Are There Special Plans Afoot...?

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Liverpool
It's been a weird old season for Liverpool. A few glimpses of really very exciting stuff and a good few stares at some pretty ordinary stuff as well. It's an inconsistency that sees them in mid-table without more than two consecutive wins to their name all season, and without any against a team currently in the top half of the table.

It leads one to wonder, with some amount of justification, whether Brendan Rodgers is actually doing a good job. He's building something, taking it slow, but not actually winning many games along the way.

Perhaps he needs something big. A convincing win against a successful, hated local rival perhaps. Like, Manchester United, maybe.

As luck would have it, Liverpool travel to old Trafford on Sunday, and Rodgers has a couple of things to look at. Matthew Stanger covered what United might do in some depth, including whether they will make any special plans for Liverpool's main attacking threat, but Rodgers has a similar consideration. He has shown willingness to depart from his favoured formation to combat the opposition, but it's a tricky one with United, because all a manager can put the most brilliant tactical plan into place, and still have their pants pulled down by Robin van Persie.

So how do you stop him? Given how deadly the Dutchman can be, the shrewdest thing to do is try, as best you can, to prevent him from getting the ball. It's an obvious thing to say, but with someone like Van Persie, if he has the thing for any amount of time, he will make you suffer. Trying to suffocate the midfield would be a good place to start, given that whoever United pick in there, they are likely to be relatively lightweight, relying on short sharp passing to make their mark. Stop Carrick/Scholes/Cleverley/Kagawa, and they're halfway towards stopping United.

That's the theory, anyway, but when the other half is Van Persie, well...


The Manchester United defence
Having said that, they'll have to deal with Luis Suarez.

It's fair to say that both defence will be busy on Sunday afternoon.


Arsenal
Arsenal launched an Instagram account this week. How exciting. It probably wasn't enough to soothe those Gooners who once again saw the best and worst in their side during the FA Cup draw with Swansea.

Having clawed their way back with the 'spirit' that Arsene Wenger bangs on about, they then contrived to chuck it away again with some lamentable defending and a spine made of porridge. Even neutrals were slapping their foreheads at the ludicrousness of it all.

Arsenal must be the most frustrating team in the country, all talent and skill but little actual achievement, these days at least.

Still, onwards and upwards - Aaron Ramsey is up for the fight.

He said this week: "It is a big month for us. We play some teams who are above us and we have an FA Cup game as well, so it is important to take these opportunities.

"We have Man City at home and Chelsea away, games that we did well in last season, so hopefully we can do the same again this year and that will set us up nicely for the run in to the end of the season."

He's right, you know. As things stand Arsenal are sixth, four points off that magical fourth place, so a draw and a win from these two coming games would be a very satisfactory week's work indeed.

It just depends which Arsenal turn up.


Manchester City
It will be interesting to see how City fare, and indeed set up without Yaya Toure this weekend. The big midfielder is off to help the Ivory Coast with their customary choke/flatter to deceive at the Africa Cup of Nations, leaving a massive hole in Roberto Mancini's midfield.

Of course, Toure actually hasn't been at his marauding best for much of the season, but he's still been better than most. So who will play in his stead? This writer would like to see James Milner have a blast in the middle, a position he has so rarely been used in since City paid north of £20million for him, after a brilliant season for Villa in central midfield.

It's a curious thing to purchase a player then insist on not actually playing him in his most comfortable position. Milner is a perfectly adequate winger, but a potentially excellent central midfielder, so with Yaya away, give James a chance, Roberto.


Rafa Benitez
It's not good when you're being booed by your own fans. It's even worse when that leads to you being patronised by Tony Pulis.

Pulis said, ahead of Chelsea's trip to the Britannia: "If he gets results and he gets lucky, then he has a fantastic football club to build. He has proved before at football clubs that he can manage at the highest level.

"Given the chance, who is to say he couldn't do it at Chelsea? But he needs the opportunity, and that does not mean weeks or months - you have got to give people time."

Bless.

It is a problem for Benitez though, because while the fans were probably never going to actually like him, whatever happened at Chelsea, they at least refrained from being actively hostile while they were winning games. With the defeat to QPR and Branislav Ivanovic's contribution to clown school against Swansea, the knives are out again.

So Rafa needs a win. Poor Rafa. Just let him have a quiet life.


Fernando Torres
The basic numbers aren't too bad. 14 goals in 31 starts is pretty good, if not spectacular, but probably not a return worth £50million.

Torres's real problem now is that he can't get away with 'pretty good' numbers and still hope to keep his place in the Chelsea side. When he was bumbling around earlier in the season, seemingly unaware of where his feet were and what they were supposed to be doing, he pretty much knew that he could still count on his spot because there was nobody else to take it. Daniel Sturridge has seemingly been preparing for his move to Liverpool for the past four months, while Roberto di Matteo will tell you what happens if you try the old 'False Nine' trick.

Torres had the full slapped-arse on his mush as Demba Ba bagged on his debut against Southampton last weekend, and with good reason. Ba already has two goals in around 110 minutes of football, with another chalked off, probably incorrectly, for offside - more importantly, that brace took his tally for the season up to 15 from 20 starts.

The Spaniard might be Roman Abramovich's favourite, but if Ba keeps up anything close to that scoring rate for Chelsea, then there is no justifiable and logical case for Torres to be the automatic starter.

Of course, not a great deal is done logically at Chelsea these days, so who knows what will happen?


Harry Redknapp
You can read too much into things. Everyone does it occasionally, be it someone's body language, the number of Xs on the end of a text message or someone's quotes from a press conference.

Still, when Harry Redknapp spoke before QPR played Chelsea the other week, it was hard not to wonder if he was having a little dig at his successor in the Spurs job.

"You'd have to be a real dope to mess it up with that group of players - (Eden) Hazard, (Juan) Mata, (Frank) Lampard," he said, presumably well aware that the last man to really mess things up with Chelsea was Andre Villas-Boas.

Still, even if Harry wasn't having a pop, this Saturday lunchtime is a pretty big occasion for Redknapp, for it's the first time he will come up against the team that sacked him in the summer. On the face of things Redknapp got a pretty raw deal, given they were only denied a Champions League place by Didier Drogba. However, as has been written many times before, it was a lack of any sort of long-term thinking that did for Redknapp, the signings of Ryan Nelsen and Louis Saha last January being perfect indicators of how long he believed he was going to be around for.

Oddly, it might partly have been this short-termism that made QPR think he was their man, for they have a small amount of time to get quite a lot of points. Which is why Redknapp has bigger things than petty rivalries with an old employer to worry about this weekend - despite the win over Chelsea, they are still bottom of the league and five points from safety. The smash and grab affair at Stamford Bridge will only really be much use if it inspires a previously listless side to some better results and, of course ultimately, survival.

From the opening few days of the transfer window it seems as if Redknapp might have a few problems attracting players to Loftus Road, which is fairly understandable. Loic Remy is one man thought to have politely declined their advances, while Redknapp has spoken of how difficult it is to recruit players in January at the best of times, never mind when you're at the foot of the table.

So Harry might have to work with what he has. He inspired - and perhaps more importantly organised - them to a win at Chelsea, so we shall see if he can manage it a few more times before May.


Wigan
That famous post-Christmas blast for Wigan looks like it will have to be another belter. Roberto Martinez's men have won just one of the last eight, losing six, putting them in the bottom three.

However, they now have a run of games that can be filed under 'eminently winnable', starting with a trip to Fulham, one of the few teams in the division in more rotten form than the Latics. Martin Jol's men pulled off one of those 'How did they win that?' victories against West Brom last time out, but before that they'd won just once in 12 games. After that it's Sunderland at home, with games against Southampton and Reading in the coming weeks.

If they want to actually avoid their annual end of season panic, they need some points from these coming games.


Paul Lambert
For a few games there, it looked OK for Aston Villa. The win at Anfield was encouraging, but since then it's been an avalanche of goals zipping past Brad Guzan's ears, the most damaging of which could well be Danny Graham's late strike last time out, denying them a spirit-saving win against Swansea.

And then Bradford. Oh Bradford, Bradford.

If that wasn't a sign that Villa were, in the words of Stale Solbakken, in 'deep sh*t', then perhaps losing to Southampton this weekend might be. They have only won once on the road this season, a 3-1 success at Loftus Road when QPR were at the very depths of their pretty deep despair.

The biggest problem at Villa seems to be in midfield, with several talented but callow boys filling roles meant for men. Whether Lambert has any funds to strengthen this month or not is in the hands of Randy Lerner, but he surely recognises that Villa cannot let games pass them by this much.


Reading
One win and eight defeats in the last ten. That's relegation form. In fact, that's relegation-by-mid-March form. Alas, it seems Reading's stay in the Premier League will be short, unless something remarkable happens, and that remarkable thing needs to start against West Brom on Saturday.

Nick Miller - follow him on Twitter