Jonathan Wilson's Blog, page 85
April 19, 2021
The European Super League, plus Mourinho axed – Football Weekly
Max Rushden, Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson, Marcus Bean and Sean Ingle discuss the proposed ESL, the end of José Mourinho’s tenure as Spurs manager and the weekend’s Premier League and FA Cup games
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On the podcast today … not much, really. Just 12 clubs signing up for a breakaway European Super League; the panel discuss what this means for the game and how governing bodies will react.
April 18, 2021
Pep Guardiola left to ponder his fatal flaw with quadruple dream in ruins | Jonathan Wilson
Yet another defeat to pacy counterattackers raises tantalising questions over Manchester City’s European tie with PSG
And so the quadruple remains out of reach for another season. Perhaps Pep Guardiola is right to banish talk of it: when goals are set so high, even an extraordinary season could feel like failure. And so it lingers, forever on the edge of perception, as the double did for Liverpool for much of the 70s and 80s, something that feels often in their grasp and yet keeps on eluding them.
For a long time, the double was rare enough to be an almost mystical quest. Growing up in the 80s, the sides who had achieved it felt vaguely otherworldly, to be spoken of in hushed and reverent tones: Preston 1889, Aston Villa 1897, Tottenham 1961, Arsenal 1971 and then, at last, Liverpool 1986. Then came the Premier League and a redistribution of resources, and suddenly it lost its lustre. There have been seven doubles in the past three decades, and an inflationary effect that means now only the trebles are truly memorable: Manchester United’s of Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League in 1999 and Manchester City’s domestic variant of Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup in 2019.
Related: Timo Werner keeps it simple to hit his highest note for Chelsea | Barney Ronay
Leicester v Southampton
Related: The great Alexander-Arnold debate: a pressing question for Gareth Southgate | Jonathan Wilson
Continue reading...April 17, 2021
The great Alexander-Arnold debate: a pressing question for Gareth Southgate | Jonathan Wilson
Liverpool’s press has been weakened this season, exposing their right-back – and Southgate knows it could happen with England
Nonessential shops are reopening, fans are returning to stadiums, and English football has developed an unhelpful monomania in the run-up to a major tournament, demanding long-considered plans be ripped up to satisfy some ill-considered primal urge to be excited. Everything, slowly, is returning to normal.
General grumbling that Gareth Southgate is not a gung-ho maverick willing to shoehorn every eligible attacking player into one pulsating team of impossible genius has found a specific focus and, moreover, one who is young enough that this could run and run, far beyond this summer’s Euros.
Related: Trent Alexander-Arnold takes inspiration from England omission | Nick Ames
Related: 'I don't understand it': Klopp questions Southgate's Alexander-Arnold snub
A strength of Alexander-Arnold’s game has been transformed into a weakness by Liverpool's structural failings elsewhere
Continue reading...April 15, 2021
Manchester City v PSG semi-final suggests darker side of sport’s fairytales | Jonathan Wilson
Champions League clash could be described as sportswashing derby with rich royal family owners going head to head
Sometimes sport can be a stage for the most beautiful dramas. It can thrill, it can inspire, it can move. It can offer the most plangent insights into life, showcase the full potential of the human brain, the human heart, the human body. Who does not feel the lump in the throat, the warm glow of shared experience, the great sense of human potential when they remember Bob Champion winning the National on Aldaniti, Dennis Taylor outlasting Steve Davis, or Ben Stokes at Headingley? Sport is a fairytale land where dreams can be made flesh.
Once upon a time there was a football club from an industrial city in the north of England. They weren’t very good – in fact, they had a comedic tendency to embrace failure, to find ways of losing other clubs couldn’t have imagined – but they were generally quite well liked. Then they were taken over by a politician from overseas, who was very rich, and then by the royal family of another foreign state, who were even richer.
Related: Liverpool hit white wall as fearless Real Madrid refuse to be moved | Barney Ronay
Continue reading...April 12, 2021
Bielsa pips Pep as United beat City, plus using xG in Scrabble – Football Weekly
Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Barney Ronay to discuss Leeds’ win at Manchester City and the race for the top four
We start at the Etihad Stadium as Leeds become the first promoted team in 13 years to win away at a team that sits top of the Premier League. What level of credit does Bielsa deserve for the performances we’ve seen by Leeds this year?
We then move on to the battle for the Champions League as Manchester United, West Ham, Chelsea and Liverpool all win to further their chances. Could Leicester pay a heavy price after three of their key players missed the defeat at the London Stadium following a Covid-19 related breach?
Continue reading...April 11, 2021
Mason Greenwood seals Manchester United’s comeback at Tottenham
Same manager, similar players, same result. The familiar pattern played out again. Tottenham had a lead and Tottenham lost the lead and the result is that the gap to the top four is now six points.
It was the reverse round of fixtures in October – Leeds unnerving Manchester City, West Ham outplaying Leicester, Aston Villa thrashing Liverpool – that created the sense that this was not going to be a normal season, Tottenham’s 6-1 win at Old Trafford even conjuring the frankly implausible thought that Spurs might be able to mount a title challenge. How long ago that seems now. All that remains to be decided, it appears, are the circumstances of José Mourinho’s departure, when it happens and how big his payoff is.
Related: Devilish Solskjær deals fiendish blow to Spurs’ Champions League hopes | Louise Taylor
Continue reading...April 10, 2021
Reguilón on for Bergwijn: how José Mourinho blew Spurs’ title charge | Jonathan Wilson
Fear has become the manager’s defining principle and at Anfield a typically defensive substitution was the unravelling
Nine days before Christmas was not really so very long ago, yet it feels like a different world. Manchester City had just been held to a draw at home by West Brom that left them eighth in the Premier League table. Southampton were third. And Tottenham went to the league leaders, Liverpool, knowing that a win would put them top. In the confusing period between the second and third lockdowns, it seemed possible that this slog of a season might just provide an environment in which José Mourinho’s attritional style could thrive.
Yet Spurs host Manchester United on Sunday afternoon having begun the weekend in sixth place and 25 points behind the leaders, City. They have lost eight of their last 18 league games and been bundled out of the FA Cup and the Europa League. Last Sunday, they were outplayed by Newcastle and escaped with a 2-2 draw.
Related: Tottenham's José Mourinho blames instability for Newcastle's late equaliser
Related: The devil and José Mourinho | Jonathan Wilson
Perhaps it’s come a year earlier than in the Mourinho template, but it’s different players, same coach, same outcome
Continue reading...April 8, 2021
Bayern v PSG was pure footballing fun – until you delve beneath the thrills | Jonathan Wilson
Dominant super-rich elite forget how to defend but proposed new Champions League would not ensure endless excitement
After the rush of exhilaration, the comedown. Paris Saint-Germain’s 3-2 win away to Bayern Munich on Wednesday was extraordinary, full of high-tempo drama, of brilliant players doing brilliant things – so long as it wasn’t defending. There were great goals, great saves, great crosses, injuries all over the place, and by the time it was over, the eternal nearly men of PSG had ended the European champions’ 19-game unbeaten run in the competition. And yet in the cold light of morning, it’s perhaps impossible not to feel a slight qualm: it was magnificent, but was it football?
It was a superior example of the type, but this was a game typical of the latter stages of today’s Champions League. After the dutiful slog of the group stages, the frenzied bacchanal of the knockouts. This is the upside of the financial structure of modern football. Create a small elite of super-rich clubs so they can concentrate the best players at a handful of franchises and this is the sort of quality that can ensue.
Related: Mbappé urges PSG teammates to repeat display against Bayern Munich
Continue reading...April 4, 2021
Liverpool crisis is not over but win at Arsenal points to happier times ahead
One victory does not make a season but the dominant Emirates display was a reminder of the champions’ quality
One performance, one result, of course, doesn’t mean that everything is suddenly fine. Liverpool have been here often enough before this season, particularly in London, not to believe that the storm has now passed. Nobody should be drawing sweeping conclusions, good or bad, from games against an Arsenal side that remains wildly inconsistent. But there was perhaps enough in Saturday’s 3-0 win at the Emirates for Liverpool to begin to recover some faith in themselves and their methods.
Related: Trent Alexander-Arnold takes inspiration from England omission | Nick Ames
Related: Jota and Salah earn crucial Liverpool win at Arsenal to boost top-four hopes
Continue reading...April 3, 2021
Solving the Neymar question is crucial to PSG's Champions League fortunes | Jonathan Wilson
Should Mauricio Pochettino indulge the mercurial Brazilian in the perennial chokers’ quarter-final against Bayern Munich?
The same procedure as last year? The same procedure as every year. But for how long? At some point, Paris Saint-Germain will win the Champions League and the world will be able to stop wondering if this could finally be their season. And so we go through the familiar rigmarole and ask, could this be it? Could the stars have aligned at last? Could PSG finally have found the right balance of coach and stellar players?
Certainly the 4-1 victory at Barcelona in the last 16, arguably their best performance in the Champions League, suggested they could. At which point the caveats immediately kick in. This is PSG, a club who have made a habit of freezing at key moments. This is PSG, who have won seven of the last eight French league titles and done four trebles in the past six years, who are unused to being challenged domestically and so tend to buckle under pressure in Europe (it may be that the battle at the top of Ligue 1 this season helps them). This is PSG, a byword for extravagance and excess.
Related: New-look Champions League is a pointless waste of time that will destroy the drama | Jonathan Wilson
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