Jonathan Wilson's Blog, page 43

When was the last time a Manchester United midfield signing worked out?

In an extract from his weekly newsletter, Jonathan Wilson answers your questions on club ownership, Manchester United’s midfield and the Saudi Pro League

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Why do soccer teams need owners? I find it fascinating that a team’s fortunes may have nothing to do with local support and passion and everything to do with having a benevolent and competent owner – and the luck involved in your team having one or not. Why wouldn’t a fan-ownership model work? Christo

Some countries do have fan ownership: in Germany and Sweden, for instance, 51% of the club or more has to be owned by fans (there are exceptions for former works clubs such as Wolfsburg and Bayer Leverkusen, and RB Leipzig have managed to create a membership structure that ensures Red Bull’s control), while in Spain certain clubs, most notably Barcelona and Real Madrid, have membership models, with fans voting for the president. But without a more equitable distribution model or salary caps, the club with the most or the richest fans would still dominate. And when you have the untrammelled capitalism of, say, the Premier League, it’s very hard for those member-owned clubs to compete financially.

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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Bobby Charlton’s hug with Jack was a pure moment for two tangled brothers | Jonathan Wilson

A blurry image of open affection after England’s triumph in 1966 was a rare snapshot in a complicated relationship

There is a photograph taken seconds after the final whistle had blown in the 1966 World Cup final that shows Jack and Bobby Charlton kneeling in exhausted embrace. It was taken by Albert Cooper, one of the Sun’s northern sports photographers, who had been sent to Wembley for the game. Denied pitch access, perched on a plank at the back of a stand. Too far from the action and struggling with a 300mm f5.6 Novoflex lens and no tripod, he shot pretty much nothing of any value that day until, with fans jumping all around him and the makeshift platform wobbling, he captured the brothers in the moment of their greatest triumph.

It is not, by his own admission, the sharpest shot. A dark triangle – a shoulder? A flag? – covers the bottom left of the uncropped image, but that only adds to the sense of intimacy. For this is an extraordinary moment. There, amid 100,000 celebrating fans, before television cameras broadcasting the game around the world, are two of England’s greatest ever sportspeople, two brothers who had shared a bed through their childhood, locked in a moment of private ecstasy.

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If Ratcliffe is to repair Manchester United he must first ask if Ten Hag is right man | Jonathan Wilson

The manager is the most visible symbol of the failing leadership and culture since the club last mounted a title bid a decade ago

Desperation breeds a desire for messiahs. And as time goes by and the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson, a triumphant farewell at Old Trafford reaping his 13th league title, drifts further into the memory, so Manchester United’s scrabble for solutions becomes increasingly urgent.

With every new arrival, the hope has been that this will be the one: that José Mourinho would bring success because he had won things in the past; that Ole Gunnar Solskjær would do so through nostalgia; that Jadon Sancho would by his youthful promise; that Cristiano Ronaldo would by not eating dessert; that André Onana would because he can play out from the back.

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The sweeper-keeper is redefining soccer’s sense of risk | Jonathan Wilson

André Onana has had a miserable start to life at Manchester United, but his struggles are emblematic of a broader shift in the sport

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Johan Cruyff believed soccer was too obsessed by obvious mistakes, by what looked embarrassing. What did it matter, he asked, if his goalkeeper was caught out of position a couple of times a season if the risk of playing a long way from goal contributed to a better structure overall? It was a line he used repeatedly to defend Stanley Menzo, his goalkeeper when he was Ajax manager in the late 80s, at a time when sweeper-keepers were still rare.

The change in the backpass law in 1992 meant that goalkeepers had to improve with the ball at their feet and, as more and more teams began to use a high press, it became almost essential for elite-level keepers to be comfortable operating outside their box, not only protecting the space behind a high line but also being able to initiate attacks. That’s the orthodoxy, and nobody would doubt that keepers like Ederson (Manchester City), Alisson (Liverpool), Manuel Neuer (Bayern Munich) and Marc-André ter Stegen (Barcelona) have been vital to their clubs’ successes in recent years.

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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‘Football’s fabric will disappear’: the fear of Sunderland pioneer Sir Bob Murray

Former chairman who worked to transform the community and club worries owners now lack a sense of the game’s place

When Sir Bob Murray, who made his fortune in kitchens and bathrooms, became chairman of Sunderland in 1986, he replaced Tom Cowie, who owned a car dealership. For the five years that followed he was involved in a legal dispute over the acquisition of Cowie’s shares with another board member, Barry Batey, a local estate agent. They may at times have been bitterly opposed, but all three men were Sunderland fans. That’s how football used to be.

By the time Murray sold up 20 years later, to the Niall Quinn-fronted Irish consortium Drumaville, Roman Abramovich was installed at Chelsea and the era of oligarchs, states and private equity was under way. The ramifications of that change were profound and have not stopped rumbling yet.

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Arsenal made Manchester City look mortal. Can Pep Guardiola adapt again? | Jonathan Wilson

Manchester City have lost two Premier League games in a row for the first time since 2018. It’s now up to Pep Guardiola to adapt

The first thing to acknowledge is that the Premier League has been here before. There have been times in the past, most obviously at around this time last year, that Manchester City have looked distinctly mortal. Could it be that they are not, in fact, some supernatural winning machine but just an everyday exceptional side? Certainly at the Emirates on Sunday they did not look like the inevitable champions they did in, say, the two wins over Arsenal last season.

Arsenal still needed a deflected winner, just as they had needed a deflected equaliser to pinch the Community Shield against City on penalties in August. City still edged the game on xG. There was certainly no sense in which Arsenal outplayed City; if this does improbably turn out to be an era-defining defeat, it will have been an unusually humdrum one.

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Lewis Dunk’s Brighton equaliser settles thrilling contest against Liverpool

Confusion. Confusion on the pitch and confusion off the pitch. A lot of modern football, especially as practised by managers such as Jürgen Klopp and Roberto De Zerbi, seems to be about, if not controlling confusion, then at least directing it, pushing the confusion into the right areas. But a lot of modern football also involves people staring at screens and realising laws that once seemed to resonate with the rectitude of the ages are slippery and ambiguous.

Would Liverpool be affected by the video assistant referee controversy of last week? Would their fury and sense of disillusionment curdle into something self‑destructive? Might it even galvanise them? The truth is it barely seemed to make a difference at all. This was Liverpool as they have been for most of the season, a blend of brilliance and vulnerability that makes them look at times like title contenders while the sense lingers that this cannot be sustained.

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How to beat Guardiola: City without Rodri offer Arsenal chance to press without fear

A bunker mentality is not enough to unsettle champions: there must be a threat from players carrying the ball in wide areas

How do you beat Manchester City? It’s a question football has been trying and largely failing to answer for six years. The two best options seem to be to wait for some traumatic external event to disrupt the season and scramble everybody’s minds, or hope that Pep Guardiola becomes so obsessed by the possibility of being counterattacked that he does something eccentric with his formation (although that tends to work best in Europe). Or you could just wait for Rodri to be unavailable.

Rodri has not played in any of City’s past three defeats (and he didn’t start the 2-0 defeat at Southampton that saw them eliminated from last season’s Carabao Cup). In part, that’s because he is a supremely gifted player; any team would be weaker without him. But it’s also because of what Rodri represents: he offers significant protection against the counterattack because of his remarkable capacity to read the game and almost preternatural anticipation. That not only gives City security but also helps prevent Guardiola from fretting about transitions and having one of his bouts of overthinking.

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Galatasaray leave United in disarray and VAR tape causes a stir - Football Weekly

Max Rushden is joined by Jonathan Wilson, Archie Rhind-Tutt and Lars Sivertsen to discuss defeats for Manchester United and Arsenal as well as the release of the VAR bungle audio from Spurs

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On the podcast today; Manchester United’s poor start to the season continues, defeat at home to Galatasaray leaves them bottom of their group and increasingly unlikely to make the knock-out stages, when, if ever does some of the blame fall on Erik ten Hag?

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US owners understand profit but do they appreciate clubs’ tradition and values?

Half of the Premier teams are part- or fully-owned by Americans or US companies. Fans’ suspicions are understandable

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It’s just over a year since Gary Neville declared US owners of English soccer clubs “a clear and present danger to the pyramid and fabric of the game”. The comment provoked a furore but the former England full-back turned high-profile pundit was unrepentant, insisting that if profit is the priority, there are vital aspects of the roles of soccer clubs that risk being lost.

The issue, clearly, is not restricted to US owners. It’s unlikely that anybody who is not a fan who takes over a club is going to be acting primarily in the best interests of the community it represents. But given half the 20 Premier League clubs (and seven of the 24 Championship clubs) are part- or fully-owned by Americans or US companies, and given the prevalence of private equity companies whose sole interest is short-term profit, it’s perhaps not surprising that it was Americans who drew Neville’s ire, particularly given the chaos induced by the Glazer family at Manchester United, the club for which he used to play.

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