SOCCER ANGLES:Hull's success, Delap's secret weapon, Spurs and Newcastle holding up the league, who would have thought it at the start of the season
"IT'S A STRANGE league this season, isn't it?" said the man on the end of the line. There was a tinge of anxiety to his tone. Not too much, it's just that to Premier League officials, the sight of a table where six points separates bottom-placed Tottenham Hotspur from seventh-placed Everton - in November - must shake a number of August's certainties. Reassurance was offered. We are all shaken, and yes it is strange. But it's good strange.
And so it is. It is good that after almost a third of the season no one can say definitively who will win the Premier League and who will be relegated from it. With Arsenal having lost three of their opening 11 games, there is even some welcome uncertainty regarding the top four. This would truly be a memorable season if there was a shake-up there.
Without competitive risk, sport is a procession and that is one reason Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger deserve so much credit. Added to the risk of defeat is the risk of playing adventurous football - Manchester United lost more games than fourth-place Liverpool last season, for example, but they also won six more.
It is why both men matter more to the spirit of the game than Jose Mourinho - though at Porto his unpredictable achievement should never be overlooked - and Rafael Benitez, who needs to sustain Liverpool through to next April and beyond.
But Benitez has made a good start this season. He has complicated our understanding of his team and his own motivation and the insertion of doubt is what drives us forward, keeps us going back. Liverpool are another reason, despite so many empty seats around England, there is a feelgood factor about the league.
Bookmakers' odds are reflective of what has happened so far. On the morning of August 16th it was possible to get 10,000 to 1 on Hull City winning the Premier League. Six wins later and it is 500 to 1. That still reveals a lack of belief in Hull but it is also an odds cut of proportions that shows how wrong we all were.
More interestingly to the realist perhaps - though their stock is not so high - Hull were 7 to 1 on to be relegated in August. Today they are 9 to 2 against. When Hull host Bolton this afternoon it will be as favourites - and this against a club that is into its eighth consecutive season in the top flight.
Notions are being overturned and it is great to see. Part of this is the absence of the Derby County effect. In winning just one game last season, Derby skewed each weekend's perceptions more than the league itself. Which was only a little because they lost to everyone except Newcastle and Fulham. Derby finished on 76 points - two per game - behind United, but it was the 25 Derby finished behind Fulham that stood out as much.
Only five points separated the six clubs above Derby. A win and two draws, that was the small difference between doomed Birmingham City and safe Wigan, seemingly robust in their 14th place. Seemingly. But a greater part of the crush outside the top six now is the spectacular incompetence of Tottenham and Newcastle at management level, and of Everton's subdued players. It took Everton until last Saturday to win at Goodison Park. Yet they're seventh in the table.
The pantomimes at White Hart Lane and St James' Park, meanwhile, have facilitated a Hull victory at both. Then Joe Kinnear walks in one door and Harry Redknapp another and suddenly things change again. At West Ham they got rid of Alan Curbishley - remember him? - and brought in Ginafranco Zola. West Ham, 10th last season, have one point from their last 15. Yet they're 11th in the table.
Aston Villa have more than an impression of solidity about them but they lost 2-0 at Newcastle on Monday night.
There was a lack of aggressive reaction to Newcastle's first goal that clearly perturbed Martin O'Neill. And those of us who thought Villa would ease through this game. The word strange came to mind.
And Rory Delap? There we were thinking he was playing out his days at Stoke and, while he would enjoy their return to the top flight, he and they would leave again not having troubled the scorers. But Delap has been given his wings and Arsenal's defenders are the latest to fail to understand that heading away a throw-in is the same as heading away a cross. It's all in the head. But it's good.
There is so much to dislike about the top of English football - and Roy Keane's anti-Sky TV rant yesterday will strike a chord with millions - that the game is in danger of alienating one too many of the people who make it what it is, the supporters.
So while it is different, exciting and, yes, strange, even for a period, we should relish it. And stay away from bookmakers, badge-kissers and the application of logic.
Clarke finds his feet at Darlington
ON THE opening day of the league season, Billy Clarke was mentioned here. The 20-year-old from Cork was what they call a prospect as a teenager but was sent out on loan by Ipswich before the season began. The background noise was about the need for Clarke to knuckle down.
He went to Darlington, which does not inspire many, but Clarke scored the first in the victory at Grimsby last Saturday to take his league tally to eight. This may represent more than knuckling down. Darlington are top of the league.
Sky's the limit for Keane
ROY KEANE'S views on Sky television and the whole culture of knee-jerk football analysis will be splattered across page after page this morning. Many will agree with every word of it.
On Wearside, however, they will scan that part and then seek out the bit about how Sunderland are going to overcome Portsmouth today and win for the first time in three matches.
Sky TV may irritate Keane but if he read last Monday's Sunderland Echoafter the 5-0 thrashing at Chelsea he would be worried more than annoyed.
Here's a sample of opinions from the 'Echo Jury'.
"How dare he (Keane) experiment with our club by starting with youth players?"
"If Roy Keane had let the supporters know on Friday about his team and the plans to effectively forfeit the game then I for one wouldn't have forked out £48 (€55) on a ticket and spent a miserable day in the capital.
"Yet again we had outrageous decisions by Keane. To start with Waghorn instead of Cisse and to play 4-4-2 against Chelsea away from home was completely mad."
And for balance: "I think we are all guilty of doubting some of the gaffer's decisions but we need to keep the faith."
All this a fortnight after Sunderland beat Newcastle at home for the first time in 28 years. It's a strange league all right.
