February is very much the transitional month in the football calendar. At the start of February, you probably still believe. At the end of the month, you will likely have given up for another year. This applies not only to Henry Winter's still-fruitless job search but also to the mindset of the supporter. As of now, there are still at least thirty English sides who can dream of significant silverware; by month's end, that will be down to about five. Let's round up the state of play across Europe's top five leagues.
The Prem is promising perhaps the most exciting denouement in its increasingly long history. Hapless Liverpool have swayed from victory to victory like a dazed boxer on the ropes, if the ropes were on a superyacht, and they were dazed because Ana de Armas had just parachuted onto deck wearing nothing but a Liverpool scarf and a smile. Giving chase, some of the giants of the game: Nottingham Forest, Bournemouth, Arsenal. Whose title aspirations will Michael Oliver corruptly dash next?
The Championship features several traditional northern heavyweights slugging it out, gravy everywhere as Leeds, Sheffield Utd, Burnley and Sunderland slug it out to see who will be relegated with 22 points playing nonsensical naive football next season.
More intrigue perhaps in League One, where OJ Simpson's Birmingham lead the way and well-run Wycombe look set for a return to the Championship behind them.
League Two sees Walsall shimmying towards glory while a host of teams queue up some way behind them. The National League appears to be a battle to the rhyming slang death between Barnet, Forest Green and York.
The FA Cup continues with the fourth round, while the League Cup is halfway through its semi-finals as it tries to avoid the prospect of having to play a Newcastle v Tottenham final in the large hadron collider.
Foreign Football will be on as well, with Napoli's grip slipping in Italy, the Madrid sides ahead in Spain, PSG a modest ten clear in the fuel strike trophy, and Bayern looking set to celebrate 100 years of Mein Kampf with another title, after having endured struggles of their own last season.
Rising above it all is of course the Conference League, which returns mid-month with its playoff round. With just three Cypriot clubs left in the competition, it really feels like anybody's title this year, with many sides relieved that they have avoided danger men Cercle Brugge should they progress to the last sixteen. No such luck for Shamrock Rovers, who will travel to Molde for Ireland's first realistic crack at the European large time since their Eurovision three-peat in the early nineties.
Enjoy your February soccer, everyone.
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Originally Posted by John Arne
