Football Snobbery

24 hours ago, Stamford Bridge and Villa Park were making their preparations for the 80,000 supporters that would grace both stadiums; ahead of two mid-week local derbies to be played under the floodlights.

At the same time, Sam Allardyce and Pepe Mel were putting the finishing touches to their respective team sheets, and with the two games 125 miles apart, the two mentalities applied by the two weren’t much closer.

Albion came to Villa Park with a fire under their arse, and came right out of the blocks, playing some respectable free-flowing attacking football, and after some excellent moves (and a helping hand from the wind and an own goal) found themselves two goals ahead within the opening 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, at the Bridge, Big Sam opted not to park the bus for a change. Instead, he parked the bus, a couple of vans, a fleet of cars, and a burger stand; showing less ambition than a traffic warden from Slough. They found themselves lucky to be at 0-0 within 10 minutes following a superb save from Adrian to deny Oscar.

In hindsight, you wouldn’t give a second glance to a bloke running down to Paddy Power and putting his life savings on Albion dishing out a tanking, and West Ham receiving one. However, true to the predictably unpredictable and often hilariously cruel nature of football, Albion went on to lose 4-3, while Big Sam’s 11-man brick wall secured a hard earned point at one of the fortresses of the modern day Premier League, with no side ever winning there while Jose Mourinho has been at the helm.

Mourinho has accused Allardyce of playing ‘19^th century football’, but I fail to see this as an insult in the slightest, being as it has proved successful on this occasion. It also comes across as a tad hypocritical, especially in hindsight of Mourinho’s 2-0 win at the Nou Camp with Inter Milan in 2010, where Mourinho adopted a similarly defensive stance. With West Ham in the bottom 3, and the immense financial implications of staying in the premier league, you simply cannot argue with the results. Had the Geordie cart-horse known as Andy Carroll buried his chance from 8 yards out, there would be no such discussion.

One must only cast a thought back to the likes of Hull and Blackpool, who enter the league with intent to attack, and while often providing excellent short-term results, ultimately shows its long term unsustainability with relegation come May.

Playing attractive, attacking football may be easiest on the eye, but Football is, and always will be, a results-based business – a cliché becoming more and more relevant given the growing gap between the ‘elite’ clubs and the rest of the league, with every point worth their weight in gold for clubs outside of the top 7. The fact that Chelsea themselves serve as a symbol for the modern spending habits of the big club makes this sort of snobbery all the more laughable, as this is arguably the top factor in causing this absolute desperation for points from lower clubs, and because of this I would have done the exact same thing.

As thoroughly unlikeable as a back-hand-receiving slimy fat bastard can be, I commend you Big Sam.