Poor Champions League campaigns will benefit Premier League balance
LONDON --
There are two ways of looking at English soccer's latest failure in the UEFA Champions League. The obvious one is to bemoan the decline in top-four quality this season, as exemplified by the alarming slide of champions Manchester City and more predictable struggle of Liverpool to cope with the losses of Luis Suarez (permanent) and Daniel Sturridge (temporary). The other is to look forward to a spurt of ambition from their normally fatalistic opponents. Even Queens Park Rangers, who face City this weekend, should take encouragement.
QPR manager Harry Redknapp or one of his relegation-threatened players, should adjust their mindset to Wednesday's evidence that Manchester City are in a real crisis, whether of confidence (as they claim) or morale. If CSKA Moscow can go to the Etihad and win on merit, any Premier League side can take three points from Manuel Pellegrini's men at home. Redknapp, however, is taking nothing for granted.
"They've got a fantastic squad of players, if you look at their team," Redknapp said. "They'll be fighting out the championship this year with Chelsea. We've got to play with same commitment as we showed against Liverpool and Aston Villa. If we do that, we've got a chance."
Swansea, meanwhile, will surely be licking their lips at the prospect of facing the Arsenal team who let slip a three-goal lead to Anderlecht at home. Garry Monk's side would have fancied themselves to beat Arsene Wenger's anyway -- there is a genuine belief in the style and quality of the football at the Liberty Stadium -- but now they'll hardly be able to wait for a crack at that flimsy defensive structure the admirably defiant Belgian representatives wrecked.
What makes it all the more interesting a weekend is that the other Champions League entrants -- Liverpool and Chelsea -- meet at Anfield. If Liverpool, having lost as expected at Real Madrid but grittily and with a weakened team, can inflict the leaders' first defeat of the campaign, the opportunity is there for Southampton to continue a fairytale season by narrowing the gap to a single point through victory over promoted Leicester City at St. Mary's.
Even if Chelsea march on, or two points are shared at Anfield, Southampton can advance their chances of staying in top-four contention until at least the turn of the year. Tipped for possible relegation by a host of observers after a summer in which Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren, Rickie Lambert, Luke Shaw and Callum Chambers were sold, they have performed under Ronald Koeman with occasional brilliance, as in beating Sunderland 8-0, and such consistent solidity that they have the best defensive record in the Premier League.
"We've got to aspire to do what they've done," Leicester City midfielder Matty James told Foxes Player. "They did lose a few players in the summer but it doesn't seem to have affected them at all. It's a great set-up down there and hopefully in a couple of seasons we can be as established as them."
Another pleasant surprise has been the form of West Ham United. For much of last season, most of the fans seemed to have had enough of experienced but pragmatic coach Sam Allardyce. But now the club is rocking and Premier League sponsors Barclays have named Allardyce coach of the month, with the player award going to his new six-goal striker Diafra Sakho.
Sakho is expected to return from injury at home to Aston Villa and three points could see West Ham back in the top four if Swansea take their chance to leapfrog Arsenal. All of which sheds a more positive light on midweek events in Europe, which did not analyse well at all. Two points from a possible twelve was bad enough. Worse was that Chelsea, who should run away with the title in Jose Mourinho's second season back at Stamford Bridge despite City's false dawn in the Manchester derby, could not win at unfancied Maribor.
After the thrills of a vintage race last season, we cannot complain too much that 2014-15 has failed so far to reach the same standard, with only one convincing contender and no sign that City can recover the often majestic form of the previous campaign. At least Yaya Toure can rest and reflect on his failings; he will miss the final two games of City's Champions League group, at home to Bayern Munich and away to Roma, after becoming one of two players red-carded against CSKA (the other was Fernandinho). But meanwhile he simply has to stand up and be counted at Loftus Road, as do others, if the inevitable pressure on Pellegrini is to ease.
Could the worst actually befall City? In other words, might they not just be kicked out of this season's Champions League at the group stage but fail to qualify for the next, thus losing income desperately needed to balance their books under UEFA's Financial Fair Play? It's not truly conceivable yet.
"We have to get over it," City's left back Gael Clichy told reporters earlier in the week. "The fans are disappointed and we are disappointed but the beauty of football is that we have a game after three days. It was a really bad result and a bad performance by the team but we have to think about the future and the next game is at QPR."
But QPR will be only too anxious to deepen their visitors' concerns and, in a way, that is good for the overall health of the domestic league. If every cloud has one, this could be the silver lining.
