Wigan's great escape, Saints look towards Norwich, Newcastle's comedy tumble and John Terry's special apology
1) If Wigan stay up it will be one of the greatest escapes
It's hard to recall a precedent in the English top flight for Wigan's recent performances. Great escapes are nothing new – and West Ham's in 2006-07 was even more dramatic in terms of results - but the style and audacity with which Wigan have all but secured their Premier League future has been breathtaking. A recurring word in Roberto Martínez's recent post-match interviews has been "arrogance"; it's particularly striking coming from one of the humblest men in the Premier League. Martinez's switch to a 3-4-3 formation has catalysed Wigan's improvement. Just as you can get good bacteria, so Wigan have demonstrated good arrogance, passing the ball with intimidating confidence and obliterating all the clichés about the style of play you supposedly need in a dogfight. After four wins in the first 29 games, they have won five of their last seven, four of them against sides in the top eight. They gave Manchester United a football lesson and then hammered Newcastle on Saturday. Wigan played with the irresistible swagger of a team going for the title, best exemplified by Franco Di Santo's outrageous fourth goal. This is not just a great escape. It's one of the greatest escapes. RS
2) The 'Norwich way' works for Southampton too
Who needs parachute payments? Southampton confirmed their elevation to the Premier League with a 4-0 thumping of relegated Coventry City, following the example set by Norwich last year in going straight through the Championship in their first season after promotion from League One. Like Norwich, Saints have built their side largely around those that took them up in the previous campaign, using a vibrant attacking style spearheaded by a ruthless target man. For Grant Holt last year, read Rickie Lambert this. Lambert certainly deserves his tilt at the top flight, having been perhaps consistently the best natural finisher in the Football League over the past five years. As does his lively and effective fellow striker Billy Sharp, whose season has been enveloped in trauma following the death of his baby son in October, while still at Doncaster.
The manager who brought him to St Mary's, Nigel Adkins, and who used Sharp to great effect in the pair's first promotion, with Scunthorpe from League One in 2007, is another whose low-key lower-division knowhow has worked wonders in the Championship this term and who deserves his chance in the Premier League. The youth team graduate Adam Lallana has also consistently caught the eye as a creative force in recent weeks and is well placed to make the step up. Not that Southampton's story is quite a rags-to-riches heartstring-tugger – as a big one-city club likely to attract more than 30,000 fans a game next season, a "plucky, homely club" tag doesn't really stick – but they've certainly demonstrated that hungry talent schooled in the lower divisions can offer a better path to promotion than Premier League cast-offs. Adkins 1-0 Allardyce, you might say. TD
3) Nobody apologises like John Terry
Never mind Being John Malkovich. Imagine spending 15 minutes inside John Terry's head. It's a very special place, in which you are magnanimous enough to forgive other people for your mistakes. Before the Wayne Bridge game in 2010, Terry said: "I will offer my hand and be prepared to shake his." On Sunday, in Chelsea's programme notes, he apologised for being sent off against Barcelona. Sort of. "I'm big enough to come out and man up when I make a mistake," wrote Terry, "and, clearly, I made a mistake on Tuesday."
It would seem Terry does not regard one of the most deliciously inept excuses in the history of the entire known universe as a mistake, because there is still no explanation for his original reaction to the red card – both on the field and in the tunnel. "I've just spoken to an absolutely distraught John Terry who says he did not deliberately strike the player," said Sky's Geoff Shreeves just after half-time. "What happened was the player checked his run so, in John's words, [Terry had no choice but to] pile into the back of him. He put his weight on [the] back foot, that's why his knee went up. He said, 'Look at me, I've not had one booking in the Champions League this season, there's no way I would do that. That would be madness to do that deliberately'."
Terry has the hilarious capacity to turn an apology into an act of aggression, an assertion of his masculinity. He is man enough to apologise, so do you want some? It seems that, with Terry, sorry isn't the hardest word; it's the hard-faced word. RS
4) Newcastle's comedy tumble
At around about 5pm on Saturday Alan Pardew might have decided that he does want Chelsea to win the Champions League after all. Newcastle's display at Wigan on Saturday was not so much a stumble as a comedy fall down a steep staircase, banging their head on every step. And four games from the end of the season is not the time for comedy tumbles. Pardew spent most of Friday's press conference talking up the merits of the Europa League and saying that whatever European competition Newcastle found themselves in next season it will be an honour and a privilege for the club. He may no longer have any choice.
Newcastle let their control of a top four finish slip from their grasp at the DW Stadium and, if things don't go their way in Wednesday's trip to Stamford Bridge and Sunday's game against Manchester City, then the notion of them being in the Champions League may seem a distant memory. At least it will for everyone who is not connected with the club. If things don't go their way, Pardew and his players may find themselves willing Chelsea to victory in Munich on 19 May. If fourth place doesn't bring Champions League qualification then it will soften the blow of letting it slip from their grasp. EF
5) Alexander leaves them wanting more
Always a classy player, Preston North End's Graham Alexander ended his 1,023-game career on Saturday in some style, coming off the bench to score in the final minute. The reaction of the crowd says more about Alexander than any words. EF Read More
انسخ الكود التالى و ضعه فى موقعك او مدونتك.
