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If a week is a long time in politics, four days at this stage in football can be an eternity. Come Sunday Chelsea, written off for most of the season, could be top of the Premier League, with Arsenal, who led for so long, third and fading fast.
Some people express surprise that Chelsea are so close to a further taste of glory, after all the stick Avram Grant has received. One idiot columnist yesterday even suggested, with heavy sarcasm of course, that Grant deserved to be sacked for results most managers would sacrifice their granny for.
Only up to a point, mate. You've got to factor in strength of squads. Chelsea have two serious international footballers for every position, which means they can ride over almost any injuries, unlike Arsenal's altogether more flimsy set-up, which has been severely tested by the awful injury to Eduardo.
So if Chelsea's players are up for it, such is their quality that even in one of Grant's more bizarre formations, with, say Nicolas Anelka sulking on the left wing, Chelsea can still win matches. Despite him, not because of him, you see.
Yesterday's Standard gave us all a welcome chance to see the extent to which Grant has put lead in Chelsea's saddlebags. If the Blues were doing as well after 30 games as they did on average under Jose Mourinho, even assuming they get three points at White Hart Lane tonight, they would have seven more points. They'd be clear leaders now.
It's four years since Chelsea had as few points as today, which means Grant has taken them back to the days of Claudio Ranieri. Thanks a bunch! Contrary to what I keep reading, the wonder is not that Chelsea have as many points as they do, but that they have dropped such a lot at home.
Grant could get revenge tonight for the Carling Cup Final fiasco, and I hope he does. Though as I have already indicated, since such an inadequate dullard can't be transformed overnight into a tactical genius, very little will be down to him. But forget about Grant, the players owe the supporters a result, do they not?
Sunday is different. There can be no excuse, at home, for not beating an Arsenal squad that have stumbled through four Premier League draws in a row. But it won't be easy - it never is against the Gunners. Winning will require Grant to put out the right team and make the right tactical changes at the right moment if things get sticky.
But he has the incentive of knowing a lot of commentators will credit him with the victory, even if he has done little more than not get in the way as much as he so often does.
Derby's dilemma proves that promotion is a poisoned chalice
Woeful Derby's 6-1 thrashing at the Bridge last Wednesday was the biggest in a series of humiliations that have seen them lose 22 of their 30 games this season, winning only once. They also have a huge goal difference of minus 50, having scored only 14 Premier League goals.
Derby have tested to destruction the theory that a Championship side can compete in the top division with the same kind of players who won them promotion. But when I look at the promotion candidates this time, it is hard not to feel that history is bound to repeat itself. The automatic promotion slots are at present filled by Stoke and Bristol City.
What chances have they got of staying in the Premiership? Slim and none, and Slim's left town. As to those in contention for the play-offs, out of Watford, West Brom, Hull and Plymouth, only West Brom have a chance without an Abramovich-style intervention, and not much of one. It is good the Championship has become more competitive, with lesser lights prominent in a way unimaginable a decade ago.
But there's a price to be paid for greater equality, which is that the gap between the Championship and the Premier League is now wider than ever.
Even last season's other promoted clubs, the well-resourced Birmingham and Sunderland, are finding it a struggle. Both are hovering just above the drop, and by no means certain to stay up.
Megson's mistake
Bolton manager Gary Megson spurned the chance to lead his side into the last eight of the UEFA Cup by putting out a reserve team against ordinary Sporting Lisbon.
Megson said he was keeping his top players for last weekend's game at Wigan, where Bolton lost against 10 men. Serves him right.
Tel tale is a good sign
Two celebrated football managers in earnest conversation at Cheltenham on Friday were both insistent there are more changes to come at Newcastle, and imminently.
Kevin Keegan will head upstairs and his successor, they say, will be Terry Venables. Interesting and maybe right. If anybody can do it, it's Tel. And one person who certainly can't, as I predicted, is Keegan.
It's all so wrong
The record will show Tottenham were beaten 2-1 by Manchester City on Sunday. But City didn't beat them, the linesmen did.
Actually, Spurs won 2-1 but had a goal disallowed for offside that wasn't, while City had a goal allowed that really was offside. All this was obvious in an instant to us couch potatoes because the immediately available TV replays were totally clear-cut.
I don't like to keep banging on about this because it's boring but it really is ludicrous that matches are decided week in, week out not by the players but by incompetent officials.
China is fragile
The Chinese want to turn the Olympics into a propaganda triumph. But after the violence in Tibet, it isn't going to happen.
Some people say you should keep politics out of sport, but you can't. Politics is real life and sport is part of real life, not separate from it. Concerns about Chinese repression at home and abroad, Chinese weapon sales that permit massacres in Darfur and Chinese mass pollution of the environment won't go away. And shouldn't.
I hope the Beijing Olympics will turn into the biggest public humiliation the Chinese dictatorship has experienced. And I think that may happen.
Reader views (1)
Mr. Mellor. Isn't it about time for you, who has never played the game, managed a team, and knows nothing about football, to stop your unceasing and venomous criticism of Avram Grant. He seems not to have done too badly by any measure. I have a feeling that your well known prejudices are beginning to show.
- Sidney Gale, London UK, 27/03/2008 19:53
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