHY WAIT FOR THE HAT-TRICK?
Referee Chris Kavanagh sent off West Ham goalkeeping coach Rui Barbosa as tensions rose in East London.
‘He told me to f…. off three times,’ Kavanagh was seen to say by way of explanation.
Just one question. Why do referees feel compelled to wait for the second and third offence before getting the red card out?
An f-word is an f-word. No matter how many times someone says it.
SELS QUALITY WINS OUT
Still with goalkeepers, Nottingham Forest’s Matz Sels seemed likely to be a victim of the managerial churn that has so undermined the season at the City Ground.
The Belgian was a superstar for Nuno Espirito Santo last year but a wobble in form saw Forest snap up Stefan Ortega from Manchester City in the January window.
A groin injury also didn’t help matters but Sels has been back in the team since the start of March and Forest’s recent good form has taken them to safety.
He remains one of the best signings of the Marinakis era.
DOKU RISES TO SEMENYO CHALLENGE
The signing of Antoine Semenyo by Manchester City in January seemed to spell trouble for another Belgian Jeremy Doku.
It seemed unlikely that Pep Guardiola would wish to play similar, dribbling wingers on both sides of the field.
It seemed as though Semenyo would take the berth on the right side of the field and Phil Foden the one on the left.
But some players view the arrival as competition as a personal slight and others as a challenge. Doku took the latter approach and has undoubtedly played the best football of his City career in the last few months.
He has become undroppable and at times unstoppable.
He now has the confidence to say: ‘I am Jeremy Doku’ said Guardiola after a match winning show against Brentford.
The Premier League certainly knows the Belgium’s name now and perhaps, by the end of this summer’s World Cup, the rest of the planet will too.
Jeremy Doku is in some stunning form for Manchester City and has scored some key goals
GORDON MAY BE A RISK
Anthony Gordon would appear to be destined for a summer move away from Newcastle and it will be a surprise if Liverpool weren’t interested.
Arne Slot’s lumbering team desperately need pace and there was an interest from Anfield summers ago that certainly got the former Everton winger engaged.
But Gordon must be careful. He would appear to have made it clear at Newcastle that he sees his future away from the club, just as he wasn’t slow to leave Everton after less than 50 Premier League starts.
Gordon is a fine player and a rarity in terms of the directness of his football.
But he is only 25 and has played only five seasons of regular Premier League football. His next club would be his third in a very short time.
Some suitors will be put off by that, which is one of the reasons he may end up abroad.
EDWARDS NEEDS TO FIND A MIRROR
Rob Edwards was hired by Wolves in November and so had plenty of time to bring about improvement.
Those who watch them regularly say he has done so but not in terms of results or indeed league standing.
However bad they were when he left Middlesbrough to take over, they are still pretty bad now.
In 25 Premier League games, Edwards’ Wolves have won three times.
So when he says his players haven’t been good enough and that some must leave this summer, he must also factor in time to visit his bathroom mirror between now and the start of the next Championship season.
Nobody at Wolves has reached the required levels over the last nine months and that includes the manager.
SLOT ON BORROWED TIME
Liverpool’s game with Chelsea was next to last on Saturday’s Match of the Day and that tells you everything about the way both clubs are drifting aimlessly towards the finish line.
And the way seven (yes, seven) Liverpool players stood passively as Chelsea’s equaliser trundled across the penalty area and in at the far post told us everything about the lack of purpose and cohesion that would appear to blight the Anfield dressing room.
Manager Arne Slot continues to stand up well against the criticism that grows louder every week but if he hasn’t got a squad that is pulling for him and indeed each other with Champions League qualification not yet assured then he really does have a problem.
The noise from within Anfield is that Slot will survive the summer. If he does then it would still be achievement if he makes it past next November.
Arne Slot looks set to stay on as Liverpool manager despite their disappointing season
TIME FOR A NEW CLICHE
Of the three promoted managers from last season’s Championship, two remain in work and already safe from relegation.
Leeds and Sunderland have both set standards in terms of recruitment – Leeds took a risk on Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Sunderland signed a new team – and management that have shown there is a way to bridge a gap between the second tier and the top one.
One of Tottenham or West Ham may yet need somewhere close to 40 points to survive. Last year 26 points would have done it. The year before it was 27.
In fact a team hasn’t needed 40 to stay up since Birmingham went down with 39 in 2011.
Time, perhaps, to put that old cliché in the bin
PS…
Rochdale made it to the Football League. There is a god.
