Football Fever 2014-2015

Premier League: 10 talking points from the weekend’s action

1) Koeman’s midfield backing Pellè perfectly

One of they key questions about Southampton going into this season was how they would replace the goals of the departed Rickie Lambert and Adam Lallana and the injured Jay Rodriguez. Graziano Pellè has fleshed out an encouraging answer to that question, the striker hitting six already in the Premier League, but another feature of Ronald Koeman is how many midfielders are also chipping in with goals.

In addition to harnessing the menace of the excellent Dusan Tadic andSadio Mané, who were prolific in foreign leagues before coming to England this summer, Koeman has encouraged many of the midfielders whom he inherited to hone their scoring skills. Jack Cork had never scored in the league before this season but now has two for the campaign, the same number as Victor Wanyama, who went through all of last season without bothering goalkeepers. Morgan Schneiderlin scored just twice last term but already has three this season. Add in the fact that the full-backs Nathaniel Clyne and Ryan Bertrand have also scored their first Premier League goals and it is clear that Koeman’s Southampton carry threats from all over the pitch. And apparently Koeman can even perform Jedi mind tricks on opposing defenders such as Santiago Vergini and Liam Bridcutt. Combine that goalscoring power with the tightest defence in the top flight so far this season and you have a team that will take some shifting from the top four. Paul Doyle

2) Kun he get any better?

Is Sergio Agüero the most lethal marksman since the Premier League’s inception? The Argentinian scored all of Manchester City’s goals in Saturday’s 4-1 win over Tottenham Hotspur to take him to 61 Premier League goals, which makes him the club’s highest scorer in the competition. As with the spot-kick failure against Spurs, it seems like headline news whenever the Argentinian misses because it has become so familiar to see him bulging the net from even the most slender of chances.

In this debate, names like Ruud van Nistelrooy, Robbie Fowler, Alan Shearer, Robin van Persie and Thierry Henry might also be put forward. Yet for sheer chances converted, or goals per minute, the impression here is that Agüero is the sharpest in recent years. Jamie Jackson

3) Sánchez a shining light in Arsenal’s fog

There remains a niggling sense that Arsenal haven’t quite worked out how to maximise the talent they have at their disposal in the shape ofthe Chilean they bought from Barcelona during the summer. Steve Bruce was glowing about Sánchez’s moments of brilliance, as if to suggest the Hull gameplan was great up to a point – but Sánchez went beyond that point. Even though he is clearly still adapting to his new environment he scored his sixth in nine games with a stylish individual goal, and it was a similar spurt of Velcro control dribbling that set up the late equaliser for Danny Welbeck. Sánchez has had a couple of challenging moments over his first couple of months in England, for example when he was hauled off at half-time at Goodison Park after struggling to make an impact, and when he wasn’t selected to start in the north London derby. There is still that question of exactly where to play him, in a wide position or more centrally, and the way he connected with Welbeck to save the game suggested playing these two as an attacking pair in close proximity is worth a try. Hull’s Curtis Davies gave an insight into how difficult he is to stop. “Sánchez is strong,” he said. “I’m about a foot taller than him and he still shoved me over. He’s a typical South American, strong, low centre of gravity, good feet and gets himself into awkward positions where he can roll you. Very good player.”Amy Lawrence

4) Zaha shows he can rule the Palace again

Neil Warnock was in good spirits following Crystal Palace’s defeat to Chelsea, and why not given the disciplined and generally positive display his side put in against clearly superior opponents? The Palace manager was particularly enthused by the performance of Wilfried Zaha, who having come on as a 69th substitute on Saturday set-up the hosts’ consolation goal with a clever, surging run past Filipe Luís.

“Super” was how Warnock described Zaha before going on to state his belief that the winger joined Manchester United too soon in his development. “I don’t think he’s had much coaching and when you go to Man United, such a big club, they haven’t got time [to coach],” he said. “We’ve been working with him for 10 days because he needs to know when he can dribble and when he can’t. If he gets that other little bit in his game – not losing the ball in his own half, and he can get the ball where we want him to have the ball, he’s a threat to anybody.”

To hear Warnock speak about Zaha in those terms only adds to the belief held by many observers (including this one) that this is a player who was overly hyped when he made his name at Palace the first time around. However, there is no doubt that Zaha has the raw talent to make it at the highest level and now back at a club he clearly loves and who clearly love him, albeit on loan, the 21-year-old can take the required steps to become a genuinely established Premier League performer. Sachin Nakrani

5) QPR show promise despite defeat

It has taken Queens Park Rangers longer than it should have done but they have finally shown us what they are capable of when they put their mind to it. While they had nothing to show for their efforts against Liverpool after Steven Caulker’s galling 95th-minute own-goal, this was one of those defeats that contained more positives than negatives. They could argue that they would have won if they had shown slightly more composure in front of goal – Leroy Fer was guilty of the most glaring miss in the first half – and they set about Liverpool with a vigour and determination that made a mockery of their position at the bottom of the table. Just as pleasing for Harry Redknapp was the way that his side twice fought back with goals from Eduardo Vargas, only for the Chilean to be outdone by Raheem Sterling at the death. After a dreadfully limp start to the season, QPR can build on this. Jacob Steinberg

6) Martínez and Southgate set to tussle for Barkley

Roberto Martínez wishes the club v country debate over Ross Barkley’s eligibility for the Under-21s next summer would go away. It won’t. The Everton manager believes that once players have graduated to the England senior side there is no point in sending them back to the Under-21s. It might improve the side’s chances in a tournament – though equally it could prove disruptive – but Martínez argues the point of Under-21s football is not to win at all costs but to develop players for the senior side. That principled reasoning is undermined by the number of people in the country who believe it is about time England won a tournament, any tournament, and suspect club managers just want to hang on to their best young players for selfish reasons. Should Barkley remain on the England periphery between now and summer Gareth Southgate would surely be within his rights to call him up. The best way for Martínez to win this argument would be for Barkley to establish himself as a senior England international over the course of this season.Paul Wilson

Newcastle United manager Alan Pardew celebrates on the touchline. Photograph: Steve Drew/Steve Drew

7) Pardew pressure eases … for now

Alan Pardew’s side may have finally won their first Premier League game of the season at Leicester’s expense but it was a far from convincing victory. As the manager put it: “This will give us confidence to build on but we’re not as great as we should be.”

Pos	Team	P	GD	Pts
16	Crystal Palace	8	-3	8
17	Sunderland	8	-7	8
18	Newcastle	8	-6	7
19	Burnley	8	-9	4
20	QPR	8	-12	4

Quite so. This was only Newcastle’s sixth League triumph of 2014 and Pardew’s newly enhanced job security will swiftly diminish should his side stumble in their next three, potentially tricky, league assignments at Tottenham, at home to Liverpool and at West Brom. Moreover if the Tynesiders – still in the bottom three – are to reach 40 points, generally the safety-securing mark, they will need to collect 33 points from the remaining 30 fixtures. The clocks are yet to go back but the margins for error at St James’ Park are contracting. Louise Taylor

8) Defensive questions remain for Spurs

Are Spurs a better team than last season? They had hoped to respond in the affirmative on the ground where they were memorably humiliated 11 months ago. Since then, Daniel Levy has hired a coach known for an organised, pressing style, and allowed him to invest exclusively in defensive reinforcements. It’s clear where priorities currently lie at White Hart Lane.

All three of Tottenham’s league wins this term have been achieved without conceding, and they dug in expertly to earn a rare point at the Emirates. When things unravel, however, they still do so at speed. Pochettino paired Younes Kaboul with debutant Federico Fazio against Man City, but they couldn’t handle the rampant Sergio Agüero between them. Both conceded penalties for clumsy tackles on the striker, with Fazio also sent off.

Pochettino’s biggest impact at Spurs has been an increase in effort from his attacking players. Against City, their endeavours weren’t matched in defence; the Spurs front four attempted, and won, more tackles than their back four. An acceptable off day for the Spurs defence, or a sign of a problem that remains unsolved? As with much of Pochettino’s short reign, it’s hard to tell just yet – but a reasonable run of fixtures in November should buy the new man some time. Niall McVeigh

9) Shawcross plays hands-on game but Swansea pay the penalty

Forget the second penalty, when Michael Oliver got it terribly wrong (Garry Monk, the Swansea City manager, used slightly stronger language to condemn the referee’s decision and the conduct of Victor Moses). Instead, let’s deal with the first spot kick and the fall out from it. Oliver prompted a predictable outcry when he penalised Ryan Shawcross for wrestling Wilfried Bony to the floor in the area. Shawcross, at one stage, had both hands on Bony and was not even looking at Gylfi Sigurdsson, the corner-taker.

“I don’t understand how you can give the first penalty because you would have to give six or seven a game,” Danny Mills, the BBC Radio 5 Live summariser, said. Mark Hughes, the Stoke manager, echoed that view later on, when he also claimed that Shawcross – a man who has given away more penalties in the Premier League in the past six years than any other player – was being unfairly singled out “for being more adept at holding people in the box – which is pure nonsense”. Shawcross was guilty of committing a foul, plain and simple. It was a nailed-on penalty. And there would not be half a dozen spot-kicks every game, as Mills and Hughes suggested, if every referee applied the rules in the same way, because the message would get through that the sort of off-the-ball pushing, shoving and holding that has become commonplace around set-pieces over the years, will not be tolerated.Stuart James

10) Allardyce beginning to entertain at West Ham

The frequently mooted suggestion that Sam Allardyce knows nothing of decent football is unfair. Though it is true that his sides have performed plentiful clogging and hoofing, it was he who signed, and extracted excellence, from the wonderful Fernando Hierro, Youri Djorkaeff and Jay-Jay Okocha. Simply, he is a pragmatist, motivated not by “philosophy”, but priority; that of securing his club’s status. Which is not to decry the concerns of supporters.

Should West Ham fail to entertain, then, given that they’re unlikely to win the league, all that remains is a slow churn of results aimed solely at preserving their presence in it – no fun for anyone. But, thanks to some superb summer business, a balance has now been found. Up front, Enner Valencia and Diafra Sakho have added dynamism and class, so too Morgan Amalfitano from the wing, while Aaron Cresswell and Carl Jenkinson provide extra thrust from full-back, thanks to the support of Alex Song. Seemingly about to be sacked in both winter and summer, suddenly, Allardyce looks ensconced for years to come, everybody is happy, and it’s hard to foresee things crumbling. Can this really be West Ham? Daniel Harris