January is nearly over. We've now played a league season's worth of games and we've not even reached February. When we play Birmingham on Wednesday we'll have played as many games already as Spurs will in their entire season. We've done remarkably well so far, beyond most of our expectations, but we're starting to see signs of tiredness throughout the squad. It's showing in our performances which, given the high standards we've set ourselves, have been substantially below par all month. It's safe to say that, after winning the Manager of the Month award for November and December, Rafa will not be repeating the feat in January.
Dan Agger's introduction into English football can't come too soon; in fact we could do with two of him, as both Sami and Jamie are showing signs of tiredness and uncharacteristic lapses in concentration during matches. Sami's performances remind me spookily of last season before he was given a number of matches off when Pellegrino arrived. Our defence hasn't looked anything like as solid since conceeding in Japan. Admittedly, given that it was completely watertight before that, there was a lot to live up to, but the number of chances that we're conceeding, never mind goals, has risen sharply. We still look pretty solid as a unit, but individual errors, the hallmark of tiredness, are creeping in. Sami's lack of pace is being shown up more frequently. I doubt Jamie will want a rest, especially when he's holding the longest unbroken starts record in the Premiership, but his performances recently have not been at the same level as earlier in the season. Steve Finnan was given a rare rest today and Jan Kromkamp certainly didn't look out of place in spite of his lack of games this season; fresher legs certainly contributed to that performance.
In midfield, I cannot believe that Didi Hamman is not being utilised on a more frequent basis (even if he is just coming back from injury). His classy midweek performance for the reserves gave us a reminder that the distance running exhibition that Momo gives us every week doesn't necessarily need exact replication. Comparing Didi and Momo, the old adage "the first 5 yards are in the head" could not be put into perspective more. Fresh German legs may well give us a new impetus over the coming weeks in a similar way to Gary Mac five years ago. We saw the rare sight of Stevie G being substituted today which only serves to reinforce the point.
Upfront, whilst we've rotated the strikers more than we've rotated the rest of the side, Peter Crouch got a well earned break. Hopefully he can respond as well as Michael Owen regularly did to being left out and score a hatful on Wednesday. A fairly fresh Robbie Fowler will become available then too and will give us an additional possibility.
Is this dip in the quality of our performances down to poor pitches, the winter weather, dubious refereeing and the tactics of the opposition and not the CL qualifying and the trip to Japan? It's arguable, I suppose, that Pompey dragged us down to their level today (as did Man U on the weekend), but I feel that fresher legs (see November) would have outclassed the side put out against us and would have allowed many fewer chances against Jose Reina's goal. I think the number of games played is affecting our form. I've no doubt that squad rotation in central defence and across the midfield and lighter training for certain key players will form part of Rafa's plans for the near future. January's signings appear to have had this in mind as well. This should limit the affect of our increased season length and give us every chance of regaining the awsome form that we saw towards the end of last year.
