Backline To The Future
It’s that time of the season again when the race for the Premier League title really starts to take shape.
Nothing much has changed this year – Harry Redknapp continues to dream of Spurs breaking into the top four, Steven Gerrard thinks Liverpool have finally turned a corner and Arsene Wenger insists his team is the only one actually playing football.
Chelsea and Manchester United have pulled away from the pretenders and it looks like a four-month fight is about to ensue to determine England’s number one club. Both sides have been in impeccable form lately but off-the-field issues could play its part in the final months.
We all know about the John Terry affair saga, who took the coaching manual too seriously when it said that centre backs need to cover the holes left behind by the full-backs.
The former England captain is being treated like a war hero at Stamford Bridge now and anything he does is seen as a warrior-like commitment to the Chelsea cause. I wonder how Mrs Terry feels about all this as she takes shelter in Dubai.
Over at England’s north-west, Nemanja Vidic seems to be suffering from the same problem that Cristiano Ronaldo had last season, known as the “I Signed A Pre-Contract To Join Real Madrid In The Summer” syndrome.
The Serb has been a shadow of the player that the Old Trafford faithful have grown to love in previous campaigns. He has literally been in the dark this season with mysterious injuries and reported bust-ups with Sir Alex Ferguson seeing him miss half of United’s league games thus far.
With Rio Ferdinand more likely to be spotted at a London movie premiere than at Old Trafford, Wes Brown and Jonny Evans have stepped in admirably to shore up the backline. Evans has been exceptional in recent weeks and it’s no wonder that the likes of Juventus and Barcelona have left messages on his agent’s mobile.
The Northern Ireland international is no longer simply a squad player but also a future candidate for the captain’s armband at club and country level. His future defensive partner at United could be Chris Smalling, whose rise from the seventh tier of English football to the top flight in the space of two years makes Taylor Swift’s musical journey pale in comparison.
We knew he was something special when Arsene Wenger, football’s greatest talent scout, declared his interest in him. We now know just how highly rated he is when Sir Alex swooped in and splashed some Glazer cash to get a young man who has just a handful of league appearances to his name.
Now that the defence in the year 2014 has been set in stone, it’s time for Sir Alex to address short term deficiencies (in case the 2012 doomsday prophecy actually occurs), namely Ferdinand’s semi-retirement (that’s what it seems like), Vidic’s likely one-way summer trip to Spain and John O’ Shea joining Owen Hargreaves in the exclusive long-term injury club.
As Chelsea have shown, a solid defence wins you games even if the opposition boast all the attacking talent in the world. Whilst a purist like Wenger may find that football blasphemy, others like Rafa Benitez and Jose Mourinho live by such philosophies.
For next season, United needs to invest in a top quality goalkeeper, especially if Edwin Van der Sar calls it a day, and an established centre back.
I would love to see the Juventus pair of Gianluigi Buffon and Giorgio Chiellini don Aon-sponsored United jerseys come August. That may be a reality as the Glazers find more innovative ways to raise money other than their own, with latest suggestions indicating that they are about to sell the Carrington training ground before renting it back from the future buyer.
United’s backline for the future now reads Rafael, Smalling, Evans and Fabio – two out of four can actually defend. To supplement this quartet, if you have any good young goalkeepers to recommend, please address your letters to Sir Alex Ferguson CBE.
Or maybe Wenger can do United a favour again and tell us who he would like to buy.
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