Manchester City, Liverpool and Aston Villa in the 10 things we learned from watching football this weekend

Published 12:53 31/08/09

Manchester City's Stephen Ireland beats Portsmouth's Michael Brown.jpg

1) Manchester City's next two Premier League games are against Manchester United and Arsenal. If Mark Hughes continues with his current formation, they will lose both heavily. City have been lucky not to concede against distinctly average teams - Blackburn, Wolves, Palace and Portsmouth - and will be picked apart by better sides. Hughes should bite the bullet and start the combative Nigel de Jong in front of the back four, sacrificing either Tevez or Robinho (or their occasional deputy Craig Bellamy). This move would also allow Stephen Ireland to get further forward and arrive in the box to finish off attacks, as he did to devastating effect last season. At the moment, he's too busy clearing up in midfield alongside the excellent Gareth Barry.

2) Meanwhile. the 70-odd million quid Hughes spent this summer on assembling the world's biggest strike force has so far yielded a whopping four Premier League goals –the same number scored by Jermain Defoe this season. So Sparky could have done just as well spending a quarter of the cash on the Spurs striker - and putting the rest of the cash in a legal fund to cover his wrongful arrests.

3) Liverpool are in no way a one-man team, and Rafa is a top class manager yadda yadda yadda. But, let's face it: if he didn't have Steven Gerrard to bail him out on a seemingly regular basis, Benitez would have been shipped off back to Spain before he'd even had time to grow that stupid goatee.

4) Pundits, insiders and, it must be said, people with a vested interest, have long harped on about Emile Heskey's nebulous value to a team despite the fact that he's a striker who doesn't actually score goals. Well, by dropping him yesterday, it seems Martin O'Neill has finally managed to quantify what that value is: minus three points.

5) Has Portsmouth's new owner Sulaiman Al Fahim been taking advice from Mike Ashley? Rock up in replica kit, watch your team get beaten at home and wait for the inevitable relegation. And what is the '77' on the back of his Pompey shirt all about? His worth in millions or his weight in stone?

6) Detractors say it's worthless nonsense designed to fill empty column inches, but MirrorFootball has always known the value of a good transfer story. And now too does Roman Abramovich: £30k per week, if John Terry's new contract is anything to go by.

7) If Wigan's players were only half as bright as their retina-burning away kit then manger Roberto Martinez might not be facing up to the prospect of a sooner than anticipated return to Swansea's Liberty Stadium next season.

8) Croatia fans will have been dismayed by the injury sustained by talismanic playmaker Luka Modric during Tottenham's weekend win that will keep him out of their forthcoming crunch World Cup qualifier with England. However; the goal scored by Peter Crouch has only enhanced his chances of playing in said game, so that pretty much evens that one out.

9) West Ham's stultifying stalemate at Blackburn proves that Gianfranco Zola needs attacking options more than he needs defensive ones. So… How many strikers can you get for one Matthew Upson? We should know by the end of play on Tuesday.

10) So Arsene Wenger doesn't like teams who dare to tackle his poor little lambs. He doesn't like teams who come out to defend and nick a point against a team with far superior spending power. He doesn't like "economic doping" either. What a shame that this intelligent, urbane genius appears to have come to the conclusion that anyone who doesn't act exactly as he does is somehow inferior. Grow a pair, Monsieur!

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