The Guardian - 27.08.2019

Section:GDN 1N PaGe:36 Edition Date:190827 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 26/8/2019 20:16 cYanmaGentaYellowb

• The Guardian Tuesday 27 August 2019

36

That so many clubs

are already up and

running gives the

table an unusually

congested feel

Sport

Football

Carabao Cup

Bony helps

Newport

sharpen

claws for

We st H a m

Giving heavyweights a fright has

almost become the norm for Newport

but the League Two side have lim-

bered up for West Ham in the Carabao

Cup tonight by rubbing shoulders

with a former Premier League striker

on a daily basis.

Wilfried Bony, whom the West Ham

manager, Manuel Pellegrini, took to

Manchester City from Swansea for

£28m four years ago , began training

with the club three weeks ago.

“It was a bit of a shock to be fair –

I thought he was lost or something,”

says Nick Townsend, the Newport

goalkeeper, whose heroics against

Gillingham teed up another glamor-

ous tie.

“I’m sure Wilf is very fond of Mr

Pellegrini but I’ll try to catch him off -

guard and see if he can let something

loose,” says the Newport manager,

Michael Flynn, smiling.

Flynn laughs off a scenario whereby

Bony ends up signing for Newport – “I

think he’s a lot better than this level” –

but is adamant the Ivory Coast striker,

released by Swansea this summer,

has had a big impression on a green

squad and on Lewis Collins and Tristan

Abrahams , Newport’s young pups up

front, in particular.

The arrival of Bony is an example

of how far Newport’s stock has risen

under Flynn, a manager with a bur-

geoning reputation. The former mid-

fi elder masterminded a great escape

in 2017 before his side gatecrashed the

League Two play-off s last season. “We

have made big improvements as a club

in the last two or three years and we

want to keep getting better and better,

on and off the pitch,” Flynn says. “It’s

fantastic that we’re on the map.”

Cup runs have been the lifeblood of

Newport over the past couple of sea-

sons. They made a profi t in 2017-18 on

the back of an extraordinary FA Cup

ride that included overcoming Leeds

on home soil and taking Tottenham

to a replay at Wembley. It put around

£750,000 into the coff ers before more

of the same last season when they beat

Leicester and Middlesbrough. They

came unstuck against Manchester City

but the run further funded a club fan-

owned for the past four years.

Bony, who lives in Swansea

and whose two sons are in the

Championship club’s academy, is a

free agent and has been training with

Newport to keep himself ticking over

while hunting for a club. The 30-year-

old is not under contract but essentially

forms part of Flynn’s squad, even train-

ing the morning after games with other

players not involved in the match.

Flynn says such traits emphasise

how hungry Bony, whose agent has

Ben Fisher ▲ Michael Flynn’s Newport will not

sit back against West Ham tonight

Newport County have

troubled Premier League and

Championship clubs since

Michael Flynn was appointed

manager in 2017:

2017-18 FA Cup

3R Leeds Ch (h) W2-1

4R Tottenham PL (h) D1-1

(a) L2-1

2018-19 FA Cup

3R Leicester PL (h) W2-1

4R Middlesbrough Ch (a) D1-1

(h) W2-0

5R Manchester City PL (h) L4-1

Cup specialists

Unpredictable

but not at the top

Opening rounds in Premier

League show assumptions

are being overturned – except

for City and Liverpool

Stuart James

S

ome quirky things are

happening in English

football’s top fl ight. For

the fi rst time since 1955,

15 or more clubs have

won one of their opening

three matches. Another Opta stat

doing the rounds on social media on

the weekend, courtesy of Duncan

Alexander, revealed that the last

time 19 or more teams had three

points after three games was in

1981-82 , the fi rst season after Jimmy

Hill and others had successfully

campaigned for the introduction of

three points for a win.

So, if English football is travelling

back in time, what does it mean? The

short and simple answer is probably

not a lot, other than you can throw

a blanket over the majority of the

clubs in the Premier League right

now, so much so that Newcastle ,

who enjoyed a terrifi c win at

Tottenham on Sunday, are second

from bottom of the table and also

one point off fi fth.

Watford, who are the only team

without a t least three points and

already in danger of being cut adrift

after losing their fi rst three fi xtures

(said tongue-in-cheek, to be clear),

travel to St James’ Park on Saturday

for a meeting between the bottom

two. An early relegation six-pointer.

Or, depending on whether your glass

of Newcastle Brown Ale is half full

or half empty, a chance for Steve

Bruce’s side to grab a place in the top

six before the international break.

been speaking to clubs in Italy and

Turkey, is to play.

“I think he has brought the level of

training up and everything like that,”

Townsend says. “He is the fi rst one in

and the last one out and he’s show-

ing a lot of the lads the standards you

need to play at the top level. It makes

the young lads raise their game.”

Newport have a lot going for them;

they are unbeaten and no team in the

Premier League or EFL have kept more

clean sheets in the league this year

than their 16.

Much has been made of the play-

ing surface at Rodney Parade , which

is shared with Newport Dragons and

Newport RFC but Pep Guardiola

was loth to criticise the pitch when

City  visited in February, reiterating

how all of his players had experi-

enced a “bumpy pitch” at some point.

At this stage of the season, Flynn is

adamant West Ham will have no such

problems.

“The real bad one last season

was against Middlesbrough – and

we played some fantastic football

that evening,” Flynn says. “We play

football and we have proved it many

times. Against Man City we didn’t

have that much possession but tell

me who does? It’s hard to get the ball

off them and, at times, every outfi eld

player was in our half.”

The last time Newport played

West Ham was in 1979 and it proved a

memorable occasion, toppling a team

who included Trevor Brooking, Frank

Lampard Sr and Billy Bonds.

Flynn hopes it will prove a good

omen but is acutely aware of the

size of the task of taming Pellegrini’s

attacking riches. “We will give it our

best shot,” he says. “I’m not one to sit

back, drop off and let teams pick you

off – especially Premier League teams.

You cannot let them have wave after

wave of attacks, because they will

murder you.”

That so many clubs are already

up and running (there was only one

previous occasion when 18 of the 20

Premier League clubs had registered

a win at this stage), means the table

has an unusually congested feel,

even allowing for the fact we are

talking about statistics after such a

ridiculously small sample of games

and at a time of the season when

the kids haven’t even gone back to

school.

On the face of it the current state

of play is no bad thing. Leaving aside

the football accumulators that are

being ruined, there appears to be

much to welcome about the idea that

Crystal Palace can win at Manchester

United only six days after they lost

at newly promoted Sheffi eld United,

and that Newcastle, supposedly

in crisis after being turned over by

Norwich, can pick themselves up

and vanquish Spurs, the Champions

League runners up. After all, who

wants predictability?

The problem – if it is a problem

• is higher up. Right at the top, in
  fact, where everything points to
  another two-horse race involving
  the same thoroughbreds who
  galloped clear last season. Yes,
  these are still very early days, but
  it already feels as though Liverpoo l
  and Manchester City are once again
  going to be playing in their own little
  league, largely because of their own
  brilliance but also as a result of the
  inadequacies of others.
  Indeed, neither club will have got
  too excited about Spurs struggling

to break down Newcastle or

Palace strolling through United’s

expensively assembled defence 24

hours earlier.

The form of the top two is

formidable. Liverpool’s win over

Arsenal was their 12th in succession

in the Premier League. City have

taken 49 points out of the last 51,

with the only blot the dramatic,

VAR-dominated 2-2 draw at home

against Spurs the weekend before

last when the shot count was 30-3 in

favour of Pep Guardiola’s team.

Uncharacteristically, and much to

the annoyance of Fantasy Football

fans everywhere, Liverpool and

City have been unusually generous

in defence this season. Liverpool

have conceded in each match and

Harry Wilson’s brilliant free-kick

for Bournemouth on Sunday means

Ederson has already picked the ball

out of the net three times for City.

That is the good news for the

chasing pack, if such a thing exists.

The bad news is that Liverpool are

averaging three goals per game at

the other end of the pitch and City

are just above that ratio. Perhaps

most sobering is that neither City nor

Liverpool have really got into their

stride yet.

I

n truth, the key question at

the start of this campaign

was less about how City and

Liverpool would fare and more

to do with whether the other

members of that established

“big six” could close the cavernous

gap that opened up last season when

Chelsea, in third place, fi nished

25 points behind Jürgen Klopp’s

runners-up.

Reading a lot into a little is a

dangerous game and, as Alan

Hansen once discovered , August is

no time to be writing off anyone’s

chances. Equally, it really is hard

to see much changing at the top in

the near future, especially when

Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United

and Spurs have already lost as many

games as Liverpool did in the whole

of last season.

▼ Isaac Hayden (right)

celebrates Newcastle’s win

at Tottenham on Sunday

CHARLOTTE WILSON OFFSIDE/GETTY

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