The urge to splurge

After a transfer window deadline day that left most of us agog at the sums of money and calibre of players changing hands, the Premier League resumed, and as if to prove that last-minute shopping can yield the best bargains, three debutants notched important goals that earned points for their new teams.

Manchester United started the game against Aston Villa with the news of Gary Neville’s immediate retirement from playing. Neville has been a United stalwart, loyal to the end and Mr Reliable until he passed 30 and injuries eventually ruined his body. In an illustrious career, Red Nev became England’s most capped right-back, won everything in the domestic game and appeared over 600 times for the Red Devils. This season he has been found badly wanting, and, but for generous refereeing could have been sent off twice. He retires with his dignity intact, and a glittering trophy cabinet to look back on, no doubt during his impending stint on Sky Sports. United started the game with Dimitar Berbatov in scintillating form, but still waiting on Wayne Rooney to hit the goal trail from open play. That wait was ended on 49 seconds, when another impending retiree; Edwin Van Der Sar, launched a kick over the statuesque Richard Dunne for Rooney to kill exquisitely, before crashing into the roof of Brad Friedel’s net. United felt aggrieved later, when Dunne once again was caught out, and clattered into Nani, though Chris Foy saw nothing wrong with the clumsy challenge. United increased their lead when Nani won a tussle with Ciaran Clark on the right wing, before delivering an exceptional cross that Rooney didn’t have to break his stride to stroke into the net. Villa pulled a goal back when Stewart Downing took advantage of a mix-up between three United players to cross with his weaker right foot. Darren Bent arrived in the nick of time to slot it in with his weaker left foot, but Villa’s hopes of a comeback were shattered five minutes later, when the superb Rooney held up the ball in a packed area, before laying back to Nemanja Vidic, who belted the ball in like a seasoned striker. There was still time for Brad Friedel to make great saves from Nani and Rooney, but this was always United’s game.

A rip-roaring game at the Stadium of Light saw a Chelsea team buoyed by the exorbitant signings of David Luiz and Fernando Torres come back strongly to finish off the spirited Mackems. Roman Abramovich clearly decided at the last minute to abandon his policy of preparing for FIFA’s financial fair play legislation for another year, while Chelsea’s dream of one day breaking even under their own steam seems as distant as ever. Still, their fans will be ecstatic that they have left even Manchester City in the shade with the scale of their January outlay. Fernando heard the drums, and declared he had joined the ‘big team’ he had dreamed of playing for; a quote that will be like a hot knife twisting in the craws of Liverpool fans. But Torres was not deployed in this game, which was set alight early on by right-footed left-back Phil Bardsley running at the Chelsea backline, inside the ever-clueless Jon Obi Mikel; who allowed him onto his stronger foot, from which he unleashed a low strike, clean as a whistle into the bottom corner of Cech’s net. On the fifteen minute mark Chelsea were level, as Egyptian Ahmed Elmohamedy, who may have had his mind on other subjects, climbed all over Cashley Cole, who crashed over in his own persecuted manner. Frank Lampard crashed the penalty home, soon followed by a second from Kalou which owed everything to a reckless dash out of his area by Craig Gordon, who made the Ivorian’s finish simple. Just three minutes later Sunderland drew level though, when Kieran Richardson cunningly whipped his free-kick under the jumping wall to fool Petr Cech. Chelsea were unlucky not to go into the break ahead, when a persistent Michael Essien produced a low cross which Branislav Ivanovic nearly split the crossbar with. The hour mark saw Chelsea finally go ahead, after John Terry had come forward to win a corner, then followed in a Lampard parried effort to volley into the ground and past Gordon. Still the game was open, and Chelsea still flooded forward. Nicolas Anelka advanced menacingly to the edge of the box and laid the ball off to the waiting Ramires, only for Kalou to usher him out of the way as he crashed the ball against both posts and away. The game was finally sealed in the last minute, when Florent Malouda kept the ball in on the touchline, before sending a short pass across goal, which Anelka stabbed in with the outside of his boot.

Arsenal kept up their title drive with a resilient comeback win against a plucky Everton, though every week Francesc Fabregas seems intent on carving a reputation as an arrogant enfant terrίble; this time apparently accusing the officials of being bought in the tunnel; normally a red card offence for ‘lesser’ players. The reason for rage was Everton’s opening goal in the 24^th minute, when the ball from Seamus Coleman was clearly delayed too long, leaving Luis Saha a good two yards offside. The flag should have gone up immediately, but stayed down until Laurent Koscielny made a last-ditch attempt at a clearance and inadvertently flicked the ball on for Saha to control and finish, thus rendering it not offside. Arsenal’s argument of course was that the original pass was obviously intended, and heading for, Saha, and the touch from Koscielny should have been academic. After all the complaints fell on deaf ears, Arsenal began to mount a siege, but it wasn’t until Andrei Arshavin’s second half introduction that they got back into the game. Jack Rodwell failed to cut out Cesc Fabregas’ delightful lobbed pass, and Arshavin volleyed in coolly for the equaliser. Five minutes later, Leon Osman was forced to cynically trip Theo Walcott in full flight. The resulting free-kick produced one of the saves of the season from Howard; somehow using both hands to just about parry the ball over the bar. Unfortunately for Howard, the corner that resulted found an unmarked Koscielny who powered his header down and in to send the Gunners’ faithful into raptures.

Mancitti blew their big chance to keep pace with the leaders, when they threw away a victory against struggling Birmingham City. In a huge tactical shock, both notoriously cautious managers played two up front, though when you spend £27 million on a striker, you can’t really justify not playing him, so Mancini’s ploy was nothing if not logical. Mancitti took the lead in just the third minute, when an interchange between Carlos Tevez and David Silva led to a deflected shot from Tevez finding the net. David Bentley was delivering a string of inviting crosses, but it was his low free-kick which yielded an equaliser, when Nikola Zigic ran across Hart’s path and got the faintest of flicks to it to send it in for 1-1. A nasty collision of heads led to Micah Richards being stretchered off; for once Nigel De Jong crocked one of his own; before City retook the lead, after Craig Gardner had fallen over and taken Edin Dzeko with him on the edge of the box. Aleksander Kolarov stepped up to bend the set-piece in superbly. Mancitti then did what they tend to do, which is try to stifle the game and see it out, but Patrick Vieira’s clumsy swipe took out Kevin Phillips, and Craig Gardner rescued a point for Brum with a well-dispatched penalty. In the dying embers of injury time, City had another dangerous free-kick, but this time Kolarov could only shoot just wide of Foster’s post.

An end-to-end game between two strugglers ended in an inevitable draw between West Brom and Wigan. The Baggies might have expected more when a lovely through-ball from Jerome Thomas sent Peter Odemwingie through to stab past the advancing Al-Habsi with less than five minutes on the clock, but a couple of exchanges between Youssouf Mulumbu and Charles N’Zogbia led to the arrears eradicated. First, Mulumbu scythed the French winger down on the edge of the box, and just to top it off then got a significant touch to N’Zogbia’s free-kick to send it past his own goalkeeper. Before half-time, Wigan; the lowest scorers in the Football League; took the lead, when Ben Watson whipped his own free-kick from the opposite side in, and claimed a goal as nobody managed to get a touch. The Baggies mounted a siege to retrieve the game, and Somen Tchoyi found Marc-Antoine Fortune, who cracked a shot against the foot of the post. Some good work from Odemwingie led to Chris Brunt wrapping his left foot around the ball and hitting the other post. Finally, as Wigan tend to do all too often, they surrendered their lead. Jerome Thomas weaved a route into the box and stood the ball up beautifully for Fortune to beat Caldwell to and nod down and in. You could see the life sap from Wigan on conceding the equaliser, but it could have been much worse had Ali Al-Habsi not added to his sizeable collection of ‘save of the season’ contenders. A corner was powered at goal by the head of Jonas Olsson from no more than eight yards, but the Omanian goalkeeper displayed outrageous reflexes once again to throw out a palm and parry it away.

The new-look Liverpool began life post-Torres in impressive form. Kenny Dalglish’s new animal saw off Stoke convincingly, moving up to seventh in the process. These two clubs had both seen a sea-change in the transfer window; Liverpool had lost a world class striker but gained two very good strikers, while losing out on an excellent playmaker. Stoke decided who needs flair when you’ve got big men, and dispatched both players with genuine craft in their game; Tuncay Sanli and Eidur Gudjohnsen; proving that Tony Pulis was never really interested in progressing their one-dimensional ‘death from above’ style. Dalglish lined up with an interesting 3-4-2-1 formation to combat Stoke’s approach, and it paid dividends. The game began with Liverpool predictably on the front foot with their fans behind them, and it took an unbelievable save from Asmir Begovic to keep the scores level. Martin Kelly dinked in a great cross which Glenn Johnson met with a powerful point-blank header, yet the Stoke stopper somehow shot a strong arm up in an instant to parry it away as he fell into the net. Dirk Kuyt had come close twice before Steven Gerrard drilled a laid-off free-kick into a packed penalty area minutes into the second half. It found Sotirios Kyrgiakos, who rather fortuitously miscontrolled to allow Raul Meireles to come onto it and slot past Begovic. Stoke’s token response was John Carew to fire a shot narrowly wide, but the game was over when Dirk Kuyt sent a ball through to Luis Suarez on the shoulder of the last man. After outpacing his marker, Suarez took a touch around the prone Begovic and tapped towards goal. Andy Wilkinson caught up with the goalbound effort, but inexplicably slid his attempted clearance onto the post and in. Stoke lost even the chance of a consolation effort, when Reina instinctively kept out a close-range effort from Jonathan Walters at the death.

West Ham put the crushing disappointment of Carling Cup semi-final elimination behind them as they dispatched a Blackpool side who suddenly find themselves on a run of defeats. As usual with Blackpool, it was a goal-laden affair. An early Frederic Piquionne low cross was horribly miskicked by a Blackpool defender and fell to Victor Obinna at the back post. Fortunately for the Tangerines, the striker scuffed his effort, giving Richard Kingson enough time to plunge low and keep it out. Craig Catchart then had Kingson to thank for preventing him scoring an own goal, but he was rather less forgiving when Obinna turned him inside out and the Ghanaian goalkeeper pulled a ‘Robert Green’; crouching to collect the low shot, only to see it spoon off his hands and into the net. The lead was doubled when Kingson did rather better, making a superb double save from Obinna this time, only to see debutant Robbie Keane slice a volley into the net from close range to start his West Ham career in the perfect manner. Yet three minutes before half-time, Charlie Adam proved his enduring worth when he swung in a low corner that Frederic Piquionne idiotically air-kicked at his front-post, and Robert Green somehow let slip under his body for 2-1. The Tangerines should have gone in at half-time eager to complete their comeback, but within a minute they were once again staring into the abyss. Victor Obinna was given time and space to advance, before unleashing a left-foot missile into Kingson’s top corner to finish the game. The second half saw Neil Eardley crack the angle with a free-kick, while Green had to be at his best to deny Marlon Harewood in the closing stages.

Mick McCarthy looked ready to kill himself after Ronald Zubar threw Wolves’ hard-earned point away in injury time. Wayne Hennessey was particularly ready to deck his colleague, after he had done brilliantly to deny Elmander, Lee and an own goal from Christophe Berra. Kevin Doyle had seen one of his efforts deflect agonisingly onto the post and out, and the game seemed to be heading for a deserved draw. Suddenly Zubar’s moment of braindead stupidity came, when first he sold a team-mate short with a throw inside that he should have sent up the line. He then compounded this by winning the loose ball back and deciding to roll a ridiculous backpass across his own goal, which Bolton new boy Daniel Sturridge raced onto and tucked away. It was such an incredible act of sporting suicide that you almost expected an official investigation to be launched into suspicious betting patterns. If Zubar wasn’t so big you could have guaranteed McCarthy throttling him in the changing rooms.

Tottenham may have missed out on Charlie Adam, but most observers would suggest they need a striker rather more than yet another playmaker. This game was settled by an under-performing striker; with Peter Crouch nodding in a deep cross from Rafael Van Der Vaart, before clearing off his own line at the other end. Blackburn have made great strides in expanding their game under Steve Kean, though they still utilise Paul Robinson’s mule kicks. Mame Biryam Diouf and Morten Gamst Pedersen came close for Rovers, and with the last attack of the game Jermaine Jenas somehow deflected Jason Roberts’ powerful downward header just over his own crossbar. Still, Rovers can’t be too disappointed with their current run, much better than many expected under a completely untested manager. Harry meanwhile will be quietly confident of reclaiming that Champions League slot for next season.

With some last minute bargain-hunting, Mark Hughes seems to have compiled an impressive Fulham squad. Gael Kakuta made a decent impression on his debut, while Newcastle fans will be a lot more anxious at their chances of survival post-Carroll. When your most recognised striker is Shola Ameobi, you know you’re in trouble. The Toon fans laid into old favourite Damien ‘Duffer’, who lived up to his dumb nickname last season when he scored the own goal that sent Newcastle down, and this time they had more reason to hate him, as he relished scoring the goal that separated the sides. New signing Steve Sidwell’s day nearly became a nightmare when he came within a whisker of an own goal, but when Jose Enrique allowed Danny Murphy’s long ball to bounce, Duff seized on the chance to win the match.

Until next time…