Jonathan Wilson's Blog, page 107
September 21, 2019
Is Arsenal’s strategy of playing out from the back too great a risk? | Jonathan Wilson
Sokratis Papastathopoulos’s blunder against Watford is part of a recent trend that will have many sides questioning whether the adoption of this high-risk strategy is worth it
L ast Sunday, when the Arsenal defender Sokratis Papastathopoulos attempted to pass the ball from inside his own penalty area to Mattéo Guendouzi just outside it and in doing so gifted Watford a goal that allowed them back into the game, he joined a recent trend. Everybody wants to play out from the back, but in the past few months doing so has proved exceptionally risky: John Stones against the Netherlands, Plamen Iliev for Bulgaria against England, Michael Keane against Kosovo, Nicolás Otamendi against Norwich – the list of those who have given goals away trying to build from deep grows by the week.
Related: Blame me for Arsenal’s collapse against Watford, says Unai Emery
Related: Manchester City and the perils of playing out from the back – Football Weekly
Related: Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka pays tribute to ‘legend’ Ljungberg after stealing show
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September 19, 2019
For decadent, deficient Real Madrid the problems start in midfield | Jonathan Wilson
As Thomas Meunier and Juan Bernat capered through the open savannah that archaeologists believe was once populated by the Real Madrid midfield, the mind was drawn to another Parisian night two and a half years ago, when Ángel di María orchestrated an even more emphatic victory for PSG over a Spanish side. As it turned out, that 4-0 win over Barcelona didn’t turn out particularly well for PSG but, more generally, what on earth is going on with midfields in la Liga?
On a night when Atlético twice conceded goals on the break at home to Juventus, the issue seems particularly acute. Last season the big three Spanish sides leaked three or more in a game to Liverpool (Barcelona); CSKA Moscow and Ajax (Real Madrid); and Borussia Dortmund and Juventus (Atlético). In each case the major problem was the same: a ponderous midfield being shredded in transition. There had been glimmers of the issue the season before, in Real Madrid’s defeat at Tottenham and Barcelona’s embarrassing collapse in Rome, which itself had been foreshadowed by the problems they’d had against Chelsea in the previous round.
Related: Ángel Di María double helps PSG ease to win against Real Madrid
Continue reading...September 15, 2019
Tammy Abraham revels up front but Chelsea need to tighten up at the back
Youth products scoring goals. A verve and excitement in forward areas. Goals, fun, joy. It was all there for Chelsea at Wolves on Saturday. Fikayo Tomori was a revelation stepping out from a rejigged defensive line. Tammy Abraham scored a hat-trick to take his tally to seven in three games. Mason Mount again found space and devastating angles in the final third.
And yet when Romain Saïss’s 69th-minute header found its way in via the hands of Kepa Arrizabalaga and Abraham to make it 4-1, Wolves’ players were rushing to get the ball back to the centre-circle; it seemed like more than consolation. When, with the score at 4-2, the board went up to signal six minutes of injury time, there was a great roar from the home crowd: they felt there was a real chance of a famous comeback. With this Chelsea side, you suspect, no lead will ever seem quite safe.
Related: Tammy Abraham scores hat-trick and own goal as Chelsea hammer Wolves
Related: Frank Lampard says place in the top six cannot be guaranteed for Chelsea
Continue reading...September 14, 2019
Champions League is back – but don’t expect a real match until February | Jonathan Wilson
The group stages have become predictable and merely reinforce financial inequalities between the biggest clubs and also-rans
I n the distance the anthem swells. Inappropriate advertising hoardings are covered up. A continent prepares to give thanks to Gazprom for providing them with football. The Champions League returns on Tuesday, unleashing an excited flurry of anticipatory questions: Can Liverpool defend their crown? Will Pep Guardiola stop overcomplicating things and, after a nine-year break, finally lift his third European title as a manager? Will Juventus’s gamble on Cristiano Ronaldo pay off? Are Barcelona and Real Madrid as shambolic as they appear? Who will Paris Saint‑Germain lose to hilariously this time? But mostly, when does the real stuff start?
Does any other competition that so regularly ends so brilliantly go through such a protracted clearing of the throat? Last season only one side managed to eliminate a club with a higher annual revenue in the group stage. The year before there were four sides eliminated by teams with lower annual revenues and before that just one again. Of the last 48 teams to reach the knockout stages, only six did not follow a remorseless financial logic – and even then it is hard to claim that Ajax or Basel putting out Benfica, or Roma qualifying ahead of Atlético Madrid, really counts as especially noteworthy.
Related: Uefa agrees deal with clubs to cap prices for away fans in European competition
Related: Champions League group-by-group guide: predictions and star players
Continue reading...September 9, 2019
Harry Kane moves up the charts, Bendtner-mania and more – Football Weekly
Max Rushden, Jonathan Wilson, Mark Langdon and Suzy Wrack discuss England’s 4-0 win over Bulgaria, Ryan Giggs in trouble even as Wales win, a big test for Northern Ireland, Bendtner-mania and a manager quitting out of boredom
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We take a look back at the weekend of football just gone, starting with England’s 4-0 win over Bulgaria and Harry Kane’s leapfrogging of a few big names in the England all-time top goalscorer chart.
Continue reading...September 8, 2019
Kane, Rashford and Sterling ensure England are ominously short of drama | Jonathan Wilson
It wasn’t thrilling. It wasn’t much of a spectacle. There must be broader concerns about the diminution of the Euro qualifiers as a spectacle since the expansions of the finals. Not that football has ever shown much inclination to worry about such matters, but there probably should be qualms as well about how many central and eastern European sides seem simultaneously to have suffered such a decline. But for England the lack of drama in Saturday’s 4-0 win over Bulgaria is itself an indication of how positive the present situation is for them.
Related: Harry Kane hits hat-trick in England’s demolition of blundering Bulgaria
Related: Marcus Rashford’s selflessness is a major help to the England cause | Andy Hunter
Continue reading...Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford amd Raheem Sterling sum up England’s hard-work ethic | Jonathan Wilson
It wasn’t thrilling. It wasn’t much of a spectacle. There must be broader concerns about the diminution of the Euro qualifiers as a spectacle since the expansions of the finals. Not that football has ever shown much inclination to worry about such matters, but there probably should be qualms as well about how many central and eastern European sides seem simultaneously to have suffered such a decline. But for England the lack of drama in Saturday’s 4-0 win over Bulgaria is itself an indication of how positive the present situation is for them.
Related: Harry Kane hits hat-trick in England’s demolition of blundering Bulgaria
Related: Marcus Rashford’s selflessness is a major help to the England cause | Andy Hunter
Continue reading...September 7, 2019
Shift from power to possession allows Chris Wilder to set centre-backs free | Jonathan Wilson
L ast Saturday, Rochdale scored a brilliant goal against Southend, working the ball from front to back in 16 rapid passes. As is the way of things these days, clips circulating on social media have not merely celebrated the artistry and the technical mastery of the goal, the courage to attempt it, but have rapidly followed football’s equivalent of Godwin’s Law and degenerated into deeply tedious rows about Pep Guardiola.
To parse these as briefly as possible: somebody invents an army of straw men and tweets something like: “Who says Guardiola isn’t having an influence on English football?” To which the correct answer, you would think, would be hardly anybody. Except then the straw army comes to life and social media convokes its usual symposium of sneeriness as everybody shouts that people passed the ball before, you know, and that the bald fraud hasn’t won the Champions League since 2011. Somewhere along the way the point is lost that although Guardiola has, admittedly, only done it with hugely rich clubs packed with talented players (almost as though, being at the top of the game, he wants to work with the best), Brian Barry-Murphy is somehow doing it with Rochdale.
Related: Sheffield United’s John Egan: ‘I wanted to play GAA like my father’
Related: Sheffield United’s Chris Wilder beats Pep Guardiola to LMA manager of the year
Continue reading...September 2, 2019
Arsenal v Spurs analysis, dives, Bakery Jatta and more – Football Weekly
Max Rushden, Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Barney Ronay discuss a scrappy, shambling north London derby, top six stumbles, the difference between two English dives, a curious case of dubious identity in Germany and The Wilson Scenario
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We take a look back at the weekend of football just gone, starting with the north London derby, as Arsenal and Spurs played out a 2-2 draw in which both impressed and underwhelmed in equal measure.
Continue reading...Tottenham’s second-half weariness shows Arsenal are now the fitter team | Jonathan Wilson
Tottenham were outlasted by Arsenal in the 2-2 draw at the Emirates, a turnaround from the declining years of Arsène Wenger’s reign
It was undeniably thrilling, but was it any good? The north London derby ebbed and flowed, swept from one end to the other, was replete with thrills and spills, shots and saves, big tackles and defensive errors, but in the anarchy and the fun, perhaps, lay the reason neither of these sides will seriously challenge for the title this season. Ultimately, neither could enforce anything resembling control.
Related: Aubameyang completes comeback and earns Arsenal draw against Spurs
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