Winners And Losers

Winners And Losers

Winners

Manchester United
It has become fashionable of late to talk up Arsenal's title chances to the extent of making it sound as if a relatively-benign fixture list confers on them the status of favourites. Part of Arsenal's appeal is the novelty factor of having an unusual suspect still in the race at this stage of the season, but the people whose wealth is actually determined by the prescience of their opinions - the bookies - have not been swayed by sentiment.

United remain their clear favourites and, as always, their opinion is worth listening to. Only the foolish would bet against a fourth-successive title triumph at Old Trafford.

They have the experience, they have the lead, they have the beast that is Rooney, they have a squad that is nearly at full strength and, compared to their closest rivals, they have no problems of note. They are, in short, and regardless of what else you might have heard, still very much the team to beat.


Ji-Sung Park
How Dimi Berbatov must envy him.

Though Ferguson's tendency to pick Park for the biggest matches of the season is long-standing, the South Korean has raised his game to an entirely new level in the last year. He is now a vital presence on the Old Trafford payroll because his versatility enables United to successfully and seamlessly shift from a 4-4-2 formation to a one-striker system in which Park is the critical link in the chain between midfield and attack. His own position defies standard description, though it is fair to say that he has become a specialist in a role of his own as a defensive attacking-midfielder with the happy knack of saving up his goals for the big games.


Darren Fletcher
It's easy to see something when you're looking for it, but the general gist of United's win over Liverpool seemed to be that they out-ran their opponents. Liverpool looked like a team playing its third game in a week, whereas United's man-of-the-match Darren Fletcher looked like a running machine playing his third match this month. One telling stat produced at the end of the game was that during the 90 minutes United won more tackles than they had even attempted in the corresponding fixture last March. They simply had more energy than they did that day and more energy than their opponents this Sunday.


Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand
Did we see a pivotal change in defensive fortunes this weekend? Vidic and Ferdinand started a third successive match in partnership for the first time since 2008 while Arsenal lost their one remaining first-choice centre-half and could only say of the other that he should "return before the end of the season".


Arsenal
There will be a degree of fretting ahead of the trip to St Andrew's next weekend given that neither William Gallas nor Thomas Vermaelen will be available but it shouldn't be overlooked that Arsenal now possess three more points than they looked likely to collect after 44 minutes of Saturday's game with West Ham. Dodging bullets is a good habit to get into at this stage of the season.

Vermaelen's dismissal looked flawed on a number of levels - his actual offence is not obvious, it may have taken place outside of the area, a clear goalscoring opportunity was not apparent because Franco did not have possession of the ball, and, as we've stated many times before, if a penalty is awarded then the opportunity to score is merely delayed rather than denied - but at least this weekend the injustice was of no consequence due to Manuel Almunia's excellent save.

Give the Spaniard credit for that, and maybe also for the shot by Carlton Cole hitting the post with ten minutes remaining because Almunia's fist-pumping reaction to the ball flying wide suggested that he stretched a goal-saving fingertip on to Cole's strike.


Alex Song
It was an interesting - but vindicated - decision of Arsene Wenger to replace Vermaelen with the redeployment of Alex Song rather than the introduction of Mikael Silvestre. Wenger has previously expressed a belief that Song's premier position is as a central defender and it would not be a surprise if he starts the game at Birmingham alongside Sol Campbell.


Pepe Reina
The best penalty saver in the world.


Eidur Gudjohnsen
So much for him being an irrelevance then.


Tottenham Hotspur
It's been a great month for Spurs. In the 30 days since they travelled north to Wigan, Harry Redknapp's side have reached the quarter-finals of the FA Cup and won four matches on the bounce in the league. Courtesy of their own faultless work and the many faults of their rivals, they've gained a four-point swing on both Villa and Man City, and six on Liverpool.

There remains a long way to go and nobody, least of all their followers, ever expect Tottenham to deliver on their promises, but they are on the cusp of an outstanding season. Somebody bland on Radio Five Live last week described Roy Hodgson as the frontrunner for the Manager of the Year award, but Redknapp's claim will be unanswerable if Spurs survive their difficult run-in to take fourth place and reach the cup final. We may not like him, but we're not blind.


Manchester City
And home is where it's at for City now. After three successive games on the road, from which they emerged with two valuable victories and a point at Sunderland, three of their next four games are to be played at Eastlands and their only trip away in the next month is to Burnley.

To date, City are unbeaten at home this season and their date with Tottenham, scheduled for the final week of the season, may yet prove decisive in determining which of the four contenders takes fourth place.


Darren Bent
Bobby Zamora for England? Sorry, but somebody else is first in line for an opportunity if one becomes available: Bent has scored exactly half of all Sunderland's 40 league goals during the current campaign.


Mike Dean
Has the game really reached such a state that managers are publicly criticising referees for the way they point? That irritation, however, was alleviated by the revelation that the Premier League have refused to be cowed into changing refereeing appointments at the behest of clubs. The game really would be in a sorry state if clubs had any influence over such matters.

In any case, none of the decisions Dean made on Saturday were unreasonable. His willingness to regard the penalty area as just another part of the pitch should be applauded, not castigated.


Everton
If only the season was starting now.


Wolves
They surely can't believe their luck: Portsmouth have imploded, Burnley have been sunk by their captain jumping off the boat in mid-season, and Hull have become so desperate that they've sacked their manager in mid-March and replaced him with a proven failure. It looks as if Wolves will avoid relegation and that they will do so without doing very much - a haul of 28 points from 30 games hardly amounts to a heady achievement.


Losers

Chelsea
Having already lost their shape, momentum and form, Chelsea lost their composure on Sunday to draw when they should have won.

What was until recently an easy-running campaign has become bogged down. The tipping point, according to their manager, was the 4-2 defeat to Manchester City a little over three weeks ago. "That result was unbelievable and since that day we have been in difficulty," said Ancelotti. "The confidence is not there at the moment and winning is the only solution, starting at Portsmouth on Wednesday. It is vital that we win that one."

Travelling south shouldn't be a problem. But it's in the north-west that Chelsea have an issue. Having previously lost at Wigan, Man City and Everton, the draw at Blackburn amounted to another two points dropped in an area of the country that Chelsea still have to visit twice before May: once to Anfield and once to Old Trafford.


Rafa Benitez
His side played with plenty of heart but his 'guarantee' of fourth place now hangs like a millstone. It was an uncharacteristically reckless thing to say and may prove to be his death warrant as Liverpool manager.


Fernando Torres
A stunning goal but two dreadful misses and unpleasant petulance throughout. Body language has to be translated by the beholder, but Torres' behaviour at Old Trafford can just as easily be interpreted as evidence of serious discontent as commitment to Liverpool's cause. No doubt he still wants to be a Liverpool player, but does he really want to be part of this Liverpool team?


Sam Vokes
The Wolves striker is now in good company for making glaring last-minute misses against Manchester United.


Aston Villa
So that's how it is, is it? Every decision will be contested from the perspective of Phil Dowd's error in the Carling Cup final? Good grief.


Aston Villa, Part Two
Villa's injury list is growing at an alarming rate and so are the number of points they are dropping - in total since Christmas, Villa have taken just 12 from a possible 33. Richard Dunne's availability for Wednesday's must-win meeting with Sunderland is in doubt due to an Achilles problem and Gaby Agbonlahor is also likely to be missing after injuring a foot. As the Daily Telegraph remarks, his recent spate of injury and illness is the 'inevitable consequence of playing so many matches'. Villa have a stronger squad this year this season, but that hasn't been apparent often enough.


The Villa Park Faithful
The give-away for Villa's preference to play as a counter-attacking side is their record at Villa Park. Only eight top-flight teams have collected fewer points on home soil than Villa this term, and the failing is familiar - this time last year, Villa had won only five of the 15 games played at Villa Park. The frustration of their support shouldn't have manifested itself with booing but it is understandable. A more attacking outlook is surely required from their team if they are to prevail in the fight for fourth.


Stoke City
It was in September that the Telegraph also remarked that 'Stoke is where titles are won and lost' and declared 'A trip to the Britannia Stadium has become one of the big litmus tests for any club with title ambitions'. Unfortunately for Stoke, only one of the teams above them in the table, Fulham, has failed the Britannia test this season. They now reside in just 14th in the Home League Table with a goal difference of only plus two.


Fulham
Steve Staunton was sacked this weekend as Darlington manager because, in the words of their chairman, "a record-low crowd told us a lot." Conversely, it says a lot about the work of Fulham and their manager this term that the attendance for Sunday's rather inconsequential game was just a couple of hundred fewer than their highest gate of the season.


West Ham
Will there be a similar amount of fuss about West Ham's recent team selections if Carlton Cole and Scott Parker both start against Wolves this midweek as there was at the start of the weekend when Avram Grant threatened to overtly field a weakened team? Of course not, but a worrying trend, precedented by Mick McCarthy's Old Trafford surrender, has developed this season with struggling teams clearly saving up their best players for 'winnable' fixtures.