New Manchester City signing Patrick Vieira has linked up with
his former manager at Internazionale, Roberto Mancini. Photograph:
Jon Super/AP
Sir Alex Ferguson reckons the Premier League is getting harder, and
cites Birmingham's rise under Alex McLeish as proof that standards
throughout the league have improved this season.
He would say that though, wouldn't he? Most people think the
fact that a modest outfit such as Birmingham are sitting in the top
eight and scaring the pants off bigger clubs is evidence that
Premier League standards have fallen, and that everyone from the
top four down are not as rich or as invincible as they used to be.
Well, Manchester City are richer than they
used to be and quite possibly on their way to being invincible now
they have stopped drawing all their matches, though they will need
to beat someone a little more testing than Sunderland, Stoke or
Middlesbrough to convince everyone that a revolution has taken
place.
It is also difficult to argue that the Premier League is better
than ever when players who left it thinking their time was up are
returning two or three years later. City have just signed Patrick
Vieira, Arsenal do not seem to be ruling out the possibility of Sol
Campbell playing for them again and, at 31, Barry Ferguson looks a
far better player for Birmingham than he did seven years ago in his
first spell in England with Blackburn. At this rate Manchester
United will soon be turning to David Beckham again. While they may
not be able to afford him this time round there is little doubt he
would get into the team.
Vieira is particularly interesting because he went to Italy in
the first place because it was felt he was no longer a force in the
Premier League. Arsène Wenger seemed to feel that way, in any case,
otherwise he would never have let him go. Lately, even the slower
Italian game seemed to be passing Vieira by, so a return to Premier
League pell-mell has to be regarded as a gamble, and an expensive
one at that. Someone of the calibre of Nigel de Jong or Gareth
Barry will have to make way for Vieira at Eastlands and, while it
could be argued a driving midfielder who can break up opposing
attacks and intelligently launch new ones is exactly what City
need, it remains to be seen whether the Frenchman is still that
player. This seems like a case of Roberto Mancini wanting to bring a
trusted friend into a foreign dressing room, to give him an ally
within the team, yet for precisely that reason it could blow up in
his face if Vieira struggles to justify his selection.
Mancini seems to have enjoyed initial success at City by not
having friends or preconceptions and giving everyone the chance of
a fresh start, a bit like Sven-Goran Eriksson did when he first
came to England. That is not how the Eriksson story ended, however.
In the end he was rightly pilloried for hanging on to certain
players for too long and having obvious favourites within the camp,
and it would be ironic if another import from Italy given a clean
slate made life hard for himself in the same way.
All that can be safely said at this stage is that Mancini has
made an odd choice of keynote signing, and that if Vieira succeeds
it will be the best indication yet that the Premier League is
nowhere near as quick and energetic as it thinks it is. It is
probably not as good as it used to be either, judging by some of
the FA Cup games last weekend. Maybe it is just a top-four decline,
but it would be hard to imagine the Manchester United of a couple
of years ago being slapped around the chops so publicly by a team
from two divisions below, or Liverpool being pathetically grateful
to escape with a draw from Reading, two places above the
Championship relegation zone.
None of the traditional top four have been as convincing this
season as they have seemed in the past. Only Chelsea have looked
genuinely menacing, though they appear to have lost the ability to
do it to order and remain a fairly elderly squad growing old
together. United now look as if they are not the same team without
Carlos Tevez, never mind Cristiano Ronaldo, and the deterioration
evident in their FA Cup performance could soon be writ larger if
they are as uncompetitive when the Champions League resumes.
Liverpool, already out of that competition, are entering a new
contest called How Long Can They Keep Hold of Torres and Gerrard?
while Arsenal, though ticking along fairly well at the moment, have
a long game called Life After Fábregas.
Perhaps this is no more than a crisis of confidence, and perhaps
we ought to be reassured that if the set-in-stone top four finally
crumbles, young thrusters such as Aston Villa, City and Spurs are
ready to take their place. We should be excited. Change at last!
But can we really rely on Villa, City and Spurs to kill the old
king? When City signed Vieira Harry Redknapp came out and admitted
he had been on the same trail himself. That's progress? This is a
33-year-old midfielder shown the door by Arsenal five years ago,
when everyone agreed Wenger had seen the best of him. Small wonder
Rafael Benítez can "guarantee" a top-four finish for Liverpool.