Jonathan Wilson's Blog, page 112
May 13, 2019
How Manchester City tweaked their tactics to counter Liverpool threat | Jonathan Wilson
Football changed in 2008: Pep Guardiola became the manager of Barcelona. Football had been evolving anyway. There had been amendments to the laws to encourage more technical, attacking football (the backpass law, the liberalisation of offside, the crackdown on intimidatory tackling). There had been changes to the economics such that the gulf between rich and poor had grown.
But what Guardiola achieved at Barcelona with a supreme generation of players shifted the parameters of what was believed to be possible. It is that philosophy that continues to guide him and has underlain Manchester City’s success over the past two seasons.
Related: Pep Guardiola stands alone as Manchester City’s biggest star | Barney Ronay
Related: New York kiss to Brighton bliss: the story of Manchester City’s triumph
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May 11, 2019
Premier League’s freakish finale leaves no margin for error | Jonathan Wilson
After Tuesday at Anfield and Wednesday in Amsterdam, perhaps nothing will ever seem impossible again. Nonetheless, it remains extremely unlikely that Brighton – two wins in their past 17 games – will take the points off Manchester City – 13 wins in a row – a result Liverpool need if they are to have a chance of winning the Premier League title. If City win and Liverpool beat Wolves, Jürgen Klopp’s side will have accumulated 97 points this season and still not be champions.
Related: Premier League: 10 things to look out for on the final day
Twitter: follow us at @guardian_sport
Related: Jürgen Klopp confident pain can lead to gain for defiant Liverpool in title race
Related: Miracles, plot twists and last-day drama to come – what a week of football | Eni Aluko
Continue reading...May 9, 2019
Belief fuels era of remarkable Champions League comebacks | Jonathan Wilson
Yes, yes, very good, but does the Champions League have any other tricks? It has become like Jed Mercurio killing off major characters long before the end of a series: the overturning of what would once have seemed impregnable leads is beginning to lose its shock value.
It is astonishing how perspectives change. When Manchester United won 3-1 away to Paris Saint-Germain in the last-16, it seemed a comeback for the ages, the sort of performance and result that would never be forgotten. Now, if it exists in the collective memory at all, it will be as another example of PSG’s flakiness or the culmination of that strange two-month period when it seemed Ole Gunnar Solskjær might be able to turn United around essentially by sticking on a late-nineties mixtape in the dressing room.
Related: What a night part two! Spurs' stunning comeback against Ajax – in pictures
The venue: Estadio Metropolitano, Madrid (Saturday 1 June, 8pm)
Related: Spurs live a north London fantasy to break apart Ajax’s butterflies | Barney Ronay
Related: Tottenham superheroes achieved near miracle at Ajax, says Pochettino
Continue reading...May 8, 2019
Liverpool’s power shows Barcelona that passing alone is not enough | Jonathan Wilson
Technique must now be matched by physique and Klopp’s side used old English virtues to blow away a decadent Barcelona
Talk all you want about great European nights. Talk of the swell of the crowd, the roaring emotion inside Anfield. Talk of St-Étienne and Olympiakos and Borussia Dortmund. Talk of glory and heart and implausible goalscoring heroes, of Fabinho’s energy, Trent Alexander-Arnold’s wit and Jordan Henderson doing it on one leg. All that played its part. But talk also of Barcelona’s impotence in the maelstrom, of the familiarity of their problems, and conversely of the way in which Jürgen Klopp has resurrected the great historical virtue of English football: its power.
When a three-goal advantage is overturned, of course it is a surprise (even now, when such things seem to happen on an almost weekly basis in the Champions League). Just because the underlying causes can, with hindsight, be traced, the improbability of what happened should not be downplayed. The silliness of the away goals rule meant the tie was weighted even further in Barcelona’s favour: Tuesday’s second leg effectively started 3.5-0 given the impact a goal for them would have had on the tie. Plus Lionel Messi, plus Luis Suárez, minus Mohamed Salah, minus Roberto Firmino: of course this was a shock. And yet look at the two legs as a whole, look at the balance of play, and what was freakish was not the scoreline at Anfield in the second leg but what had happened at Camp Nou.
Related: Jürgen Klopp puts incredible Liverpool comeback down to ‘mentality of giants’
Related: Liverpool’s waves of red fury and recklessness end in joyous bedlam | Barney Ronay
Continue reading...May 6, 2019
Premier League title race goes to the wire – Football Weekly
Max Rushden, Jonathan Wilson, Mark Langdon and Archie Rhind-Tutt discuss Liverpool forcing the title race to the final weekend, Chelsea stumbling over the line, Manchester United unable to cliché their way out of trouble, an emotional Aaron Ramsey and Football League climaxes
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We look back at the weekend of football just gone, starting with Liverpool’s late showing at Newcastle, with Divock Origi’s second winner of the season – he being the beneficiary of Jordan Pickford’s 96th-minute error in the Merseyside derby back in December.
Continue reading...May 5, 2019
Liverpool’s dogged pursuit could push Pep Guardiola’s side to their limit
Are Manchester City human? Do they doubt? Do they wonder? Is their faith in their own ability as implacable as it often appears? Does there come a point at which they reflect on their own recent form – 12 straight league wins – and then at the league table – Liverpool two points clear having played a game more – and think there is nothing they can do, that a pursuer this dogged, this capable of willing itself to victory in the most unpromising circumstances, can never be shaken off, that there is some other force at work here?
Related: Origi’s late winner sinks Newcastle and keeps Liverpool’s title hopes alive
Related: Liverpool ride their luck but game of fine margins remains wide open | Louise Taylor
Continue reading...May 2, 2019
Klopp took a risk with his tactics at Barcelona – and Messi made him pay | Jonathan Wilson
Contemplating his side’s Champions League quarter-final against Manchester City last season, Jürgen Klopp said that to sit back and look to absorb pressure against such a side was in effect to try to “win the lottery”. Against the very best, he believes there is no point – at least for a team of Liverpool’s ability – in curling up like a hedgehog and hoping the threat somehow goes away. He vowed to attack, and did, and his reward was three goals in an extraordinary 20-minute spell that settled the tie before half-time in the first leg.
Related: Incomparable Messi reminds Salah who is master of left-footed arts | Barney Ronay
Messi reached 600 for Barça against Liverpool. When did he score his first?
14 years ago, to the day – 1 May 2005, aged 17, against Albacete in La Liga. The assist was provided by Ronaldinho, who said afterwards: “I started out at the same age as him, and it’s difficult. He’s just a child, he’s the youngest of us all. But senior players helped me with jokes and cheerfulness – and I try do the same.”
April 29, 2019
How Marcelo Bielsa gave Leeds fans something to be proud of again | Jonathan Wilson
What is football for? Why do people go, week in and week out, to watch teams that very rarely come close to achieving anything close to their ambitions, and at times can barely be bothered even to trot through the motions? Why do they expend so much emotional energy in entities that at any moment can be taken over by the corrupt or incompetent? What’s the point?
Fans anger quickly these days but disillusionment takes much longer to set in. There is far more booing in stadiums than there used to be, and social media gives public vent to the grumbling that was once confined to pubs, which probably inflates it and at times gives it a performative aspect. But attendances are far more stable than they used to be. People keep going.
Related: Sheffield United ready for a Premier League walk on the Wilder side | John Ashdown
MINUTES OF MAYHEM
⚽️ Klich
Fight
El Ghazi
⚽️ Adomah (but not if Jansson can help it )
Terry vs Bielsa?
It was absolute chaos at Elland Road! Have you ever seen anything like that before?
More: https://t.co/KqbZ3gZyO9 pic.twitter.com/9Y257vWT0l
April 25, 2019
Dominant Manchester City show how vast the gulf has become with United | Jonathan Wilson
While Ole Gunnar Solskjær tries to reconjure old values, City are breaking free from their past with the title a step closer
In prospect, six weeks ago, in that golden age when Manchester United didn’t have a permanent manager, the derby looked like being the biggest obstacle between Manchester City and retaining the league title. History, perhaps, will continue to view it as such: it is a derby, it is United; how could it not have been a night of furious passions and impossible tension? And yet in the moment, once the initial United surge was over – there was, at least, some sort of reaction to Sunday’s humiliation at Everton – the overwhelming sense was of how vast the gulf between the sides has become.
That is 11 league wins in a row now for City, a run of absurd consistency. United battled, at least until going behind, but as Roy Keane pointed out that should be a prerequisite. The presence of a bit of fight, though, served only to highlight the difference in quality, a disparity highlighted by the way United set out with three central defenders shielded by three deep-lying midfielders – and nobody accused Ole Gunnar Solskjær of needless ideological negativity; breaking the game up was just the best way of trying to get something out of the game.
Related: Obsession with past leaves Solskjær’s United stuck in a footballing Pompeii | Barney Ronay
Related: PFA Team of the Year: Manchester United’s Paul Pogba a shock inclusion
Continue reading...April 22, 2019
Top two dominate, Manchester United collapse and a Benteke goal – Football Weekly
Max Rushden, Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Lars Sivertsen discuss Manchester City and Liverpool’s Premier League dominance, defensive collapses for Arsenal and Manchester United and whether you’d prefer a team of Scott Browns or Lee Cattermoles.
Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.
We start with the Premier League title race, which is ‘as you were’ after City and Liverpool both keep up their respective winning runs against Spurs and Cardiff. Elsewhere, we look at the race for the Champions League as both Arsenal and Manchester United suffer defensive nightmares.
Continue reading...Jonathan Wilson's Blog
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