Beneath the exaggerated headlines

I found the headlines over the weekend a bit OTT. Hacks and bloggers have been starved of football for a while so the first day of the season is usually over-analysed and over-dramatized. It is one extreme – I am going to go to the equally inaccurate other extreme of understating the key points. Here we go.

It is not true that Man City are a misfiring waste of multimillions. Mancini played without a playmaker. He had 3 defensive midfielders so he was not exactly planning a goal fest. Hughes bought a lot of players that were good enough to sit on the bench at a great club or maybe indeed hold a place with great players around them but it did not hide the fact that they were just slightly above players from good clubs. Touré and Abebayor seemed like a great catch and caused a lot of PR noise because they were from Arsenal. It does not put them in the same class as Vidic and Drogba. You could have paid many millions for Nicky Butt but without the stars around him, he is average. Those are the players Hughes bought. They were expensive but did not have the natural skill to blend quickly.

Mancini, on the hand has bought some interesting and good players. They are slowly building their game from a solid base – not just blind attacking. The players they have bought are good enough to gel quicker than last year's crop. Joe Hart may have put in a fantastic performance but if you look at the City's defensive performance, you would have to be a bit impressed given how little attacking they did and how much Spurs was in their third. That is a base for good growth. For me, that game actually told me that City would compete better this season.

Tottenham are not the new Barcelona. They were at home and they have always played with that tempo and guile when they have a good day. I did not see anything new yesterday apart from Bale. I cannot quite understate Bale's performance. I was so impressed with him – what a player! Apart from that, nothing new for me – just a good day at home against a team that could not attack.

I have not seen any mention of the fact hardly any of the big team – the ones that finished in the top seven are playing a flat 4-4-2. There is a system revolution in the premiership. The centre of the pitch is now a very difficult place to make progress. Wingers and wing backs will play a big role this season. At Anfield, Arsenal didn't have one till Theo Walcott came on while Gaël Clichy and Sagna will have a lot on their plate. Arshavin needs to learn how to be a winger and fast!

Almunia is not Petr Cech but Almunia is not as bad as people make out. Almunia is worse on ANR and in newspapers than he is in reality. Over the past week, a succession of commentators and former goalkeepers have come to Almunia's defence including none other than his arch-enemy, Jens Lehman. Lehman said Almunia was a good goalkeeper and suggested that Wenger would be hard-pressed to find someone better in the market right now apart from raiding another club of Arsenal's statue.

At least once every season for the past six seasons, I have written the following about Arsenal's defence and goalkeeping situation. If you don't score from set-pieces, you cannot defend set-pieces. If you are not crossing the ball in training and scoring then your defenders don't learn to defend them. Unless Arsenal starts crossing better (and hopefully Chamakh will help) then we will be vulnerable from set-pieces. The goalkeeper always looks worse when we concede a goal from set-pieces but it is a combination of the keeper and the defence.

Almunia is Arsenal's best keeper. I prefer him to Fabianski by a huge margin and I would rather play the two young keepers than Fabianski right now. The goal at Anfield was seized upon as a mistake by Almunia. But if you stand back, you should be able to acknowledge that that was a terrific and sudden strike. Had it been Van der Sar in goal, everyone would have talked about the strike rather than the keeper. Get off Almunia's back. The entire defence needs to get better.

Koscielny had a very good debut. The clueless referee spoiled his debut. Good defender – I am happy with is first day in the office. He looks much better than Djourou and you can see he has a good defender's intelligence.

Jack Wilshere is not better than Rosicky.

Chelsea are still boring.

Diaby is a midfielder "with no end-product" (direct quote from another writer). I disagreed at the time. But the world cup and the Liverpool game convinced me.

Mascherano is thug. He is the luckiest thug in the league. Mascherano has got away with several counts of murders in his premiership years. He doesn't break legs – he disables players on the pitch with ankle assaults, calf assaults, shirt pulls etc so he gets away with it. He does it without getting a yellow for the majority of his offences. He is an incredibly stealth dirty player than needs to be sent off more often.

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