Freddie brings fresh approach to Arsenal

What impressed me most about Freddie Ljungberg’s start as caretaker manager was his different approach to handling his players. Before playing Norwich last weekend, he announced that the team would not be using Arsenal’s private jet any longer and instead replaced it with their luxury coach. Then on the 120 miles up to Carrow Road, where the Canaries waited, he spent time moving around, sitting with and talking to his players. Freddie said this gave him more contact with the team and he could discuss tactics and how the team would play. He regards closeness to his players as essential. It was all so different to the more remote figure of departed manager Unai Emery, who rarely interacted with individual players and was more of a loner. After arriving at Norwich, Ljungberg led his team out for an early practice session and academy manager Per Mertesacker, Arsenal’s former central defender, played a key part in that. Ljungberg trusts him. Per spent a long time talking privately with Mesut Ozil, his former German national teammate. Finally, Ljungberg handed Shkodran Mustafi his first start of the season and he was chosen ahead of Sokratis Papastathpoulos because after a week’s training, Ljungberg believes he is better on the ball. The manager did not worry about changing the captaincy because he believes it can wait, so Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was left in charge on the pitch. Granit Xhaka might change his mind about leaving Arsenal as Ljungberg has shown faith in him and persuaded him that all might not be lost at the Emirates following his recent problems. Bukayo Saka was given the nod over Nicolas Pepe and Ljungberg told us it was because he was also more positive in training. He also knows Saka because they worked together in the Under-23 side. He shared a joke with one of his staff during the match but mostly he sat in the dugout and quietly observed instead of using Unai Emery’s style of directing his team from the touchline.

Skimpy brief for Freddie at Arsenal

Ljungberg has one huge advantage over Emery at Arsenal. The players believe in him whereas Emery had become a figure of fun and commanded little respect. Freddie also speaks good English and Emery never quite learned to communicate with his players in it. Freddie’s instructions from the Arsenal board are as skimpy as his underwear in his modelling commercials — he was one of the main footballing icons who starred in Calvin Klein underwear adverts recently. The board has given him a free-hand with little guidance because they believe he can stop the rot at the Emirates. One sign of better times to come is that all the players turned up early for training on Tuesday morning and all were anxious to put in a solid training shift under the guidance of the popular Swede. Freddie believes he can make a big enough impression to be considered as the long term manager but I know the board have contacted Max Allegri and Eddie Howe at Bournemouth but Freddie is carrying on in the belief he will be given some time.

Future looks bright for Palace

Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson was in buoyant mood after the 2-0 win away to Burnley and a 1-0 win over Bournemouth. Palace finished 10th four years ago and they are now mixing it with the likes of Tottenham and Chelsea to secure a top-four place. The point which raised Hodgson’s spirits was the possibility of winning all four of their upcoming games against Watford, Newcastle, West Ham and Southampton. And he is right, with Wilfried Zaha in devastating form and both their attacking force and defence showing solid resilience, the top four clubs are looking anxiously over their shoulders.

Lampard’s Plan B fails

Chelsea’s home loss to West Ham saved the Hammer’s boss Manuel Pellegrini from suffering the same fate as Unai Emery and Mauricio Pochettino who collected their employment cards recently and are searching for another job. However, it also highlighted a definite weakness in manager Frank Lampard’s Plan A. With the loss of Tammy Abraham with a hip injury, received in the Champions League match against Valencia, Lampard’s plans went rapidly downhill. He drafted in Olivier Giroud, who at 33 years of age, cannot do the things Abraham does with his athleticism and he is also a different type of player. Abraham fizzes and crackles with energy whereas Giroud is much quieter and often plays in his fellow strikers with his back to the goal. The result was that it didn’t work against West Ham. The next tactic he tried was to use Pedro who could not get into the game and he moved Pulisic to make room for Callum Hudson-Odoi. That didn’t work either. Lampard needs another striker at the club to cover for Abraham as he does not see Batshuayi as a permanent solution. The midweek win against Aston Villa proves the point because the returning Abraham gave the Blues so much more upfront. Chelsea’s ban from signing anyone in January exposes a weakness in Lampard’s revolution at Stamford Bridge and he had a real headache to work on a solution at their Cobham training ground this week. The match away at Everton this weekend will show how well he has prepared after their narrow midweek 2-1 victory against Aston Villa.

Traore shows his potential

Have you noticed that Wolves are now up to 5th in the League and Wolves manager Nuno Espirito Santo has been praising his wing-back Adama Traore as one of his great successes. I watched him torment the Aston Villa defence recently and his commitment, speed and accuracy were exceptional. Nuno described Adama as his flexible player and has used him as wing-back, winger and striker this season. After originally joining Aston Villa from Barcelona in 2015/16 he was not a great success and moved on. He returned to the Premier League with promoted Wolves just over 12 months ago and has gone from strength to strength. When asked what had worked so well for Adama, Nuno said, “He is working a lot harder this season and pushing himself so he can play in several different positions. He is now one of our most important players.”

Pellegrini’s lack of judgement

Players at West Ham are joking amongst themselves that they all believe in fairy tales. They probably believe in Father Christmas and the Yeti and also believe they can escape from the bottom of the table now that manager Manuel Pellegrini has seen sense and dropped disaster goalkeeper Roberto. The West Ham defence had lost all confidence in Roberto and were nervous every time opponents closed in on their goal. Roberto made mistake after mistake however his replacement, 33-year-old David Martin played well in the win at Chelsea and the West Ham defence rose to the occasion and held off Chelsea’s strikers successfully. Unfortunately the Hammers lost 2-0 at Wolves on Wednesday but again Martin gave a good account of himself. The problem now is that owners David Sullivan and David Gold are seriously worried about Pellegrini’s judgement because he held faith with Roberto for so long when everyone else at the Hammers could see it was a disastrous appointment. From what I am hearing, it could be that lack of judgement which finally seals Pellegrini’s fate if the next few results do not go their way. Poor David Martin was so nervous on his West Ham debut that he only managed to eat two rounds of toast for lunch and felt sick before the start of the match. He need not have worried and he was loudly applauded by the Hammer’s fans and also David Sullivan and David Gold.

Dele Alli is back, at last

One player who has already been revitalised under new manager Jose Mourinho is Dele Alli. The ’Special One’ has inspired ‘The Humble One’ and three goals and one assist demonstrate how the long out of form winger has comeback in style. His spectacular effort against Man United on Wednesday is definitely a contender for goal of the season. When Mourinho arrived at White hart Lane one of the first things he did was to call Dele into his office. He laid out some of his plans and told the striker that he was among the best in the world and together they would jump start his comeback. Alli was delighted and he left with a spring in his step. Mourinho believes Kane, Alli and Son can be the best strike force in the Premier League — even better than Sane, Salah and Firmino at Liverpool or Aguero, de Bryune and Sterling at City. On the training field this week Mourinho was all smiles and concentration. It was as if he had been reborn and very unlike the moody, sulky, complaining manager he had become at Manchester United and Chelsea. Following Mourinho is rather like walking on eggshells and you never quite know how you stand but so far so good but of course it has only been a couple of weeks. Mourinho also confirmed that he has spoken with owner Daniel Levy about Christian Eriksen, Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertognen, all of whom were due to leave the club. Alderweireld and Vertongen might be persuaded to stay but Eriksen has told Mourinho that he definitely wants a fresh challenge and hopefully in Spain’s La Liga. Levy does not want to let Eriksen go for nothing when his contract runs out at the end of the season and therefore he will be looking for around £40million instead of £80million which was on offer at the beginning of the season. The club have offered Eriksen in excess of £200,000 a week but he is determined to leave despite Mourinho’s attempt to keep him.