This weekend, we’re looking at two managers under serious pressure, lamenting the probable departure of the giant-killers and tipping Everton as dark horses for silverware.
Can AVB stand the heat?
Andre Villas-Boas may or not be aware of this, but it is around this time three years ago (a week later, in fact) that Luiz Felipe Scolari was given the boot as manager of Chelsea after just over half a season in charge. There are a few parallels between Scolari’s situation and the mess Villas-Boas currently finds himself in.
Scolari, like Villas-Boas, was highly sought after, attempted to implement a new system and he also fell out with a group of players that are still seemingly wielding massive influence on the club despite not being nearly as influential on the pitch.
Villas-Boas comments this week were of a man that is feeling the pressure and if he thinks that just because Roman Abramovich splashed out £15 million to secure his services he won’t get rid, well then he doesn’t really know Roman Abramovich.
What should be a facile home win over Birmingham should ease the pressure slightly, but if they somehow fall to a shock defeat, it could be the tip of the iceberg for the Portuguese.
Are Everton dark horses?
Sticking with Chelsea, their defeat to Everton in the Premier League last weekend was a fair reflection of where the two clubs are at the moment – Chelsea out of sorts and at odds with themselves and their manager and Everton in the middle of mounting what has become a customary second half of season revival.
Why the Toffees get out of the blocks as slow as a snail going up Croagh Patrick is a matter for another day, but as their recent victories over Man City and Chelsea showed, no team will want to face them at the moment.
David Moyes picked up a few shrewd additions in the January transfer window and although goals are still a problem, they look incredibly tough to beat. Whether they are good enough to go all the way to Wembley remains to be seen, but they’ll feel they have a good a chance as anyone. Dark horses? At 12/1 they’re a decent shout.
Will the anti-Wenger brigade grow even louder?
Plenty of Gooners will no doubt beg to differ, but judging by message boards, comments sections on various websites and the often intolerable Piers Morgan on Twitter, there are an awful lot of very fickle Arsenal fans out there.
At the start of the season, the calls for Arsene Wenger’s head were louder than ever. A bit of panic buying in the summer transfer window and an excellent run in the league and it was ‘In Arsene we trust’ once again. Now that they’ve suffered possibly their most humiliating-ever European defeat, the consensus in some quarters is that the Frenchman has lost the plot and the only logical conclusion is to get rid of him.
In Arsene Arsenal fans trust. But for how much longer?
A bit harsh on a man who’s done so much for the club for the last decade or so, but that’s modern football these days, something that seems especially prevalent in a week where a man with a record of three losses in 55 games was given the sack.
With the FA Cup the only realistic hope of silverware this season, the voice of the ever-expanding anti-Wenger brigade will reach deafening levels if they go out to Sunderland this weekend.
Farewell to the giant-killers
This season served as a reminder that the magic of the FA Cup is very much alive and well, but unfortunately for the romantics among us, it’s around now that the big guns tend to sharpen their focus with silverware in sight.
Crawley Town and Stevenage are flying the flags for the lower leagues this weekend and although they have home ties against Stoke and Spurs respectively, the smart money is on both Premier League sides to progress. The biggest hope of a shock is at the New Den, where Championship side Milwall take on Bolton and even that wouldn’t be too much of an upset, which says a lot about where the Trotters are at these days.
A chance for Liverpool to put the bitterness behind them
Whatever your views on the circus that surrounded an actual football match at Old Trafford last weekend, the multiple apologies issued by Liverpool on Sunday were a clear indication that they are keen to rid themselves of the dent their reputation has taken in the last few months.
An FA Cup tie against Brighton doesn’t exactly raise the pulses, but with Suarez’s ban completed and what were always likely to be two incendiary affairs against United out of the way, they can now concentrate on football and nothing else for a change.
With the Carling Cup Final coming up next weekend, it’s actually a pretty exciting week for the club, but the prospect of being knocked out of two competitions by two championship sides in seven days must be a worrying, if very unlikely prospect for their supporters.
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