Jonathan Wilson's Blog, page 47

Premier League season preview: Liverpool to Wolves – Football Weekly

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Mark Langdon for our second Premier League preview show.

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On the podcast today: in our second preview show the panel ponder whether Liverpool can plug a hole in their midfield and get themselves back among the top four, whether we are destined to watch Manchester City lift their fourth consecutive title and how Manchester United and Newcastle will fare with the added rigour of Champions League football to contend with.

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A look at the contenders in this season’s Premier League

In the first edition of Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, we look at whether anyone can break Manchester City’s hold on the title

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It’s a week of arrivals and departures. As we prepare for the start of the Premier League season on Friday, the US are on their way home from the Women’s World Cup after a last-16 defeat at the hands of Sweden. We’ll discuss that later, but first a look at the contenders in this season’s Premier League.

The Community Shield, of course, doesn’t matter. Last season Liverpool beat Manchester City 3-1, Darwin Núñez looked more dangerous than Erling Haaland, and within a month a lot of predictions hastily amended after that Saturday afternoon at the KingPower were made to look pretty silly. The Community Shield has never mattered – apart from when it has.

Ten young Premier League players hoping to break through this season

Hormones and hugging strangers: how new football season brings fresh hope | Jason Stockwood

Lauren James made a stupid mistake – but we need to have more compassion | Suzy Wrack

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Jonathan Wilson answers your questions on Wrexham, US talent and tactical evolution

To mark Thursday’s launch of his new newsletter, Jonathan Wilson drops in to respond to Guardian readers’ queries on the game

What do you think of the Wrexham experiment? Cynical self-promotion by two actors or a genuine heartwarming story? Evan, New Hampshire

So far, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney seem to have done everything pretty much right. They seem to grasp what a British football club is and its part in the community and to have taken to Wrexham the town. I don’t think there’s any reason to believe it’s about self-promotion but, equally, I’m a little uncomfortable about the idea that a football club should be there as a content provider. The test will probably come if they find themselves sitting in mid-table at Christmas – do they then do something wacky to create a better narrative for the documentary?

Jonathan Wilson’s new soccer newsletter for a global audience. What’s more, it’s free. The first edition is out tomorrow and you can sign up here.

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Cherish the Championship, its level playing field offers football as it should be | Jonathan Wilson

League is packed with clubs recalling past glories and desperate to escape it but success shouldn’t just be for the moneyed elite

The Premier League champions of 2015-16 play the winners of one of the greatest FA Cup finals. One of the original two super-clubs play the most successful Welsh side of all time. The seventh-most successful side in league history play a former Uefa Cup winner. Sunday’s Championship fixture list serves as a reminder of how fortunate the English (and Welsh) league is to have such depth – and perhaps also as a warning.

All six teams in action – Leicester, Coventry, Leeds, Cardiff, Sunderland and Ipswich – have won the league title or the FA Cup or both. Of the 24 sides in the Championship, only Plymouth and Rotherham have never won the league or reached a domestic cup final. The 2.Bundesliga has its share of fallen giants but nowhere else in the world is the spread of honours so great. And nowhere else in the world do games in even the fourth flight average more than 5,700 attendances as they did in League Two last season.

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Premier League and Fifa helpless against Saudi juggernaut’s relentless progress | Jonathan Wilson

Saudi Pro League’s moves for ageing stars echo other leagues – but there is no reason why stars at their peak should not follow

Football is far from perfect but it is a thing we love. It has existed in its present form for more than a century and a half. It has its rituals and its routines. It has taken on a cultural significance way beyond what is reasonable. It is a way for parents to commune with children, for exiles to maintain their links to home, a source of pride and identity for areas otherwise left behind. It lubricates the cogs of social interaction. It is everywhere: on televisions, on radios, on phones, in background conversations in offices and pubs and schools.

And it is under threat – at least in the form in which we recognise it.

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Remember Trevor Francis for what he achieved, not what might have been | Jonathan Wilson

Technically gifted forward did not meet early expectations, but who could have? Injuries set him back but he was a fine player

In December 1978, the 24‑year‑old Trevor Francis shambled on to the stage to receive the Midland Football Writers’ Player of the Year award from Brian Clough. Although never a fastidious dresser himself, Clough looked him up and down and told him off for having his hands in his pockets. Francis, then at Birmingham City, was one of the most hyped players in English football at the time, but he meekly withdrew his hands and muttered: “Yes, sir.” Two months later, Clough made him the first million-pound British footballer by signing him for Nottingham Forest.

Perhaps after a youth as gilded as Francis’s had been, making his debut for Birmingham at the age of 16 and scoring 15 goals in his first 22 games, perhaps after setting a landmark fee, it was impossible for him to live up to expectations. Perhaps the expectations were never realistic. Francis had a perfectly decent career. He won two European Cups (although he played in only one final). He won league cups in Scotland and England, as well as a Coppa Italia. He played 52 times for England, scoring a dozen goals. But there was a sense that he did not quite achieve the heights that seemed possible in that season of his debut. But then who could have?

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After the exodus: confused Chelsea have left Pochettino to build with youth | Jonathan Wilson

Half of Chelsea’s squad are there on potential rather than proven ability – it could be exciting but it creates problems

The moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligned with Mars. Birds are flying backwards and the sun has risen in the west. A strange light pulses in the sky over Stamford Bridge. Most startlingly of all, eight years after signing from Augsburg for £14m, the Ghana left-back Baba Rahman has finally left Chelsea. Truly, a new age is upon us.

After the waves of signings last season, this summer of Todd Boehly’s Great Disruption was always going to be about consolidation and retrenchment. Quite aside from financial fair play issues, a first-team squad of 33, some of them forced to change in the corridor because the dressing room couldn’t accommodate them, was never viable.

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Money and profile, sure, but what does Lionel Messi bring to Miami on the pitch? | Jonathan Wilson

With less gifted players around him, Inter’s defence-shy superstar could struggle with the physicality of MLS

Inter Miami are now the fifth most-followed American sports franchise on Instagram, their numbers leaping from 900,000 to almost nine million. They are having to expand their stadium and tickets for their remaining home games this season are going for $350. All this for a team that went into the weekend bottom of the Eastern Conference. Lionel Messi has already had an enormous impact on his new club. As the MLS commissioner, Don Garber, said, Messi’s move to the United States is a “massive financial opportunity”.

It’s easy to be seduced by this. It’s easy to be relieved that the greatest player of his generation will not be among those trading their integrity for a sackload of Saudi cash (although given Messi is an ambassador for Visit Saudi, that ship has perhaps already sailed). It’s easy to regard Messi as some sort of missionary, a modern-day Pelé, delivering football to the heathen.

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England’s Under-21 heroes, transfer talk and Sean Dyche’s hat – Football Weekly

Max Rushden, Barry Glendenning, Lars Sivertsen, and Jonathan Wilson assemble for the first pod of pre-season

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Today: It’s the first pod of pre-season and there are some interesting transfers to cover – those that have happened, those that nearly have, and those that might not at all (Harry Kane). Some new managers have also said some things, and friendlies are slowly getting under way.

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Does football need Fifa? Breakaway threat may test Infantino’s grip on global game | Jonathan Wilson

Leader of the game’s world governing body would be forced to rethink chasing votes and cash if Uefa and Conmebol unite

Jesper Møller, it’s fair to say, is not a natural rebel. The Danish football federation is one of the more progressive authorities, but its president is a conservative with, and let’s be kind here, a healthy sense of his own interests. Last November, though, at the height of the World Cup’s rainbow armband affair, Møller did – briefly – hint at an unexpected radicalism.

Might Denmark consider quitting Fifa, he was asked, and replied: “It is not a decision that has been made now … We have been discussing it in the Nordic region since August … I have to think about the question of how to restore confidence in Fifa. We must evaluate what has happened, and then we must create a strategy – also with our Nordic colleagues.”

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