Giles Smith: Lighting
up
While Chelsea supporter and
columnist Giles Smith is
determined to remain
understated over recent
events, he has noticed others
are not the same
A great performance and a
life-enhancing result at Anfield.
And what a reaction. That
Saturday night, people round
my way were letting off
fireworks long into the night,
and from what I can gather it
was the same in many other
parts of the country.
In some places, apparently,
they even built huge bonfires,
like beacons, and set fire to
them. And, on the Thames, in
the early part of the evening,
newspapers and television
reported that a glorious
display of fireworks was
launched from a barge
moored mid-stream just east
of Waterloo Bridge while a
delighted crowd looked on
from the pavement.
Extraordinary scenes, and it
showed you how much that
result meant to everyone a
testament to the way that
football can really bring people
together from time to time,
and certainly when Chelsea
win away at Liverpool.
Actually, now I come to think
of it, people were still letting
off fireworks more than 24
hours later, on the Sunday
evening largely, I guess,
because, by then, a defeat for
Arsenal at Swansea had been
added into the celebratory
mix, along with that pitifully
scraped draw for Manchester
City away at QPR. And also
because it seems people just
cant stop letting off fireworks
once they start.
Anyway, festive times. Those
combined results left us:
1. Four points clear at the
top of the table.
2. Eight points clear of
Manchester City.
3. Twelve points clear of
Arsenal, whose manager
went on to state that the
title was now officially
beyond his teams reach.
4. Thirteen points clear of
Manchester United, whose
manager has yet to express
an opinion about the title
but who surely wouldnt
want to quibble with an
analyst of the game as
shrewd and experienced as
Arsene Wenger.
5. Fifteen points and 10
places clear of Liverpool.
6. Fifteen points and 11
places clear of Tottenham.
7. Only 10 points and 37
places clear of Fulham but
dont forget that we have
six games in hand on them.
8. Unbeaten in 17 games in
all competitions since the
season started, which is a
new club best.
Really, you would have to say,
that outcome was worth a
Catherine wheel and a family
pack of sparklers in anyones
back garden. And thats before
you consider the remarkable
fact that we would be four
points even better off than we
are, had the Manchester
United game ended 10
seconds earlier than it did and
had Frank Lampard not scored
that own goal in the dying
moments at the Etihad.
Not wishing to be greedy, or
anything.
Its been a truly outstanding
opening phase, though,
leaving us all with a sense of
quiet, understated and
becomingly modest
confidence to take into the
latest of this seasons
seemingly fortnightly
international breaks, and with
some warm and fond
memories to look back on as
England take on the Faroe
Isles or Iceland or Caragua or
whoever it is theyre playing
this time.
Lets not get carried away,
though. Despite the fact that
were under a third of the way
through the season, were
already hearing people talk
about whether a complete
campaign without defeat in
the league might be possible
for this Chelsea side, emulating
the achievement of Arsenals
'Invincibles' of 2003/04.
And obviously its nice when
your team inspires that kind of
conversation, because there
are far worse kinds of
conversation that a team can
inspire. But, even so, dont you
kind of wish, deep down, that
people wouldnt?
After all, its no longer
2003/04. The league in which
Arsenal racked up 90 points,
drew 12 times and suffered
no defeats, included Charlton
Athletic, Wolves, Bolton,
Portsmouth, Fulham, Leicester,
who were on their way down,
and even Leeds, who were
also on their way down.
(Arsenals aggregate score
against Leeds that season:
9-1.) Hard to spot the
equivalent of todays Swansea
or Southampton or Stoke in
there tough, so-called over-
achievers, perfectly capable of
ripping three points out of the
hands of anybody who grows
complacent. It was also a
league in which Manchester
City, Tottenham and Everton all
contrived to finish well inside
the bottom half. (Everton
werent far off being
relegated.)
The point is, in the intervening
decade, the league got harder
more random, more variable
and better, you could argue. It
got so much harder and more
random that its currently a
place where, after 11 games,
Arsenal are sixth, Manchester
United are seventh and
Liverpool are 11th. No
disrespect to Arsenal, of
course, but one hardly expects
to see invincibility in such
circumstances not this
season, of all seasons.
Or perhaps one should put it
another way: if it happens, it
will be a far greater
achievement than anything
the Premier League has
known.
One should also remember
that you dont have to win or
draw all of your games in
order to win the title. Though,
of course, it helps.
Brendan Rodgers got a lot of
stick at the end of what
turned out to be a triple-
defeat week for Liverpool, but
much of that stick was
enormously unfair and even
gleefully opportunistic in my
opinion.
Management is about getting
the best out of what youre
got, after all. Rodgers was
noisily criticised for standing
down seven first-teamers for a
Champions League match
against Real Madrid, in order
to keep them pristine for a
league match against Chelsea.
Yet the plan worked pretty
much perfectly. His team
selection for the Bernabeu
effectively removed the
competitive sting from the
game and turned it into a
televised training match. As a
consequence, Liverpool came
away with a narrow defeat,
and nothing like the
humiliation expected at the
hands of a side that had
already comfortably beaten
them 3-0 at Anfield.
Moreover the first team was
then fresh and motivated
enough to restrict us to just
the two goals and, again, a
predicted humiliation with
genuinely lasting
consequences for Liverpool's
morale was averted. (Theyll be
over this one by Christmas, no
question about it. Or soon
after.)
Excellent maximising of
resources, then, by Rodgers.
Last years Make Us Dream
slogan up at Anfield seems to
have modified, metaphorically
speaking, to this years Spare
Us Our Worst Nightmares, and
Rodgers more than met the
fans requirements in that
area, so they should give him
credit for that. We all should.