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Why I’d rather watch Everton…

Published by Ian John on February 22, 2010

If you ever needed any further evidence that money is not always a positive thing in football, then you only had to witness the debacle that was the game at Eastlands yesterday as two teams, battling for the mighty prize of fourth place in the Premier League, Manchester City and Liverpool, produced what was one of the most dire games of football I’ve ever had the misfortune to witness.

Manchester City midfielder Gareth Barry did his best to explain why the game was a stalemate bore draw, explaining:
“It was one of those games with no real chances,” he stated via the Man City website. “There was a lot at stake and you could tell. We are slightly disappointed not to win as the home team.

“But anyone watching the game would sense that neither team wanted to lose. There was so much to lose if the other team got three points. It was very tactical out there.

“Shay Given only had one shot to save, and Pepe Reina only had the one shot from Emmanuel Adebayor. It was just so tight, because nobody on that pitch wanted to lose the game.”

And so because of this fear of losing, and dropping behind a rival in the race for the mighty prize of fourth place, those who witnessed yesterday’s offering would probably have been questioning if either side really deserved a shot at the Champions League at all given the efforts yesterday. Certainly tactically there may have been something to admire, defensively both sides were strong, but how much of that was down to clever management, defensive organisation and tactical nous, or just neither team really offering that much in attack for fear of conceding a goal, is open to debate.

There is also the issue of whether this is just a Liverpool/Manchester City thing. Let’s face facts, neither Mancini or Benitez are renown for their attacking teams. One of the first thing Mancini did as a Manchester City player was ship out the attacking talents of Robinho and replace them with Patrick Vieira, then introduce three holding midfielders into his team. Benitez always plays the tougher games, especially away from home, with a lone striker supported by Gerrard, with pretty much the rest of the team asked to defend first and foremost. Given Liverpool’s lack of form and goals, Manchester City’s new direction under Mancini, allied to the importance of the game on Sunday, 0-0 and tedium was always likely to be the likely outcome.

It was therefore refreshing to contrast this dire effort of a match with events at Goodison Park on Saturday where a rejuvenated Everton gave Manchester United and Wayne Rooney a 3-1 spanking. The Toffeemen were deserved winners of the game, they responded very well to going a goal down to Berbatov’s clever striker and fully deserved the win given to them by strikes from Bilyaletdinov, Gosling and Rodwell, though I thought handing Rodwell the man of the match for his goal was rather idiotic to be honest. I thought there were several contenders in a Blue shirt out there far more worthy. A game packed with action, passion, incident, teams who wanted to win and who, most of all, weren’t afraid of losing to achieve that.

I’m a die hard Liverpool fan and it comes to something when I enjoyed watching Everton and Manchester United far, far more, than watching my own team against Manchester City. If fear of losing because of the financial loss is having this kind of impact on the game, then I, for one, will not be sorry to see the wealth spread a little more evenly in future.

Image Courtesy of ***Sport Hot *** on Flickr.com

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