Jonathan Wilson's Blog, page 38

Afcon: the story so far. And Mourinho sacked by Roma – Football Weekly

Max Rushden is joined by Jonathan Wilson, Solace Chukwu and Osasu Obayiuwana to cover the latest from the Africa Cup of Nations, along with the fall-out from Roma giving José Mourinho the boot

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On the podcast today; there have already been a number of upsets at Afcon, with no wins in their opening games for Egypt, Cameroon, Tunisia, Ghana and Nigeria. The panel debate whether any of this is actually that surprising and why the games so far have been so enjoyable.

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Kevin De Bruyne’s tactical vision swings title race towards City | Jonathan Wilson

The midfielder’s creative brilliance was on full display in his first league match in five months, bringing spontaneity to Pep Guardiola’s mechanical side

With 16 minutes to go at St James’ Park on Saturday, Liverpool were perhaps beginning to contemplate their five-point lead over Manchester City, having played a game more, becoming an actual five-point lead without caveats – which, with City still to go to Anfield – might have started to look fairly significant. But then Kevin De Bruyne scored one and set up another, the lead is down to two points and the champions are within striking range.

City are still nowhere near their best, vulnerable to balls played in behind their defensive line in the way that Pep Guardiola sides struggling for form often are. That they conceded two in three minutes against Newcastle was also characteristic; leaking goals in batches is another familiar quirk of Guardiola teams when they’re still searching for the right set-up out of possession. At half-time, Saturday’s match was almost a paradigmatic example of how Guardiola teams can lose games: City had controlled the ball to an extraordinary degree without creating a huge amount and yet had not only let in two goals to brilliant finishes but had conceded three or four other chances in transition. Newcastle had been under some pressure but essentially the game had been following a similar pattern when De Bruyne came on.

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Timo Werner continues to pose questions rather than provide goals and answers | Jonathan Wilson

Spurs have signed German on loan and against Manchester United he produced finishing that Chelsea fans got used to

How long do you wait for promise? How many seasons can you give potential before accepting that it has curdled into unfulfillment? How many years of not quite hitting the heights before doubts begin to be expressed about just how much promise there really was in the first place? Timo Werner is 27 now. He’s an experienced player. He should be somewhere near his peak. And yet still the question remains: just how good is he?

This loan spell at Tottenham feels critical. Succeed over the next five months and there is still time for Werner to emerge as a Premier League player of serious repute. Fail and his chances of a career in England are probably done, his hopes of a return to the Germany squad diminishing.

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Ivan Toney is back but nothing has changed: gambling is embedded in football | Jonathan Wilson

Brentford striker’s ban was met with sympathy, reflecting an unease about the prevalence of betting within the game

Nottingham Forest, you suspect, will have been following the performances of Brentford’s reserve side with a degree of trepidation. There was a 2-2 draw in a friendly against Como and then, last Saturday, a 5-1 win over Southampton Under-23s.

Ivan Toney scored in the first and got a hat-trick in the second. B-team football is not the Premier League but the suggestion is that the England striker is in form and ready for his comeback from an eight-month suspension for breaching gambling regulations.

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Franz Beckenbauer was a player out of time who made football evolve with him | Jonathan Wilson

Germany and Bayern Munich could not quite fathom where to play the young Beckenbauer, so he effectively invented a role for himself

“For me,” Helmut Schön said of Franz Beckenbauer in February 1965 after calling him up to the West Germany team for the first time, “he is the player of the future. Maybe not in midfield, perhaps up front.”

People were always looking at Beckenbauer and seeing in him a being from another age, and that meant that, for a long time, nobody really knew what to make of him. He was handsome, charismatic and languid, a player of effortless elegance guaranteed to enrage those who believed the game was about industry, sweat and graft. He was technically gifted. He saw things others didn’t. He had grace and intelligence.

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Will an African nation win the World Cup in the next decade?

Jonathan Wilson answers your questions on the World Cup, VAR and the January transfer window

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With Morocco’s performance at the last World Cup, do you see an African nation winning the tournament in the next decade? Chinoso

Honestly, no. The World Cup is a slightly odd tournament in that it’s pretty much never had a shock winner – maybe West Germany in 1954, but their subsequent performances have diminished what a surprise that felt at the time. Perhaps all that means is that we’re due a shock but there seems to be something about the magnitude of the occasion in the latter stages of the competition that ultimately benefits the elite.

Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com.

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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Jürgen Klopp is right: man-management skills are being lost in a rush of data | Jonathan Wilson

In the seasonal flurry, the process is over-prioritised and as the Liverpool manager points out, players’ emotions count more

In March 2019, Manchester United went to Paris Saint-Germain in the last 16 of the Champions League trailing 2-0 from the first leg. By half-time, they led 2-1. Needing another goal to go through on away goals, their manager, Ole Gunnar Solskjær, pulled a counterintuitive masterstroke: he sat back. For half an hour, almost nothing happened. PSG pushed tentatively, first baffled and then anxious. And then Solskjær unleashed his assault on panicking opponents, United won a penalty – a silly, modern, European handball, but a penalty nonetheless – and went through.

That was Solskjær at his zenith, the result that prompted Gary Neville to ask where he wanted his statue. Solskjær’s record at that point read P17 W14 D2 L1; he was still soaring on the euphoria of not being José Mourinho. His struggles to implement attacking structures had not yet been exposed. But where he had proved himself adept was in reading and manipulating the emotional flow of a game.

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Howe avoids damaging Newcastle defeat to secure valuable respite | Jonathan Wilson

Success against Sunderland will not be remembered as a vintage edition but manager could not afford loss to local rivals

Respite at last for Eddie Howe. It wasn’t the best game, it wasn’t the prettiest game, it wasn’t a derby that will take its place in the history of great derbies, beyond the fact it happened after more than seven years and with little immediate prospect of hostilities being resumed any time soon, but it was a win and one that was sorely needed.

The word from the club was always that Howe’s job was safe, but no manager could feel entirely secure after a run of eight defeats (one of them on penalties) in nine games when his side went out of three competitions, with their hopes of qualifying for next season’s Champions League significantly diminished. While progress to the fourth round of the FA Cup is not enough to excite many any more, whether fans or directors, a bad defeat to a local rival may have begun to erode Howe’s standing with the fans – who have been generally supportive.

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Why Manchester City are ominous Premier League title favorites | Jonathan Wilson

The champions are nowhere near their best, but the holiday period has exposed Arsenal and Liverpool’s weaknesses

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As the dust settles after the Christmas programme there is one obvious winner: Manchester City. Not only did the champions win the Club World Championship with a pair of straightforward victories over Urawa Red Diamonds and Fluminense, but they returned to England to find nobody had really taken advantage of their absence. Wins over Everton and Sheffield United have them five points off the top with a game in hand.

Despite a sense that they’re still nowhere near their best, City have won six of their last seven games in all competitions and won’t play another side in the top eight until the Manchester derby on the first weekend of March. Kevin De Bruyne, Erling Haaland and Jérémy Doku should all be back from injury within the next month. It may be that the run of successive victories everybody has been predicting for them has already begun.

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Will a new striker solve problems for faltering Arsenal? – Football Weekly podcast

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Paul Watson after Arsenal and Manchester United suffer on final matches of 2023

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On the podcast today; Arsenal lose away to Fulham - their second defeat in a row and leaves the panel questioning their title credentials and whether a striker will solve all of their woes.

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