Jonathan Wilson's Blog, page 5

Grealish never conformed as Guardiola’s ‘obedient little schoolboy’ but glorious third act beckons | Jonathan Wilson

Midfielder’s time at Man City has been turbulent but there is hope Everton can help him rediscover sense of joy on the pitch

A figure toils alone at Bodymoor Heath. The light fades, but against the setting sun his silhouette is distinctive: the floppy hair, the hunched gait, the vast calves. Jack Grealish is working, honing and polishing, inventing, striving at the limits of technical excellence.

He has inspired Aston Villa to promotion. He has helped them avoid relegation, establish themselves as a Premier League side. He is enormously popular. Even opposing fans admire his ability, warm to the sense he is still in some way the impish kid in the playground, revelling in his ability, having fun. That summer at the Euros he had become a cause célèbre, the figure behind whom the clamour for Gareth Southgate to release the handbrake rallied, the poster boy for the sort of pundit who wished England would just believe in talent.

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Hugo Ekitiké makes another good impression but there is a lot of work for Arne Slot to do | Jonathan Wilson

This was a long way from the controlled Liverpool of last season, with new signing Milos Kerkez in particular struggling against his old team

To take a side who have just won the league and make four major changes cannot be anything but a risk. There will always be at least some process of adaptation, particularly given the slight change of shape the arrival of Florian Wirtz has entailed.

The danger for Liverpool is that they give up points that could prove costly if this is a tight title race. While that transition goes on, results perhaps matter more than performances, so long as the trend of those performances is towards a greater cohesion.

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Premier League season preview: Leeds to Wolves: Football Weekly - podcast

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and John Brewin for the second of our Premier League preview podcasts

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; can Leeds become a force again in the Premier League? Will Liverpool’s big-spending summer result in consecutive league titles?

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New additions have Liverpool looking rejuvenated in attack, and withered in defense | Jonathan Wilson

It was only the Community Shield, but issues from pre-season popped up again for Arne Slot in Liverpool’s loss on penalties to Crystal Palace

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It was the Community Shield, and that should not be forgotten. There isn’t anybody who has been watching English football for any period of time who hasn’t made the mistake of taking too seriously a conclusion drawn in the midst of the traditional curtain-raiser, giddy on the sight of Wembley in its pomp and the return of competitive club football from the summer wilderness.

Any analysis has to be tempered. Teams are always works in progress, evolving and developing, but that is never truer than in early August with new signings adapting to their teammates and surroundings, and others shaking the summer from their legs. Things will change. But after Liverpool’s 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace and subsequent defeat on penalties in the Community Shield, it can be said with a degree of certainty that their new signings have gelled better at the front of the pitch than the back.

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Liverpool’s new era promises excitement – but have they changed too much? | Jonathan Wilson

Integrating almost half a team usually takes time, which may cost Arne Slot’s side important points in the title race

Florian Wirtz! Hugo Ekitiké! Milos Kerkez! Jérémie Frimpong! And soon, possibly, Alexander Isak! It’s vital, Bob Paisley always said, to build from a position of strength, and Liverpool this summer have certainly done that.

If Isak does join, Liverpool’s transfer spending this summer will be approaching £400m, which would be the second-highest figure paid by any club in a single transfer window (behind only Chelsea in summer 2023) – the lack of signings last summer coupled with some canny sales has given them significant profitability and sustainability rules headroom.

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Analyzing preseason friendlies is maddening, but right now it’s all we have | Jonathan Wilson

Every team enters preseason at a different stage of readiness and with different goals, making results hard to decipher

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Glory for Manchester United, who lifted the Premier League summer series on Sunday despite twice being pegged back by Everton to draw 2-2 in Atlanta. A degree of relief for West Ham, who beat Bournemouth to finish second in the competition despite all the gloomy prognostications about their campaign to come. In Seoul, meanwhile, there was a very Tottenham moment as they followed the glee of last week’s 1-0 win over Arsenal with a 1-1 draw against Newcastle in which James Maddison was stretchered off with a knee injury described by his manager Thomas Frank as “bad”.

It all looks real, it sounds real and yet everybody knows it isn’t real. That even now, in this age of data and minute analysis, there remains an element of randomness, is one of soccer’s great joys as a sport. But that tendency is magnified in pre-season.

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After 17 years at the top, a tough job is taking a toll on Pep Guardiola | Jonathan Wilson

Manchester City manager may still relish a title chase but, as the declines of Mourinho and Wenger prove, nothing lasts for ever

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the interview Pep Guardiola gave to GQ was how tired he sounded. The headlines that he was contemplating a 15-year break from the game didn’t entirely reflect what he said – “I don’t know how long I’ll stop for: a year, two years, three years, five, 10, 15, I don’t know. But I will leave after this spell with City because I need to stop and focus on myself, on my body” – but his weariness was clear.

To an extent it is not a surprise. Jürgen Klopp was exhausted (and self-aware) enough after almost 15 seasons at Dortmund and Liverpool (plus seven at Mainz) to quit last summer. There were times last season, particularly in that four-month spell either side of Christmas when City’s form dipped alarmingly, that Guardiola seemed shattered. By his own admission, his decision last November to sign a contract extension to summer 2027 was motivated in part by guilt at the downturn. “The problems we had in the last month, I felt now was not the right time to leave,” he said. The problems got much worse.

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Isak, Gyökeres and Ekitiké herald a new age of the center-forward | Jonathan Wilson

After years spent in striker-less formations, the Premier League’s top teams are seemingly all set to rely on a big body (or two) up top

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It’s only been a decade since it seemed the center-forward was being refined out of existence. Spain had won Euro 2012 with Cesc Fàbregas as a false nine, and Germany, who largely took Spain as a model, were less than convinced they needed one at the 2014 World Cup. They fielded Thomas Müller as a false-ish nine until the quarter-final, when Jögi Löw finally went back to basics and turned to Miroslav Klose. That he was 36 only seemed to confirm that the old-fashioned No 9 was an old-fashioned phenomenon – a dying breed. Yet this summer, the main interest in the transfer market has been the carousel of strikers.

Of course, strikers never entirely disappeared. The four leading scorers in the Premier League in 2014–15 were Sergio Agüero, Harry Kane, Diego Costa and Charlie Austin. Mauri Icardi and Luca Toni topped the charts in Italy, while Cristiano Ronaldo, his conversion to A No 9 complete, was top scorer in Spain (although that he was followed by Lionel Messi, Antoine Griezmann, and Neymar suggested a greater variety of goalscorer there).

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Newcastle left with uncomfortable feeling that Isak wants more and romance is dead | Jonathan Wilson

Striker’s cold and mercantile transfer saga casts doubt on the club’s ability to capitalise on its Saudi windfall

Football is a market. It has always been a market and it is more of a market now than it has ever been before. Everybody is constantly looking for a better deal, and everybody has a price. Every club has its place in the ecosystem and those higher up the chain will always take from those below them, who in turn will take from those below them.

All a club can ever hope to do is to inch their way higher and higher in the structure, to increase the number of clubs they can feed on while reducing the number of predators who can feed on them.

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Marcus Rashford must stave off sense of anticlimax after Barcelona switch | Jonathan Wilson

Blockbuster loan move brings real pressure for 27-year-old because, if this doesn’t work, what does his future hold?

If Anthony Martial hadn’t been injured in the warm-up, and Manchester United hadn’t already been missing 12 players, Marcus Rashford wouldn’t have played. It hadn’t seemed a particularly significant game: the second leg of a round-of-32 Europa League tie against Midtjylland on a chilly and cloudy February night. Old Trafford was far from full, the disillusionment that was beginning to stalk Louis van Gaal escalating after a 2-1 first-leg defeat.

It soon got worse for United as Pione Sisto increased Midtjylland’s advantage. An own goal pulled one back but, before half-time, Juan Mata missed a penalty. But Rashford then slammed in a Mata cutback and converted a Guillermo Varela cross with a side-foot volley to give United the lead. They ended up winning 5-1. In the space of 12 second-half minutes, Rashford had been elevated from almost complete unknown to potential messiah, a status he confirmed three days later by scoring two and setting up another in a win over Arsenal. He was 18, Manchester-born, confident but understated. It was almost too perfect.

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