The Premier League Midweek Winners And Losers

he weekend hinted as much, but the midweek has now put up a sign pointing to Manchester United winning the title in second gear...

Winners

Manchester United
Another second-gear performance, another three points collected at the top of the league. United are mastering the art of just doing enough.

Labelling a team as 'adept at winning without playing well' is generally a badge of probable future honour. It's the hallmark of champions and all that. So it was strange to hear Sir Alex bristle at the suggestion his side have yet to reach their normal stride this term. "We're an easy target for that kind of thing," he rebuked journalists after the win over Stoke. "You can look at as many stats as you like, but some of our performances have been fantastic."

Perhaps the relative criticism has been overdone because United can hardly have maintained their unbeaten run on luck alone, but Ferguson's reaction was nonetheless intriguing. Was he protecting his side because he fears their confidence might be brittle? Or were they the words of a manager who privately fears that his side's top speed is its current walk and this might be all they have to offer?

Then again, a straightforward reading of Ferguson's assessment could be closest to the truth. It may very well be that he truly believes his side have been far better than their many critics have nagged.


Javier Hernandez
The most 'natural' goalscorer in the Premier League since Robbie Fowler?


Nani
Averaging a goal or an assist for each of his 15 league starts this term.


Chris Smalling
The analysis of his culpability for Stoke's equaliser matters less than his selection confirming he has overtaken Jonny Evans to become United's third-choice centre-half.


The Home Side At Old Trafford
For the leaders, there's no place like home this season. Whereas they have managed just two victories away from Old Trafford, recording a goal difference of just +2 for their nine games, their home remains a fortress - 31 out of a possible 33 points have been garnered, with the opposition crushed by a cumulative scoreline of 29-7.


Manchester City
The victors at the Emirates were, of course, Manchester United. Never mind winning without playing well...on Wednesday, they didn't even have to play to be the night's big winners.

Yet City's manager has different ideas and a different perspective. With his side still two points behind their neighbours having played two extra games, Mancini tacitly confirmed at the Emirates that his ambition for this season extends no further than finishing in the top four. There may be a miscalculation at the heart of his thinking, because Mancini's gameplan was likely motivated by his previously-publicised belief that Chelsea would "easily" win the league, yet in playing for a draw at Arsenal, Mancini made it abundantly clear that he is playing for next season.

Inevitably, Mancini croaked an assurance that he wanted to win the match - which is precisely what he said after November's equally-conservative stalemate against United - and suggested "if we had Silva, Balotelli probably it might have been a different game" (note the double qualification) but nobody should be fooled. The team City fielded on Wednesday cost in excess of £170m and a salient fact worth highlighting is that, since his appointment last December, seven different Mancini teams have played seven matches against those sides currently sharing a top-four placement in the Premier League table with City and each has failed to score a single goal.

0-0, 0-3, 0-0 against Arsenal. 0-1 and 0-0 against United. 0-1 and 0-0 against Tottenham. 630 minutes of football. Not one goal.

Yet although that statistic is the epitome of damning, it also whispers a compliment of Mancini. He has his beliefs and he's not for budging. The City manager evidently believes that his side will be the only loser in a toe-to-toe fight against their perceived rivals and no amount of tedium or opprobrium will cause him to change. The obvious rejoinder is to question whether such a mentality can dovetail with City's plans for global domination, but it may be that Mancini could have taught Machiavelli a thing or two. The living Italian's game plan seems to be to try to win the title by drawing against their rivals and beating everyone else, and if that fails, collect Champions League qualification as compensation in the expectation that it will fund yet another upgrade.

If that's the case, the time for a proper review of Wednesday's outing at the Emirates may be at least a year away. Mancini isn't interested in what people are booing in 2011 because all he is focused upon is building a title-winning team for 2012.


Fulham
Shorn of four defenders, West Brom were just the inviting opponents for Fulham to face after being booed off by an understandably disgruntled Craven Cottage support on Boxing Day. History also boded well, for the Baggies arrived in west London as the last opponents to suffer an emphatic beating at Craven Cottage.

There have been precious few since. In fact, in the four years since the 6-1 thrashing of Bryan Robson's doomed side in February 2006, Fulham have unswervingly maintained an average of scoring a goal per game with their 184 Premier League fixtures between Baggie meetings producing 185 goals. Yet that statistic only tells half of their remarkably frugal story. What's truly astonishing is that their one-per-match scoring rate has, give or take a goal or two, been upheld in every season that has followed: 12 goals in 12 games at the close of 2005/06, 38 in 38 for both 2006/07 and 2007/08, 39 in 38 for both 2008/09 and 2009/10, and, before Tuesday, 19 in 20 for the current campaign.

From the realisation that low scoring is a long-established habit, two other modest thoughts develop. The first is that the injury to Bobby Zamora probably hasn't made a significant difference to their form (or at least as much as some have suggested). The second is that neither has the arrival of Mark Hughes - Fulham are still doing what they've always done for four years.

Yet for all the implied criticism of Fulham's frugal defensive-first outlook, their goals count - specifically, their goal difference tally - could yet provide a rich dividend. At minus two, it is the least negative of all those sides in the bottom ten, and its relative health meant they were able to rest easy on Tuesday night in 13th place, three places above their defeated opponents, despite sharing an equal number of points.


Wolves
Can a league possess an internal giantkiller? It can now. Wolves might have the worst record of any team in the division against bottom-half - played ten, eight points won - but half of their wins this term have occurred against members of the recognised elite in Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool.


Leon Best
The first glimpse of a future star? A hat-trick on his full Premier League debut and the third triple scored by a Newcastle player this term at St James' Park.

A quandary for Alan Pardew, who has already displayed an instinct to trust experience over potential with his decision to install Steve Harper as his number one ahead of Tim Krul: would Best be a better partner for Andy Carroll than Shola Ameobi?


Newcastle
A fifth of their league fixtures have witnessed either a victory in which at least five goals have been scored or a defeat with five conceded.


Wigan
Roberto Martinez's side have only lost one of their last six Premier League outings.


Birmingham City
Just keeping their heads above troubled waters. Their matches with Blackpool have accounted for half of all their wins this term and Alex McLeish's side would be drowning at the bottom of the league without the six points they've collected against the newbies. The Premier League has become a long, hard slog for a club still unestablished in the top flight.

Birmingham will, probably, do just enough to stay up, but the evidence of the past year suggests it will be the closest of closerunthings. From their last 38 matches, Birmingham have garnered a total of 40 points.


Everton
What a difference a goalscoring striker makes. Without the victory over Tottenham, David Moyes would be a point clear of the relegation zone. Liverpool's sorry shambles has distracted attention from the disappointing under-achievement of Everton's campaign. For the city as a whole, the season can't end soon enough.


Losers

Scott Carson & Goalkeepers
Tuesday was not a night for goalkeepers. At Old Trafford, their participation stretched no further than spectating: Manchester United scored with both of their shots on target, Stoke with their one and only effort. Meanwhile, a few hundred miles down the road, Scott Carson was adding to his catalogue of clangers with another of his trademark airflaps.

It's a layman's set of questions, but - especially in view of the number of goalkeeping howlers made this term in the Premier League and the shortage of saves - an authoritative answer is not immediately obvious: Just why don't teams shoot more and why is it that footballers consistently fail to hit the target when they do?

There's a saying in golf that although putting is the most important part of the game, it's the least practised. Is football guilty of a similar anomaly?


Liverpool
They're the joke without a laugh.


Pepe Reina
Another Spaniard suffering from homesickness away from Anfield. Opta stats record Reina's saves-to-shot percentage this term on Liverpool's travel at 56%, compared to 81% on home soil.


Steven Gerrard
Six of his last 20 penalties have been missed.


Roy Hodgson
It's just a matter of when. Having cut his typically forlorn figure for the previous two hours, the Liverpool boss described himself as depressed and dejected before his post-defeat press conference at Blackburn was called to a halt after just two minutes and three questions by Ian Cotton, the club's director of communications. When there's nothing else to be said, the only conclusion left is that it's time to go. Whether he's pushed or pulls himself out of a job that has ceased to function, Hodgson's position became untenable when he was pulled out of the firing line at Ewood Park.

He might stay on for the FA Cup tie at Manchester United, indeed he probably will, but there can be no way back. If he's not gone in the morning, he'll be out next week.


Chelsea
"Everything will be ok. We will not lose. We will win" - Carlo Ancelotti, Tuesday, ahead of Chelsea's defeat at Wolves.

But all is not okay and after a sixth defeat of the season, Chelsea are on the verge of abdication. With the leaders nine points clear and holding a game in hand, and Chelsea's last 11 matches producing a paltry ten points, it's only respect for the status of champions that is sparing Ancelotti's side being read the last rites.


Carlo Ancelotti
Cost-cutting has sunk Chelsea into this mess and it is cost-cutting that is likely to spare Carlo Ancelotti a mid-season axe. According to figures published by The Guardian a month or so ago, Chelsea have paid £35.6m in compensation to managers and coaches whose contracts have been terminated over the past four years. And that's not including any money paid out to Ray Wilkins.

If only as little as half that sum was spent on new recruits in the summer when Chelsea cleared out the deadwood - though Michael Ballack hardly deserves to be considered as such given that he made 45 appearances in their double-winning campaign - and forgot to bring in any suitable replacements. Ancelotti is not to blame for what is turning out to be a debacle. Cost-cutting has a price of its own and if Chelsea are to remain faithful to their new-found parsimony then they can't afford to sack a manger whose reputed £9m-a-year contract still has 18 months to run.

Roman Abramovich has a trigger finger but he ought to hold his nerve. Domestic success has seemingly ceased to matter much to the Chelsea owner after the club's first title in 50 years was won five years ago - which is why Jose Mourinho was ousted a mere four months after the FA Cup was won - but it should dawn on him that Chelsea's slide down the Premier League table should aid their Champions League campaign. The current price is domestic embarrassment, but the opportunity to focus on a solitary front overseas might yet prove priceless.


Arsenal
It was clear within 90 seconds of kick-off that this wasn't going to be their night. Arsene Wenger found cause for renewed belief in the frustrating 89 minutes that followed but his side need results, not reasons. After two wins in their last five league fixtures, a victory for United at Blackpool would leave the Gunners seven points adrift.


Tottenham Hotspur
Was the final whistle at Goodison Park, coming 15 minutes after the end of Chelsea's match at Molinuex, the fat lady calling time on a five-team title race? Like Chelsea, like Arsenal, Spurs can only rekindle title talk by beating the leaders when United visit their home later in the season.


West Brom
Still without a point since Christmas.


Blackpool
Is Blackpool's home advantage in four of their next five matches actually a disadvantage? Ian Holloway's side are currently averaging 1.4 points per match on their travels compared to 1.14 at Bloomfield Road.


Bolton Wanderers
Two wins in their last eight matches.


West Ham
A shambolic, spineless embarrassment at St James' and a simple illustration of just how tight the congested bottom of the table remains. After climbing five places at the weekend, the Hammers fell back those five places by the close of this midweek's play.