Everyone, It's Time To Step Up

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Everyone
As Matthew Stanger wrote in the last full edition of Premier League Winners and Losers, the title race is not particularly interesting now. Indeed, it's barely a title race at all, with Manchester City's chase of United looking more and more like a man chasing a car.

While on one level it might be amusing to see that sweaty man coughing as the exhaust fumes engulf him, it's not a particularly enjoyable spectacle to those of us who use the vicarious excitement of the Premier League as an escape from the drudgery of our own clubs/lives. We do not want a procession.

So with the scrap for the big prize more or less done, what we need now is a bit of interest. We need goals, defensive errors, goals, fights, touchline arguments, upsets, goals, comebacks, goalmouth scrambles, streakers, goals, goalkeeping calamities, dreadful refereeing decisions, goals, missed sitters, 30-yard screamers, collapses and goals.

Chaps, it's over to you.


Reading and Wigan
Ah, the old relegation six-pointer. It was roughly this time last season that both sides started turning their respective seasons around - Reading were in the early stages of the astonishing run of form that saw them win 16 of their 19 games from the turn of the year to when they sealed promotion, while Wigan had just beaten Bolton to spark the turnaround that took them from hopeless castaways to safety.

Not only would a win for either side obviously deprive a close rival of crucial points, it's also a weekend that is unlikely to see other teams around them pick up too much. QPR and Aston Villa play Manchester United and Arsenal respectively, so even with the latter shell-shocked and the former basically in cruise control until the end of the season, one would expect a pair of defeats for the struggling teams.

As this column has noted before, for Wigan to rely on the late-season burst again is extremely dangerous, and it is proving so this season. A defeat to a Reading side in much better form (the Latics have one win in the last 13, the Royals four in the last seven) would leave them at least five points adrift of safety with just 11 games of the season remaining. That sort of deficit would be difficult to claw back even if a team was playing well, something that cannot be said for a side who were spanked by Chelsea last time out and lost to Sunderland at home a few weeks ago.

Wigan's need is all the more pressing when one considers their next two games are against Liverpool and Manchester City, which could cut them perhaps fatally adrift by the middle of March. Roberto Martinez is clearly a good manager, but even he might not be able to rescue Wigan this season.


QPR
Chris Samba may well wonder exactly what he's got himself in for. That's not idle speculation either - observe his rather strong words for his QPR teammates after their recent shoeing by Swansea:

"I have nothing to hide - I was very angry. I said what I saw to the players. You shouldn't be ashamed of your performances but against Swansea, I was ashamed of both mine and the team's performance. There's nothing worse than feeling full of regret.

"Bobby Zamora showed us what the Premier League is about when he came on. I think more of the players should have his attitude - urgency that reflects we have 12 games left and must play every one like a cup final. We have to give everything."

You would have more confidence in QPR surviving if they were actually showing any signs of a revival. As it is, they have taken a couple of steps forwards with four creditable draws (Spurs, West Ham, Manchester City and Norwich) but then one leap back with the Swansea debacle.

What might save, or at least help their survival bid is that they are still to play the other realistic candidates for relegation - Southampton, Aston Villa, Wigan and Reading are to come, the down side being three of those are away from Loftus Road.

Still, Manchester United visit this weekend. Best of luck, Harry.


Arsenal
Arsene Wenger spoke of the psychological impact of losing to Blackburn ahead of the Bayern Munich game on Tuesday, and it's something that he will have to consider keenly after their schooling at the hands of the Germans.

Jack Wilshere genuinely looked like he was going to cry in his post-match interview, the impact of being so outclassed understandably hitting the midfielder pretty hard. It would be very easy for the impact of that game to spill over into the visit of Aston Villa, which is now arguably more important than the return in Munich in a couple of weeks.

If we are to assume that, while 'miracles' (Wenger's word, not ours) do occasionally happen, the Champions League is a write-off for this season, it makes qualifying for next season's tournament all the more important. One scoffs at Wenger's proclamation that finishing fourth is an achievement, but when such the hope is all a club has left at the end of a season, it does become something of an achievement.

Under normal circumstances, you might think that a home game against Aston Villa would be a nice, easy way to pick up three points and soothe their pain, but when this Arsenal side is capable of losing to Blackburn...well. Take nothing for granted.


Emmanuel Adebayor
Last season Emmanuel Adebayor scored 17 goals from 33 league appearances. He took around three shots per game. He set up a total of 61 chances for teammates, 11 of which were converted. This time he has two from 15 appearances, taking half as many shots, setting up fewer chances and has yet to record an assist.

There are reasons for this, of course. His season has been disrupted by injury and the Africa Cup of Nations. The Tottenham team is not quite as specifically set up to maximise his strengths as before. Jermain Defoe's early-season form kept him on the sidelines. However, even ignoring the statistics, it has become apparent that Adebayor simply doesn't have the same zest as before. His performances have largely been rather half-arsed. With Defoe out, Spurs need him to step up.

"We're trying to unlock the best from the player," Andre Villas-Boas said this week. "Last year is an example for what we're trying to get from him. We have been speaking to him about how he can get into goalscoring positions...

"Perceptions and media opinions can influence the public in general, but the player strives on his own motivation in the end."

The Spurs manager nailed it in that last bit. The coaches can help him out all they like, but it is Adebayor's responsibility to improve his performances, and improve they must.


Norwich
"We have got 12 games left and, whichever way we get the points, we have to get them," said Chris Hughton this week.

"There is only one priority and target - to make sure we are in this league next season.

"We went through a difficult period at the beginning of the season, then a very good period where we didn't lose for 10 games, and now we are finding wins that little bit harder."

He's right to put substance before style - Norwich are in the worst form of anyone in the Premier League, having not won in the last nine, with only six goals scored and 15 conceded in that time. Their only real saving grace is that four of the last five have been drawn, meaning their slip down the table has been arrested slightly.

Only slightly though, and if they don't start winning soon then they could find themselves in some reasonably serious bother.

Everton are the visitors to Carrow Road on Saturday, themselves not exactly in the finest form. A win would go some way to keeping them out of serious trouble.


David Moyes
The Everton manager's words on his future last week were rather curious. If you missed it, he said:

"I've spoken with the chairman and I want to see how the team do. I want to see how we do in the cups and the league and it is more than likely that I won't make a decision until the end of the season.

"You can ask me every week but I will probably give you the same answer."

It is slightly confusing. Assuming Everton finish in the top four, does Moyes mean this is more likely to stay, because he wants to have another go at the Champions League? Or does it mean he will leave because he has taken the club as far as he can? One would think that Moyes would like to see things through at the club, but that he is expressing doubts about his future suggests he is an ambitious man.

So is he more or less likely to leave if Everton have a storming end to the season? It seems unclear. If he wants to go out on a high, in an odd way Everton fans might not want them to do too well for the rest of the season.


Sam Allardyce
Few people like Sam Allardyce, but in some ways you have to feel sorry for him. There is talk doing the rounds that Allardyce's position at West Ham is under threat, which seems pretty odd given that he has done more or less all that can be expected of him since arriving in 2011.

It was a similar story at Blackburn, dismissed by owners who ostensibly wanted a better style of football but who have subsequently been revealed to not know what the hell they're doing. His methods are rarely pretty, but they have worked out fairly well for the Hammers thus far, despite their recent poor run.

"Some owners pull the trigger early but it is not like that here," said Allardyce recently, which is sort of true (Allardyce was their third manager in 18 months when he was appointed), but given the resources they have committed to creating a side in Sam's image, it's difficult to see them wielding the old axe in any situation other than a truly desperate one.

Having said all that, their last outing was the defeat to Aston Villa, during which they were as bad as you'd expect a team losing to Aston Villa would be. Since then they've been on a lovely 'training camp' to Dubai - hopefully for Sam, it will work.


Roberto Mancini
Pick your moments, Roberto.

Mancini said this week: "In the last 15 months I am the best manager in England. Someone says for six months that Manchester City would change manager, Guardiola would come in, and after Guardiola went to Bayern Munich, now another manager.

"I won one Premier League, one FA Cup, one Charity Shield, there is not another manager that's won like me in the last 15 months. I can do nothing but it is the reality."

Making a statement like that when your team has rather passively collapsed and sit 12 points back in the title race is akin to walking around Piccadilly Gardens wearing a 'Kick Me' sandwich board.

The question of Mancini's future is one that is being widely debated now, and will be even more as the season winds down, particularly if there isn't a league challenge to talk about. One thing in Mancini's favour is that this summer there may be a lot of very high-profile jobs going, but not that many suitable candidates to fill them, as Sarah Winterburn wrote here. We don't know exactly what Sheikh Mansour will do, but we do know that he wasn't shy of getting rid of the adequate but ultimately not quite good enough Mark Hughes when a better option was available.

On that occasion Mancini was that better option, but since then expectations have risen along with City's wage bill. It might not be a clincher, but a strong finish to the season may well help Mancini's cause, starting with the visit of Chelsea on Sunday.

Nick Miller - on Twitter