Jonathan Wilson's Blog, page 35

Erling Haaland remains both solution and problem for Manchester City | Jonathan Wilson

Pep Guardiola’s side were all about the process before they traded a prolific striker for an auxiliary midfielder

Manchester City have won 14 of their past 15 games which, given the general sense that they are not quite firing, says a lot about both their quality and expectations. Perhaps Tuesday’s 6-2 FA Cup victory at Luton was the beginning of an upturn; if it was, it is much needed before a March that will probably define their season. And if Erling Haaland’s five goals indicate that he is back in peak scoring form that will also be very welcome given the disorienting sense that City have become reliant upon him.

City’s run has been very odd. Those 15 games, starting after the draw with Crystal Palace in December, took in fixtures in the Club World Cup, the FA Cup and the first leg of the Champions League last 16 as well as nine Premier League games, none of them against sides that started the day in the top eight. Given Urawa Red Diamonds, Fluminense and FC Copenhagen probably wouldn’t make it into the top eight of the Premier League, it is a remarkably gentle run of fixtures in the middle of the season.

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Rare Werner goal inspires comeback win for Tottenham against Palace

What was it like to be at that wedding in Cana when the water was turned into wine? How did it feel to be in Smyrna when the flames refused to consume the body of St Polycarp? Do the holy waters of Lourdes really cure the lame? Miracles, it turns out, can happen, and the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium witnessed one of the most improbable there has ever been: Timo Werner scored.

And so Tottenham, not for the first time recently, got away with it.

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Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool showed Chelsea how to win with young players | Jonathan Wilson

Carabao Cup final showed the difference between a squad assembled over a decade and one thrown together for $1bn

Life must be very confusing right now if you’re a Chelsea exec. You’ve spent $1bn buying kids and found yourself ridiculed for it and then you go and lose 1-0 in the Carabao Cup final to a load of Liverpool’s kids and somehow everybody’s praising them for it.

Yet even by the end of extra-time, by which point Liverpool seemed to have raided the club creche in search of bodies to chuck into the fray, the XI that Chelsea had on the pitch had a combined age 16 years lower than that of Jürgen Klopp’s. It was Liverpool, though, who were hailed for believing in youth, while Chelsea were derided as bottlers who had wasted a great opportunity. But that’s the difference between exigency and what might loosely be described as the plan. Klopp was rightly praised for having faith in his young players – the 19-year-old midfielder James McConnell in particular stood out for his presence and composure on the ball – but he was using them only because of injuries.

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Is the narrative of Klopp's kids v Chelsea’s billions unfair? – Football Weekly podcast

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Ed Aarons as Liverpool beat Chelsea to win the first silverware of Klopp’s farewell season.

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; a Virgil van Dijk header deep into extra-time handed Liverpool the League Cup, but should Chelsea have won it and is the narrative that this was a team of children taking on Chelsea’s billions a little unfair?

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Is the narrative of Klopp's kids v Chelsea’s billions unfair? - Football Weekly podcast

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Ed Aarons as Liverpool beat Chelsea to win the first silverware of Klopp’s farewell season.

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; a Virgil van Dijk header deep into extra-time handed Liverpool the League Cup, but should Chelsea have won it and is the narrative that this was a team of children taking on Chelsea’s billions a little unfair?

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Managerial game of musical chairs is critical in moment of superclub struggle | Jonathan Wilson

Barcelona, Bayern, Napoli and even Liverpool must get appointments right this summer – the wrong choices could have severe consequences

Come the summer Liverpool will be without a manager, Barcelona will be without a manager and, after the events of this week, we know that Bayern Munich and Napoli will both be without a manager. There’s also a European Championship after which it is safe to assume numerous national teams will be without managers – Julian Nagelsmann’s contract with Germany, to take only the most eye-catching example, runs only until the end of the tournament, while Gareth Southgate’s contract with England expires in December. For managers, this will be a summer of unprecedented flux.

For Liverpool the coming months could be a triumphal valedictory procession for Jürgen Klopp, beginning with the Carabao Cup final against Chelsea on Sunday. The crisis of last season seems to have passed and a bold new squad is emerging – which is just as well given the present injury crisis.

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Crystal Palace sink 10-man Burnley to give Oliver Glasner winning start

Crystal Palace stood in the darkness, staring at the horizon. Would there ever be a glimmer of light? Would black ever ease to grey? For a long time, it did not, but when dawn did at last arrive, it blazed suddenly into a glorious morning. It may all have felt slightly unreal, but after the persistent gloom of the past few months, few at Palace will care.

After a run of three wins in the last 20 games, there’s no sense in quibbling too much about Palace’s biggest home league win since April 2022. But, equally, there has to be some context: Palace will face few sides who collapse quite as abjectly as Burnley did and, for a long time, the prospect of Oliver Glasner beginning his reign with a comfortable victory seemed distant.

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Dani Alves seemed like one of the good guys – now we know he wasn’t | Jonathan Wilson

Messi called him the world’s greatest full-back but after rape verdict we can never watch clips of Brazilian in the same way

The first emotion has to be of sympathy for the victim, the young woman who was raped by Dani Alves in a nightclub bathroom in Barcelona in the early hours of 31 December 2022. The details of the case, the verdict rendered all the more chilling by the legal terminology in which it is couched, are horrifying: “There was violence to force the victim to have sexual relations.”

There is the horror the victim endured, the appalling nature of the attack and the difficulties she must have endured in the months that have followed and that she will continue to endure. But because of Alves’s fame, that strange – ultimately trivial – sense that we “know” celebrities, there is also feeling of shock, and of betrayal.

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Manchester City’s Chelsea stumble highlights their obvious flaw | Jonathan Wilson

With City third in the Premier League table and a tricky run of games ahead, Pep Guardiola must find solutions to a series of nagging questions

The assumption had been that Manchester City would beat Chelsea on Saturday and follow that up with victory over Brentford on Tuesday to move top of the Premier League table. They had won 11 in a row and there seemed no reason to think that would not become 13 and more; that’s just what City do at this time of year.

The only hope for their challengers seemed a tough run of games in March, when City face Manchester United, Liverpool, Brighton, Arsenal and Aston Villa in successive league games; perhaps that run was a hurdle that could hinder City’s charge for a fifth Premier League title in six years. The question was how far ahead they would be by then. Now, though, so long as Liverpool beat Luton at home next week, City will not start that vital run of games with a lead.

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Rashford, Højlund and Garnacho: power trio leading Manchester United revival | Jonathan Wilson

Erik ten Hag’s potent forward trident all have room to improve and are offering the club hope of a brighter future

These are strange times at Old Trafford. Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s 25% investment in Manchester United has been ratified by the Premier League. They have won their last four games in all competitions and haven’t lost this year. They have a forward line that is young and dynamic and that, while you wouldn’t yet trust it not to spin out of control, nuts and bolts dropping off until it finally collapses into a heap of shattered potential, is beginning to look as though it could be extremely effective. Are things finally beginning to look up for United?

Everything, of course, is relative. It feels every detail comes with a caveat; everything remains subject to multiple interpretations. With the top five likely (but not guaranteed) to qualify for next season’s Champions League, United are still sixth in the Premier League but at least have a four-point cushion over Newcastle in seventh. They are eight points behind Aston Villa in fourth – but the gap would have been bigger had Scott McTominay not scored an 86th-minute winner at Villa Park last Sunday. They did concede three goals in the final 20 minutes at Wolves two weeks ago, but at least they won 4-3.

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