Louis Strange
Staff Writer
London clubs make up over a quarter of this year’s Premier League, and while that might represent a strong contingent from the capital in terms of numbers alone, strength is not a characteristic shared by all. While Arsenal and Chelsea are on fire, West Ham, Fulham and Crystal Palace are closer to going down in flames. Oh, and Spurs play football too.
To begin with West Ham, whose struggles this season can be pinpointed to the ill-advised, £15million injury mess otherwise known as Andy Carroll. West Ham fans’ belief that all you need is “sex, drugs and Carlton Cole” has been proved misplaced as a lack of goals sees them lying in 18th, the lowest-placed London club in the Premier League. At any other club Sam Allardyce’s severed head would probably be rolling away from the guillotine by this stage, but they don’t take things too seriously in the East End: the West Ham fans displayed their eternal sense of humour during the 6-0 demolition by Manchester City, serenading the City fans with a chorus of “You’re nothing special, we lose every week!” They will need that sense of humour next season in the Championship.
Many thought that Crystal Palace were certain to be joining them there, but as it stands there seem to be other clubs who want to be relegated more. Signing Marouane Chamakh is never a good sign, and yet Palace are still hanging on, albeit dangling perilously just above the relegation zone. (Chamakh has even scored four goals – not a huge number, but nevertheless four more than most would have thought he would score.) Palace’s secret has been to save themselves for the important games: despite losing to the bigger teams, they have secured important results against the clubs around them, beating West Ham, Cardiff and Stoke since the beginning of December, suggesting survival might be possible in spite of a lack of real quality in the side.
“It’s Arsenal’s defense which has done most of the work this season: the central defensive partnership of Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielney has blossomed and Wojciech Szczesny is proving himself to be one of the best goalkeepers in the league, with as many clean sheets this at the half-way stage of this season (ten) as in the entirety of last term.”
For Fulham, the potent cocktail of conceding too many goals and not scoring enough – who would have thought that would be a bad combination? – has resulted in the worst goal difference in the division, at -26. Fulham have been unlucky to have proven goal-scorers with years of experience failing to do the business up front: Darren Bent has only managed two so far this season and has for the most part found himself on the bench, whilst Dimitar Berbatov has scored just four and frustrated Fulham fans with his “mercurial” performances (here interchangeable with “lazy” and “not bothered”). When Steve Sidwell is your top scorer (five goals), something is going wrong.
With Brede Hangeland now back after almost three months out Fulham may start to improve defensively, as they threatened to do in the first half against Arsenal this weekend; however, it was not enough to stop Arsenal returning to the League’s summit thanks to two Santi Cazorla goals within five minutes in a Fantasia-esque second-half from the tiny wizard. But it is Arsenal’s defense which has done most of the work this season: the central defensive partnership of Per Mertesacker and Laurent Koscielney has blossomed and Wojciech Szczesny is proving himself to be one of the best goalkeepers in the league, with as many clean sheets this at the half-way stage of this season (ten) as in the entirety of last term. Injuries have not yet significantly disturbed the stability of the Arsenal back four, instead taking their toll on a midfield with enough depth to absorb them, Theo Walcott and Aaron Ramsay’s absences covered by Cazorla, Serge Gnabry and the returning Lukas Podolski and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. Short of options up front, however, it may be that Arsenal’s title challenge will depend on Olivier Giroud, unlikely as that might have seemed in August.
“Many thought that Crystal Palace were certain to be joining them there, but as it stands there seem to be other clubs who want to be relegated more. Signing Marouane Chamakh is never a good sign, and yet Palace are still hanging on, albeit dangling perilously just above the relegation zone.”
And so to the other half of North London. One of Zeno’s paradoxes – a set of philosophical problems devised by the Greek philosopher in the fifth century B.C. – describes a race between Achilles and a tortoise: the tortoise is given a head-start by Achilles and even though the latter catches up to the tortoise in a matter of moments, on account of the tortoise being constantly in motion Achilles will never actually reach the point where he is before he is no longer there. Zeno must have been thinking of Arsenal and Spurs when he devised this problem, as no matter how hard Tottenham try they always seem to be behind their neighbours. Having recovered from their abject early season form under supposed saviour André Villas-Boas, Spurs rectified the problem by appointing an Arsenal fan, Tim Sherwood, as manager. The most noticeable change from the Villas-Boas regime is the restoration of Emmanuel Adebayor to the starting line-up – Sherwood probably remembered Adebayor from his Arsenal days – and the striker has reinvigorated Spurs’ push for Europa League qualification, scoring five and providing three assists in his last six games, before which he had only played 45 minutes of Premier League football this season.
Another striker threatening to hit form is Chelsea’s Samuel Eto’o, whose hat-trick against Manchester United suggested that he might be the right choice to in front of an array of dangerous midfield players. Chelsea are still tipped by many to win the League this year – Manchester City’s ridiculous forward line might have something to say about that, though – and if Eto’o can score goals on a consistent basis (bearing in mind that the three against Manchester United doubled his League tally for the season) then José Mourinho will in all likelihood be a very happy man come May. Which, unless you are a Chelsea fan, is surely something nobody wants.
