First Impressions. Second Thoughts.

Alternate title, "Monday Morning Manager".

So here are a few thoughts from the first weekend of Premier League matches. We'll try to break things down in a couple categories. First, what we learned about the actual league and how things might end up turning out. Second, what we learned about fantasy. Finally, we'll put a specific focus on new arrivals and rising players and what we learned about them.


Reality

• Champions Defend - Not to state the obvious but Chelsea looked pretty darn good.  Perhaps what we're learning is that they're really exceptional at bullying the bad teams in the league but they are certainly showing that they will do that with extreme prejudice.  
• Malouda Rising - Wasn't it less than 12 months ago that we were all wondering if Chelsea were going to cut their losses on this guy?  Now he seems poised to be - if he isn't already - the dominant attacking force in the Chelsea midfield.  He was all over the place (in a good way) and completely overshadowed the more celebrated Frank Lampard as Chelsea dominated.
• Birmingham Falling - They ended up with a point for their efforts but the basis of their success - at least for a stretch - was a stout defense.  With the backstop for that defense being back at Eastlands the question is whether you believe Birmingham have made up the difference between Ben Foster and Joe Hart with an increase in attacking prowess.  On the basis of this weekend's showing, I think the answer is no.
• Wolves Opening - The story that I'm hoping to follow happily all season started off on a positive note despite the fact that their two best attacking players were missing due to injury.  Fletcher opened his Wolves account and they picked up three important points at home against a team that finished 9 points ahead of them in the standings last season. 
• Villa Doing Just Fine, Thank You - With rumors abounding that they were going to drop off the pace with Milner leaving and questions about the future of Ashley Young as well.  Instead of collapsing (like say Wigan) Villa cruised against a West Ham team that doesn't look up to the challenge.  They treated Milner's potential departure as a chance to thank the player for his contributions and treated him with respect and dignity instead of turning things negative.  This bodes well if they can get strong talent (Ireland plus another) to backfill for Milner after his deal inevitably goes through this week.
• Confusion at White Hart Lane - What the hell was Mancini thinking with that line-up? It looked like an episode of the Smurfs going forward with three holding midfielders behind that and an unsettled defensive quartet that clearly weren't being protected by all of those holding midfielders.  If it weren't for Joe Hart, it would have been a disaster.  If you have any suggestions as to why he went with that particularly ill-conceived line-up, I'm open to hearing them. 
• High Profile Draws - You get the feeling that we still don't have much of a sense of what we have in the four highest profile teams that are chasing last season's top 2.  Certainly none of them made an emphatic statement.  You can excuse Arsenal (missing Cesc and RvP) and Citeh (still introducing themselves to each other) more so than Spurs (largely the same team with no significant injuries) and Liverpool.  That said, I'm not sure a high profile draw on the first weekend really tells us much other than that no one put themselves in too big a hole to start the season.
• Blackpool Fantasy - What a great start for Blackpool and their supporters.  They didn't make it until the end of Saturday as the league leaders but hopefully some of their supporters got a screen capture of the "live" tables that are becoming so popular.  Good for them for having such a great memory.  I wouldn't expect it to last but here's hoping that they prove us all wrong.

Fantasy

• English Attacking Midfielders - Both Lampard and Gerrard seem to have been supplanted in their attacking schemes in slightly different ways.  As we said above, Lampard seems to have given way to Malouda who looked like the sharp end of the stick.  Lampard scored well this week because he was gifted a goal but with Drogba and Malouda taking most of the kicks much of Lampard's value was diminished.  I'm not saying he's going to be a bad fantasy producer but we should continue to watch to see if he continues to be worth the premium price he commands.  At Anfield, Gerrard seems to have been moved back in the formation to allow new signings like Cole and Jovanovic to roam forward.  In his box-to-box role he scored well and we know that he'll have a slightly more forward role for the next 3 matches as Joe Cole serves his suspension.  That said, we should continue to monitor how Gerrard's points are impacted by his new positioning.
• Arsh Season Debut - What's up with Arshavin?  Is he hurt? Is he hopelessly homesick for Russia? Is John Terry sleeping with his WAG? (What? Too soon?)  He's been pretty much terrible in 2010.  First, the theory went that he didn't fit in well with Cesc but he didn't look any better with Cesc gone.  With Blackpool coming to the Emirates, one wonders if that's enough to get him back on track.  That said, don't let his reputation cloud your judgment - he looked entirely useless last weekend against Glen Johnson who has never been known for his stifling defense.
• Wigan Disaster - If that's what happens against the presumed 20th spot team AT HOME then you have to wonder how things can improve.  Can one want-away player really cause that much havoc? Maybe things will improve as the new defenders get adjusted to the Premier League but I would avoid them for the time being - but especially with Chelsea coming to town you have to think things are going to get worse before they get better.
• Joe F'n Cole -  I talked myself into him as a great bargain as I have previously when he was starting with Chelsea and I got what I deserved.  Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.  Fool me this many times, I'm surprised any of you are still reading - you are right? right? Jeremy and I kicked around the idea calling him the "next Paul Scholes" - why? crap for England? check; fantasy production not up to his reputation? check; can't tackle? apparently he gets a check there too.  
• Arsenal Cake Walk - We like to look ahead a bit in the schedule to see who is going to have a nice run of matches and Arsenal, now that they've put the Liverpool match-up in the rearview mirror will have a run of what should be 5 easy matches in a row before their trip to Stamford Bridge. It starts with Blackpool at home but doesn't get TOO much harder than that in September.  Now if only Wenger would settle on a team, we'd be in good shape.

Players of Note

• Albrighton - Albrighton was a revelation for Villa on the right side of midfield.  They need someone in that spot and unless someone else presents themselves they seem to have found something.  If you missed him on the Barn Door, he still isn't THAT expensive so you might want to get on board.
• Jovanovic - He had a few nice moments, especially the one where he essentially bullied his way down the field but ultimately failed to deliver the goods.  "Not bad" overall but certainly not worthy of being picked as a midfielder listed as a striker right now.
• Zigic - Ouch, not a good debut.  When your manager has to come out and say "we'll stick with him" after one week, it may be time to consider that said manager has made a big mistake.  I saw one report that compared him unfavorably to deploying a lamppost as a target striker.
• Stam - I'm not sure if it would have helped if he'd started in the midst of that disaster but the fact that he didn't could be interpreted as "he's not a first teamer" or "he just hasn't been with us long enough for me to trust him yet" - that said, he got 4 points in his substitute appearance which gives some measure of hope for him for the rest of the season.
• Chamakh - Not the all-action debut you'd have hoped for but he was influential in Arsenal's equalizer even though he didn't get credit for it in fantasy (nor should he have).  Too early to say anything definitively but I'm definitely going to see how things go against Blackpool this weekend.
• Koscielny - The red card was not really indicative of the quality of his play but that said, you have to be smarter than that if you're going to be a valuable player to your real and fantasy managers.  On balance, I think he'll be an excellent value across the duration of the season but he's not going to be Vermaelen so keep your expectations moderated somewhat.
• Silva - He had a few bright moments but I'm not sure whether to blame his lack of production on the fact that he's a little small to be playing centrally in the Premier League, the unfathomable formation that Citeh played, or the fact that Spurs are a pretty good team that was playing at home against a player who hadn't trained much with his new team.  I'm certainly not going to write him off - after all, it took Malouda about 18 months to click at Chelsea.
• Toure - Looked a lot more like "the next Diaby" than "the next Vieira" to me and remember, even the original Vieira wasn't much of a fantasy player at his height.  Unless he shows something entirely different then you have to figure he's not much of a fantasy option.
• Kolarov - Taken off injured after 45 minutes but that was enough to show us that he's going to be more Gareth Bale than Ashley Cole/Patrice Evra if he's going to be successful.  He isn't much of a defender but he looked very useful going forward.  If the rest of the Citeh team could defend, that would be OK but his spot has to be in question a little bit if the rest of the group doesn't come together and play better.
• Brunt/Dorrans/Adam - The midfielders from the promoted teams that everyone was watching and none of them really shone.  Hard to evaluate Brunt and Dorrans since they were in the process of being entirely overwhelmed by Chelsea but Adam managed only 12 points despite his team winning 4-0.  Not a good sign for Adam as the fantasy lynchpin of his team.  If they can put up 4 goals (unlikely to happen again) and he doesn't go over 20 points you have to wonder how it will look when they get shut out.  This week should be a better test for Brunt and Dorrans so we'll reserve judgment.

That's about it for now.  We'll continue to evolve this part of the blog as the season goes on but we definitely want to follow all of these kinds of storylines through out the season so this will be the place for it.