WHY SAY ANYTHING?

In a mixed competition weekend for football the Premier League was not really going to see much change at the top. With the title already in the delivery van and marked for Manchester the only battles left are for the rest of the top four.

With United and Spurs in FA Cup action and Chelsea not playing the path was clear for Liverpool and Arsenal to gain some ground on their rivals.

We will have more to say on the Arsenal situation tomorrow but, for now, we concentrate on the Saturday games.

West Bromwich Albion v Liverpool

In the first Premier League game of the weekend involving one of the top six Jürgen Klopp and his team travelled down to the midlands with half an eye, (is that even possible?) on the midweek Champion’s League game with Roma.

As long as Liverpool don’t do anything stupid they are virtually guaranteed to finish in the top four as Tottenham, their nearest challengers, are three points behind although they do have a game in hand. Liverpool’s superior goal difference, however, is as good as another point and they have the added security of being eight points ahead of fifth placed Chelsea who also have a game in hand.

They certainly approached the game at the Hawthorns with the intention of winning and, despite a couple of their “stars” being rested, they were 2-0 up after an hour.

Then they forgot their intentions not to do anything stupid and proceeded to throw away their two goals lead.

The game finished 2-2 and was an enjoyable watch for the neutrals and Darren Moore will be wondering why his team couldn’t produce performances like this and the one against Manchester United for their previous managers. If they had Moore would now be in charge of a side looking forward to Premier League football next season. Or maybe Tony Pulis or Alan Pardew would still be managing The Baggies!

FA Cup semi-final…..

Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester United

Manchester United were given the home team’s dressing room at Wembley in their semi-final with the actual home team Tottenham Hotspur.

In the early stages of the game home advantage certainly appeared to be with Spurs who went for the jugular right from the kick off.

Having scored after eleven seconds in the league game here against United it took them eleven minutes to do the same this time.

United were awful and, yet again, two of the worst players on the pitch were Antonio Valencia and Ashley Young, the two “full-backs” who actually have no clue how to play the position.

Fortunately, United improved and managed to equalise before half-time through Alexis Sánchez and that meant that the second-half would start with the teams level again.

When United took the lead after an hour or so the question became; would they try for a third or try and defend their 2-1 lead?

As it turned out they managed the rest of the game very well and Spurs never looked like finding an equaliser in the same way as United never really looked like scoring a third.

So United reached their 20th FA Cup final which is an achievement only matched by Arsenal and will get to play at the Tottenham home ground again when they meet either Chelsea or Southampton next month.

And finally, on Sunday…..

Arsenal v West Ham United

Manchester City v Swansea City

These are the two Premier League games of any significance because Manchester City will be presented with the Premier League trophy at The Etihad and Arsenal fans will probably start turning up at The Emirates between now and the end of the season.

It will be interesting to see how Arsenal play with the news that Wenger is standing down at the end of this season. Will they play as though the pressure has been released and they now know what is happening with Stubborn Old Man, or will they continue to be unimpressive and make the new manager’s job to replace them even easier?

We shall see, watch this space!