Every Friday, sportsnet.ca will chat with Sportsnet 590 The FAN commentator Greg Brady about the big stories and issues in the Premier League, and preview the weekend’s games.
Saturday programming alert: Watch Liverpool vs. Stoke City (on Sportsnet’s main channel), Arsenal vs. Aston Villa (on Sportsnet’s main channel), Sunderland vs. Fulham (on Sportsnet World) and Swansea City vs. Manchester United (on Sportsnet’s main channel). Also, you can watch these four games, plus Cardiff City vs. West Ham United, on Sportsnet World Online. Live coverage on Saturday begins at 7:30 am ET/4:30 am PT. | For full details of Sportsnet’s English Premier League coverage, CLICK HERE
What are the challenges David Moyes will face this season as Manchester United’s new manager?
Does anyone ever want to follow a legend? No Celtics coach ever wanted to replace Red Auerbach. Yankees manager Joe Girardi has had his ups-and-downs. Dave Lewis replaced Scotty Bowman and lasted two seasons in Detroit. You don’t be the guy who follows a legend; you want to be the guy who FOLLOWS THE GUY who follows a legend.
Well, Moyes doesn’t have that luxury. Unlike what Brian Clough went through decades ago at Leeds, Moyes arrives with the full and complete blessing of Alex Ferguson, but he won’t be judged well without a trophy this season. It’s hard to see Moyes being a one-and-done manager, regardless of his contract. Naming Phil Neville as a first-team coach, and making Ryan Giggs a player/coach are good moves that should endear himself to the Manchester United faithful, but remember all the doom and gloom when the Glazers bought the club? The thought they’d be less competitive? It simply hasn’t happened. We’ll soon find out if the Manchester United “machine” is impenetrable regardless of who’s managing. I’m more inclined to think they are, rather than believe Moyes won’t be able to keep his club amongst the elite in Europe.
What do you make of Arsenal’s lack of transfer activity this summer?
It’s been amazingly quiet at Arsenal. I won’t lie, I wasn’t sure Arsene Wenger wouldn’t be back for an 18th season, but I wasn’t sure he would be, either. You could make the argument they’ve moved out some useless players, but haven’t replaced them with anyone tangibly more useful, and that’s been the case for a few years now. It’s not that there’s no possible way to replace a Cesc Fabregas or a Robin van Persie, but the perception, and this hasn’t helped Wenger, is that Arsenal has barely tried to do so.
Say what you will about Chelsea, and the revolving managerial door and numerous dreadful signings in the Abramovich era, but there is that perception that Chelsea always goes for it, and is quick to correct the mistakes and try again. Arsenal’s been accused too frequently, any possibly fairly, of not even showing up in the ring to scrap for the Premier League title, as opposed to just bringing smaller gloves.
So the debate continues. Are there resources to be used by Wenger that he simply isn’t? Or should he be credited for keeping a thrifty team always in the hunt for Champions League spots, and thus, the potential for European success? Arsenal would do well to finish fourth, but there will certainly be weekends when the likes of Swansea and Everton, and maybe even West Ham and West Brom, will look better than them.
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How will the Luis Suarez and Gareth Bale transfer sagas affect Liverpool and Tottenham?
These are two incredibly different cases, and yet, you’d be crazy to think either player will be playing for his current club in two months. Suarez is the more obvious man to go, but it’s so much less about economics than it is about honour. I don’t hold professional athletes up as role models and it’s beyond embarrassing when they’re fawned over outside of their on-field accomplishments. But Suarez, from the spitting and the biting to the racist chatter, just seems the lowest of the low. And yet…wow, is he skilled. He has delivered huge moments in tense situations for Liverpool time and time again, and it has to be wrenching for supporters to put up with “Suarez the man” and risk losing “Suarez the footballer.” You can’t have it both ways, and want him gone, and then wonder why the club slips to seventh or eighth in the table.
As far as Bale goes, it’s not much different of a scenario than that involving the selling of Luka Modric last summer. Spurs is probably smart to sell Bale, even if it costs them a Champions League berth – although let’s be honest, they couldn’t grab one last year, even with Bale being the best player in the league. The agony for a Spurs fan is the idea that now there IS enough talent around Bale, and with a couple of clubs with new managers and with some question marks, Spurs, though no sure thing, could push for a third place finish, heights they haven’t climbed since 1989-90.
Of the three promoted teams, which do you think has the best chance of staying up?
Though it’s not quite as convenient for certain clubs’ travel budgets, I’d be shocked if Cardiff City was relegated, and I actually think they could finish 14th or 15th, if everything breaks the right way. They’ve been busy and active in the transfer market, snaring highly-regarded Chilean international Gary Medel. England U-21 defender Steven Caulker will also get exposure that could lead to a more prominent England career. There’s just more depth on this team than with Hull City and Crystal Palace.
Is there a player who is flying under the radar a bit that you’re most looking forward to watching this season?
Sunderland’s Jozy Altidore is one player I’m expecting to have a breakout season. Never mind that he’s been such a key player for the U.S. national team, but he’s so much more prepared and physically stronger than his last Premier League go-round at Hull City in 2009 when he was just a kid. Sunderland has committed to him financially and surrounded him with more talent than he’s ever played with at a non-international level. Can he score goals in the Premier League like he can in CONCACAF and in friendlies? Well, that’s the tricky part. Playing at Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge isn’t exactly going up against Trinidad & Tobago in Nashville, where he announced his national team arrival four years ago with a stunning hat-trick. But he’s as capable as any scorer on a non-Champions League bound club in the league this season.
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