Let’s face it, in the modern game, a couple of games resulting in either a poor performance or a loss means that not only are all the players apparently past it, but the manager deserves the sack.
After the start made this season by Arsenal, pundits and the rest of the footballing media were questioning not only the players at the club, but the man who has been in charge for longer than most of them have been writing about sport, bringing not only unprecedented success to the Gunners, but also a style of play that matched any team we had previously seen in the Premier League.
However after a less than perfect start to the season, critics were questioning Arsene Wenger and if it was finally time for him to move on to a different club. The media would have us believe Arsenal were heavily affected by the loss of key players including skipper Cesc Fabregas, and panic bought so close to the end of the transfer window.
Whilst there may be a small amount of truth in that, people are quick to forget that the season consists of 38 games, not 8, and things can dramatically change very quickly in the Premier League and after a run of good results, Arsenal are now back in the race for not only fourth but according to sky pundit Alan Smith possibly even the title. Whilst this may be slightly optimistic, it bordered on the ridiculous when the media were calling for whole sale changes at Arsenal.
Likewise the media are always more than happy to declare the title winners in the middle of September – we can all remember how well United did at the start of the season and how much the papers made of this. United would have won the title by Christmas if the footballing press had anything to say about it, yet after the crushing defeat by City, they are now in danger of losing their crown and City have become the iron cast favourites to lift the trophy come May.
It is by no means just the British media who are quick to throw opinions around, after Real Madrid suffered a defeat and draw in successive games, the media in Spain – even Marca – were quick to say Mourinho had lost control and Barcelona would steamroll towards the title. Real now lead La Liga by a point, so all is not lost for Mourinho’s men.