Jonathan Wilson's Blog, page 50

Manchester City’s destruction of Madrid has the feel of an era-defining triumph | Jonathan Wilson

Blend of intelligence and power should see off Inter in final and confirm petrostate clubs have finally surpassed traditional elite

For 15 years, Manchester City have had one ambition above all others. Since Sheikh Mansour acquired the club, the Champions League has been their goal. They’ve quested over high mountains and through dark forests. They’ve lost in quarter-finals and semi-finals, once in the final itself, thwarted by heroes and monsters, undone often as much by themselves as by external opponents. They stand again one game from glory and in their way stands the ultimate test: Inter, the team lying third in Europe’s fourth-best league.

It’s often said at particularly dramatic moments in sport that you couldn’t write the script. Well, you wouldn’t write this one. The narrative demands the final stage, the apotheosis of Abu Dhabi’s City project, should have a finale rather grander than this, that the final boss to be overcome should be rather more intimidating than a ragtag squad of things that were popular in England several years ago: Edin Dzeko, Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Romelu Lukaku, Goldie the Blue Peter dog and social democracy.

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Leicester’s relegation battle is a harsh maths lesson for all mid-table clubs | Jonathan Wilson

The short-term reasons for the former champions’ decline are various but their season of famine shouldn’t be a surprise

All life, Valeriy Lobanovskyi once said, is a number. Which might have made sense for the groundbreaking Dynamo Kyiv manager, with his high-school medal for mathematics, but for most people who follow sport is a little disconcerting. We want to believe in heroes and glory, in imagination and genius, in fate and curses. Even if we acknowledge it probably is quite important, the thought of football as a series of vast interlocking spreadsheets feels a little dry.

And in the day-to-day we want ready explanations. We want to know that this game was won or lost because this forward or this keeper was on fire, or because this referee got it wrong, or this left-back was injured, or this winger didn’t track, or this centre-back can’t play in a two, or because the midfield couldn’t shut down the passing lanes.

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Advantage Sunderland after Hume seals narrow first-leg win against Luton

Could Sunderland be about to be promoted by mistake? For a long time, it has felt as though no matter what they did, it would all go wrong. Relegations, defeats at Wembley, misfortune with average points, pratfall after pratfall.

“Why,” as one tearful fan filmed for the Sunderland Til I Die documentary asked as she left the 2019 playoff final defeat to Charlton, “can it never be us?” Except suddenly it looks as though it might be. Unexpectedly and almost despite themselves, it looks as though the rise that began with victory over Wycombe at Wembley last year might be about to continue.

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Top-four tension, Cambridge joy and Notts County drama – Football Weekly

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Troy Townsend to discuss a busy weekend in the top flight and beyond

Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.

Today: Arsenal regroup to beat Newcastle 2-0 at St James’ Park and keep the title race alive, with City still only one point ahead. Defeat for the hosts, and Manchester United’s dismal defeat at West Ham, has sparked new life into the top-four race.

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Martin Ødegaard exudes captain’s cool as he refuses to let Arsenal wilt | Jonathan Wilson

Amid a frenetic opening at Newcastle, the midfielder retains his composure and resolve to keep his team’s faint title hopes alive

Last year, Martin Ødegaard returned to Drammen, the small town in Norway where he grew up. He went back to the pitch where he learned to play and found that the gravel surface he remembered had been replaced with artificial grass. The kids kicking a ball about on the pitch, he observed, didn’t seem as committed as he had been. In his day, these games had really mattered.

The tone couldn’t have been more middle-aged. Of course things were better in his day, of course they were tougher. They didn’t have these fancy facilities and it didn’t do them any harm, did it? Ødegaard might be the oldest 24‑year‑old in the world. Some prodigies never grow up: Theo Walcott, Anthony Martial and Jack Butland still feel as though they’re in their late teens, just waiting to explode into the full majesty suggested by their potential. Others feel as though they go overnight from prospect to elder statesman.

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Carlo Ancelotti is the great pragmatist standing in Pep Guardiola’s path again | Jonathan Wilson

Haaland’s direct play has edged the City manager away from pitfalls of purism – but will it be enough against Real Madrid?

It is a little over nine years since Pep Guardiola first took on Carlo Ancelotti as a manager. Guardiola’s Bayern Munich had sealed the Bundesliga title almost a month earlier, often registering 1,000 passes in a game, and his football seemed unstoppable. For 18 minutes in the first leg at the Bernabéu, Bayern continued to seem imperious. Then Ancelotti’s Real Madrid countered and Fábio Coentrão squared for Karim Benzema to score. Bayern continued to dominate the ball; Madrid continued to look dangerous. It finished 1-0.

In retrospect, before Guardiola and Ancelotti meet in another semi‑final at the Bernabéu on Tuesday, that game seems a defining moment. What had happened in the semi-finals against Internazionale in 2010 and Chelsea in 2012, a Guardiola team bossing possession and being caught on the counter, had happened again – and this time without the same sense of outrageous bad luck.

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Manchester City are magnificent but struggle to match thrills of United’s treble | Jonathan Wilson

A brilliant team are demolishing even closest rivals and can make history. But glory lies in drama as well as excellence

Manchester City are brilliant. They can win games with and without the ball. They can stifle teams with possession or eviscerate them on the counter. They can produce moments of breathtaking combination play but also have in Erling Haaland a centre-forward with a set of attributes, physical and technical, that has been seen only perhaps half a dozen times before. They are magnificent and seemingly on course for a treble. They are also a symptom of the financial structures that are destroying the game football was once understood to be.

The naive and the wilfully blind will say there have been dominant teams before, but not like this there haven’t. Assuming City do go on to win the Premier League, this will be the third time in English history a club have won five titles in six seasons: Liverpool did it between 1979 and 1984 and Manchester United between 1996 and 2001.

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Manchester City v Arsenal: the tactical battles that could decide title clash | Jonathan Wilson

We pick out five important areas, including how Mikel Arteta’s team may be able to wound the Premier League champions

Mikel Arteta is not a clone of Pep Guardiola but they do have a similar outlook on football. Both came through the Barcelona academy, Arteta spent three years as Guardiola’s assistant at Manchester City and both favour a 4-3-3 with a hard press. When shapes and philosophies match, gaining a tactical advantage to outweigh City’s advantages in terms of personnel and form will be tough for Arteta. At the moment, Rodri, Kevin De Bruyne and Ilkay Gündogan or Bernardo Silva are simply a better unit than Arsenal’s three, with Thomas Partey and Martin Ødegaard suffering dips in form and Granit Xhaka struggling with illness.

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Shambolic Spurs, an all-Manchester final and Wrexham up – Football Weekly

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Will Unwin and Jonathan Wilson after an important weekend in the Premier League and FA Cup

Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.

Today: Newcastle rout Spurs, putting five past them in just the first 21 minutes, leading the panel to question whether it’s ever right to sack an interim manager and if Tottenham might have to settle for the Conference League next season.

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Manchester United get job done but Brighton’s blueprint is one to emulate | Jonathan Wilson

Erik ten Hag can be satisfied with an FA Cup final place but Brighton show how fine football is possible on a limited budget

Semi-finals, famously, are not for playing but for winning. It doesn’t matter how you get to the final, just that you do so. Brighton will wonder how on earth they didn’t win a game they dominated for long periods, but it is Manchester United who will face Manchester City in the final on 3 June. They just have to hope spite and the desire to prevent City emulating their 1998-99 treble proves a better motivator than overcoming Roberto De Zerbi’s side.

This was not a good United performance, nothing like one. As the Wembley PA belted out “Glory, glory Man United” after the penalty shootout, it felt almost sarcastic. But it doesn’t matter. After the limp exit from the Europa League on Thursday, this felt perhaps a necessary victory. A second domestic final in the same season surely confirms that Erik ten Hag’s side is on the right track; that for the first time since Sir Alex Ferguson left, the club is pointing in the right direction.

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