A Festive Feast of less than Fantastic Football

Watching games over the Xmas period, I am beginning to think that a festive break might be in order for the Premier League. The quality of play in the Hull v Man Utd and Aston Villa v Liverpool games was such that it would have been more entertaining for a supporter to stay home and watch the Great Escape or Wallace and Gromit. For the armchair fan, like myself, it's great having live sport to watch when pubs are closed or it's too icy too venture outside safely, but the quality of much of what was on show in the back end of 2009 was such that I wondered whether some players were guilty of eating and drinking as much as an above average slob as myself-there certainly were a lot of sluggish performances.

As to some of the results themselves:

• Birmingham 0-0 Chelsea. Chelsea's less than impressive sequence of results continued, albeit away to in-form Birmingham, for whom on loan Joe Hart was in inspired form. Christian Benitez scored a perfectly good goal but was incorrectly flagged for offside (thanks to Didier Drogba lying prone in his own 6 yard box.....), and Alex hit the bar with a thunderous free kick. Chelsea certainly didn't play well enough to win and a draw was probably a fair result.
• Arsenal 3-0 Aston Villa. The beginning of the end for Aston Villa's Champions League quest? I think so. Villa were ok for the first 15 minutes or so, but really lost their way after that-Stillian Petrov looked a spent force and James Milner looked out of place in the centre of Villa's midfield. For Arsenal-the same old story-some lovely passing and counter-attacking, but a serious lack of execution in the basics of heading and shooting meant that it needed the introduction of not fully fit Cesc Febergas to change the game for Arsenal. Eduardo is really lacking confidence up front and Andrey Arshavin was largely anonymous. Arsenal could really do with adding a striker (not just a forward player), or hope that the return of Nicklas Bendtner can help make up for the loss of Robin van Persie for much of the rest of the season.
• Hull 1-Man Utd 3. What an awful game. After watching Chelsea play just ok and fail to win at Bermingham, I was worried that Man Utd would come out and crush Hull and gain the upper hand in the title race. Not exactly. What an awful game-it was hard to see why Wayne Rooney could be considered one of Europe's best, and why Ryan Giggs was in the running for player of the year less than 6 months ago. Hull look doomed-the loss of Jimmy Bullard until February is a blow for sure, but they look a worse team than West Ham and even Portsmouth based on what I saw on December 26th. Their comeback from 2-0 down away to Bolton did for Gary Megson-and rightly so I would say-but they are not a team I want to see staying in the Premier League.
• Wolves 0-3 Man City. The Roberto Mancini era has started well at Man City, but when the opposition is as toothless as Stoke and then Wolves, it's nothing that should excite the blue half of Manchester too much. Wolves play a nice enough brand of football-but never looked like scoring a goal in this game-Kevin Doyle is good worker and runs the channels tirelessly, but he never looks like regaining the scoring form of his Reading days. Chris Iwelumo? Well, he's not bad as a target man, but this suggests that he won't score many in the Premier League. As for City, they remain indebted to Shay Given for keeping them in may games and to Craig Bellamy for always giving 100%. Robinho looks desperately out of shape and disinterested-it will be interesting to see whether Mancini can succeed in getting him in shape and contributing like a player that cost Man City £25 million. Stories linking him with Bercelona don't hold any water with me-isn't this the same club that cut loose another Brazilian malcontent (Ronaldinho) at the start of the Guardiola era? It's hard to believe they would risk disrupting the best team in Europe with an overweight, out of form ex-Real Madrid player.
• Aston Villa 0-1 Liverpool. 2 of the top 6 sides in the Premier League? Jesus wept. There are very few strikers who have the finishing touch of Fernando Torres-he was the only difference between what looked like 2 very average teams.
  

Here's hoping the level of quality increases in 2010 and that the Premier League is won on merit rather than by default.