Pacman to the point / Jamie "The Pacman" Pacheco / 14 September 2008 / Leave a comment

Jamie "The Pacman" Pacheco on how Premiership events so far have an all too-familiar look to him and why he won't be making the same mistake as last year.

"An impression or dull familiarity of having seen or experienced something before." That's the dictionary definition of the term "Déjà vu" and something I experienced at around 7.30pm on Saturday. Roughly this time last year, Man Utd had drawn the opening game of the season at home to a side widely tipped to struggle (Reading), lost to a bitter rival (Man City) and watched another contender for the Premiership (Arsenal) get two wins and a draw from their first three matches and look far more impressive than them.

Now if you were to substitute Reading for Newcastle, Man City for Liverpool and Arsenal for Chelsea, I'd say that's at worst familiar territory and at best a case of the aforementioned déjà-vu. I remember thinking long and hard about whether the drift on Man Utd's price to around the [4.0] mark at this time last year was a value bet but eventually gave in to the same old arguments be it in the Media or down the pub: Ferguson is past it, they lack a 25 goal-a-season player and the likes of Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs (who have been the cornerstones of the team for more than a decade) are already thinking of retirement spent between the golf course, Barbados and the TV room in a Cheshire mansion that is bigger than most people's whole house. Well, I'm not making that mistake again.

Ferguson past it? Try telling that to the Spurs board who watched him live on Sky Sports News chauffeur-driving Berbatov around Old Trafford or the players in his dressing room after the Liverpool match. 25 goal-a-season player? Yes, you guessed it - the same Berbatov who scored 25 and 27 goals over the past two seasons (in all competitions) for a Spurs side that was inconsistent, as only Spurs can be. Not to mention Cristiano Ronaldo who will return sooner than expected, possibly in time for Chelsea at the weekend. Scholes, Giggs? They've looked good to me so far and with international football out of the way and playing in what could well be their final season, the hunger is definitely still there.

It's crazy to think that we could have a potentially crucial match in the Premiership title race as early as week four but Man Utd's visit to Stamford Bridge isn't far off being just that. Ferguson will have to go to war without one of his most trusted and bravest warriors in the suspended Vidic and the injured Michael Carrick. Whereas the former is indeed a big loss, he's not as big a loss as the similarly suspended John Terry is for Chelsea. Besides, (assuming Terry's ban isn't overturned on appeal) having received a straight red, the England skipper will miss a further two matches whereas Vidic will be back for the visit of Bolton the week after.

As for Carrick, not only is his injury not as bad as first thought, but Man Utd have plenty of options in that very position. They look a more balanced side with Hargreaves in the team anyway, Scholes and Anderson are class performers and Darren Fletcher is football's equivalent to a lunchtime visit to your local Pizza Express - it's not glamorous, rarely memorable but very seldom lets you down. Chelsea on the other hand, have no suitable replacement for the ubiquitous powerhouse that is Michael Essien, who faces at least five months on the sidelines. For all the guile of Deco, class of Ballack, trickery of Joe Cole and goals of Frank Lampard, they miss defensive cover now that the man after whom a position was named after - Makelele - was allowed to move to PSG. Mikel is out of depth and as big a certainty in the ref's notebook in big matches as the names of Duckworth/Lewis in a rain-affected scorecard of an ODI. Take anything above [2.5] for the man whose name sounds like a Star Wars character to be carded on Sunday, should he start. As for the match itself, the draw looks the bet at [3.25].

Yes, of course Chelsea will come very close to regaining the Premiership. In the five midfielders I've mentioned (sorry John Obi), defensive pairing of Carvalho and Terry and the superb Cech in goal they have international class throughout but in addition to the gap left by Essien, I worry for them up front. So much was made of the failed signing of Robinho but I feel Scolari and Peter Kenyon were barking up the wrong tree in the first place and that it was a partner (or understudy) for Drogba that they were missing, rather than another number 10. Kalou is fine as an impact player but not good enough to lead the line whereas Anelka has so far failed to come to terms with any of the systems Chelsea have employed and may well be on his way out of yet another club come January. Too much appears to rest on the Atlas-like shoulders of Drogba and given the fact he's now 30 as well as his all-action style of play, I wonder if he can play almost every match on the fixture list like he has done for the last few years.

What then of the remaining two members of the so-called Big Four, I hear you ask. For Liverpool, Torres and Gerrard provide their main sources of goals but they are both injury-prone and unless Robbie Keane settles soon, too much responsibility will rest with them two which is a worry, as is their continued inability to grind out results away from home. Arsenal will have no such problems up front when the superb Eduardo returns from injury to provide cover for the prolific Adebayor and flamboyant (if also injury-prone) Van Persie but whereas Nasri is a like-for-like replacement for Hleb, they'll miss Flammini and find themselves unable to recover should anything happen to Fabregas.