Premier League Review - Leicester’s title to lose, Van Gaal’s job to lose

The title is Leicester’s to lose

For weeks, Leicester City have managed their resources with a regular supply of 1-0 victories to maintain the gap at the top of the title. It is close to insurmountable, with only three wins - maximum - required. At the end of the match, Claudio Ranieri looked close to tears, so overwhelmed was he by the triumph over Sunderland.

Leicester struggled to make their way through Sunderland, as they have against many sides in the last few weeks. But just as they have recently, they did not panic, and they trusted that they had the know-how to make their way through. In the end, it was more of a traditional, early-season goal, with a clever pass played over the top into space for Jamie Vardy to chase. It was a calm finish, more impressive because Vardy had gone six games without scoring, and was under pressure to spark back into life. That Demarai Gray came on for the last 10 minutes and sealed victory with the build-up to the second goal can be taken as evidence that Ranieri is, if with a little fortune, making changes that have conspicuous success. With their bravery, calmness and confidence, Leicester have earned any fortune coming their way.

Arsenal’s equaliser is not the story

When Arsenal equalised to make it 3-3 against West Ham, having fallen 3-2 behind, a few people openly asked why it was that Arsenal’s bottling would overshadow the supposed show of strength and resilience that was indicated by their equaliser. The reason is simple. Arsenal have better players than West Ham. Arsenal talk about themselves as title challengers at the start of the season, every season, all the way until March when their title tilt implodes. Arsenal are still, feasibly, in contention to win the league.

But more than that is that Arsenal were 2-0 up. Whichever side it was, and wherever they were in the lead, a capable Premier League side should be able to go a little over one half and not throw a 2-0 lead into a ditch. It takes basic defensive competence, and focus. Their collapse, then, is far more indicative of where Arsenal are failing than the third goal is indicative of any supposed spirit. If there was enough spirit, they wouldn’t have lost so many games this year, nor chucked away their lead. It’s true that people too quickly and simply ascribe meaning to one-off results, and that happens in football more often than is reasonable. But when it comes to Arsenal, the problem that it isn’t a one-off. When it really matters, they can’t do it.

Spurs’ only failure is to come up against Leicester

Spurs, and Dele Alli, were the better side for most of the match against Manchester United. Compared to United over the course of the season, they have been much the better side, too. When it was 0-0, there was no panic. There was no sense that they were losing control or throwing away the match. They kept creating chances and kept United’s one good player - Anthony Martial - relatively quiet. When they made it two through Toby Alderweireld’s header, they didn’t celebrate like they couldn’t believe their luck, they celebrated with the fans as a shared acknowledgement of just how far they had come under their new manager.

Spurs and Mauricio Pochettino have done very little wrong this season. They have also been exceptionally lucky with injuries, too. They are seven points behind Leicester at the top of the table, but they haven’t failed, and they haven’t fallen short of some imagined yardstick. They are very, very unlikely to win the Premier League, but it shouldn’t be overlooked how well they have done in what is such an anomalous season. After Leicester’s win it would have been no surprise if Spurs had dipped. It hints towards long-term success that they are winning as if it were now a habit.

Louis van Gaal absolutely has to be sacked

Manchester United got tonked 6-1 to Manchester City in a season that ultimately shook them up. Things couldn’t go on as they were, and eventually United sorted themselves out. Ferguson got Robin van Persie and Shinji Kagawa, and Van Persie’s exceptional form won the league. Against Liverpool, United lost at home to the camera-kissing Steven Gerrard, and at that point it was obvious David Moyes was utterly out of his depth. It was plain something had to be done, and before long, Ed Woodward binned him off. It was the right decision, even if it was dignity-free.

This is the same kind of result for Louis van Gaal. They have underperformed. Losing to Arsenal hinted that this would eventually come, a demonstration of just how far short United were from being a serious side, but it came too early, and on the end of a reasonable run of results. It did not make a difference in the eyes of most people. There was time to turn things around.

Well, there is no longer any time for Van Gaal. Pochettino’s young, exciting, deadly and entertaining side have shown up United for what they are. The players are slow, and most of them don’t care. It’s hard to blame them when they have to work with a wretched buffoon everyday, but it’s still easy to resent their lack of effort given the money they receive in compensation. The two meanest defences in the Premier League showed that one achieved its aim by tedious, conservative play, and Spurs achieved theirs by being excellently coached and committed. Van Gaal has been shown against Spurs to have spent £250 million and come up with a complete waste of time and effort. There are no simple words to sum up all his mistakes - that would take a monograph. As it is, let’s leave it at this: Martial played on the wing for the whole match. At half time, Van Gaal took off the team’s striker, Marcus Rashford, and put on Ashley Young, a winger.

As someone on Twitter pointed out: stop trying to be a smart c**t Louis and swap them over. He didn’t. United lost 3-0. It was just another in a long, long list of terrible, pointless, bloody-headed nonsense decisions, and the sooner the cowardly Woodward sorts it out, the better for United. It is as stark as the 6-1 and the home defeat for Liverpool. It needs a similarly dramatic resolution.

Newcastle and Sunderland do not deserve their places in the Premier League

Against Leicester, Jack Rodwell blew a chance to equalise, lifting a shot over Kasper Schmeichel when a simple finish was all that was required. Fabio Borini had two eminently convertible opportunities, and he wasted them both. It was the sheer incompetence, matched in so many other ways over the course of Sunderland’s season, that has kept Sunderland at or close to the bottom of the league for the last few seasons.

Oddly, this is the period when, without Gus Poyet (who calls people who complain about being racially abused ‘cry babies’), without Paolo Di Canio (who expresses sympathy for fascism, even if he isn’t a textbook fascist himself), and Adam Johnson (who has done far, far worse), they find themselves finally staring relegation in the face. Over the last few seasons they have done more than enough to warrant a little jig of celebration when they’re consigned to the Championship. Given they’ve got rid of the most objectionable of their staff, finally, perhaps they will be less detestable should they be promoted in the next few years.

Newcastle, however, are still owned by Mike Ashley and still sponsored by Wonga, the poor-gouging loan monsters. They have a broken, expensive squad that will need yet more millions and more extensive surgery to sort out. In charge there is Rafael Benitez, a man who really should have known better, and you would hope for his sake, did not need the brief payday coming to him. The Premier League will be better without the shambles that is Newcastle, and they are now going to have to get themselves in better shape - it is a far better league with a Newcastle side full of the right kind of aggression and swagger. Where that leaves Benitez, a failure in all of his recent jobs except Chelsea, where he was loathed regardless, it is hard to tell. Of Sunderland, Newcastle and Benitez, it is the manager who might have the hardest route back to success.