Footballiversity Issue #2 – Footballiverse 29

Start of the season – December

Footballiverse 29 is a ‘verse not too dissimilar from your favourite football championship managerial simulation games. The Premier League for the 2014/15 season is exactly the same, apart from Liverpool, who are inexplicably replaced by York City. Hey, don’t look at me.

Before the season starts, Mauricio Pochettino is replaced by a ‘Pierce Moran’, who releases all of their players and buys Fernando Torres for £90m before going on holiday, laughing to himself, for 9 months after the first match of the season. Across North London, Arsene Wenger announces his retirement and Roberto Martinez is appointed – Arsenal are unbeaten in their first 18 games, where our issue ends.

Louis van Gaal’s attempts to buy Angel Di Maria are blocked by the board, who do not wish to increase his transfer funds (or funds for wages) which also means that they are unable to buy Falcao [players of Falcao’s level never move on loan in this Footballiverse – Ed.]. Southampton’s signings all turn out to be flops, and Ronald Koeman is sacked in late September to be replaced by Andre Villas Boas. Under AVB, the Saints creep out of the relegation zone and into mid-table, helped by random shut-down and re-boots of the Footballiverse which just so happen to happen whenever they find themselves losing in the 89th minute of a match.

Ulloa scores 18 goals in the first 10 league games, propelling Leicester City into a solid 8^th and a transfer is agreed in early December for him to move to Manchester City. However, right at the end of the issue he suffers a serious injury, and the transfer is cancelled. Elsewhere in the promoted clubs club, Burnley are rock bottom with 10 points (joined in the relegation zone by Sunderland and Swansea), and QPR are yo-yoing between 9^th and 14^th.

In the title race, Chelsea are beset by injuries, thinning their squad and leading to Mourinho’s transfer policy being questioned. In a now infamous interview, he refuses to comment to every question asked of him before storming out of the press conference. Manchester United are in first place at the turn of the year, with the help of Danny Welbeck, but the press are beginning to ask questions about Wayne Rooney, who has been ignored from selection and whose morale is said to be ‘Abysmal’. However, they did lose in the Manchester Derby thanks to a last minute breakaway goal scored by James Milner, who collected the ball from an errant throw-in by Rafael.

York City hover above the relegation zone and end the issue in 16^th, but will they manage to hold onto the players who have kept them there in the January transfer window? Only time will tell.

(Bonus mini-story at the end of the issue)

Liverpool wake up one July morning to find themselves in League 2. Several of their players leave, but some of the good ones stay, along with Glen Johnson and Steven Gerrard. Despite Brendan Rodgers’ best efforts and tactical nous, they are humiliated by Wycombe, Northampton, and Accrington ‘Who are they?’ Stanley in their first three games. They end December in 15th, hoping that they’ll be able to nab Matt Tubbs from Portsmouth come January.

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“‘Issue’ #3: January”, coming 25/2/15; “‘Issue 4 etc': Appropriate Month”, on the first Wednesday after the end of the said appropriate month

IWAN (@IwanLehnert) :

I blame my headphones breaking this morning for the fact I had a full forty minute walk to work to mull over pretty much every aspect of Saturday’s match for what felt like the third time. Fair play, I’ve checked and the world didn’t end. What probably made it all feel worse was that, barring the large lapse in concentration that led to Dempsey’s winner, United’s second half performance was a glimpse of what we know our club is capable of when they put the effort in. In the spirit of looking forward, let’s keep it brief;

Dissecting Spurs Saturday

*Starting Carrick, Scholes and Giggs with the likes of Lennon and Bale starting back was suicidal.

* 4-5-1 or 4-3-3, whatever formation you like that involves a single striker, it does not properly work for us. I’ve hated it for years and time hasn’t sweetened it. We have four strikers and few decent central midfielders, so why bother playing to our weakness?

*Rooney and Van Persie probably aren’t going to hit it off like Cole and Yorke did in September 1998, as evidenced by the fact that they kept trying to play the “No, I Want To Score!” game instead of being a bit more patient and generous with each other. It’ll come, though.

*Nani needs a fire under his backside more often. His crossing was still wayward, and he still makes those crazy shots that go into row ZZZ when he needs to keep calm and look for options, but he’s not half as appalling as people have been suggesting.

*That’s 5 out of 6 league games we’ve fallen behind in this season. If we keep fobbing the lead off each week then it’s going to come back and bite us in the backside.

Brett:

So, it wasn’t something I ate.

You don’t have to attend every after match reaction post you’re invited to, so I’m keeping this brief – This result was coming (and besides I pretty much talked about most of what happened in the pre-match bit, but in a different tense. Kind of.)

We’re not in terrible shape, we’ve had a few injuries to deal with which has meant Fergie has been extra “testing” with his team selections. Slow starters – remember? We’re slow starters. (Is it still the start? Just.)

Good stuff: Kagawa’s goal was a beauty.  Rooney looked sharp.

Good/Bad Stuff: Scholesy is still about our best player.

Misc Stuff: Nani is Nani is Nani is Nani (Have I said that before? If not – why not?).

MOTM: AVB

“Things shake most just before a breakthrough”

We’re inviting some of our Twitter friends to share some of their ‘Pre and Post Match’ thoughts with us from now on. You can still enjoy my nonsensical, confusing punctuation buffets below their proper good ones…

Iwan (@IwanLehnert):

Hate’s a strong word. I don’t really hate Oasis, I just really dislike them. I never really hated cauliflower in my youth, just couldn’t stomach its healthiness. But if you were looking for a word to describe the feeling amongst Tottenham Hotspur fans when a visit to Old Trafford rolls around, then you could do a lot worse. I know they hate it because they’ve told me so after Nani scored his first, stunning goal for the club and Wes Brown got away with apparently handling (the ball) in the area, and that was five years ago. Since then, we’ve had that penalty and that freekickthatwasntagoalkickoops, so you can safely assume that time hasn’t sweetened this thinking. Both teams are starting to put some decent results together of late after opening defeats, with both United and Spurs enjoying wins in the Capital One Cup in midweek, but if that’s a barometer of form, then we’re all screwed (I’m not mentioning Liverpool, but I’m certainly thinking about them).

United

I don’t suddenly expect every single one of the youngsters who got a run out on Wednesday to suddenly start biting at the heels of their first-team counterpart, but if the victory over Newcastle United does one thing, it showed just how much energy and effort we’ve been missing from some first team displays this season. Will that kick a few players in the backside and get them in gear? Certainly worth a shot after an extended burst of the boss’ half-time hair dryer at Anfield appeared to do exactly naff all. What Wednesday did show was that United do have a fairly decent depth to the squad, and that’s heartening in a season where you can’t really say that any player is truly undroppable.

Playing with Wayne Rooney, Javier Hernandez and Danny Welbeck up front gave United more options going forward than normal against Newcastle, and whilst all three performed well, it was most rewarding to see Cleverley and Anderson score a couple of peaches for a much-maligned midfield. Robin Van Persie will surely come back into the side for this game with maybe Welbeck for company, and rightly so. The great thing about having the Dutchman around is that Rooney doesn’t have to be rushed back into the side after injury for fear of lacking an attacking threat, and that’s a big bonus.

The Nani issue raised its head again after the Liverpool match, and whilst he did have a particularly useless 45 minutes at Anfield, did anyone in a white shirt fare that much better than him bar Ferdinand and Evans? The Newcastle victory showed that we don’t necessarily have to use him to be effective going forward, so maybe the Fear of God strategy will sort his inconsistency out. We can but dream, I guess. Also, it is just me that finds it odd that our best corners this season have come from Van Persie….?

Spurs

For Spurs, after grinding out a 2-1 victory over QPR, their season might just be starting to take shape. Slowly, mind you; every single analyst worth their salt was quick to mention how the pressure was mounting on Andre Villas-Boas after a loss and two draws made Spurs’ start to the season less than stellar. Whilst ol’ Andre was chucked out quite quickly by Roman ‘The Roman’ Ambramovich after Chelsea’s season had almost fallen apart, he will get more time from Daniel Levy at White Hart Lane because they aren’t challenging on quite the same level and the expectation, whilst high, is not quite so intense. AVB fits into Levy’s long term plan for the club and should be expected to succeed, given time and support. Hell, if he gets Jermain Defoe scoring on a regular basis, then the man’s practically a genius…

Part of that long-term strategy will inevitably revolve around Champions League football. Problem is that realistically, only two of London’s big three teams are going to fit into the league’s top four along with City and United (presumptuous, I know), and Spurs want to be one of those three.  These then become the sort of games they need to not only perform in, but to get something from. Spurs haven’t left Old Trafford with so much as a draw since 2005, and as I’m pretty sure both Levy and AVB harbour serious aspirations of that much-coveted and financially rewarding top four finish, they’ll need to turn that record and others similar to it around at some point.

Most Reds would probably agree that we have been a touch lucky in this fixture now and then, with Howard Webb’s penalty award on Heurelho Gomes in 2009 a key part of that fantastic 5-2 fightback or Nani taking advantage to score after a free-kick mix-up two years ago. Then again, United dominated Spurs at home last season with a comfortable 3-0 victory before Ashley Young offered up two excellent strikes in the return fixture down south. Spurs are overdue a decent performance against United, all mishaps aside, and whilst I’m sure AVB’s job won’t be under immediate pressure if they come up short on Saturday afternoon, the Portuguese and his side would love nothing more than making a statement of intent at Old Trafford. There’s plenty of craft in their midfield that isn’t Welsh and is still decent for Spurs, but without suitable back-up for Defoe, there might be too much of an instant reliance on Clint Dempsey to make something special happen, and whilst the England striker has made a decent start to this season, you’d expect Ferdinand and Evans to win that particular battle.

Prediction: 3-1 United with at least seven contentious free kicks awarded, an annoyingly acrobatic Brad Friedel performance and another goal from midfield.

Brett:

Wow. After that I’ve got the chokes!! Oh no, you’re in luck…

Whenever these two team meet at Old Trafford, or White Heart Lane, I always feels like something good is gonna happen (cue montage with appropriate song), probably as I feel like it’s the coming together of two proper teams who like to win a game in the right way … by outscoring their opponents.

Despite always predicting a win, I’ve had an annoying feeling all week that Spurs are going to nick something that I can’t seem to shake off. It’s something to do with AVB; I can envisage our ‘scalp’ being the kick start his Spurs career is aching for. Anyway, probably just something I ate, hey?!

Rooney’s back in contention, but surely will only make the bench (Not a bad sub to bring on – unless he plays badly when he comes on, I suppose), which might see Kagawa and Van Persie kind of up front together – which will please me.

Nani’s rumoured misdemeanours might just be the catalyst his season needs – something to shock him into this realm of human existence. Probably means exactly the opposite. I never once pretended to know what I was talking about. With TV maybe out with an ankle injury and Young out too (I think), we could sure use him AND he likes playing Spurs.

Defensively we just have to cross our fingers that they can come through unscathed. I have faith in all our defenders to do a good job (Not you Buttner – not yet). No defence can stop Bale et al when they’re on it. Hopefully they’re not.

This game will be won in midfield (I heard someone say it once and thought it might trick you into thinking I’m blog savvy). Aren’t they all?!

Prediction: 3-2 thriller.

Goals: RVP, Ka-Ka-Ka-Kagawa and Rooney (with late winner from bench)