Peter Crouch, Spurs’ less-than-secret weapon, self-destructed on board the good ship Spurs before Admiral Redknapp had a chance to launch it at Madrid’s formidable armada last night.
Crouch, Tottenham’s experienced striker with over 40 England caps and Champions League experience from his Liverpool days, allowed adrenaline and the enormity of the occasion to affect his judgement, made two rash, needless lunging tackles while Madrid were in possession in harmless areas of the pitch, and was sent off for two yellow cards after just 14 minutes.
Tottenham’s best footballer, Rafael van der Vaart, was deemed surplus to requirements at Madrid, which demonstrates the gulf in class between these two sets of players, one which Spurs aimed to bridge by launching balls towards their ship’s mast.
The tactic had served Tottenham well so far. Despite scoring just two goals in 27 Premier League appearances in the physical Premier League this season Crouch had hit seven in his nine Champions League appearances before last night. As in the San Siro in the last round Spurs immediately looked to pump diagonal balls into crouch from deep.
Perhaps Crouch knew that his height was one of the only, if not the only, way of scoring the hallowed away goal in the Bernabeu. Maybe he was too fired up. He was obviously not himself. As a television pundit remarked those were the only two tackles of that manner he had ever seen Crouch make.
It would have been interesting to see how much of a threat Crouch would have been against a centre-back and coach who know him well. The element not so much of surprise, but of inexperience was a factor in Crouch’s healthy European goal haul. Riccardo Carvalho limited the big man to just two goals in their thirteen meetings in English football, and Jose Mourinho knows how to deal with the direct approach from his Chelsea days.
The sending off was devastating for Spurs fans, of course, but also for neutrals such as myself, who had watched several rousing displays from a courageous Spurs side that threw themselves into unknown waters and had reaped the rewards. With ten men Tottenham’s uphill battle was nigh-on vertical. Their simple game-plan had been undone and with one man less and chasing possession for long periods, Spurs were simply too tired to provide any manner of comeback, as could be seen by the usually indefatigable Gareth Bale going down with cramp with some time left to play.
In truth the game, and indeed the tie, finished after 14 minutes. What a shame for all except relieved Madridistas, who were almost handed a bye in their first quarter-final appearance since 2004. “Tonto” they chanted as the lanky, disconsolate silhouette of Crouch left the field without so much as a glance of acknowledgment from his manager. Stupid indeed. How ironic that the hero of so many games before let his head, the weapon that his side relied on, get the better of him. Ultimately the hero became the villain in this Spanish tragedy.
Without sounding smug…OK, sounding smug, I wrote before the January transfer window of Chelsea’s need to bring in one or two players who would add youthful vitality to a somewhat tired and familiar starting eleven, but who already had the necessary experience that would allow their bedding in period to be as short as possible.
Yesterday the inspired new signing David Luiz scored his second crucial goal against teams above Chelsea in the table – the Manchesters United and City – and was joined by fellow Brazilian Ramires, whose deft turn, dribble and finish announced his delayed arrival at Chelsea.
The ‘forcing’ of Fernando Torres on Carlo Ancelotti by Roman Abramovich is reminiscent of the ill-fated signing of Andrei Shevchenko, but given the Spaniard’s Premier League record it is destined to have a happier ending, whether that happens later rather than sooner or not. Torres, Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka, at a combined cost to Abramovich of £89m, have scored just one goal between them in the six games since Torres’ arrival yet Chelsea have made progress despite this.
In my opinion the arrival of Luiz has been the, and not just one of the, reasons for this. Goals aside, this frizzy-haired bundle of energy has produced a tangible reaction in the determination and work-rate in his team-mates, helping to exorcise the ghost of Christmas lethargy that haunted the club around the tune of the year. I could even speculate that the arrival of a familiar face and fellow compatriot has been beneficial to the mentality of Ramires, whose increased confidence as he waltzed through Joleon Lescott, Aleksander Kolarov and Petr Cech to score Chelsea’s second yesterday afternoon was there for all to see.
Luiz has also produced a positive reaction among the Chelsea fans. He has the flaws we Europeans expect of Brazilian defenders, being relatively attack-minded, positionally suspect and rash in his challenges at times (just ask Alex Ferguson). He also goes about his game with complete conviction and a never-say-die attitude that lifts the fans; already a terrace hero for his goals, he has influenced the Stamford Bridge faithful perhaps more than they themselves realise.
With Luiz in central defence alongside John Terry, Chelsea’s defence is much more versatile and capable of handling an array of different styles of attacker. Although Alex is an excellent defender, he won his starting place by default with the departure of Ricardo Carvalho, and he and Terry are of a similar mould, too similar to be one of the world’s best partnership. Terry has the calm head and leadership to Luiz’s mobility and hyperactivity.
Both Terry and Luiz are dangerous from set-pieces, and have scored three goals between them since the Brazilian’s arrival (or three times more than the aforementioned trio of strikers). Rather than being led from the front by the £50m investment of Torres, Luiz has sneaked into Stamford Bridge through the back door to make the difference from the back.
Three crucial wins in the last three league games, and Chelsea have climbed up to third place with Arsenal and Manchester United still to face each other, with just six points to make it up to the summit should they win their game in hand on United. Suddenly things are looking up at Chelsea, and this is by no small part due to Luiz’s arrival. Luiz is the light, and he has finally guided his team-mates from their dark days.
While Serie A fans have been aware of the talents of Udinese’s Alexis Sanchez for some time now, it can’t be long before he becomes a household name a la Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. Another mesmeric strike from the Chilean at the weekend and two assists for striker partner Antonio Di Natale make his performance in the 4-0 drubbing of Cagliari just the latest in a string of outstanding performances for the Bianconeri, who are sitting in fourth place and have a good chance to qualify for the Champions League for the first time in six seasons.
Sanchez’s raw pace, silken skills and creativity are reminiscent of Ronaldo, as is his love affair with the step-over. Indeed his evolution as a player has taken a similar path to that of the Portuguese, in that he has become a much more effective, direct weapon since his manager shifted him into a central striking role. At the start of the season Sanchez was starting either on the right wing or even on the bench. Then, on Halloween of last year, he was played up front with Di Natale and scored in a 2-0 win – his first goal of the season on his tenth performance.
Although that was a promising start, Sanchez was moved back to the wing. The presence of fellow strikers Bernardo Corradi, German Denis and Antonio Floro Flores kept him out wide, where his pace and trickery made him a constant threat, and at the half-way point of the Serie A season he had completed more dribbles than any other player in the league. In the next few games head coach Francesco Guidolin rotated Sanchez and Floro Flores in the central role alongside the prolific Di Natale.
Ironically it was a 3-2 loss to Lazio on 19th December that changed the fortunes of Udinese’s season for the better. Sanchez started up front, scored, and started on a red hot streak of form that has seen him score 11 goals in his last 12 games. He impressed so much in the role that the club allowed Floro Flores to join Genoa on loan for the rest of the season with the option of an 8.5 million Euro transfer in the summer, making way for Sanchez and Di Natale to gel into a highly effective partnership. He has now scored 12 goals in 26 Serie A performances so far this season, more than twice as many as he managed from the wing last season and exactly the same number as he has scored in his 32 appearances for Chile.
It is almost certain that Sanchez will make the big-money transfer his talents demands in the summer. Udinese are a selling club, making progress by buying young, developing and selling talent on for an increased transfer fee which they then use to buy more youngsters. In past seasons players such as Italian internationals Fabio Quagliarella and Vincenzo Iaquinta have been bought and sold in this manner. Di Natale has broken that mould by committing himself to Udinese for the remainder of his career, but while Sanchez is no doubt grateful for the progress he has made in Udine as a player, there is no doubt he will be keen to make a move to one of the biggest clubs in the world.
Barcelona’s scouts were present to watch Sanchez score four as Udinese demolished Palermo 7-0 in Sicily last month, a result which ended the tenure of Delio Rossi as Palermo’s head coach and which earned Sanchez a place in my11’s weekly Golazo video (56 seconds in):
As a winger-turned-striker Barca’s 4-3-3 would suit Sanchez perfectly but as with any player who joins Barca, irrespective of their class or reputation, he is not guaranteed regular first team football. Just ask Javier Mascherano.
Sir Alex Ferguson is well aware of Sanchez’s ability, saying: "He's a young player with a very promising future. Sanchez has so much talent that if he continues his progression, he could reach the level of Cristiano Ronaldo." Sanchez need only to look at Ronaldo’s progression from a lanky show pony to a ripped goal machine and the highest-paid player in the world to see how Ferguson could help develop him as a player but then nobody, not even the man himself it seems, is sure how many more years he will remain at Old Trafford, and what will happen to the club after that point. Any offer United were to make would of course be limited by how much money the Glazer family make available.
If Sanchez is motivated by money, it is likely he will be tempted by Manchester City, who have the financial clout to outbid any other club. If City qualify for the Champions League for the first time in their history it is likely that they will be able to make signings of Sanchez’s quality, but then the player might want to stay in Italy, where his career has flourished so far.
Although he did not score in this particular match (but did provide an assist), Sanchez’s stunning performance against Inter Milan in a 3-1 win over the treble winners towards the end of the January transfer window led to widespread rumours that Inter were going to swoop for him in January, and also that Chelsea were lining up a £26m bid, but Guidolin said (to Italian TV station Rai Due): "I know Udinese is a serious club. The club have reiterated that Sanchez will remain at Udinese until the end of the season and I have no doubts on this matter.
"Of course, if a tempting offer would arrive it would be right for the club to evaluate it but I believe that Alexis can still grow from here on until the end of the season if he stayed with us.
"After that, he is destined, considering the quality he has shown for some time, to join a top club."
It is understandable for Udinese to want to wait until the summer so that they have more time to build up a bidding war, and to use the funds they receive to replace Sanchez with one or probably two new players. They will be sad to see him leave but, there is every chance his goals will have secured Champions League football and revenue for them next season, and they stand to make a profit of, at the very least, ten times the three million dollars they paid for him as a 17 year old.
Whether he will line-up next to Messi, Fernando Torres or Wayne Rooney next year, one club will have a player who already has many star qualities and looks set to improve as he continues to flourish in his new central role. If he continues at this rate his star is set to explode.
A glimpse of what Alexis Sanchez will bring to his future club:
Having had two experiences of cubes - men who are as wide as they are tall - in the past few days, I felt compelled to question the reason for their existence.
Firstly there was a contestant on the game show ‘Take Me Out’. Before you ask I went to school with one of the contestants and watched it in the hope he’s make a complete tit out of himself. He did of course, but was overshadowed by the contestant before him: a short personal trainer, with crazy hair and an opaque shirt revealing his bulging muscles beneath.
For those that haven’t seen the show, thirty women are lit up, and have to turn their light off if the single male contestant doesn’t turn them on. The man then chooses which of the remaining contestants to take on a date. This little chap was doing alright until they ran a VT of him oiled up, flexing and growling. All thirty lights turned off. In short, a decent looking man who spends hours every day perfecting his appearance could not persuade even one of thirty slappers to go on a free holiday with him for this very reason.
The second was a trip to the gym yesterday. I dread the rush hour gym even more than my commute home. It’s as busy as a train but infinitely more painful, and of course you have that nagging knowledge that you don’t really have to be there. As unbearable as the sea of sweaty, pumping flesh is the conversation. Usually I put my ipod on full blast and get it over with, but today was different.
My ipod was nicked on the weekend for one, but earphones of any strength would not have protected my ears against the guy I unfortunately encountered. “NINE, TEN, ELEVEN!…TWELVE!! RAHHH!! He threw his massive weights to the floor, looking around for admirers before flexing at his angry red reflection in the mirror. No more than 5ft 4 in height; veins bulging; testosterone leaking from his eyeballs, here was a prime example of the cube in his natural habitat.
With no headphones to save me, lying on my back, pinned to a bench with weights I could barely lift, I was easy prey. “Here we go,” I thought, at his little sweaty hands grabbed my arms. “EIGHT, NINE, TEN…ONE MORE!!...ELEVEN…ONE MORE!!!” Just fuck off. I was in enough physical and mental pain before you arrived to alert the whole gym to my struggle. What then followed was a lecture on arms, or core strength, or some other mindless crap that contributes to the endless flow of gym changing room bollocks heard on every visit.
I digress. The point is that no woman on earth would have wanted to be crushed in this human vice of self-consciousness and not so well hidden complexes. Having little man syndrome is understandable, but by gaining more and more muscle and becoming increasingly wider these testosterone-fuelled shorties merely make themselves appear even shorter. One of the golden rules of fashion is that horizontal stripes make the body appear shorter as they draw attention to width and not height. Thus small men, while they do not want to appear skinny of course, do not do themselves any favours by becoming too wide.
Personally, I go to the gym to avoid being labelled as lanky and to make myself more attractive to women, so I suppose I have similar motivation. But there is a limit between keeping fit and self-obsessed vanity; between cuboid and cube, and unfortunately the shorter you are, the lower that limit is. If anyone passes this limit, like the two men above, to a level at which most women no longer find them attractive, are they doing so for themselves, or to impress other men? Are they unaware of the limit in the first place? Either way it’s not doing them any favours. For their own sake these cubes need to look in the mirror, as I’m sure they often do, and tell themselves that enough is enough.
Another feast of goals; the best from around the world in the past week.
Featuring some household names and some you will have never heard of. Watch out for Ruud ter Heide putting Wayne Rooney's 'wonder goal' to shame, and a cracking top corner job from a 16-year-old!
Real visionaries don’t pay much attention to the crowds; Arsene knows. Yet Arsenal have been exposed once again by a problem that everyman from pundit to pub expert has known about for years – a lack of experience at central defence. Laurent Koscielny may well develop to be a better player than Roger Johnson or Martin Jiranek, he may even already be more technically adept than his opposite numbers yesterday, but experience breeds calmness under pressure and yesterday Koscielny’s lack of both of these qualities cost Arsenal their first taste of silver and champagne for six long years.
Anyone can make mistakes, but the top teams around Arsenal who have been winning trophies would have been greeted with a far more assured combination of defender and goalkeeper than Koscielny and Wojciech Szczesny. Manchester United, who have won seven major honours since losing the FA Cup final to Arsenal in 2005 and Chelsea, with five, both have far more experience in these areas, and these factors are closely linked.
Experience also teaches leadership and influence, both of which Arsenal were lacking in yesterday. Their captain Cesc Fabregas missed the match through injury, as did Thomas Vermaelen. In their absence Jack Wilshire exuded more in the way of leadership than his age might suggest, but he was almost alone in this aspect. Injuries happen, and there is a chance Fabregas might move to Barcelona. The more a team turn to players such as Fabregas to pull them through difficult moments, the more he will be missed.
Great teams have leaders all over the pitch. The ‘invincibles’ of 2003-4 had Thierry Henry, Jens Lehmann, Martin Keown, Sol Campbell, Gilberto Silva and Dennis Bergkamp to lead the way when the difficult moments arose. Since then Wenger has made many signings based on physical attributes whilst neglecting the balance of mentalities in the side: Alexander Hleb, Thomas Rosicky, Andrei Arshavin, Theo Walcott. The general feeling now is that Arsenal are a small team both physically and mentally, one which can be pushed around and beaten and will concede goals via set pieces (52% in the Premier League this season).
This problem cannot be rectified in one transfer window and may take a complete change in Arsene Wenger’s transfer policy. Lack of experience is not an excuse that he can continue to use to patch over his side’s deficiencies, as it is he who is responsible for that factor in the first place. So many people have said that Arsenal need an experienced centre-back, and although he has bought the 30-year-old Sebastien Squillaci Wenger chose to use Koscielny and Johan Djourou, a move that backfired yesterday as Birmingham’s inferior team were allowed to defeat his because of that one moment when an experienced calm head was needed.
In my opinion Wenger should do everything possible to sign Phillippe Mexes. The 28-year-old Roma and France centre-back is out of contract at the end of the season, is exactly what Arsenal need and could form a formidable partnership with Thomas Vermaelen to give Arsenal stability, leadership and consistency at the back for the next few years, one which could make the difference between winning trophies and falling at the final hurdle as seen at Wembley yesterday.
United's soul is never sold So proudly wear that green and gold We'll never wear our famous Red 'Til Glazer's gone or even dead So raise that ancient standard high By green and gold we'll live or die That day will come again for sure When we can wear our Red once more
