A Few Words On Gary Speed

It has been a sad week or so for anyone with football in their hearts, jolted awake as we were last Sunday to the news that Gary Speed – Premier League legend and Welsh national team manager – had died, having apparently taken his own life at the age of 42. Within minutes of the news breaking TV, radio and the internet was awash with tributes, from those who knew him personally and from those who simply knew him as a fantastic practitioner of his chosen art. From amidst this sea of sadness flooded forth words which painted an impression of a gifted yet gentle man; a charmer and a genuinely revered model professional with so much still to give.

The reasons behind Speed’s death are as yet unclear, and it would be unfair and disrespectful to speculate too wildly as to their nature. What I do feel comfortable saying is that, having observed the immediate aftermath, the issue of mental well-being amongst footballers has been troubling close to the headlines in recent weeks

The widespread presumption has been that Speed’s suicide was an act born of clinical depression. As I say, we don't know if this affliction has any direct link at all to Speed, but many of us have felt a somewhat chilling sense of unease at the preceding days' discussion of depression by professional sportsman. On Saturday the Guardian's always-enlightening Secret Footballer spoke of his own diagnosis in 2002. Hours earlier – and even more eye-openingly – Stan Collymore had followed up some worrying Twitter postings with a harrowing account about a recent bout of depression, which you can read for yourselves here.

Collymore's troubled past has been exhaustively documented, but over the years he has taken it upon himself to speak out about his health issues. Regardless of any direct link to Speed specifically, there seems to have been a greater willingness in recent times to speak openly and frankly about health problems which go beyond a tweaked hamstring or broken metatarsal. The confirmation from Tony Adams' Sporting Chance clinic that at least ten current professionals have contacted them to seek advice on their own troubles in the sad hours since Speed’s passing suggests that some invisible barrier may be on the verge of being pushed away, hopefully replaced with an air of frankness and honesty within the public footballing discourse.

There is an encouraging precedent for this kind of development. German football has had it's episodes of real and near-tragedy in recent years, the most notable being the suicide two years ago of national team keeper Robert Enke. Only weeks ago referee Babak Rafati was discovered just hours before he was due to take charge of a Bundesliga tie, having apparently attempted suicide and failed. Germany has also dealt with a high-profile case of depression. Following a spate of terrible injuries, midfielder Sebastien Deisler was diagnosed in 2004, his various health battles eventually leading to his retirement at the age of 27. Enke's passing in particular triggered a reaction in Germany. Ronald Reng, who received the William Hill Sports Book of The Year award (the day after Speed's death, no less) for his account of his friend Enke's life, has stated that players had previously found it difficult to publicly communicate the desperate pressures which it appears with hindsight were unknowingly commonplace. But, says Reng, things have improved. “After Robert's death the network of sports psychologists is much better. There are helplines, there is much higher awareness.”

The overriding feeling from those in the know is that Germany is witnessing a profound shift. In England, the abstract notion of the 'footballing community' is a commonly mentioned one, and it's true that in tough times it can act like any other: it can be a guiding hand; a strong network of support, but it can also be prickly and, at worst, downright self-serving. But the day of Speed's death really did feel like a close-knit community had lost a dear friend, the widespread grief palpable and felt beyond the sporting world. These terrible instances in Germany seem to have reminded football once more that life is brittle no matter who you are or what you do. The most celebrated players on the planet, the ones whose lifestyles and pay-checks we envy, regularly experience moments of great success and adoration. The message which Germany has embraced is that they, like all of us in our darkest hours, are also capable of looking in the mirror and seeing very little staring back. Over the past week the FA have sent out 50,000 booklets to ex-players containing advice on coping with depression. It's certainly a start.

As I say though, no one really knows how much of this debate relates to Gary Speed at all, and to speculate would be to do a disservice to his memory and to those he leaves behind. So what of Speed contributions to the beautiful game? The basic facts are as multitudinous as they are impressive. He was a versatile midfielder of energy and ability, with a knack for goals of all kinds and a one-time appearance record holder for both league and country. A captain of every team he’d played for along the way, Speed won the old First Division title in 1992 with Leeds United, before going on to score in every Premier League season in which he played, a remarkable feat only since bettered by his compatriot Ryan Giggs.

But it seems obvious that Speed’s legacy will go well beyond mere statistical analysis. In life’s grand scheme, football obviously ranks fairly low down on the scale of important things, but that's not to say that those involved do not hold it in high regard. From all the moving tributes paid to Speed, the one thing it's easy to gleam is that he carried out his job with great pride.

The moment at the Liberty Stadium when the pre-match minute’s silence erupted into rapturous applause and the spontaneous singing of Speeds name became a scene repeated at grounds across the UK throughout the week, and clubs were united in their mourning once more this weekend. When it happened in Swansea, mere hours after the world learnt of Speed's fate, it felt less like an outpouring of grief and more like a moment of genuine, heartfelt celebration and gratitude for what Speed had given the game. It spoke with a clarity no obituary ever could.

Last Sunday evening I, along with millions of others, listened with a heavy heart to BBC Radio Five Live’s exceptional 606 tribute show as a Leeds supporter recounted a tale of travelling across country with his son to see his team play, only to arrive at Elland Road to find the game sold out. Spotting Speed, and having previously encountered him a year or more previously, the supporter asked – more in hope than expectation – if he could pull any strings. Within minutes, the Welshman had retuned grasping two of Eric Cantona’s spare allocation. Their paths crossed again in the future, and Speed never forgot the man's name.

Stories of this ilk continued to be told throughout the show. As I listened it became increasingly clear that Speed saw and understood the significance of what he was involved in, and how much it mattered to those who could only ever dream of living in his boots. It seems apparent that he fully appreciated the high regarded in which he and his fellow exponents of the game were held, and when it came to the simple, privileged task of being a professional footballer, he was determined not to disappoint. For the record, he never did.

~ Matt

www.thefa.com/TheFA/WhatWeDo/Equality/MentalHealth/newsandfeatures/2011/Mental-Health-introduction

www.sportingchanceclinic.com/

I Got You, AVB

Let's face it: life is but a series of repetitions. Each day begins with a shrieking alarm call callously ripping us from our merry dream worlds, the jarring prelude to gazing vacantly at the ceiling for as long as our snooze button will allow us. From there it’s onto the bathroom to tease a few drops of hot water from the shower before huddling foetus-like against the cold tiles, the nozzle’s cascade merging with our weary tears. Then it’s off to work – tea, emails, fag breaks, phone calls, lunch, more emails, home, dinner. Day in, day out. Work, sleep, rinse, repeat.

But then comes the heady relief of the weekend – a forty-eight hour offering from the heavens when alarms are turned off and breakfast is regally feasted upon in the early afternoon, while the comfort blanket of football envelopes us like the arms of a long lost love, it's touch a cool balm for our workaday wounds.

When you look at things this way, it’s actually quite comforting to know that multi-gazillionaire Roman Abramovich leads much the same life that we do. He also knows only too well the soul-sapping drudgery of being trapped in a hopelessly replaying loop. For you see, Abramovich emerges daily into the kind of world Bill Murray strove so desperately to escape from in the harrowing metaphysical treatise Groundhog Day.

While Murray's world-weary TV weather anchor Phil Connors found himself marooned in a frosty netherworld somewhere between Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania and the darkest depths of his own despair, Abramovich routinely awakens to the crushing realisation that he too is stuck in a forever-repeating realm of his own making; a closed-circuit, locked groove of an existence where managers are hired and fired without foresight or patience. His club's recent results – consecutive home humblings to Arsenal and Liverpool, the ill-tempered derby defeat to QPR, and a late Champions League reverse in Leverkusen – have left him staring into a familiar existential abyss.

The problem for Roman is that living each day in nothing more than a maddening temporal hiccup has taught him absolutely zip. Finding himself regularly disillusioned with his choice of manager, he just picks a new one, safe in the knowledge that should it all go Scolari-shaped he can just find himself a replacement and damn the consequences. But if quasi-sci-fi family films of yore have taught me anything (and you can be the judge of that) it's that all actions have consequences. And for Roman it's the same one – over and over and over again.

All of which has considerable knock-on repercussions for poor Andrés Villas-Boas. Just as Andie MacDowell's plucky producer Rita became an unwitting accomplice to Connors' never-ending existential farce, so young Villas-Boas is the latest individual to find himself sinking into Abramovich's unrelenting mental quagmire. Not four months ago he was an ambitious, über successful young manager, arriving in England with a host of trophies and a rather dashing line in five o'clock shadow. All of a sudden that Primeira Liga medal means very little indeed and that once rugged fizzog of his increasingly resembles the concept of 'hopelessness' as fashioned from dry timber by a psychopath.

The fact that some of his players are most definitely showing their age is perhaps the only sign that life on the King’s Road is proceeding in any sort of regular fashion at all. He still bounces up and down on the touchline like a frog dancing on hot coals, but this no longer feels like a show of raw enthusiasm but rather a display of shredded nerves, which is fair enough really, especially when you've been tasked with teaching David Luiz about the offside trap.

Others too have become unsuspecting characters in the Russian's perpetual motion nightmare. Take Fernando Torres. He was happy once, floating about Merseyside in a bubble of bonhomie, his lovely locks a-flowing, scoring wonderful goals with the regularity with which us normal folk break wind. But then he wandered too close to Roman's space/time continuum and now he is trapped, destined to fluff his lines in front of goal for the rest of his days. 

Such is the mighty power of Abramovich's all-consuming purgatorial orbit, I’m worried that eventually all of us will be sucked into it too, like nail clippings towards a Dyson. Maybe it's actually happened. Maybe our yesterday was merely an illusion. Maybe we are already ensnared, doomed to be little more than passers-by in a parallel world formed purely from the stubbornness of one man's mind. Really puts things into perspective, doesn't it?

But wait, for all is not lost. There is of course one man who can rescue Abramovich from his personal limbo, and that man is Abramovich himself. Connors broke the spell of repetition by examining his life and evaluating his faults, learning and growing and gradually becoming a better man; a more patient, tolerant and loving human being. For Chelsea to smash their hire-sack-hire curse, Abramovich needs to embrace change in a gargantuan fashion. It won't be easy, but if he pays attention to the script it is certainly doable.

He'll need to start by engaging a little more with the local community. He should let them keep their stadium for starters. After that he could pay a friendly visit to the pensioners or volunteer at a local junior school (or failing that, just buy the kids a new one). He should also start to feed the homeless, learn jazz piano and be prepared to perform the Heimlich Manoeuvre on choking diners.

Eventually these selfless deeds will trigger a change somewhere deep inside, opening his eyes to the folly of his ways, at last finding it in his heart to grant a manager the time and freedom to shape a team worthy of the supporter’s faith. And we should do everything we can to help. Next time you see him in the street, perform a simple act of kindness. Nothing that'll get you arrested for public indecency – just compliment him on his shoes or offer him a Minstrel. Show him what it's like to feel humanity's warm embrace. We must all be vigilant, or it won't just be six more weeks of winter we'll be facing, but a lifetime spent reliving the same fate, from one day to the next, for all eternity. As if we don't have enough of that already. 

~ Matt

International Rescue

“Coming up, England's first training session of the week – and we'll be there live!” Slouched in front of the TV, nursing a cold and contemplating a late breakfast, this was not the 11am Sky Sports News bulletin I was hoping for. “Join us as we watch John Terry go for a jog, Gareth Barry wiggle his hips about, and Jack Rodwell struggle with a bib so bright you could probably see it from space”, the reporter failed to add, although he might as well have, for that was as far as the coverage was allowed to go. As (training) pitch-side pundit Ray Parlour described how Gabby Agbonlahor will be settling back in nicely because he's mates with Darren Bent, a metaphorical media blackout was instigated, almost certainly for the good of Queen and country.

Any further coverage would have been akin to giving away state secrets. Good decision, if you ask me. Heaven only knows what could've happened if some crafty Spanish agent had snuck his way past security to snaffle crucial bits of information. He'd no doubt have scurried back to his Aston Martin, where at the push of a button he could have turned the dashboard into an HD video link to Spanish HQ, ready to brief Vincente del Bosque on James Milner's off-the-pace performance during the shuttle runs.

Let's be honest, the good people at Sky were desperately trying to inject a little tension, or even some mild interest, into the build up to England's upcoming friendlies with Spain and Sweden. Unfortunately, most of the drama surrounding England these days only involves ball-kicking in a metaphorical sense. Over the last fortnight we've watched with increasing despair as Terrygate (Version 2.0) and Poppyfarce have stolen the back pages, with very little copy produced for the matches themselves.

But shouldn't we be excited by these games? Spain, as we're all too aware, pretty much represent the zenith of footballing capability right now – world and European champions, home to a gleaming, apparently never-ending well of talent. Sweden, meanwhile, have been a constant, peripheral presence during my England-following life. Via Tomas Brolin's pop-inspiring strike at Euro 92, an epic six-goal thriller in 1995's Umbro Cup, a heated 2-1 reverse in a Euro 2000 qualifier and an opening World Cup encounter in Saitama in 2002, the Swedes have been a thorn in England's side for two decades now. By all logic, we should be looking forward to this double-header. But we're not, are we?

Such is the quality and supposed all-importance of the both the Premier and Champion's Leagues, international football is no longer the showcase for global footballing talent that it used to be. Dredge up your earliest memories of international football and you'll recall the magisterial brilliance of the likes of Baggio, Romario, Batistuta, Milla and Hagi – semi-mythical sporting beasts of whom we were permitted a fleeting glimpse every few years. International football had all-star appeal, the joy of watching a fantasy team of the best club parts assembled into one globe-trotting whole. Not so any more. We can watch Lionel Messi, Wesley Sneijder, David Silva or Cristiano Ronaldo just about any night of the week we like, and we can do so as they face each other in the increasingly insular Champions League.

Put simply, international football used to be the place to see the crème de la crème, and now it isn't. But that shouldn't really be enough to take it to the point it finds itself at now, a point where some would rather wait patiently for the international break to be over than actually engage with the games taking place.

So what's the problem? Well for one thing those fabled thirty years of hurt have become forty-one – seven more tournaments have come and gone with nothing better than a few quarter finals to show for it. Now I'm not for a minute arguing that England have any kind of right to be progressing to the finals of major tournaments, but I think some of our frustration comes from the disproportionate success of the English club game. The Premier League is marketed, marketed and marketed some more as the best domestic competition in the world, beamed directly into homes across hundreds of countries worldwide while the national team – in terms of skill and in terms of success – has gotten left behind.

The players found within the English top flight are among the most talked about, debated, hated and loved in the world. Furthermore, off-field dalliances now take on an aura of soap opera scandal, perpetuated by a modern media hungry for fresh meat in an age where the internet can make, break and conclude a story before the ink is dry on the traditional morning edition. Rich investors from across the globe have taken charge of clubs, bringing with them, in no particular order, star players, huge transfer fees, brand promotion and uncertain debt levels, upping the spotlight wattage further still. Drama, personalities, money and entertainment – a loopy cocktail that the international game just can't compete with.

Maybe it's also something to do with the people we are meant to be supporting when England take to the field. Every sport – nay, every walk of life – has it's pantomime villains, but when the lines between loyalty, rivalry and straight-up hatred become blurred, it's not always easy to cheer on that centre-forward who on any other weekend you'd be calling a money-grabbing, morally-vacuous shitheap.

The rivalry and revulsion between club supporters is plastered everywhere, played up to and encouraged by Sky and broadcasters at large, broadcasters who have comparatively little invested in the national game anyway, where a failure every two or four years isn't quite as lucrative as a Premier League season, where each May triumph is guaranteed for someone. It's understandable that, having been fed all this, a young Arsenal supporter may find it tricky to rekindle their affection for Ashley Cole, and likewise cheering on Wayne Rooney becomes quite the awkward chore for the Liverpool diehard. But perhaps the most telling emotion is the one that a growing number of football fans feel towards the spectacle of international competition – indifference.

So international football has multitudinous obstacles to overcome. It is no longer a looking-glass through which we can leap into a wonderland of foreign footballing wizardry, and it carries the weight of repeated failure on it's bruised shoulders. It seems that for many England supporters the conclusion is simple: we're fated to disappoint, so why bother getting excited in the first place? Of course, this does tend to change when the tournaments actually come around – a World Cup is still a World Cup, no matter how jaded folk feel towards the preceding friendlies and all the associated nonsense and non-stories.

But it's clear to me that some repairs need to be carried out. Each season someone raises the idea that we'd be better off reshaping the international calender, and this may be a good place to start. Why not set aside fewer longer periods wherein the majority of qualifiers can take place? A qualification triple-header, for instance, with nine points riding on it would not only eradicate much of the tiresome club-versus-country bickering, but could inculcate a sort of 'mini tournament' atmosphere too. What's more, the subsequent comparative scarcity of international breaks may make those occasions when friendlies do occur all the more enticing – an intriguing novelty rather than just another Wednesday night substitution-fest when we could be watching Barcelona pummel Dynamo Chernobyl to a pulp instead.

While we're at it, why not bring back 'B' Internationals? Play them in the same week, and let the coaching teams examine potential squad members first hand without diluting the appeal of the main fixture. Or perhaps we could introduce a Three Lions Lottery, where members of the public pay a fiver and if they're picked out of a hat (by Sir Trevor Brooking) they get to come on and play stoppage time? What a great way to reconnect the England team with the people!

Ah, I went too far didn't I? Maybe it's this darned cold making me all hot-brained. Or maybe I'm just bored – it is an international week after all.

~ Matt

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