Early Season Excitement Makes Way for the Humdrum

About a quarter of the season has passed and it is only now that we can really draw any conclusions as to how the season in the premiership is shaping up. Now as autumn draws in, all those that wrote off Arsenal's chances pre-season are suddenly backtracking wildly as they sit atop of the premiership, unbeaten and having only dropped two points. Manchester United are within spitting distance of Arsenal, despite having been written off just three games into the new season. Liverpool, heavily criticised for much of the opening phase of the campaign, lie in fourth and still remain unbeaten - no pleasing some people we say! Only Chelsea from the so called Big Four have slipped out of the pole positions in the premiership. It would appear though that Chelsea have now returned to winning ways following the shock departure of manager Jose Mourinho. Time will tell whether the reported internal unrest has a terminal effect on Chelsea's chase for honours this season. However, they remain the wild card, as it would be foolish to predict the outcome of the management changes that have happened at Stamford Bridge.

Elsewhere, a "resurgent" Manchester City lying in third and a disappointing Tottenham languishing in 18th position, are the only real surprises this season. Though RTG finds it hard to understand how a "resurgence" can occur after 36 years! So despite the media hype and over reactions in pre-season and after the opening games, RTG believes it is plus ca change in the premiership. Even the usual suspects for relegation seem predictable enough, although Bolton might argue that they occupy a position that they haven't experienced for years. However, as is often the case when an enigmatic manager leaves a club punching above its weight, the whole character and spirit of the club seem to leave with them. In Bolton's case, the new manager Sammy Lee was the early favourite for the managerial sack race. For once it would appear, the pundits got it right.

This premiership predictability is finally taking its toll on attendances. This weekend, there were vast areas of empty seats at all but three premiership grounds. At Villa, for the visit of United; Everton for the Merseyside derby and at Arsenal - although there were empty seats there too, and indeed Arsenal appear to include 'no shows' in their attendance figures. Listening to the various powers that be, you could be excused for thinking that everything was fine and dandy within the premiership. Attendances have been 'steady' and even shown slight rises in some of the last few years. What the figures don't show is that most of these increases are attributable to the increased capacities at Old Trafford and Arsenal's new home, the Emirates. In addition, the promoted trio of Sunderland, Birmingham and Derby have attendances which exceed the trio that made way for them: Charlton, Watford and Sheffield United.

Of course, it is not only the predictability of the premiership that has an impact on attendances. TV saturation, the rising cost of tickets and travelling costs, varying kick off times and, as shown in the past, the failures at international level all have an impact. However, the most serious of these for the future of the game must be the decreasing level of competition and the humdrum predictability that it accompanies. The vast areas of empty seats seen this weekend are common this season and a dramatic turnaround from just a few years ago when it was virtually impossible for a neutral supporter to attend any premiership match - "all tickets sold" was the common mantra. You can take your pick nowadays - of anywhere but the Big Four of course.

Reclaim the Game - The Weekend's Events

• It wasn't a good week to be an English sports fan, with failures in Football, Rugby and Formula1 racing. The Rugby was agonisingly close and gives rise to one of RTG's pet bugbears. Namely the use of video for refereeing decisions. Yet again the technology was found lacking and RTG still can't see for sure how the Mark Cueto "try" decision was made. And didn't it take ages for the decision to be made?
• Following Rob Styles' refereeing gaffes at Anfield earlier in the season, Rafa Benitez and Steven Gerrard launched into vitriolic attacks on the poor man. No surprise though that the pair are muted, when they have been the beneficiaries of even worse decisions this weekend in their fortuitous win over rivals Everton. Just goes to show that the old adage of decisions evening themselves out during the course of the season holds pretty true, though Fulham fans are still awaiting theirs.

Hats Off, Take a Bow (or not)

Player of the Week - Wayne Rooney. Back in the groove with England and Manchester United. We were getting a bit worried there!

Villain of the Week - Steven Gerrard. No not because of his performance in Russia, he was not alone in performing poorly, but because he appeared to get the ref to send off Everton's Terry Hibbert.

Shock of the Week: An Italian Serie A four - four draw. We know the days of catenaccio are long gone, but we are still not used to it.

Cliche of the Week: "we gave a good account of ourselves" from various pundits describing the immediate 60 odd minutes prior to Russia's equalising goal.

Champions League Raises the Standard

Supporters have differing views on the Champions League (CL). Some are not interested in watching Europe's 'elite' strut their stuff on a Tuesday and Wednesday night (and we don't mean just Chelsea fans). Like all football, if your own team is not involved, it always takes a bit of the sting out of the viewing experience. And let's not deny it, it has been fashioned deliberately to make sure the top European teams enjoy the lion's share of the spoils. So it is not surprising that many choose to disregard it with a slightly inverted snobbish attitude.

However, if you're like us (and we're not alone in this), the CL represents an opportunity to see football from a completely different perspective. European football is a different game which is why it sometimes takes teams a few seasons in the CL before they get fully abreast of its subtleties. It took most English teams a while to get used to the CL style of football and there are now encouraging signs that the Scottish teams are no longer there just to make up the numbers either. There is no doubt that the pace of the game and level of skill are very different to what supporters are used to seeing in British football. From our perspective, that makes a welcome change.

One thing is for sure. The standard has improved immeasurably since the days when each nation's champion (in our case usually Liverpool) used to slug it out in a two-leg knockout competition over the course of the season. With all due respect to the various winners at that time, if the draw was kind to you, you could find yourself playing Grasshoppers in the semi-final for the chance to meet Malmo in the final. Now, you tend to get the very best club players in Europe, competing against each other at the very highest level. And isn't that what its all about? Not money (although in the end, of course it is hard to ignore) but football of the best calibre put together for the supporters' appreciation. That's how we feel and one of the reasons why, for us at least, the CL is worth giving up an evening or two's viewing for each fortnight. Remember, the World Cup was once the best standard of football by a country mile. Yet, by the late '90s it was becoming clear that, by being able to draw on the best players in the world, the CL had surpassed it in footballing standards.

But hold on. Foreign players. Yes that old chestnut. They're ruining our game apparently. Which is why various proposals are being put forward to limit the number within each team that can compete in the CL. Of course, as England and Scotland fans alike, we want our national teams to do well. We want to produce great home-grown players. But putting artificial limits in this way surely just puts a premium price on average England players, just because they have to be there. The end result is not a better England team but a far poorer CL competition and a less attractive proposition to drag you away from Eastenders! (well OK even the UEFA Cup is more attractive than Eastenders but you get the point). We've been shown the best and we can't now go back for a half-arsed idea about protecting national teams.

It's a tough dilemma for supporters because let's face it, we all want to see our teams jam-packed full of highly skillful English players. Surely we achieve that by setting the standard high and doing everything we can to make sure English players are coached and developed to that standard. This of course, means we have to put up with watching foreign players for a while if we want to see good football. The good home-grown players will naturally then find their way into the best teams. Chelsea and Manchester United have proved that. But, giving some average Joe a place in a CL team that he doesn't have to work to keep, simply because he's the right nationality, is not the way to raise standards and give supporters the highest level of football is it? This whole foreign v home-grown players debate needs a lot more consideration before bringing in arbitrary rules for dubious benefits.

Reclaim the Game - The Week's Events

• Of course there has been widespread condemnation of the Celtic fan who, after a little too much of the old falling down juice, came on and 'made contact' with Dida, the AC Milan keeper. Celtic will, no doubt, be subject to whatever punishment is deemed fair and necessary as a result of this. Dida himself may also be up before the Beak for his part in the amateur dramatics. After squaring up and looking like he was going to lamp the guy, he instead went down like a ton of bricks clutching his face. Now, since it was a fan and not an opposing player, he should be warned that this behaviour (apart from making him look like a prat) is not acceptable. However, maybe there is an ulterior motive. Should Milan find themselves struggling to qualify, RTG wonders if this incident might be an excuse to have Celtic thrown out of the competition. Watch this space!
• A lot has been said in this blog concerning English players and their relative shortcomings and overrated status. It was great from an England perspective to see John Terry fit to play against Valencia and Wayne Rooney back and scoring against Roma. Great. But the highly-critical media are the ones who put these players up on a pedestal to the detriment of England (and possibly their clubs as well). John Terry is a good player no doubt. But these people should always be looked on as having to prove themselves constantly. Instead we get a media who, through their lack of intelligence and "me too" attitude elevate these people above their station. You only have to consider how the inclusion of a clearly unfit David Beckham was integral to England's failure in the 2002 world cup. Still, he sold a lot of England shirts in Japan, so I'm sure the FA would have considered it all worthwhile. So when the likes of Tony Cascarino speaking on the radio bang on about John Terry being "absolutely essential" to Chelsea and England's success, he is just following the crowd in making over sensationalist statements. Sorry chaps but if he is that essential, Chelsea and England are doing something seriously wrong. Don't forget, England have not been especially brilliant over the last few years with or without these media favourites.
• Now it isn't always de rigeur for your average English football supporter to speak out in praise of the Scots (or vice versa). But, as already mentioned earlier, Rangers and Celtic deserve all the accolades for their results this week.
• As if we haven't said enough already about over-exposure of the game, bring on Channel Four's FanBanta. Without going into details about content, is there really any need for this show? Yet more hype and lazy programming that the game doesn't deserve or need. But, if you want to know what we think of it so far, it can best be described in two words - shite. And shite.