Jonathan Wilson's Blog, page 83

England’s squad selected and arrivederci Ancelotti – Football Weekly

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Flo Lloyd-Hughes, Jonathan Wilson and Andy Hunter to discuss the England squad, Ancelotti’s departure from Everton, the Copa America in turmoil and more

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Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Flo Lloyd-Hughes, Jonathan Wilson and Andy Hunter to discuss the England squad, Ancelotti’s departure from Everton, the Copa America in turmoil and more.

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Published on June 02, 2021 05:46

Tuchel wins tactical battle as Pep hits panic button | Jonathan Wilson

Tuchel continued his remarkable transformation of Chelsea, aided by the Manchester City manager’s unexpected changes

If you gaze long into England, England gazes also into you. In his five years at Manchester City, Pep Guardiola has grappled with assumptions and sacred cows, expanded perceptions of how football may be maintained, and forced a reconsideration of the role of the goalkeeper and the centre-forward. He has changed the English game, but the English game has also changed him.

How else to explain the fact that by the end of Saturday’s Champions League final the team of the high priest of juego de posición, the most influential coach of this century , should have become reliant in its search for an equaliser on long throws from a full-back? The sight of Kyle Walker drying the ball on his shirt, preparing to launch another ball into the mixer, may have become emblematic of those final minutes, but it was only one part of a tactical story that had two distinct themes.

Tuchel's Chelsea conceded twice in seven Champions League knockout games

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Published on May 30, 2021 04:00

Managerial carousel mirrors the desperate crisis enveloping Europe’s elite clubs | Jonathan Wilson

Exits for Conte and Zidane, together with talk of Pochettino returning to Spurs, epitomise the chaos of modern football

At first glance, Antonio Conte leaving a club in dispute with the owners soon after leading them to a league title may not seem particularly significant. This is what he does. His departure from Internazionale follows ostensibly similar departures from Juventus and Chelsea, and he left the Italy national job early as well.

But this is about far more than Conte. What is happening at Inter is emblematic of the chaos of modern football and the struggles of an industry that had become a stage for the soft-power machinations of various states and oligarchs and was in need of major financial recalibration even before the pandemic hammered revenues. And as crisis looms, the distressed securities investors begin to hover.

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Published on May 30, 2021 00:00

Champions League final: where the game could be won and lost | Jonathan Wilson

Manchester City’s high defensive line, Chelsea’s wing-back issues and other factors to look out for in Porto

The problem historically for Pep Guardiola sides in Europe has been the high line that he operates, which means that if the press goes awry, his teams can be vulnerable to balls in behind them – as happened for Bayern against Real Madrid in 2014 and against Barcelona in 2015, and for City against Monaco in 2017, Liverpool in 2018 and Lyon last year. It was a problem for City domestically last season – notably against Norwich, Wolves, Manchester United and in the defeat at Chelsea that handed Liverpool the title – and even early in this campaign, in the 5-2 home defeat to Leicester and the reverse at Tottenham. Guardiola’s great success from December has been adjusting the balance of the press to combat a potential vulnerability that is inevitable with his approach, but United exposed City in that way and so, most pertinently, did Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final in which Timo Werner’s runs from deep were a persistent source of menace. Werner was also a threat in Chelsea’s league victory over City, although the lessons of that game were probably less relevant given it was a much-weakened City selection.

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Published on May 28, 2021 12:00

Solskjær’s lack of a cohesive attacking structure has been brutally exposed | Jonathan Wilson

Faced with a Villarreal-style low block Manchester United rely on individual brilliance and that is not enough at elite level

What if David de Gea had converted his penalty in the shootout against Villarreal? How much difference would it have made had he scored on Wednesday and Gerónimo Rulli had been the goalkeeper to miss from the spot? Was that really it, that one kick, 4.5% of a penalty shootout, was that all that determined whether this season could be considered a success or not for Manchester United? How absurd it should all come down to the capacity of one goalkeeper to beat another.

Even at the best of times, De Gea has the air of a doomed llama. Having extended his run of penalties conceded in a row to 36 over a six-year period (does Bruno Fernandes, who has scored 32 of his past 33 for United and Sporting, not including shootouts, practise against him? If he does, is there a more futile contest taking place on any training ground?), there was a glum inevitability as he stepped up.

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Published on May 27, 2021 03:30

Debate goes on but Southgate should know his best England squad by now

Trent Alexander-Arnold’s inclusion will spark more arguments but coach’s focus will be on how the side functions collectively

There is a tendency in international football to focus not on who is in the team but who is out of it. There is little thought for how an XI might function and a lot of outrage about the supposedly disgraceful treatment of those who have been left out, a tendency that reached fresh heights of absurdity last October when England beat the No 1 ranked team in the world, Belgium, and much of the post-match chatter was still about how Jack Grealish should have played.

So pervasive is the tendency that even Gareth Southgate became involved on Tuesday, leaving out as few players as possible by naming a 33-man provisional squad that he will cut down to 26 next week. The only real decisions to have been made are the omissions of Eric Dier, Michael Keane, Danny Ings and Patrick Bamford – and even then the preference for Ollie Watkins over Bamford and Ings was in effect made in March when the Aston Villa forward came off the bench in the World Cup qualifier against San Marino.

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Published on May 25, 2021 09:00

Faith in false nines makes for compelling poacher-free Champions League final | Jonathan Wilson

Pep Guardiola and Thomas Tuchel prioritise dropping deep, pulling wide, aiding the collective and protecting possession

Manchester City’s leading Premier League goalscorer this season is Ilkay Gündogan with 13. Jorginho tops Chelsea’s scoring chart with seven, followed by Tammy Abraham, Mason Mount and Timo Werner who are all on six. And yet these are the two sides who will contest next week’s Champions League final.

Among elite clubs over the past decade there has been a clear tension between those who focus on celebrity, the big-name goalscorers, and those who prioritise the collective. Neither is necessarily right nor wrong, but as the age of Lionel Messi (who has become increasingly a celebrity individual having been key to one of football’s greatest collectives) and Cristiano Ronaldo draws to a close, the lack of an out-and-out goalscorer in the final feels a possible herald of things to come.

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Published on May 22, 2021 12:00

Double despair for Chelsea and Alisson wonderland – Football Weekly

Max Rushden, Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson, Flo Lloyd-Hughes and Suzy Wrack discuss Leicester City winning the FA Cup for the first time, Barcelona demolishing Chelsea in the Women’s Champions League final, Alisson scoring for Liverpool and a surprising tangent about Lincoln

We start with the FA Cup final, as Leicester City lifted the trophy for the first time ever after Youri Tielemans’ wonder strike sunk Chelsea. Was this a moral victory for football after all of the Super League controversy earlier this season?

We then move on to another final defeat for the Blues, with Chelsea Women conceded four goals in 36 minutes to Barcelona Femení in the Champions League final. We examine exactly what went wrong for Emma Hayes’ side, and what the future potentially holds for them.

Finally, we round up the rest of the Premier League action, as Alisson saves Liverpool’s season with a 94th-minute header. We also discuss the upcoming play-offs, a crazy final league table in Turkey and read some of your emails.

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Published on May 17, 2021 06:41

Leicester’s stirring Cup win reminds English football what matters | Jonathan Wilson

Saturday’s FA Cup showpiece may not have been a great game but it was a great final, a celebration of the game’s traditions

Football is rarely just about the football. Often it’s not really about the football at all, particularly when it comes to finals. Was Bolton’s victory over West Ham in 1923 a good game? Who knows, but its place in folklore rests not on David Jack’s two goals but on the efforts of the mounted policeman George Scorey to push back the crowds. And so the White Horse final takes its place alongside the 1915 Khaki Cup final and the Matthews final, Jim Montgomery’s double save and Ricky Villa’s run, Keith Houchen’s diving header and Steven Gerrard’s absurd late equaliser in the collective memory.

For an hour on Saturday, not a lot happened. Timo Werner was, as ever, exceptionally good at some aspects of football, and exceptionally bad at others. Youri Tielemans passed the ball beautifully. Jamie Vardy made some runs. César Azpilicueta snarled. The Cup final cliches about the tension of the occasion and neither side wanting to lose had their annual airing. Jonny Evans limped off. And then Tielemans scored his outrageous 28-yard strike, and ignited a final 30 minutes of gripping drama. It was not perhaps a great game, but it was a great Cup final and as such, perhaps, will mark the rejuvenation of the FA Cup, the Covid final, the day when we remembered collectively why football matters, and why this used to be a great national day.

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Published on May 16, 2021 04:00

Down but not out: lampooned Allardyce can still make Albion proud | Jonathan Wilson

The West Brom manager has a stain on his record now. But nobody should think the old magic has entirely deserted him

The summer of 2016 has a lot of answer for. What if England had not been beaten by Iceland in the last 16 of the Euros? What if they had not lost their nerve, if Joe Hart had not made that mistake, if somebody, anybody, had demonstrated any kind of clarity of vision and attempted a mode of attacking that was not just whacking the ball into the box or giving it to Wayne Rooney? What if they had then scrambled through a quarter-final against the anxious hosts, France, to set up (another) semi-final show-down with Germany?

Perhaps Roy Hodgson would have had his contract renewed, perhaps Sam Allardyce would not have been appointed and perhaps Sunderland would be a thriving Premier League side. Think back, to that final league game of 2015-16 at the Stadium of Light: a 3-0 win over Everton in front of jubilant stands to secure survival; Allardyce on the pitch afterwards, tie somewhere near his navel, celebrating before an audience that truly appreciated him; Allardyce downing bottles of lager in a brief post-match press conference; Allardyce with Jim Montgomery, the goalkeeping legend of the 1973 FA Cup final, holding court in the bar of the Hilton Garden Inn after that.

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Published on May 15, 2021 12:00