Five Things We Learned from This Weekend's Football

Credit where it's due, first of all: Jonjo Shelvey is still the finest big-game player in the country. With Manchester United looking to pick up another improbable win, the Havering Hagi stepped up with an assist and a quite fantastic winner to succeed where the rest of the world failed and put a stop to Van Gaal's dour streak of victory.

Of course, losing a game of football thanks to a wonder-strike from Jonjo Shelvey is nothing to be ashamed about. But with Liverpool, Spurs and Arsenal looking in a pretty serious mood, is Van Gaal really going to be able to cling on here? The judgement of his reign seems to be a pretty simple one: if he finishes fourth, he's a genius. If he finishes fifth, he's a failure.

That's clearly ridiculous, and is one of those weird episodes of doublethink that crop up at Old Trafford from time to time - we're supposed to believe David Moyes hugely underachieved in getting his squad to 7th, but that 4th place is a great achievement for them after £150m of refurbishment. Kind of like when United had an awful midfield but Michael Carrick and Paul Scholes were the best players in the league.

Maybe the best thing for United would actually be to miss out on it, so they could take stock of where they've gone wrong, and do a proper rebuild rather than dividing their transfer money between Van Gaal's above-average utility men and Ed Woodward's sacks of magic beans dressed up as Galacticos. The thought of another season of this dross keeping some genuinely interesting sides from Europe is too much to bear.

Much as it's been a bad week for football's image – with ticket prices, refereeing controversy, diving and the sort of racism even your dad can understand all cropping up – all of the previous can take a backseat for the moment. At the moment, there is definitively one thing Ruining The Game at the moment, and it's the familiar face of José Mourinho.

Taking siege mentality, attempts to influence referees, passive-aggressive press conferences and just being a general ballbag to new extremes, he's managed to piss off pretty much everyone in doing so. In fairness, Chelsea have been repeatedly on the end of outrageous decisions this season, but appealing over a red card for a player shoving someone over is about as spoilt as you can look from the outside in.

Mourinho's top moments from 50 shades of Grey — Indigo (@IndigoLFC)February 21, 2015

Some people wonder whether he's starting to lose his touch, that he's cracking up at not being able to pull clear in a league of such desperately flawed teams. My guess is we'll probably see the fruits of his labour very soon – the League Cup final against Spurs, most likely. If these things all even themselves out over the course of the season, we can probably expect a Drogba hand-balled winner while Terry stamps on Harry Kane's knee and Diego Costa slips a finger up Hugo Lloris' arse. Very Chelsea, very Spurs, and very José, and the cosmic balance would at last be restored.

For a while there, it looked like Rodgers was a grinning, happy-go-lucky, gullible narcissist who'd lucked out in inheriting the best player in the league and a team where form and fitness all clicked together for a season, rather than the cross between Napoleon and Mikahil Tal that he was being painted as. It all looked pretty Benitez-lite, and it wasn't too fanciful to expect him to befall a similar fate.

But after months of frantically searching around for something that's worked, he's actually found it, and done so by being brave enough to drop his big buys. As much as that says about his ability to judge a signing, a quick look back to Old Trafford should confirm that being able to make the call is one to be commended, and his team look a lot more likely to finish in the top four as a result.

They're still probably further than ever from winning the league, with a lack of genuinely scary talent persisting and not looking particularly likely to arrive. But he's at least managed to realise doing the same thing over and over again won't eventually produce effective, magnificent football, so if he nips in ahead of Wenger and Van Gaal, it'll only be fair.

Tim Sherwood: Anatomy of a Winner… — Bankrupt (@bankruptspurs)February 23, 2015

It's hard to disagree with the radio phone-in caller who stated after their inevitable home defeat to Stoke, that "Tim Sherwood has taken Villa as far as he can", and the club looks as bound for the Championship as it's possible to be. If Alan Hutton is a contender for your player of the season, it's time to start digging out the megabus timetable to Sheffield.

That's a great loss to the Premier League with Sherwood biting the dust, but sometimes you just need a relegation to clear your head. It's the same with Sunderland – all subsistence transfer dealings, short-termism and terrible managers. We've come a long way from the days when Ashley Young could spearhead a top-four challenge, but Villa need to go away for a bit and get themselves together.

David Moyes leaving Goodison saw Everton fans surprisingly reveal themselves as some of the most paranoid in the league, but even that initial wave of revisionism and mindless optimism has given way to a fledgling Martinez Out movement, and it's not hard to see why.

— Daniel Lim (@danielkb)February 22, 2015

A fine season and the purchase of a £30m striker has been followed up with one of such relentlessly sub-par form in all respects that it's hard to see exactly what he's getting right. It's not been pretty, attacking football coupled with his usual defensive naivity - it's been, well, shite.

"Moyes' first words to me were 'I'll keep Everton up.' Roberto's first words were 'I'll get you into the Champions League'", cooed Kenwright on the appointment. Ignoring the fact that both men seem pretty rude there – not even a hello, how's the wife? – Everton are at present six points above the drop and nineteen from the top four. They won't go down – there are too many teams much worse and they have a fairly comfortable run-in – but they're almost in a relegation battle that ought to have been unthinkable. It's going to be a long, hard slog ahead to get them where they feel they deserve.

@Callum_TH