Jonathan Wilson's Blog, page 51

Spurs must set their satnav for the right manager rather than guess at every turn | Jonathan Wilson

Tottenham need a leader who suits their style – but it’s not clear Daniel Levy has the requisite vision to pierce the gloom

Tottenham stand at a crossroads. But then they always do. They have been standing at a crossroads for at least 50 years. And while some roads lead through cup finals and hopeful vistas and others through gloom and Tim Sherwood this, perhaps, is the true history of the Tottenham: life as a series of crossroads that lead always, eventually, back to another crossroads somewhere in the Valley of Not-Quite-There.

Often Tottenham seem to take the right road. In the final week of 2009-10, for instance, they went to Manchester City needing to win to take fourth from Sheikh Mansour’s rising side and claim their place in the Champions League. This felt critical, a chance for the victors to take a decisive step, to claim the financial rewards of Champions League football and use that to consolidate their advantage. Peter Crouch headed the winner for Spurs eight minutes from time.

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Manchester City gain edge in title race as Arsenal wobble – Football Weekly

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Nedum Onuoha to review the weekend’s action

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Today: For the second week running, Arsenal drop points from a 2-0 lead to potentially hand Manchester City an advantage in the title race. The panel discuss just how big their meeting is on 26 April, and if the Gunners can weather this storm.

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Maybe it’s time to welcome back the old fashioned wing-half – in modern guise | Jonathan Wilson

Could Trent Alexander-Arnold’s travails at Liverpool be helped by stepping inside into midfield as the full-back role evolves?

One of the easiest and most misleading pieces of footballing received wisdom is that everything is cyclical. Wait long enough, the great drum of history will revolve again and the same ideas will come back round, be that sharp side-partings, the back three, Howard Webb apologising to Brighton or Roy Hodgson managing Crystal Palace. Except time is not a flat circle. Each iteration is different because it comes with knowledge of what went before.

Watch Manchester City in possession. They have a centre-forward and two wide men. They have Kevin De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva or Ilkay Gündogan as “free 8s”, essentially old-fashioned inside-forwards. They like to have five outfielders behind the ball, who will usually form a trapezoid shape: a line of three defenders and two deep-lying midfielders. Show that to Herbert Chapman and, while he may think City could be a little more direct, he would understand what he was seeing. This is essentially a W-M.

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Julio Enciso seals Brighton fightback to pile more misery on Chelsea

It’s important to stress just how good Brighton were. They were brilliant and that should be acknowledged before getting to the equally obvious point that Chelsea were laughably awful. Scorelines can be the great deceiver: this was 2-1 going on five or six. That’s 11 defeats in his last 12 games as a manager for Frank Lampard and seven in his last 10 league games with Chelsea. All he has to do next is inspire a comeback from 2-0 down against Real Madrid. Good luck.

“We were well beaten in the basics of football,” said Lampard, who described this as the most disappointing of his three defeats since being appointed Chelsea’s interim manager. “We were short, a yard short, a tackle short, a fighting moment short. You have to have the capacity as well as the desire for that and we have to turn that round quickly. We need training time but we don’t have training time. There are mitigating factors with some of the change but that can’t be an excuse.”

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Sackings spate shows who matters now: welcome to football’s age of the executive | Jonathan Wilson

The defining player and dominant manager have had their day – now a club’s route to success is to catch the eye of a sugar daddy

Patrick Vieira gone! Antonio Conte gone! Brendan Rodgers gone! Graham Potter gone! More managers have left Premier League clubs in the past four weeks than in the entire 2005-06, 2003-04 or 1995-96 seasons. The past month has not quite matched the chaos of November 1994, when Ossie Ardiles, Mike Walker, Ron Atkinson, Gerry Francis and Brian Little left their jobs, but for managers this has been the most turbulent season in Premier League history, with 13 leaving mid‑campaign.

It may not be over yet. Last Sunday was the first time since 4 October 2015 that two Premier League managers departed on the same day (Rodgers was one of the pair then as well, which is perhaps something for other managers to think about next time the brink is near). Only once before, in 2002-03, have four managers been sacked (or “left by mutual consent”) after the end of February and there is a clear possibility David Moyes or, despite assurances to the contrary, Steve Cooper becomes a fifth.

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Lampard offers few fresh ideas as Chelsea endure new manager splat | Jonathan Wilson

Defeat at Wolves suggested that coach’s second coming will not provide an edge in the Champions League against Real Madrid

The narrative seemed to write itself: Frank Lampard, having been offed by a famous Roman, resurrecting his managerial career at Easter. But the narrative was wrong. There has been no new manager bounce for Chelsea, quite the reverse. They have had a different manager for their past three games and they haven’t won any of them. This has been a new manager splat.

Sacking Graham Potter with quarter of the season remaining was presumably supposed to jolt Chelsea into life, to at least give them a puncher’s chance in the Champions League. That has not happened. Maybe at Stamford Bridge there will be an emotional surge, the once and future manager returning to save his club in their hour of need, but there was little of that in Wolverhampton.

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Boehly has to find a new star for latest episode of Chelsea sitcom | Jonathan Wilson

Owner is targeting another manager, but none of the usual rules apply at a club where nobody has a clue what is going on

The problem with modern clubs pitching themselves as content producers is that you can never quite be sure whether what you are watching is real. Take, for example, Chelsea. Are they a football club or a slightly heavy-handed sitcom?

You have a brash American owner certain he has spotted a way to do things beyond the comprehension of the unambitious Brits who have been running clubs hitherto (in reality, most of them are also American). You have a coachload of superstars and overexcited young talents all desperate to play. In charge of them you place the epitome of English reserve, a polite and thoughtful man who responds to setbacks by pointing out the xG of what’s just gone wrong is pretty low so it probably isn’t going to happen again and ends up reduced to answering questions about whether he’s angry enough to manage Chelsea.

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Rodgers and Potter out on busy Premier League weekend – Football Weekly

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Barney Ronay after two top-flight managers depart on the same day

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Today: Graham Potter leaves Chelsea after another disappointing defeat – this time 2-0 at home to an impressive Aston Villa side. The panel debate what comes next for both the club and departing manager.

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Newcastle come up with answers but Manchester United remain a riddle | Jonathan Wilson

Eddie Howe’s side have recaptured early season form but their visitors struggle without Casemiro in midfield

Some great mysteries endure, some just fade away. Does anybody talk about the Mary Celeste any more? The quest for El Dorado has run out of steam. Even, with all due respect to Visit Scotland, the Loch Ness Monster feels a busted flush. And Tottenham Hotspur are no longer fourth in the Premier League.

For weeks Spurs remained inexplicably in the Champions League qualification slots. They kept losing, kept being booed off, kept being embarrassed and yet always they clung to fourth. It was one of the world’s great mysteries. Graham Hancock wrote the sort of book on the subject that enrages academic historians and archaeologists. Mathematicians who had devoted their lives to unravelling the Riemann Hypothesis or Goldbach’s Conjecture were lured into a new field. Yvette Fielding and the restless spirit of Derek Acorah pitched a Sky Witness show about it. (And if any ghost can present a TV show, it is surely that of the popular Bootle-born medium.)

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Tottenham beware: Nagelsmann has reached a crisis point in his career | Jonathan Wilson

Spurs need a hungry manager on the way up, rather than one – no matter how young – fighting for relevance

If only Julian Nagelsmann had never become manager of Bayern Munich, the world might have believed he would be a very good manager of Bayern Munich. It was a job to which he had seemed destined since becoming the youngest coach in Bundesliga history in 2016, taking charge of Hoffenheim at the age of 29. He had already led Hoffenheim’s under-19s to the Bundesliga youth title. He seemed preternaturally gifted and in Germany the gifted always end up at Bayern, especially when they come from Bavaria.

Taking over with Hoffenheim seven points adrift, Nagelsmann inspired them to unlikely survival and the following season took them into the Champions League. After a third-place finish in 2017- 18, Nagelsmann’s upward journey continued at RB Leipzig, as he took them to the Champions League semi-finals. A Bundesliga title in his first season at Bayern may have been expected, but his first silverware was no less welcome for that.

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