Jonathan Wilson's Blog, page 103
January 16, 2020
Quique Setién at Barça, Mata's magic and Love Island – Football Weekly Extra
Max Rushden, Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Jon Brodkin discuss Juan Mata’s slow march to a one-on-one, Christian Eriksen’s farewell tour, Harry Kane and England’s Euro inevitability, Love Island and Vera
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We start by discussing Manchester United’s 1-0 win over Wolves - just a single goal in three hours of football, which Wolves fans had to pay £20 more to watch than United supporters.
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January 11, 2020
Manchester City’s flaws have been exposed but singular brilliance remains | Jonathan Wilson
There was something almost refreshing about Manchester City’s performance in beating Manchester United in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday. Here was a Pep Guardiola side back to its best, passing and moving, a blur of a thousand midfielders confounding duller-witted opponents. Gone was the fragility to the counter that had enabled Marcus Rashford to eviscerate them in the Premier League at the beginning of December, and diminished with it was the thought that this might be a side in terminal decline.
When great teams go, they can collapse suddenly. As City struggled against United, Wolves (again) and Newcastle, it was possible to envisage this as a team reaching the end of its lifespan. Béla Guttmann’s Three-Year Rule – the great Hungarian coach said that if a manager stays at a club more than that period, players tend to become bored and/or complacent and opponents start to work out counter-strategies – began to be invoked.
Related: Shape-shifting City almost disappear from sight as United grandees look on | Jonathan Liew
Continue reading...January 6, 2020
FA Cup fallout, French upsets and social media ups and downs – Football Weekly
Max Rushden, Paul MacInnes, Jonathan Wilson, John Brewin discuss the fallout from the third round of the FA Cup, Solskjaer playing mean and a shock victory for amateur side JS Saint-Pierroise in the Coupe de France
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We start by discussing lower attendances across the FA Cup; a sign the magic of the competition is finally fading?
Continue reading...January 4, 2020
Wolves stalemate shows Manchester United lack their old fear factor | Jonathan Wilson
“You’re not famous any more,” sang the home fans in the Jack Hayward Stand, but that isn’t really true. Manchester United are still famous, it’s just not for the same thing any more. Once, as Steve Bull observed at half-time, Wolves would have feared United, but no longer. There was at least a semblance of pattern here, at least until they got into the final third, but unless they get an early goal and can counter, United rarely look like blowing opponents away.
Once United wore red shirts that for more than 100 years had symbolised passion and attacking flair, a club that believed in doing things the right way. Here they wore black with orange detail, because they are a brand, far more adept at selling merchandise and growing their social media following than any of that dull 20th-century stuff like putting together a football team.
Related: Wolves force FA Cup replay against flat Manchester United after goalless draw
Related: Harry Arter’s long-range winner fires Fulham past weakened Aston Villa
Continue reading...Football obsessive Marcelo Bielsa restoring hope and expectation to Leeds | Jonathan Wilson
At teatime last Sunday came perhaps the broadcasting highlight of the festive period, a moment both dramatic and farcical that was soundtracked by a high‑pitched Ayrshire voice shouting the phrases “Big Wes!” and “His own net!” in various combinations, the delirious syntax conveying the sense of the moment far more eloquently than a finely turned sentence could ever have done. As Alan McInally screamed himself hoarse, Leeds fans went berserk, players celebrated and coaches cavorted, Marcelo Bielsa took a walk across his technical area in his big padded coat, seemingly no more moved by the injury-time own goal from Wes Harding that gave Leeds United a 5-4 win at Birmingham than by tins of tuna being down to 38p in the Wetherby Morrisons.
Related: West Brom’s Semi Ajayi scores at both ends as own goal gives Leeds draw
Related: Marcelo Bielsa has history on mind as he plots to end Leeds’ top-flight exile | Louise Taylor
Continue reading...January 2, 2020
Solskjær’s game of patience at Manchester United is running out of time | Jonathan Wilson
For eight minutes at the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday, everything looked to be going well for Manchester United. And then suddenly it wasn’t. As it was in the game, so it has been for Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s career at Old Trafford. Have patience, the message comes again and again from the United board. Look at the youth in the squad. Wait for it to flower. But for how long, and at what cost?
Watching another insipid United performance away from home against a side below them in the table, Mauricio Pochettino’s aphorism about the cow came to mind. It can stand in the field every day and watch the train go by, but it’s never going to be able to explain the timetable. Just being there, experiencing the same thing over and over doesn’t necessarily bring wisdom, understanding or development. And there is little evidence that United are developing: they haven’t won three games in a row for 50 weeks, when Solskjær had just taken over and everybody was still euphoric just because he wasn’t José Mourinho.
Related: Paul Pogba’s foot surgery could force Manchester United to recruit in January
Related: Possessed Arteta coaxes Nicolas Pépé back from the living dead | Barney Ronay
Continue reading...December 31, 2019
Tactical review of 2019: Re-emergence of Brazil and a judicious high press
This year has been all about Liverpool. It is not just that they are European and world champions, or that they are well set to win the Premier League for the first time since 1990. It is that their football feels a distillation of the modern game. It is high tempo, hard-pressing football with a fluid front three and extremely attacking full-backs.
So universal do those traits seem to have become at the highest level of the game that teams who don’t play in that way appear almost old-fashioned. One of the reasons José Mourinho left Manchester United a year ago was because his refusal to press seemed symptomatic of somebody whom the game had passed by, yet the biggest doubt about his replacement, Ole Gunnar Solskjær, is that he too is fundamentally a counterattacker who struggles with what has come to seem to be the defining quality of the best modern coaches: their ability to organise an attack so that they can interact quickly enough to break down compact defences that sit deep against them.
Related: Megan Rapinoe: ‘Everybody has a responsibility to make the world a better place’
Related: Premier League fans’ January transfer window wish lists
Continue reading...December 28, 2019
Will anything now derail Liverpool’s bid for a first league title in 30 years? | Jonathan Wilson
Leicester were second in the table and unbeaten at home, where they had conceded only five goals in nine previous games this season. On Boxing Day Liverpool destroyed them, beating them 4-0 with a performance of awesome authority. Their opening 18 games have brought 17 wins and a draw, a start matched in the entire history of the league only by Manchester City the season before last. Their lead over the champions is 14 points with a game in hand before they meet Wolves on Sunday. At the moment Liverpool are not merely Club World Cup winners, they are actually the best side in the world.
Is there, then, anything that could stop them winning the title for the first time since 1990?
Related: Revamped Jordan Henderson holds up extremely well in Liverpool’s midfield | Jonathan Wilson
Related: Trent Alexander-Arnold is a unique playmaker in Liverpool’s red machine | Barney Ronay
Continue reading...December 27, 2019
Revamped Jordan Henderson holds up extremely well in Liverpool’s midfield | Jonathan Wilson
Nine years after a failed experiment with England, Henderson’s energy is being harnessed to great effect in a holding position
In November 2010, Fabio Capello gave Jordan Henderson his England debut in a friendly against France, operating alongside Gareth Barry at the back of midfield in a 4-2-3-1. In the second half, after Barry had been replaced by Adam Johnson, Steven Gerrard dropped in alongside him. It did not go well. Henderson didn’t start another game for England until a friendly against Denmark in March 2014.
But then why would it have gone well? Henderson was not a holding midfielder, even before you begin to consider the nightmarish difficulty of trying to play as a holding midfielder alongside Gerrard. Not for the first time people at Sunderland wondered whether Capello ever bothered to watch them play. One of the reasons Darren Bent left, two months after Henderson’s international debut, was that he felt his chances of England recognition would be greater if he played somewhere, anywhere, else.
Related: Trent Alexander-Arnold is a unique playmaker in Liverpool’s red machine | Barney Ronay
Related: The rise and rise of Liverpool's Jordan Henderson since 'Gait-gate' | Sachin Nakrani
Continue reading...A bad day for Foxes and Pardew back in the game – Football Weekly Extra
Max Rushden, Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Simon Burnton discuss the Boxing Day action in the Premier League and Football League, Alan Pardew’s new gig, transfer rumours and Barry’s life lessons from India
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We look back at all nine Boxing Day fixtures in the Premier League, beginning at Leicester where Trent Alexander-Arnold produced a masterclass to help send Liverpool 13 points clear at the top. We then evaluate Newcastle’s capitulation at Old Trafford, before touching on another home loss for Chelsea and a strong comeback by Tottenham.
In part two, we take a look at Ancelotti and Arteta’s first games in charge of Everton and Arsenal respectively, before covering the rest of the big stories in the Premier League and Football League.
Finally, we preview the weekend’s fixtures, touch on Alan Pardew becoming the new boss of ADO Den Haag and look at some of the early January transfer rumours.
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