Football Dissected

Inter were held to a 1-1 draw against Udinese on the opening weekend of Serie A. No doubt it isn't the best of starts in defence of their title, especially after their recording-breaking points total in the 06-07 season and after both Juventus and AC Milan both won their opening fixtures. So what went wrong?

With Patrick Vieira and others injured and both Adriano and Esteban Cambiasso left out of the squad as they appear to be on their way out of the club, Inter were left really with a makeshift team. Ex-Roma midfielder Olivier Dacourt held the holding midfield role for most of the game while his teammates Dejan Stanković and the aging Luis Figo pressed forward in support of Zlatan Ibrahimović and Julio Cruz. Inter took the lead through Stanković after just eight minutes after he got onto the end of a clever defence-splitting pass from Ibrahimović.

After the goal came, Inter created several more chances to increase the lead, the best effort for a second goal coming from Julio Cruz who went for power instead of placement. As the first half went on, Udinese increasingly got back into the game with their 4-3-3 formation. The attacking trio of Antonio Floro Flores, Fabio Quagliarella and Asamoah Gyan continually created difficulties for Inter's back four, especially Walter Samuel who was beaten by pace midway through the half by Gyan who's power-driven cross was nearly deflected into the back of Inter's net. Time and again Inter left only a few back, a clear sign of the shift away from defensive football in Serie A in recent years (in the 06-07 season more goals were scored in Serie A than in any of the other major European leagues)

In the beginning of the second half, Inter eased off, allowing Udinese to come on the offensive. And on the 57th minute things turned to the worse. Again Inter left just two defenders back and a Udinese long ball proved too much. Gyan attempted to get onto the long ball with centre back Walter Samuel with him. But goalkeeper Júlio César had other ideas. He rushed off his line to try and clear the ball, but he misjudged the bounce, the ball flying over him. Aware of the fact that Gyan would be able to beat Samuel with his blistering pace, César did the next best thing - he deliberately handled the ball outside the box. A straight red soon followed and so did veteran goalkeeper Francesco Toldo.

For the reminder of the second half Inter contentedly slowed the pace of the game seeing as they were down to ten men and it was an incredibly hot day. A brief burst of creativity from Ibrahimović here and there was really the only thing going for Inter as they passed the ball round lethargically. But Udinese had other ideas. When they had the ball they continually they tried to create chances, most coming from poor crosses into the box.

David Suazo and Cristian Chivu both made appearances in the second half with Suazo being the more active of the two as he partnered Ibrahimović up front.

At the end of the ninety the fourth official held up the electronic board to signal five minutes was being added on. Three minutes later a corner kick was headed into the back of Inter's net by Iván Córdoba and Udinese came away at the end of the game feeling happy with a point against the defending champions, particularly with how hard they worked. Inter on the other hand will feel hard done by, conceding the equaliser with just minutes to go, and Roberto Mancini probably won't be happy with his side's performance and the draw in light of the fact that AC Milan beat Genoa 3-0 and Juventus hammered Livorno 5-1 with David Trezeguet scoring a hat trick on the Old Lady's return to Serie A.

New signing Mido made his debut for Middlesbrough, but that didn’t really mean much in the beginning when Fulham took the lead. Middlesbrough were ripped apart at the back for the goal and, even though Brian McBride injured himself while scoring, he did score. Middlesbrough didn’t really look threatening going forward in the first half with Mido the only one coming close with his fine effort on goal. Then in a seemingly freak accident Hameur Bouazza injured his shoulder and he was replaced by Clint Dempsey who soon laid off Healy only for the shot from the Northern Ireland striker to be well saved. But Fulham had lost two of their starters in just one half.

But then the second half roared on. The Fulham home crowd were expectant – they were in the lead after all. The crowd wanted another goal from their team – except Mido had other ideas. With a powerful left-footed drive, Mido smashed the ball towards goal and keeper Warner, who made a howler in the rain-bombarded midweek game against Bolton, made another howler, although he would be hard pressed to blame the weather this time. The ball hit his arms and bounced off into the bottom left-hand corner of the net. A lucky goal for Mido on his debut you could argue.

And Middlesbrough could have made it 2. The Fulham back four kept a very high and they almost paid the price for it as ex-Arsenal man Jérémie Aliadière broke forward onto a through ball. One on one with the keeper, there seemed to be no way Aliadière couldn’t score. But there was. Aliadière went past the on rushing Warner only to find that Zat Knight had caught up with him. Knight fought hard for the ball and in the process the referee deemed the Middlesbrough striker to have fouled the 6-foot defender before putting the ball into the back of the net. Yet what Middlesbrough could not do, Fulham could not do better.

Brilliant passing and movement from Fulham resulted in the ball arriving to the feet of Clint Dempsey. Almost a tap-in and Dempsey from less than six yards out does the impossible. He misses it. And Fulham looked to pay the price for that miss when Middlesbrough got their second and the winner. With defenders all around him Aliadière used his quick feet to break free from midfield to the right wing with the ball. Turning back, one quick look up. Lee Cattlemole was breaking into the box and Aliadière played the simplest of balls to the English midfielder while Carlos Bocanegra got his feet in a tangle thinking he was going to play Cattlemore onside. The young promising England midfielder made sure it was number two for Middlesbrough with a beautiful finish.

Then deep into injury time Fulham gave one last shot at trying to get an equaliser. Unlike Dempsey earlier, David Healy’s close-range effort was on target and Mark Schwarzer got his body behind the shot, only after it crossed the line. Schwarzer then threw the ball away. The goal, disallowed by the officials, just adds to the call for goal-line technology which is already used in similar degrees in tennis, cricket and rugby. Middlesbrough you could say got out of jail and it was more bad luck for Fulham than anything else with losing McBride and Bouazza in the first half and not getting the goal that replays clearly showed crossed the line, which would have given them a hard-earned point.

It seems as if Roy Keane has a bit of work to do with regards to his team’s defence. Five penalty claims arose from the game, all of which came from the cries of Wigan players, but only two were given. The first three, the ones not given, were a mix. The first from Heskey who claimed he was tugged was a pretty good claim, but it wasn’t given. The second from Koumas was yet another good claim for a penalty, the Sunderland defender coming in from behind to take away the player’s legs. But that wasn’t given either. And the third penalty that wasn’t given was again from Heskey, although it was a doubtful one especially since it was unlikely he was going to get to the ball before the keeper did.
Wigan took the lead when Heskey knocked home Luis Antonio Valencia's right-wing cross from six yards on the 20th minute.

Penalty claims aside, Wigan should have gone two nil up with the goal from Heskey that was disallowed for offside, although replays suggests the ball took a slight deflection before arriving to Heskey. Heskey was again proving a challenge for the Sunderland defence when his header was saved at point blank from Craig Gordon. Sunderland also came close to opening the scoring in the first half. Michael Chopra free-kick was excellently saved by Chris Kirkland and Kirkland was to the rescue for Wigan for a second time when he saved a powerful drive from Michael Chopra after he was played in with a brilliant pass from Sunderland's £5 million summer signing Kerion Richardson.

But Wigan’s luck changed in the second half. Down to ten men temporarily due to the injury to centre back Paul McShane, Sunderland practically handed Wigan a penalty when Sibierski was handled inside the box. Up stepped Landzaat to put Wigan 2-0 up. And then came another display of rash, reckless defending to give away a penalty when Heskey was fouled. Up stepped Sibierski to fire Wigan into a 3 goal lead.

Sunderland defending was like something out of the Conference. It was careless. And even though it was 50/50 in terms of possession, Wigan, especially Sibierski and Heskey, proved to be too difficult for Sunderland’s back four.

For a full 90 minutes it seemed as if Derby County had no idea what the term defending meant. Time and again they allowed Spurs players too much time on the ball, too much time to look up to see the options, and when players like Tom Huddlestone and Robbie Keane are given that much freedom, then sooner or later they’re going to put the ball into the back of the net. The first goal was probably the worst goal to concede not only because it was within the first 2 minutes of the game and thereby setting the tone of the rest of match, but also because of the poor marking. Steed Malbranque stood just outside the box without a single defender near him and surprise, surprise, Jermaine Jenas squared the ball to him and Malbranque rifled it into the bottom corner of the net. The other two goals came in quick succession, a second for Malbranque just four minutes after his first and a delight from Jenas in the 14th minute. Bent added a header in the 80th to secure Tottenham's first win of the season.

A 4-0 thrashing appeared to be just what Derby deserved for their poor performance, although it should really have been 5 if the linesman had not given Wayne Routledge offside when he flicked the ball into the net. 3 goals inside the first 15 minutes not only won the game for Tottenham, but it also sent the spirits of a poor Derby side over the line to the disheartened side. One could argue Derby were only poor because they conceded so early, but still with knowing you still got over eighty-five minutes to go Derby should have remembered the basics of football. And perhaps they should have had a leader on the pitch - not a captain but a leader who would have pulled them together after the first goal and got them organised.

Looks like Sven is really rebuilding Man City. I've seen Elano Blumer play in the Brazilian national team for the past two years and he's a very gifted player. He's more of a play-maker than anything else, a bit like Cesc Fàbregas and the young promising Barcelona play-maker Giovanni dos Santos.

There's obviously going to be a period of adjustment, particularly since he's coming from FC Shakhtar Donetsk in the Ukraine where the quality of football is no where near the level of the Premiership, but I think he's a good buy. He can pass the ball, he's good with both feet, he can score goals and he can set up goals, which was no more evident than in the recent Copa America final win against Argentina where he made a pinpoint cross to midfielder Júlio Baptista who then, of course, hammered the ball into the top corner of the net.