Jonathan Wilson's Blog, page 12

Rashford could be more important to Tuchel’s England than Palmer or Saka | Jonathan Wilson

One Harry Kane pass to his fellow forward in otherwise routine win over Albania gives a hint of how England could succeed

One of the problems of international football is that everybody is always asking the wrong question, which to an extent is built into the form. Qualifiers matter only in as much as they have to be negotiated. Friday’s win by England over Albania fell into a very familiar pattern. The brave new world of Thomas Tuchel turned out to look a lot like the faded old world of Gareth Southgate. England had lots of the ball, did not move it fast enough and won by a couple of goals. It does not matter. They could have won 10-0, 8-5 or 1-0 and it would mean almost nothing in terms of the winning of the World Cup.

England want to win the World Cup next summer. They have a squad that should make them challengers. Barring pratfalls, there will come a point next year when they will play an Argentina or a Spain or a France, a team of equivalent or greater talent and, almost certainly, that is what will determine whether they are successful.

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Thomas Tuchel’s England era begins – Football Weekly Extra podcast

Max Rushden is joined by Jonathan Wilson, Lars Sivertsen and Jordan Jarrett-Bryan as they preview the international break

Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.

On the podcast today; the Thomas Tuchel era begins. What can we expect? What exactly is Jordan Henderson’s role and how quickly can we judge the job the new head coach is doing.

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Liverpool have been utterly dominant. But cracks are starting to emerge

Arne Slot’s team will almost certainly win the Premier League this season but there are welcome signs that talent in England may be becoming more dispersed

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It wasn’t supposed to be that straightforward. Newcastle United have suffered so much disappointment at Wembley that the assumption had been that the end of a domestic trophy drought that stretched back to 1955 would be fraught, that they’d have to drag themselves over the line, nails bitten to the quick, the countdown to the final whistle having to be earned second by painful second.

As it was, although there was some anxiety after Federico Chiesa’s injury-time effort for Liverpool was ruled onside by VAR, Newcastle seemed to have the game under control from the start, and never really looked like surrendering the advantage given them by Dan Burn’s magnificent header. His story, the local lad rejected at the age of 11 by the club he supported, losing a finger, transforming himself from goalkeeper to defender, touring the country before returning aged 30 to Newcastle and then, a few days after he had been called to the England squad for the first time, scoring the winner with the sort of header, neck muscles thrusting, that wouldn’t have looked out of place when Newcastle last won at Wembley, is almost too perfect. Enough, certainly, to make people believe in the myth of football as a stage for dreams and fairytales, of heroes and emotion and yearning and fulfilment, and to forget, at least for a moment, how the whole sorry business is funded.

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Hapless Spurs suffer again as Sessegnon has Fulham dreaming of European place

Ryan Sessegnon perhaps had a point to make. He was 19 when, five and a half years ago, he left Fulham for Tottenham. Having missed all of last season after surgery on both hamstrings, he returned on a free transfer in the summer having started only 26 league games for Spurs.

Sessegnon has not made a huge impression this season but, with two minutes remaining, as Ben Davies dithered under a bouncing ball, he brushed him aside and whipped a precise right-footed finish into the top corner, securing Fulham’s win and, with his first goal at Craven Cottage since Boxing Day 2018, a measure of personal vindication.

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Manchester United’s new field of dreams at risk of repeating the Tottenham trap | Jonathan Wilson

Like their rivals, the problem is not the rise in revenue that a new home offers but that so little of it ends up being spent on players

Build it and they will come – but you should be aware that you will be left with significant debt repayments, an element of the story to which Kevin Costner took a characteristically cavalier attitude. Which may be why Field of Dreams was about building a baseball stadium in Iowa for Shoeless Joe Jackson and the ghosts of the 1919 Chicago Black Sox rather than, say, Daniel Levy constructing a football stadium in Haringey for Vincent Janssen and the remnants of the 2019 Tottenham Hotspur team.

In the past week, Manchester United have revealed plans for a new £2bn stadium, capacity 100,000, next to Old Trafford, while Newcastle are reported to be looking to move from St James’ Park to a 65,000-capacity stadium on Leazes Park. Everton will move into a new stadium at Bramley-Moore dock next season. Wrexham are building a 5,500-capacity Kop. New stadiums suddenly are fashionable again after a period in which they came to seem almost an afterthought. That, perhaps, is an unintended consequence of profitability and sustainability rules (PSR).

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Aston Villa earn shot at greatness after setting up historic PSG showdown | Jonathan Wilson

In reaching the Champions League quarter-finals, Unai Emery’s side have taken a step closer to being immortalised

Glory comes in many forms. Perhaps the best Aston Villa could hope for on Wednesday was a game of little drama. They had in effect won the tie in Belgium last week; the last thing they wanted was to have to win it again. And yet, straightforward as it was, this was glorious, a night that in its outcome, if not the precise details, was epochal, marking Villa’s return to the European elite. Perhaps that will be a long‑term state, perhaps fleeting; either way, it is significant.

There is a tide in the affairs of clubs which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. For Villa this was one of the nights fans yearn for, a night of destiny, a night to be spoken of for a long time to come. Even five years ago it would have seemed absurd that all that they had to do to reach the Champions League quarter-finals was avoid a two-goal defeat against the Belgian champions.

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How modern football’s exploitation model brewed fan resentment | Jonathan Wilson

Supporters have marched in protest at a number of Premier League grounds. It’s not hard to see why they believe their game is being taken away

On Sunday, thousands of Manchester United fans marched in protest at the club’s ownership. The week before last, there was a (much smaller) march against their club’s owners by fans at Chelsea. A couple of weeks earlier there were protests at Tottenham. Fulham fans are deeply unhappy. There have been grumblings at Manchester City. In total, at roughly three-quarters of the Premier League clubs, there is significant supporter discontent.

In some ways, the protests are distant background noise. Television viewers could quite easily have watched United’s 1-1 draw with Arsenal on Sunday and not known about the march. How big a deal is it, anyway, that around 5,000 people walked about a mile from a pub to a stadium, with most wearing black and chanting? The demonstrations are often incoherent. The one at Chelsea featured chants for Roman Abramovich, which suggested what they were really angry about is the club’s lack of success since the oligarch was sanctioned. It’s true that dissent would be rapidly quelled by a proper title challenge; nobody wants to disrupt that.

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Kepa pays penalty as Son earns point for Spurs in thriller against Bournemouth

Credit Tottenham for their resilience. Credit their character for coming back into the game. Credit them for battling their way to a point that never really seemed plausible until Son Heung-min converted an 84th‑minute penalty. But let nobody get carried away: this was a game that raised more questions for Spurs than it answered. It was not a performance that should reassure anybody.

The daffodils were out in front of the flats on the Seven Sisters Road. There was some warmth in the sun. Fans uncertainly cast off their thick winter coats. Finally, Tottenham’s injury crisis is beginning to ease. At last Ange Postecoglou has had some time to work with his squad. Spurs had won league games on three successive weekends. Even with a 1-0 defeat against Manchester City in their previous league game, it might have been possible to believe that winter is over, that renewal has begun.

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Thomas Tuchel’s big England puzzle: picking the right players not the best | Jonathan Wilson

If the new manager ends up ignoring youth, a clarity of focus may turn out to be beneficial – so who should be in and out?

Football’s memory is short, particularly when it comes to national sides. The most successful resemble club teams in that they have a core of players and a clearly defined style of play. There’s always an in-form player around whom a clamour develops, but continuity is just as important, perhaps even more so, in the international game. But next week inevitably represents a new start as Thomas Tuchel picks his first England squad for the World Cup qualifiers against Albania and Latvia later in the month.

All managers make some slightly surprising selections to start with – Sven-Göran Eriksson, for instance, began with a 3-0 friendly win against Spain in which Chris Powell, Gavin McCann and Michael Ball all played a half – but this should give at least some indication of how Tuchel plans to set about trying to win the 2026 World Cup.

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Vaclav Cerny’s smart Rangers double at Fenerbahce gives Mourinho work to do

Football management moves pretty fast. Last Saturday Barry Ferguson was being beaten at home by Motherwell. Five days later the interim head coach was leading Rangers to a famous victory in Istanbul, responding to being patronised by José Mourinho by ending Fenerbahce’s 18-match unbeaten run.

Perhaps the scoreline was not as eye-catching as the 4-2 win away to Borussia Dortmund three years ago, but given the circumstances this was arguably more remarkable. Where there had been shambles, there was rigour. Where there had been diffidence, there was conviction. Where there had been incoherence, there was incisiveness. This was a result beyond Rangers’ realistic expectations, and yet it could have been even better. It was not just that Cyriel Dessers had two efforts ruled out for tight offsides, it was that he squandered two other counters as Fenerbahce’s structure disintegrated in the second half.

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