It is, as you may or may not have noticed, November. A fine month November, renowned for its predilection for fireworks, ever-shortening days and that creeping, gnawing feeling in your gut that you might just have wasted the preceding ten months and not achieved a single one of those resolutions you swore blind you’d stick to even if they killed you. Still, never mind: New Year’s Eve again soon.
Anyway, back to business. Such a fine cluster of days also represents the perfect opportunity to paw back over October’s top-flight action and come up with one of those best-of lists/rundown-type things that blogs, websites and people with few other social outlets just ache to compile. Our list of choice is a selection of the finest Premier League performers on display since September took its leave – a “team of the month” if you’re feeling picky.
Of course, such a list will be based solely on the opinions of Look Away Now’s dedicated writing team (i.e. both of us), so by the time you’ve navigated your way to the end of this piece, you may find yourselves in gob-smacked awe of our uncanny ability to sniff out the strongest XI imaginable. Alternatively you may become so uncontrollably angry and enraged, such is your dismay at finding your own preferred star performer discarded without so much as a casual mention, that you’ll leave work early and start up your own blog, simply to spite us. Frankly, we’ll be glad of any sort of emotional response. We’re that needy.
So without further ado, we give you Look Away Now’s Team of October. What’s that? No Gareth Bale? Controversial…
* * *
Goalkeeper
Matthew Gilks (Blackpool )
The theory goes that newly-promoted ‘keepers will get their hands far dirtier than their better-established brethren, such is the sheer volume of traffic they’ll surely be facing. The thing about Matt Gilks is that he’s not only beaten off the onslaught for the most part, he’s done it in such a fine way that he’s helped propel our plucky heroes Blackpool into the cushion-soft comfort zone of midtable.
Until recently Gilks’ career looked to be gradually petering out into mediocrity: seven years at Rochdale saw him clock up almost 200 appearances, until a move to Norwich England
Defence
Phil Jagielka (Everton)
Everton’s four league fixtures in October saw the Toffees ship just a solitary goal, surrendered, not exactly unforgivably, to Spurs’ frankly unplayable Rafael van der Vaart (more on him later). Considering two of their clean sheets came against members of last year’s top ten (Liverpool and Birmingham), we’re thinking their defence may have had more than a little something to do with it.
Jagielka (or “Jags” to intolerable people) has been in the form of his life for a while now, and has come a long way in recent times. Once a battling Championship defender/midfielder, best known for Sheffield United’s cup runs, his move to Everton two years ago has seen him come into his own, adapting to the culture shock of regular top flight action with apparent ease and earning a seemingly regular place in the England
Nemanja Vidic (Manchester
Back to fitness and back to his intimidating best, the man they call, er, Nemanja has been at the heart of United’s steady revival over the past few weeks. After the club’s much spotlighted off-field sordidness, Vidic has helped the United backline regain a modicum of steadiness (van der Saar howler aside) and while he’s certainly never going to get any quicker, his influence is growing at a pace, aiding the fast-track development of Chris Smalling to the extent that the young Englishman appears to have usurped Johnny Evans as United’s first reserve at centre half.
It should be noted that Vidic has also been tossed the captain’s armband, suggesting those rumours of his (or rather, his wife’s) unhappiness at Mancunian life that crop up every couple of months can finally be led out back and shot.
Vincent Kompany (Manchester City
Kompany has been living up to his name and keeping close quarters with the Premier League’s burliest centre forwards, attaching himself limpet-like to Didier Drogba in City’s war of attrition with Chelsea at Eastlands. It is easy to underestimate his ability playing behind the wall of muscle that Mancini has constructed to protect his back four, but Kompany is the class act in an otherwise underwhelming defence.
Like a version of de Jong with ethics, he pounces on loose passes and heavy touches, mopping up any opposition attacks that have made it past Nigel “Scissor Legs” and Yaya “The Human Freight Train” Touré.
Branislav Ivanovic (Chelsea
Is he a full-back or is he a centre-half? Truth be told, he’s really rather good at both. Not the quickest defender you’ll ever meet, young Branislav is more than making up for it with a string of commanding performances wherever he’s been deployed across the Chelsea backline.
Four clean sheets in five games during October, and a winning goal at Blackburn to boot (not to mention two more against Spartak Moscow in the Champions League) show that while he might not be at a John Terry-like level of importance quite yet, his steadiness and adaptability might just make him one of the more important members of Chelsea’s squad as we head into the deep midwinter.
Midfield
Nani (Manchester
Spurs fans may want to cut off his tongue, attach it to an autumnal stick and beat him with it while shouting ‘IT’S JUST NOT CRICKET’ while he looks on google-eyed thinking – ‘no, it’s not cricket…it’s football…no?’ Yes, he is a c**t. But he has turned into the type of c**t that you picked first when you where ten and the field was tarmac, the goalposts cans of Lilt and the ball made for tennis.
Match-winning goals in Europe and the league have help United through a lean patch and have seen him running around celebrating on his own, hoovering up any stray credit which, to be fair, has been his for the taking so far this season.
Kevin Nolan (Newcastle
As so eloquently pointed out by football365’s must-read columnist John Nicholson, Kevin Nolan is emblematic of that old fashioned, not-exactly-trim, top flight footballer of yesteryear all but eliminated from the elite regions of the game thanks to Opta Stats and nutrition. Once upon a time Nolan was supposedly close to the England set-up, but was surprisingly sold by Bolton and immediately plummeted to the Championship with the Toon.
But as is befitting of such a mighty frame, Nolan has bounced back and this season (at time of writing) has seven goals and a key role in Andy Carroll’s continued freedom to his name. Not bad for a man responsible for perhaps the driest media output in living memory.
Charlie Adam (Blackpool )
The man with two first names, Charlie Adam has effortlessly translated his Championship form into top drawer top flight performances. His passing and movement grease the wheels of the Blackpool midfield and his goals have carried them up the table, where many had expected their performances to be Geneva Convention-flaunting re-enactments of America
Typical column inches have linked him to Liverpool and other Europe-bothering teams, but we hold onto the dream of seeing Blackpool in the Europa League and maybe Adam is the man to make it happen.
Rafael van der Vaart (Tottenham)
A goal in every game he has played at White Hart Lane has won him a place in the hearts of the Spurs faithful. Plaudits have been coming in from all over for his enterprising football, his effusive mannerisms and his Scholes-like lunging tackles. It has been a couple of decades since Tottenham boasted a midfield as artful as that of van der Vaart, Modric and Huddlestone and with Rafael at the fulcrum priding the goals, Spurs may have found the 20 goal-a-season midfielder that success in the Premiership seems to demand.
He nudges Bale out of the Team of October on his league form and for the sense he conveys with every touch that he is ever on the cusp of something magical.
Forwards
Javier Hernandez (Manchester
For a player moving to England from Mexico
‘Chicharito’ followed up his Champions League strike at Valencia
Carlos Tevez (Manchester City
The Argentine maestro’s inclusion in our team is merited as much by his time spent on the pitch as off it. Three goals in two Premier League games at the front end of October saw the novelty t-shirt loving forward take his goal tally at the time for City to an astonishing 30 in 42 games – sky-scraping figures by anyone’s standards. An early red for Dedryck Boyata against Arsenal saw Tevez choked of decent service but continued to do his usual lone furrow bit until his lungs actually collapsed and all the liquid in his body turned to vapour. Probably.
But it was his absence at Molineux against Wolves that proved the kicker; missing through injury (and, to perhaps a lesser extent, homesickness), Roberto Mancini chose to place Emmanuel Adebayor and Marco Balotelli at the spearhead of his side. With both forwards unlikely to be competing for any National Bit-Of-Give-And-Take Awards any time soon, City were out-worked and, for surprisingly long periods, out-thought by Mick McCarthy’s men. If City are to genuinely have a shot at Champions League qualification (at least) this term, keeping Tevez fit and happy is a must. Mancini has reportedly had a dressing room uprising on his perfectly manicured hands. Lose Tevez for more than just a handful few games, and he might well have a state of emergency to contend with.
~ Ed & Matt
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