Jonathan Wilson's Blog, page 89
January 18, 2021
Liverpool misfire again, Özil and the genius of Ndombele – Football Weekly
Max Rushden is joined by Barney Ronay, Jonathan Wilson, Simon Burnton and Flo Lloyd-Hughes to discuss the Premier League, Özil’s exit and the WSL. Are Manchester City the favourites for the Premier League after a fifth consecutive win and just why have Liverpool stopped scoring goals?
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Max Rushden is joined by Barney Ronay, Jonathan Wilson, Simon Burnton and Flo Lloyd-Hughes.
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Solskjær's United still can't beat the best sides … but that might not matter | Jonathan Wilson
The 0-0 draw at Anfield on Sunday again showcased the limitations of the Manchester United manager yet they are still very much in the title race
What does it mean? What does any of it mean? Manchester United’s 0-0 draw at Liverpool on Sunday means they remain top of the Premier League table one game before they reach their halfway point, but they’ve now played each of the other Big Six sides, plus Leicester whose consistency over the past five years perhaps affords them associate membership of that group, and they haven’t beaten any of them. Is that a title challenge? Perhaps it is, but it wouldn’t be in anything resembling a normal season.
Related: Manchester United stay top after taking point in tense tussle with Liverpool
Related: Jürgen Klopp’s tepid attack is feeling ripple effects of a drained defence | Barney Ronay
Continue reading...January 16, 2021
Guardiola has turned City away from pressing and back to passing | Jonathan Wilson
In circumstances demanding a less energetic approach, the manager has transformed his side’s Premier League prospects
Ominously, Manchester City have eased towards the front of the title race. They went into the weekend third, just four points behind the Premier League leaders, Manchester United, with a game in hand. Their next five league games are against sides in the bottom half and Aston Villa. Had Liverpool beaten them on 8 November, rather than drawing 1-1, their lead over City would have been eight points. As it is, by the time City face Liverpool on 6 February, there’s a good chance they will be top of the table. That, really, is a triumph of coaching.
It’s a triumph of resources as well because almost everything in modern football is (and let nobody ever forget the origin of those resources). The signing of Rúben Dias has been a triumph, not just for his own performances but for the way he seems to have galvanised the entire backline, John Stones in particular. That he is not playing in the position initially envisaged (operating on the left rather than the right of the centre of defence) is a quirky detail rather than something that calls the planning into doubt.
Related: Manchester City purring again after stumbling upon winning formula | Jonathan Wilson
Related: Colin Bell, Cup semis and the Trippier Tapes – Football Weekly Extra
Continue reading...January 9, 2021
Super-clubs lack patience for rookies like Arteta and Lampard to learn on job | Jonathan Wilson
The financial structures of modern football mean steady progression is unworkable and few former players taking the reins of an elite club are likely to have had adequate preparation
Everybody wants their own Pep Guardiola. That is the dream. You take a club legend just beginning his coaching career, stick him in charge of the reserves for a season, give him the top job, then watch as he revolutionises football with a squad based around academy products and wins three league titles and two Champions Leagues. It’s not just winning, but winning your way.
That’s why so many major clubs have turned to former players with limited or no first-hand managerial experience: Juventus with Andrea Pirlo, Chelsea with Frank Lampard, Arsenal with Mikel Arteta. It fosters the exceptionalist dream that underlies so much of what it is to support a club, the feeling you are different, better, more worthy than the others, and it’s good for the branding, taking a popular, recognisable figure to sell that feeling.
Related: Lampard beware: no Chelsea manager has survived worse under Abramovich | Jonathan Wilson
There will always be an element of learning on the job. Butt these days managers are sacked at the first sign of trouble
Continue reading...January 7, 2021
Colin Bell, Cup semis and the Trippier Tapes – Football Weekly Extra
Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson, Jonathan Liew and Flo Lloyd-Hughes to discuss wins for Manchester City and Spurs, Liverpool’s semi-slump, Phil Neville and the sad passing of a true great
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The pod discuss the two Carabao Cup semi-finals, which saw Manchester City and Spurs make it past Manchester United and Brentford, respectively.
Continue reading...Manchester City purring again after stumbling upon winning formula | Jonathan Wilson
Guardiola planned to build a new cathedral on a Dias-Laporte defence but Stones has emerged as key to team’s resurgence
Football feels at times almost wilfully contrarian, as though it delights in confounding those who try to plot a rational course through it. You can plan and plan and plan. You can have a manager who is famous for his attention to detail. You can study all the data, watch all the videos, think and plot and cogitate, formulate your grand strategy, then it turns out the answer all along was John Stones.
Manchester City needed a right-sided central defender, everybody said. They had Aymeric Laporte, who was probably alongside Virgil van Dijk the best central defender in the league, but he prefers the left side, so City’s job in the summer was to find somebody to play alongside him. In that area, it was widely agreed, their recruitment had gone a little awry.
Related: Guardiola's caution helps Stones shine and get back on England radar | Barney Ronay
Continue reading...January 4, 2021
Lampard beware: no Chelsea manager has survived worse under Abramovich | Jonathan Wilson
A return of 26 points from 17 games this season and muddled planning has left a club legend looking vulnerable to the sack
The good news for Frank Lampard is that it’s not as bad as José Mourinho’s second spell, but that’s the only good news. Sunday’s 3-1 humbling against Manchester City means Chelsea have taken 26 points from 17 games this season, 50.98% of the points available. Mourinho, in 2015-16, was on 31.25% when the axe fell.
But in terms of final seasons, 50.98 is worse than Andre Villas-Boas, worse than Mourinho first time around, worse than Antonio Conte, worse than Carlo Ancelotti, worse than Maurizio Sarri, Luiz Felipe Scolari, Robert Di Matteo and Claudio Ranieri. If the corridors of Cobham hiss with intrigue, there is good reason. No Chelsea manager under Roman Abramovich has survived anything like this before.
Related: Frank Lampard plays down pressure after Chelsea slip to meek defeat
Related: Phil Foden excels in Manchester City's emphatic win over lacklustre Chelsea
Continue reading...January 2, 2021
Pragmatist Guardiola has fine-tuned City’s balance between press and defence | Jonathan Wilson
It’s hard to be sure of anything in this oddest of seasons, but it could be that having to ease back on the press has brought Manchester City a more effective defensive balance
There is perhaps no word so misused in football as pragmatic. The tendency is to deploy it as a synonym for defensive, cautious or gritty, to be set against the attacking flair of the idealists. Coaches are divided into two groups: on the one hand the pragmatic Sam Allardyce, Tony Pulis and Neil Warnock, and on the other the idealistic Marcelo Bielsa, Pep Guardiola and Gian Piero Gasperini. But it is rarely so straightforward as that.
Bielsa is perhaps a special case. The Leeds manager has principles from which he never deviates and his family background means he has perhaps never quite needed a win bonus in the way some other players or managers have – he can afford to be principled. But equally the idea he went to Old Trafford just before Christmas to put on some kind of show or underestimated Manchester United’s threat is laughable. Leeds played that way because Bielsa thinks that is the best way to get results.
Related: The devil and José Mourinho | Jonathan Wilson
Continue reading...December 26, 2020
Football tactics take a step back amid pandemic's pressing concerns | Jonathan Wilson
Coaches whose ideas were considered almost extinct have re-emerged as teams battle fatigue and a lack of training time
For football, this was the year evolution went backwards. It began with further victories for the high press, with Hansi Flick’s Bayern Munich surging to the Champions League and the Bundesliga, and Jürgen Klopp’s side giving Liverpool their first league title in 30 years, but it ended with a widespread reversion to a more cautious style.
A dozen years ago, Pep Guardiola led the rise of press-and-possess football; recently, the pressing element has come to be prioritised – and then Covid-19 arrived. There are those who will dismissively point out we had pressing in the 80s. And we did – we’ve had it since the 60s – but we also had computers in the 80s, it’s just that they were nowhere near as sophisticated or powerful as they are today.
Related: From Aubameyang to Kane, forwards today pose strikingly different threats | Jonathan Wilson
Related: Premier League: 10 good and bad surprises of the season so far
Continue reading...Reliance on Bruno Fernandes causes problems for Manchester United | Jonathan Wilson
When Leicester cut down on his freedom it was clear once more that United rely on two or three key players
At some level, this game happened. In a sense it was perfect fare for a bleary Boxing Day lunchtime. It was engaging enough without ever being especially demanding, and if you did happen to doze off for quarter of an hour or so you wouldn’t have missed anything overly consequential. It certainly didn’t answer any questions. We still don’t know how good Leicester or Manchester United are or whether either is remotely capable of sustaining a title challenge.
Both sides have had good patches this season, but neither has entirely convinced, a pattern this game distilled perfectly. No sooner had one narrative begun to take control than another rose up to deflect it off course. Both sides have been inconsistent. Both have been better away from home. Both like to play on the break. United had gone behind in all six previous Premier League away games this season but won them all; here they took the lead twice and ended up drawing.
Related: Axel Tuanzebe own goal earns Leicester draw with Manchester United
Related: The 100 best male footballers in the world 2020
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