Jonathan Wilson's Blog, page 3

After a strange down season, Phil Foden looked back to his best in the Manchester derby | Jonathan Wilson

The attacking midfielder sparkled against United, giving City a boost for the season and England hope for the 2026 World Cup

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One of the many mysteries of last season for Manchester City was Phil Foden. When he was a teenager, everybody knew how good he was. He had been probably the key player shortly after turning 17 as England won the Under-17 World Cup in 2017, and there had been a clamour for him to play for Manchester City long before Pep Guardiola began to start him regularly in 2020-21. For four seasons he was one of the best players in the league and then, suddenly, there was nothing – at least by the exceptionally high standards he had set.

Foden had not had a good Euros in 2024. He has never really produced his best for England, a function perhaps of him playing for a club with such a specific style of play. Take him out of that regimented environment where he knew exactly what runs to make, exactly where his teammates would be moving, and he found it hard to adapt. And England generally did not play well at that Euros, despite reaching the final; the front end of the team was a mess, lacking the balance of previous Gareth Southgate sides.

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Manchester is blue and Arsenal brush Postecoglou aside: Football Weekly - podcast

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Lars Sivertsen and Jonathan Wilson as Premier League football returns after the international break

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On the podcast today: Manchester City comfortably win the derby at the Etihad. They were the better side across the pitch and Phil Foden’s performance will be heartening for City fans. Conversely, United make familiar mistakes so the panel ponder what Ruben Amorim is doing to address them.

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Manchester United seem to have accepted their mediocrity, but how long can it go on? | Jonathan Wilson

Ruben Amorim is not the biggest problem at Old Trafford, but it is becoming harder to deny he is one of the issues

Perhaps the best that can be said of Ruben Amorim’s Manchester United is that you know exactly where you stand with them. It’s 10 months since he was appointed but he is yet to win back-to-back league games. Having beaten Burnley last time out, amid scenes of revealing euphoria, they were never going to win at Manchester City.

Which must have been a relief for City, who had lost two of their first three games this season for the first time in 21 years. There was, for them, particularly after half-time, a pleasing sense of normality returning. Rodri, shaky early on, began to dominate as he used to before his knee injury, while there were fine performances from Erling Haaland, Jérémy Doku and Phil Foden.

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The age of Guardiola is waning and the game’s guru is baffled by what comes next | Jonathan Wilson

Pepism is no longer the prevailing tactical template, with football and its innovator in a state of flux

The world is blasted, unfamiliar. Smoke swirls amid the gloom. Foul odours belch from the sulphurous earth. The landscape echoes to howls and grunts and screams. A great light has gone out and all that remains is confusion and fear. Everywhere coaches and managers, hunched under their doubts, scuttle hither and thither, desperately seeking a path through the wilderness.

From his very first season at Barcelona, Pep Guardiola’s way of playing football has been dominant. The effectiveness of his philosophy was so obvious and so pervasive that there is not an elite manager now who has not in some way been influenced by his philosophy, even if they are not, as many are, overt disciples.

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Nigeria, Italy ... England? Big names may struggle to reach the World Cup

Some big names in Europe and Africa face a nervy run-in, while Asia and the Americas have gone as expected

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It’s been telling how much of the coverage around England recently has focused on how they must improve before the World Cup finals next summer. It’s true, of course: they’ve been in the final of the last two Euros, played well in getting to the quarter-final of the last World Cup and have a fleet of extremely gifted players but have not really impressed since beating Greece in the Nations League under Lee Carsley last November.

What’s never considered, though, is the thought that they may not get to the 2026 World Cup at all.

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Carlos Alberto’s goal at the ‘greatest World Cup’ was a mirage of what football could be

Brazil’s 1970 triumph, summed up by their captain’s brilliant strike in the final, was the game’s Woodstock, a glorious moment offering an implausible future

Tostão picks up the loose ball and nudges it back to Wilson Piazza just outside his own box. The ball is moved in a slow triangle through Clodoaldo to Pelé and Gérson and back to Clodoaldo. His touch is slightly heavy, enticing an Italian challenge. Clodoaldo skips round him and then two other tackles. He sidesteps Antonio Juliano and rolls the ball to Rivellino on the left. Rivellino sweeps a 40-yard pass down the line to Jairzinho and the rhythm has suddenly changed.

Jairzinho runs at Giacinto Facchetti and, as he turns inside, Pierluigi Cera advances to close him down. Jairzinho pokes the ball on to Pelé, perhaps 27 or 28 yards out. Tarcisio Burgnich stands between him and the box, but Pelé pauses, turns casually to his right and lays a pass into the path of Carlos Alberto, surging forward from full-back. Just inside the box the ball bobbles so it sits up perfectly. Carlos Alberto doesn’t have to break stride as he lashes a shot hard across goal, the force of the strike lifting him high off the ground as the ball flies into the bottom corner. With four minutes of the 1970 World Cup final remaining, Brazil lead 4–1.

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Mikel Arteta should have heeded a lesson from Fabian Hürzeler and seized the moment | Jonathan Wilson

It’s hard to avoid the feeling that, after Brighton boldly took their chance, Mikel Arteta let one slip against Liverpool

Last Sunday, Fabian Hürzeler made a quadruple substitution an hour into Brighton’s Premier League game against Manchester City. Brighton had been scratchy, had struggled to create and were a goal down, but the changes transformed the game and they won 2-1. Hürzeler explained he had been guided by “a feeling that comes from inside … In some moments my body says something to me. Not just in football but generally in life you need to have the courage to take the decisions you want to.”

Hürzeler had spent most of his press conference trying to deflect or at least share out the praise. He talked of his players and how important their energy and belief had been, and he stressed that the substitutions had been a collective decision made with his coaching staff. Management these days is a world of data and analysis, of careful programming and meticulous plans. But ultimately what won the game was Hürzeler’s intuition.

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Daniel Levy’s business sense boosted Tottenham but he failed to reach for glory | Jonathan Wilson

He diversified club’s affairs and secured a move to a superb stadium but on-pitch performance left fans deeply frustrated

If it hadn’t been for the football, Daniel Levy would be regarded as one of the great club executives. He oversaw the construction of what is widely regarded as the best club stadium in England. Tottenham’s training ground is one of the best in Europe. He kept costs low. He has diversified the business, so the club hosts NFL, rugby, boxing, monster trucks and major concerts. He even had the chutzpah to get Tottenham into Super League conversations, despite the fact they haven’t won the league since 1961. Yet over the past year, Levy has faced constant fan protests.

The news he had stepped down on Thursday came as a shock, although in retrospect there is perhaps a suggestion that he could feel the end approaching. In February he said “all options are open” in response to fan demands for his resignation. Last month, in a rare extended interview, given to Gary Neville, he remarked: “When I’m not here I’m sure I’ll get the credit,” a suggestion perhaps he was beginning to contemplate his legacy. He is 63 and missed the Uefa Super Cup final to help his daughter settle in at university in the US, perhaps an indication of somebody beginning to reassess their life priorities.

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How will Arne Slot change his Liverpool tactics to get best out of Alexander Isak? | Jonathan Wilson

Swede is not a classic central striker, but could his signing herald tactical tweaks and what does it mean for Salah?

On the face of it, it’s not hard to see why Liverpool would want Alexander Isak. He will not turn 26 until later this month and has scored more than 20 Premier League goals in each of the past two seasons, something matched only by Erling Haaland. But he offers more than just goals; he’s a very modern centre-forward.

Thirty or 40 years ago, when 4-4-2 was still the dominant formation, strike pairings tended to come in two forms: either target-man and finisher, or creator and finisher. These days, the very best centre-forwards combine traits of all three. This is not entirely new: the days of Kenny Dalglish and Ian Rush or Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips are long gone and football has been familiar for some time with players of the ilk of Didier Drogba, Andriy Shevchenko and Radamel Falcao, forwards with pace and some blend of physicality and technical ability.

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Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal stuck in gear as Arne Slot’s Liverpool deftly adjust

Sunday’s match was defined by a brilliant free-kick, but the way it came about showed the difference between the clubs’ managers

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There was a time, not that long ago, when almost all big games were stiflingly tense affairs – cautious, cagey, almost unwatchable but for the exquisite tension, the sense that this was too important to expect the football to be entertaining. The goal-heavy thrillers of the Pep Guardiola-Jürgen Klopp rivalry were a welcome diversion, but they always felt oddly transgressive – were we sure major clashes were supposed to be that much fun? In that sense, Liverpool’s 1-0 win over Arsenal on Sunday fit into a long-established tradition; in time the tedium will fall away in the collective memory and all that will remain is the majesty of Dominik Szoboszlai’s match-winning free-kick.

Two other more recent traditions were observed amid the anxiety of Anfield: that Arne Slot will always somehow find a way, and that Arsenal will always somehow come up short. Few managers have ever had such a golden touch as Slot; he has a remarkable capacity to make decisions that don’t just change the outcome of a game, but do so in an obvious and unmissable way.

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.

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