Jonathan Wilson's Blog, page 53

Manchester City pegged back again and the English game’s white paper – Football Weekly Extra

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Nicky Bandini and Jonathan Wilson after more Champions League knockout action, plus Kevin Miles from the FSA joins to discuss the new football white paper

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

Today: are Manchester City boring? Can they win the Champions League without a left-back and does Pep always get a bit weird at this point in the season? The panel ponder this and more as they are held 1-1 away at Leipzig.

Continue reading...

A stain on France: police brutality against football fans has become systemic

Paris police attacks on Liverpool fans at the Champions League final was yet another example of the hosts’ big game failures

Uefa’s report on last season’s Champions League final is impressively uncompromising. It was, it said, “through no merit of those in charge” that another Hillsborough was avoided. “The Préfecture de Police were in effect acting unilaterally to direct supporters toward an entry point that would be unable to cope with the level of demand placed upon it … several key stakeholders have not accepted responsibility for their own failures but have been quick to attribute blame to others.”

The report is thorough and unsparing in criticising Uefa and the French authorities. There were supplementary factors, such as the rail strike, problems with scanning tickets and attacks by locals but, fundamentally, this was a colossal failure of crowd management. What is so infuriating is that so much of what happened was predictable to anybody who has been to a match in France.

Continue reading...

Chelsea and Tottenham latest news, plus Premier League previews – as it happened

Mikel Arteta said Arsenal are ‘motivated’ for title fight v Manchester City while Pep Guardiola insisted ‘nothing changed’

Thoughts on the football? You can email me, get in touch on Twitter, or comment BTL.

A little more from Eddie Howe now, courtesy of Newcastle’s social media operatives.

Continue reading...

Arsenal appear to be out of steam as financial gravity brings them down | Jonathan Wilson

Leaders were unlucky to meet Manchester City during poor run, not in October, and eight-point leads, once squandered, are seldom regained

What if the Queen hadn’t died when she did? If she hadn’t, Arsenal would have faced PSV Eindhoven in the Europa League in September and that game wouldn’t have had to be played in the midweek slot when they had been slated to host Manchester City.

Arsenal would have gone into what could prove the defining game of the season in October on a run of seven straight victories, having beaten Tottenham and Liverpool in their previous two home league matches, while City would have been coming off a 1-0 defeat at Anfield. As it was, Arsenal were fretting in their worst run of the season, while City were just beginning to emerge from a post-World Cup blip. But still they’ll blame the referees.

Continue reading...

Arsenal appear to be out of steam as financial gravity brings them down | Jonathan WIlson

Leaders were unlucky to meet Manchester City during poor run, not in October, and eight-point leads, once squandered, are seldom regained

What if the Queen hadn’t died when she did? If she hadn’t, Arsenal would have faced PSV Eindhoven in the Europa League in September and that game wouldn’t have had to be played in the midweek slot when they’d been slated to host Manchester City.

Arsenal would have gone into what could prove the defining game of the season in October on a run of seven straight victories, having beaten Tottenham and Liverpool in their previous two home league matches, while City would have been coming off a 1-0 defeat at Liverpool. As it was, Arsenal were fretting in their worst run of the season, while City were just beginning to emerge from a post-World Cup blip. But still they’ll blame the referees.

Continue reading...

Guardiola built this Manchester City team and knows he could lose it all | Jonathan Wilson

With the independent commission to come and Arsenal up next, beating Aston Villa didn’t really seem like the major issue

A white sky almost entirely leached of colour. A damp bite to the air. A general sense of unease around the Etihad. Could the last decade of Manchester City success be erased or tainted by an independent panel hearing the charges brought by the Premier League? Quite possibly, but in the here and now, after a straightforward win over Aston Villa, City will go top of the Premier League if they beat Arsenal at the Emirates on Wednesday.

Even in the wake of last Monday’s Premier League charges, it would be difficult to portray this as a defiant victory, a club under siege coming together in adversity. City were so superior, and so helped by Villa’s errors, that there was no immediate opponent to be defiant against.

Continue reading...

Welcome back the Champions League: will Napoli shake up the faltering big guns? | Jonathan Wilson

With European football in turmoil and leading clubs out of sorts, the knockout stages offer some welcome unpredictability

When the draw for the last 16 of the Champions League is made before Christmas, the warning always comes: wait till February. What can look a straightforward tie as the group stage ends may appear very different a couple of months down the line as form fluctuates and injuries, managerial changes and January signings take effect.

Recently that has tended to mean the superclubs asserting themselves, financial muscle powering through whatever blips may have occurred in the autumn. But as the Champions League knockout stage begins on Tuesday, very little has settled down and the competition looks more open than it has done for a decade or more.

Continue reading...

Ciro Blazevic, Croatia’s footballing father, talked worlds into existence | Jonathan Wilson

‘Great motivator’, who has died aged 87, inspired his country in an unlikely charge to third place at the 1998 World Cup

You didn’t really interview Miroslav “Ciro” Blazevic. You just sat there, tossed some vague conversational gambit into the air and waited for the charismatic rush of anecdote to sweep you along, which was pretty much how he coached. He had an extraordinary energy – at 75 he went to China to manage the national Under-23 side, and had four jobs after that – and a profound love of football. But what he enjoyed most of all was to talk, particularly about himself.

Even 18 months ago, eaten by the cancer that eventually led to his death on Wednesday, two days short of his 88th birthday, Blazevic gave a lengthy interview for the documentary Croatia: Defining a Nation, and his part in leading the country to third place at the 1998 World Cup. It was as though by talking about his greatness and the greatness of those around them, he could make them great, could talk worlds into existence.

Continue reading...

Citizens Kaned by Spurs and Sean Dyche rides again – Football Weekly

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Nedum Onuoha and Jonathan Wilson to review the weekend’s action as the Premier League’s top two both lost

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

Today: Everton start life under Sean Dyche with a 1-0 win over Arsenal – a result that would have been far worse for the league leaders, had Spurs not beaten their title rivals Manchester City on Sunday. Harry Kane’s early winner also meant he becomes Spurs’ all-time leading goalscorer.

Continue reading...

Chelsea’s gamble on young guns looks like another shot in the dark by US owners | Jonathan Wilson

Huge spree on Fernández, Mudryk, Nkunku and Madueke raises more questions about the coherence of Boehly’s plans

Amortisation over a long-term deal. Heavily incentivised contracts. A couple of relatively quiet windows before Roman Abramovich was forced to sell the club. There’s been a lot written over the past few months about how Chelsea can afford a spree that will hit £620m when the Christopher Nkunku deal happens next June. But perhaps the bigger question is why? What on earth are they doing?

Structure the deals as cleverly as you like, that money still has to be paid at some point. Chelsea’s spending has been of the sort you would expect from a megalomaniac billionaire taking over a club, when the point is to have fun or make a splash, when long-term planning means less than “Get me Robinho, now!” In that regard, the careful squad-building of the Saudi Public Investment Fund at Newcastle has been a huge disappointment.

Continue reading...