The Official Look Away Now Team Of The Season (So Far)

In many ways it has been a topsy-turvy old start to the season. At time of writing two of the newly promoted trio are sitting pretty in the top half of the table, while unfancied Newcastle occupy a Champions League spot. Arsenal have climbed their way back up into contention following their worst start to a league campaign in nearly twenty years, Chelsea have failed to keep a clean sheet in the league since the opening weekend, reigning champions Manchester United have played both humiliater and humiliatee in two games which will be remembered as the stuff of Premier League legend, and Liverpool don't appear to be on the verge of implosion. Strange days indeed.

Having said all that, when you tilt your head the other way some familiar patterns take shape. Last season's top six are obstructed in their unification only by the aforementioned Toon, while perennial strugglers Blackburn and Wigan are languishing once more.

Now that around a quarter of the campaign has flashed before our eyes, the time feels right to evaluate some of the star performers of the Premier League's opening weeks. Below you'll find some familiar favourites, some flourishing fresh faces, the heartening rebirth of one or two recent under-achievers, and even the odd throwback to more innocent times. Pray silence please for Look Away Now's team of the season so far...

* * *

Wojciech Szczesny (Arsenal)

When your goalkeeper emerges from an 8-2 defeat as arguably your sole creditable performer of the day, you know you’re in trouble. This was the position young Wojciech Szczesny found himself in following Arsenal's hide-tanning at Old Trafford back in late August. In truth, the youngster has been one of the few bright sparks in Arsenal's largely fizzle-less campaign thus far. What he lacks in years (and vowels) he makes up for in a progressively confident stewardship of his area and a penchant for high class shot-stopping, as evidenced in Udine and Dortmund.

Having recovered from a potentially career-threatening double-arm break a few years back, and at one point finding himself behind fellow countryman Lukasz Fabianski in the club's goalkeeping pecking order, Szczesny has now successfully manoeuvred himself into Pole position (sorry). His back four may be in a seemingly constant state of flux, but Arsene Wenger at least knows his net may have a reliable incumbent for the foreseeable future.

Micah Richards (Manchester City)

Micah Richards made his first team debut for Manchester City over six years ago at the tender age of 17, picking up his first cap for England a year later in 2006. Many thought that England had found a powerful defender capable of adding speed and strength in abundance to an ageing defence. 

The following years haven’t been quite as perfect as was anticipated for the defender. There were injuries, dips in form and spells on the side-line. Still only 23 he seems to be removing the lapses in concentration that have blighted his defending and his powerful surges up the touchline and increasingly incisive final ball surely make him a key contender to the right back berth at Euro 2012 – he only has to win over Fabio Capello.

Kyle Walker (Tottenham)

It is possible Kyle Walker will be looking to use his lighting pace to nip ahead of Richards come June. While there has been a defensive naivety to his positioning when asked to cover a mistake, he is so quick over ten yards that he is rarely beaten. It was this pace that stifled Juan Mata when the pair came up against each other in the U21 European Championships this summer, a performance that was an early indication that this season he can offer more than just blunderbuss runs down the line.

Last season his loan spell at Aston Villa alerted everyone to his attacking prowess but after quickly locking down the role as first team right back Walker has begun to really mature, learning when to go and when to hold the line. Taking into account Martin Kelly at Liverpool, England suddenly have a wealth of fullback talent at their disposal.

Chris Smalling (Manchester United)

“Occupation: Manchester United defender”. It's fair to say that if that sentence is at the top of your CV, then you probably haven't been having the best of times recently. After that result, questions have quite reasonably been asked of Sir Alex Ferguson's team, not least where it's disconcertingly leaky rearguard is concerned, which in recent times has been patched up more times than the Greek economy. With doubts over the long-term future of Rio Ferdinand growing by the week, this 21 year old who three years ago was plying his trade with Maidstone United has risen to the rank of first-choice at Old Trafford, with two England caps to boot.

If eyebrows were raised over United's decision to splash £12m on a man with only 13 league appearances under his belt, then those same brows have certainly softened as Smalling has rapidly shown himself to be not just a natural guardsman, but also one of those rare breeds of English defenders – namely, one who can play a bit too. A cool, collected reader of the game, and apparently mature beyond his fledgling years, Smalling appears to have a head for the league's giddy heights – even if all around him are losing theirs.

Jose Enrique (Liverpool)

Like the Bermuda Triangle or Simon Cowell’s heart, the left side of Liverpool’s defence is one of those freakish anomalies of the natural world; an apparently gaping vortex of unknown atomic property, where previously thriving life-forces find themselves sucked into matter-less oblivion. The last decade or so has seen several players of great skill and potential (and Paul Konchesky) try to add some balance and stability to this most problematic of positions. Christian Ziege, Fabio Aurelio, Steve Finnan, John Arne Riise and others have all had a go with varying degrees of success, but at last they seem to have happened upon a bona fide solution.

Jose Enrique, plucked from Newcastle United for the bargain sum of £5.5m, looks a natural fit. Calm and cunning under pressure, quick and imaginative when pushing on, the Spaniard has contributed as much offensively as he has defensively so far this term. With three assists notched up in his first ten appearances and having racked up Fantasy League points aplenty, Jose has quickly become one of Look Away Now’s favourite Kop idols. The fact that he isn’t a complete chopper like Luis Suarez doesn’t hurt either.

Yohan Cabaye (Newcastle United)

Alan Pardew is affecting a type of Gallic revolution on the Tyne and central to it has been Yohan Cabaye. Partnered with Cheick Tioté, Cabaye has formed the type of midfield unit that has opposition scouts leaving St. James Park with scribbled notes about playing around and certainly not through the Newcastle United central midfield.

Cabaye’s velvet touch and clear vision have been key factors in Newcastle’s wonderful start to the season, keeping the ball moving and distributing the spoils of Tioté’s frequent midfield muggings. With three assists and a goal already to his name he has taken no time in filling Kevin Nolan’s vacant shirt and with Hatem Ben Arfa returning from a long lay-off, things could just be getting started for Cabaye and United.

Alejandro Faurlin (QPR)

It could have all been so different for Alejandro Faurlin. With the rest of the Championship choking on their dust, QPR’s ruthless march to the Premier League was rocked last spring when the Argentinian found himself at the dark heart of a third party ownership dispute which threatened to derail their ascent. It was unwanted attention for the quiet, considered midfield maestro, whose very presence in England looked for a while like overshadowing all Neil Warnock’s team’s good work.

Eventually QPR received a fine but no point deduction, and Faurlin is now fast approaching a century of appearances for the Londoners in a shade over two years. A patient and composed midfield orchestrator, Faurlin’s game is about retention – of the ball, but also of his team’s composure, especially with the egos of Adel Taraabt and Joey Barton permanently on the brink of tectonic shift. For all their wealth, Warnock still has one hell of a task to keep Rangers up, but on an island of volcanic magnitude, Faurlin represents a welcome pool of tranquillity.

Scott Parker (Tottenham)

Scott Parker has begun life at Tottenham in much the same fashion as he ended it at West Ham. There his Atlas effort wasn't enough to carry the team away from relegation, but with Spurs his battering ram mentality has scattered opposition players, creating openings for their myriad tricksters to waltz through. Even off the ball he eludes the kind of regimented, steel-lipped fortitude that our great grandparents thought of as The British Way.

At times it can seem as if Parker is posing for an artist who is sculpting from marble his effigy in worship of his heroic midfield tendencies. It is this blood-and-guts resilience and concrete leadership that have been his biggest assets to a Spurs midfield that was already packed with talent. Those who claimed he was a big fish in a small pond last season are coming to accept that he has matured into a midfielder more than capable of holding his own amongst the best.

David Silva (Manchester City)

The moment on Sunday 23rd October 2011, when David Silva trapped a clearance on the Old Trafford halfway line before releasing Edin Dzeko to complete Manchester United's derby day misery, perhaps spoke louder than anything else where the current reassessment of the Manchester footballing power balance is concerned. More than a few United supporters have questioned Sir Alex's decision not to bring in a top calibre central midfield performer this summer – a replacement, in essence, for Paul Scholes. Someone of intelligence and guile. Someone who can pick the tightest of defensive locks. Someone, in short, like Silva.

Since his arrival at Eastlands, the dynamic Spaniard (although what kind of Spaniard isn't dynamic these days?) has been the brains behind the majority of his teams’ most incisive moments, dovetailing seamlessly with whatever combination of pricey attacking talent has been laid out in front of him. Silva also represents a potentially crucial piece of a bigger picture. Whilst no man has ever won a title single-handedly, plenty of successful sides have been built around a talisman of such undoubted quality. Silva has helped City beat a path to United's door. The journey isn't over yet, but when it is, the rewards may be golden.

Gabriel Agbonlahor (Aston Villa)

The 2011/12 season represents Gabriel Agbonlahor's seventh campaign in top flight football, which if nothing else makes Look Away Now feel excruciatingly old. At a comparatively cherubic 25, the Aston Villa forward's new lease of life under Alex McLeish has seen him finally turn that raw pace and undoubted potential into something a little more durable. In the process he's helped Big Eck win over supporters who were less than chuffed when he about-faced from (freshly relegated) Birmingham City.

Never the most prolific of scorers, Agbonlahor has added a consistency in front of goal to his armoury, leading to calls for a full England cap, which he'd possibly already have were it not for an injury before the final Euro 2012 qualifier in Montenegro. A distinguished sprinter in his youth, Agbonlahor's four goals and four assists in ten league appearances suggest a player coming of age when his club, shorn of England duo Ashley Young and Stewart Downing over the summer, needed him to step up. Truly time does fly – although if anyone can catch it, it's probably our Gabby.

Robin van Persie (Arsenal)

Where would Arsenal be without Robin van Persie? Well, if you remove his goals this term from the equation, the answer would be, quite simply, “16th”. His influence, however, runs deeper than that. Top-scorer, captain, inspiration and probably the only remaining member of Arsenal’s ranks you could confidently term ‘world class’, van Persie’s 28 goals in 27 league games this calendar year only goes to underline the Dutchman’s value to the Gunners.

Arsene Wenger’s problem (well, one of them) in recent years has been keeping van Persie fit following a seemingly endless array of injuries. As the Frenchman’s gossamer-fragile squad struggles under the weight of its knocks and niggles, van Persie has come through the first ten weeks of the season relatively unscathed. Many would argue that van Persie isn’t what you’d call a natural leader, certainly not in the Adams/Vieira mould, but what he’s doing is leading by example, dragging the Gunners up the league table by the collar. Rested initially for the recent visit of Stoke, van Persie was eventually summoned from the bench to perform a rescue act, but you can forgive Wenger for swaddling him in cotton wool. The Frenchman must grimace every time Robin receives a strong tackle in training – but then again, he probably doesn’t watch the Dutch squad train anyway.

Manager: Paul Lamber (Norwich City)

When Look Away Now wakes these days, it half expects to find Lorraine McFly sat at the foot of the bed, ready to mop our fevered brow, pass comment on our underwear, and whisper sweet assurances that what we witnessed on Match of the Day last night was just a crazy dream, and that we're safe and sound now, back in good old 1992. The reason for such temporal befuddlement is Norwich City's crashing of the Premier League's top half, a feat so out of synch with the times that they might as well be doing it in a shell suit and a pair of BK Knights, while the latest 2 Unlimited offering pumps away in the background.

In assessing Norwich's renaissance one must inevitably tick off a few clichés. Plucky underdog status? Check. Loveable club with a friendly, provincial feel? No problem. Everything achieved on a modest budged while everyone else is spending money like it's going out of fashion? Stop it, you're killing us. But the key element to Norwich's rise is surely Paul Lambert, one of those managers with an apparently Midas touch. Having guided the Norfolk side through back-to-back promotions, Lambert's plan seems to involve his side playing with style and without fear in what can be an unforgiving league. And what's more, it appears to be working. Maybe there really is no limit after all.

~ Ed & Matt

Fight For Your Right To Parity

Following the bitter-sweet conclusion to England's Euro 2012 qualifying campaign, focus returned this past weekend (with no little relief, some would say) to all matters domestic, and what better way to restart than with, in Sir Alex Ferguson's words, the biggest club game in the world. Manchester United were travelling to Anfield for the first time since edging clear in the league titles stakes. Having been emphatically knocked from their perch over a painful twenty year period, Saturday's meeting heralded an era of unexplored bragging potential for the visiting fans.

The successes of both clubs on home and foreign turf have been utterly integral to the Premier League's claim to be The Best In The World. United's era of dominance arrived in tandem with the launch of the Premier League, while Liverpool's years of European rule captured imaginations in far flung corners of the globe in the days before satellite television and the internet. 

The first meeting of the season between English football's greatest success stories was bookended by two off-field topics of potentially equal controversy. The build up to the match had been dominated by Liverpool's managing director Ian Ayre floating the idea that foreign TV rights for the league should perhaps be negotiated on a club-by-club basis, as is the case in La Liga.  Meanwhile, Monday morning saw League Manager's Association chief Richard Bevan admit that the increase in foreign ownership may eventually result in pressure to alter the very fabric of the league by potentially moving towards a US-style franchise system, removing relegation and promotion and effectively making the top flight a closed shop.

Ayre was quoted in the national papers as saying that “If you are a Liverpool fan living in Liverpool you subscribe to Sky because you support Liverpool”, pushing his shovel firmly into the top soil, preparing to excavate. “If you're in Kuala Lumpur there isn't anyone subscribing to Astro or ESPN to watch Bolton, or if they are it's a very small number. The large majority are subscribing to watch Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea or Arsenal”, he continued, doing his best impersonation of a Harlem pimp pushing up the prices for his best girls. The essential thrust of Ayre's argument is that if those foreign types are only interested in the best of our selection, why should our less attractive sides be equally financially rewarded?

“Some people will say: 'Well you've got to all be in it to make it happen.', but isn't it really about where the revenue is coming from, which is the broadcaster, and isn't it really about who people want to watch on that channel?”, Ayre concluded, cocking his Fedora and buffing his diamond rings to a shine whilst Bolton and the other unfancied types shuffled off back to the street, lippy reapplied, ready to offer their services to that crucial Far East demographic.

And it's here that the subsequently-raised relegation issue begins to show it's significance. It's admittedly tough to deny that the average non-UK fan is tuning in to watch Luis Suarez rather than Nigel Reo Coker, but in order to see the Uruguayan strut his stuff, you’ve gotta make plans for Nigel too. US franchise logic could therefore dictate that the best way to progress would be to make sure the same opponents are lining up against Liverpool for those thirty-two other fixtures year after year. This could allow the clubs invited to the party to develop their own international identities without having to look over their shoulders and make sure no one else is about to barge in unannounced. So everybody wins, right? Well everyone except for the majority of English clubs, of course, but they aren't Ayre's primary concern.

One major problem is that Ayre has clearly seen the riches of Barcelona and Real Madrid and fancies a bit of that. They receive roughly one third of the Spanish TV rights but he'd do well to remember that they are but two clubs, and hold between them a highly concentrated level of appeal. If such a deal were to occur in England, you'd be looking at top priced rights being split between four, five, perhaps even six clubs. And membership of the top four is not permanent, as Spurs and Man City have shown over the past two years, which only complicates the issue further. Say, hypothetically, that Newcastle’s impressive form holds and they burst into the top four, maybe even staying there longer than a solitary season. Suddenly Newcastle versus Man City becomes a fixture of global interest, and if foreign broadcasters wish to invest money in such games then it will be to the financial detriment of Liverpool and others. Suddenly a whole new battles begins to rage – and no-one wants to risk Mike Ashley getting stroppy and thowing his lemon chicken about the place.

The broader concern for Liverpool is that having opted to secure their future with Fenway Sports Group after Hicks & Gillett had begun stripping the walls for copper wire, they have slipped behind somewhat in the global brand stakes. While their glorious past becomes increasingly more distant with every passing title-less year, so Manchester City have ridden the fast rail to global profitability. As so many of us have huffed and puffed in recent years, a club's long-forged identity can feel like it's becoming forever lost amongst the branding and the naming rights. Which is a shame, as Liverpool's new stance on the division of rewards reflects badly not just on the current regime, but on the club's proud community heritage too.

I like Liverpool and I like the history they have made for themselves. Anyone with football in their heart laments the sad shadow of tragedy that will forever follow one pace behind the club, but in the end this too is part of their history, and the club’s story – like all great stories – resolutely accepts the grief alongside the triumph and makes them what they are (something Manchester United has done too). Most clubs have their own wonderful tale to tell, but Liverpool’s, thanks to their successes, has been largely written in front of the eyes of the world – a child born into celebrity whose life is lived within permanent earshot of the paparazzo’s camera-click. Liverpool’s success gave them such fame, and all that subsequently befalls them – for good or bad – becomes part of the public discourse, which makes the noises emanating from the club all the more dispiriting.

I hope Liverpool's owners were watching carefully on Saturday. Having exchanged shoves and shimmies without really throwing a punch, Liverpool finally landed a blow with a quarter of the match remaining, the returning Steven Gerrard angling a freekick through Ryan Giggs' miraculously disappearing midriff and past the outstanding David de Gea. Gerrard raced to the crowd with five fingers aloft, a repost to the chants of the visiting fans, but also a salute to history, a declaration that past and present in football are eternally intertwined, a gesture made flesh by the Kop's contemporary hero.

United, stirred from their inactivity, introduced the big guns and, like so many times before, it paid off. Javier Hernandez, signed barely 18 months ago, celebrated his six yard equaliser like a man crossing the line for Olympic gold, lungs roaring, hand thrust chest-wards, clasping the club crest. He, like Gerrard, knew all too well what it meant. 

Clubs have been supposedly selling their souls for a while now, but selling the future of others is another thing entirely. In truth I genuinely can't see much support for Ayre's proposals from further down the league, as evidenced by Chelsea, Wigan and Manchester United speaking out in support of the current deal within hours of the Liverpool story surfacing. Rival clubs have been more vociferous still in their initial rejection of any potential relegation removal, hopefully a sign that somewhere beneath the pile of dollar bills a humble wad of common sense remains intact.

Following a week where John W Henry and the Fenway team had granted the press a good deal of access, it's no coincidence that they are now trying to stamp their own mark on the state of things. In trying to get their voice heard above the Manchester/London/Catalonia hubbub, they are perhaps aiming to remind the watching world that they remain part of the elite. The thing is, no one that really knows their football has ever thought differently. Good sides come and go – talented squads shine then dissipate – but the stuff of legend remains. Even those pesky Bolton fans know that.

~ Matt