Martin Lipton's Premier League review: Man City, Arsenal and Spurs prove the big boys always get the big calls
The Daily Mirror's chief football writer Martin Lipton will be here every Monday morning to review the weekend's Premier League fixtures. And come back every Friday when Laptop will provide his expert analysis on the weekend ahead and unveil his predictions...
It is one of the great football cliches. Decisions, we are always told, even themselves out.
They don't of course. Certainly not in the short-term.
But what we do know, without any doubt, is that the big teams get more than their fair of the big calls.
And if the pattern for the foreseeable future has been set, we can perhaps decide that we now have a Big Five, rather than a Big Four. And it does not include Liverpool.
Roy Hodgson's claims on behalf of his side after the Merseyside derby defeat at Goodison that left John W Henry holding £300million-worth of a relegation contender club sounded as if the Liverpool boss was trying to convince himself he believed it as well.
If that really was as well as Liverpool have played all season, we can at least say there is no more arguing that the Anfield outfit are where they deserve to be in the table.
They may have dominated possession at Goodison but lacked any real edge, threat or determination to wrest control of the game away from David Moyes' men.
Admittedly, Mikel Arteta's clinching second goal should not have counted, with Yakubu, yards offside, standing directly in Pepe Reina's line of vision, although there were no appeals or complaints from the Liverpool defence at the time - which says more than anything else, perhaps, about the collective state of mind.
But the Liverpool fans who came out moaning were complaining about the apparent lack of desire from their team, with far too many already calling for Hodgson's head for the manager to feel comfortable.
Then again, Hodgson is not the only north west boss with a king-size headache and Sir Alex Ferguson risks being beaten at his own game as Wayne Rooney deliberately cranks up the pressure over his Old Trafford future.
The news that Rooney is ready to demand he is sold, perhaps as early as January, will be a hammer-blow to the United supporters who are beginning to wonder what has gone wrong at the club after five draws in their first eight games.
Edwin Van Der Sar's blunder to hand West Brom a point at Old Trafford represented yet another occasion in which United have failed to hold on to a lead, and while injury-hit Chelsea did not capitalise as they were held at Villa Park, Carlo Ancelotti will still be as happy this morning as he claimed he was on Friday afternoon.
Rooney's dispute with Ferguson is the first serious challenge to the manager's authority in years, one which will give chief executive David Gill palpitations.
If United do sell - and the £60m valuation appearing this morning hints at the start of a softening up process for the fans to get used to the idea - then it may ease the financial issues facing the club in the debt-laden Glazer era but will not improve the relationship between the club and its supporters.
But bowing to Rooney's demands would be a humiliation for Fergie, one he would not accept. Gill and Co, suddenly, are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Elsewhere in the top five, though, it was a very positive weekend.
Arsenal's equaliser against Birmingham was thanks to a soft - but legitimate - penalty, the sort of decision that, time and again, goes in favour of the big boy.
And on the back of the weekend, which points to a pattern of decisions in their favour this term, Spurs and Manchester City must believe they have reached the same status as United, Chelsea and Arsenal in the eyes of officials.
City, who got lucky against Newcastle the other week, did so in triplicate at Blackpool. Gary Taylor-Fletcher's "opener" should have counted, Carlos Tevez was offside for his first and then clearly fouled Ian Evatt in the build-up to his second.
Phil Dowd and his officials, though, found in favour of City on all three calls, enabling Roberto Mancini's side to cut Chelsea's lead to two points and making it clear they are serious contenders.
Spurs, too, got one at Fulham, with William Gallas offside and clearly seeking to intervene as Tom Huddlestone struck home.
No matter that Gallas did not touch the ball and that, under the latest FIFA interpretation, it was a goal, Spurs would not have been complaining too loud or long had it been wiped out, just as they would not have argued if Stoke's "equaliser" in August had been given. Big decisions worth four points already.
The converse might explain West Ham's misfortune at Molineux, where Frederic Piquionne's last-gasp effort should never have been chalked off for a phantom handling offence, although five games unbeaten will soften the blow for Avram Grant, even if his side remain bottom for now.
Grant's men will hope that the old cliche is right. They would be wrong to count on it. Remember, the big boys always get the big calls. That is the essential truth.
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