Jonathan Liew's Blog, page 108

Wily Sevilla show Manchester United that momentum is not a tactic | Jonathan Liew

United have a loose philosophy and style of play, based largely on their electric front five. But they entrust too much to good feelings and blind faith

This, as José Mourinho might drily observe, is football heritage.

To lose one semi-final might be considered unfortunate. To lose two a coincidence. But in United’s third unsuccessful attempt to grease their season with silverware could be identified a clear pattern running through the club. It is not a problem that can be solved by signing Jadon Sancho and Jack Grealish. Rather, it is something more systemic and deep-rooted, a malaise that took years to set in and may well take years to cure.

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Published on August 17, 2020 00:03

The enigma of Memphis Depay, a man who dares you to misunderstand him

Perhaps in his jarring fall and stirring rise again with Lyon lies a salutary antidote to a game of sharp, sweeping judgments

The longer you spend exploring the strange and spellbinding world of Memphis Depay, the brilliant 26-year-old Lyon forward, the more you find and the less you understand.

Does it matter, for example, that he is partial to the odd cigar, and keeps several boxes in the house? That he has almost 10 million Instagram followers, films rap videos in his spare time, gets his hair cut every week? That during lockdown, he earned the wrath of animal rights groups by posing for photographs with a baby liger? That he failed at Manchester United?

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Published on August 15, 2020 00:00

The innocent fun of Joe Root has been lost to the burdens of England captaincy | Jonathan Liew

Perhaps it was inevitable that in being a leader, an ambassador, an entertainer and a salesman, something had to give

Three years ago, I went to Sheffield to interview Joe Root. It was his first summer as England captain and as he parsed his way through a series of solemn, proportionate answers about New Responsibilities and Exciting Opportunities, I became increasingly fascinated by his demeanour. His posture was nervous and awkward; his gestures self-conscious and uncertain; his words stilted and punctuated by short involuntary intakes of breath. It seemed like Root still was still trying to work out whether the England captaincy was something into which you grow or shrink. Whether it bottles you up or sets you free.

A couple of weeks later, someone in the England camp informed me Root had read my article and was a little put out. Not angry. Not upset. Just a bit surprised, as anyone might be if they’d seen their verbal tics and physical mannerisms deconstructed in creepily forensic detail in a national newspaper. Even so, Root’s reaction struck me as atypical. If this was his response to a largely innocuous slice of cod-psychology, how would he handle the merciless media roastings, the poison-pen campaigns, the barefaced lies to come? The England captaincy, after all, is hardly a job for someone who cares what other people think.

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Published on August 10, 2020 12:00

Lionel Messi magic sinks Napoli and puts labouring Barcelona through

Progress for Barcelona, and yet the spectre of a first trophyless season since 2008 somehow seems to loom larger than ever. They made it past Napoli and into the Champions League quarter-finals, but with the sort of leaden, listless display that makes it almost impossible to envisage them holding aloft the trophy in Lisbon on 23 August. Almost.

That they have even a puncher’s chance is due largely to the man who was again their salvation in this game. Any team with Lionel Messi pointing in the right direction can never quite be counted out, and here it was his unshakeable balance and insoluble will that brought him within three wins of the prize he craves more than any other.

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Published on August 08, 2020 14:07

Phil Foden stars to offer Manchester City glimpse of multiple futures

Twenty-year-old excelled against Madrid and his talent is such he could play in any number of roles across midfield and attack

Not long after Pep Guardiola arrived at Manchester City in the summer of 2016, a few of the academy players were invited to train with the first team during pre-season. Afterwards, Guardiola was almost beside himself with excitement. “Did you see that kid in the centre of the field?” he asked his staff incredulously. He liked the look of Brahim Díaz. He liked the look of Jadon Sancho. But it had taken just one session for Guardiola to fall in love with Phil Foden.

Still, the course of true love rarely runs in a straight line. And four years after Pep from Catalonia first clapped eyes on Phil from Stockport across a crowded rondo, here finally was the consummation. Not a dead rubber against Hoffenheim. Not a Carabao Cup final against Aston Villa. Not a casual league game against a half-bothered Liverpool.

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Published on August 07, 2020 14:13

Fulham's Premier League return and footballing bookworms - Football Weekly

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Faye Carruthers and Jonathan Liew to discuss Fulham’s return to the Premier League and we talk about VAR coughing and footballers who read books

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Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Faye Carruthers and Jonathan Liew to discuss Fulham’s return to the Premier League after an extra-time double from left-back Joe Bryan. Fulham fan Archie Rhind-Tutt reveals his broken voice after the hysterical celebrations, and we talk VAR coughing and footballers who read books.

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Published on August 05, 2020 08:43

Joe Bryan seizes the moment to grab glory and crush Brentford spirit | Jonathan Liew

The pragmatism of Scott Parker’s Fulham triumphed over the doomed idealism of Thomas Frank’s Brentford in a game that failed to live up to the billing

And so, ultimately, it all came down to this. A full year of toil; 120 minutes of grim application, in many cases a lifetime of longing. A free-kick in a seemingly innocuous position on the left wing. A defence maintaining an audaciously high line, a goalkeeper anxiously patrolling the space behind it and a left-back who spied an irresistible opportunity to write himself into folklore.

That, ultimately, was all it took to send Fulham back to the Premier League and leave Brentford in the Championship for another season. On one level, it felt unspeakably senseless for something this important to be settled by something this silly. But then again, here we all were, watching a terrible game at an empty Wembley Stadium in August, with fake crowd noise being piped over the airwaves and a socially-distanced national anthem at the start. Perhaps, on reflection, the ship had already sailed on that score.

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Published on August 04, 2020 16:08

Usain Bolt's talent for speed becomes more apparent now it is denied to us | Jonathan Liew

Bolt had a gift for making the impossible seem easy but his success was based on mental resolve as well as electric pace

Something you may not know about me: there is almost no set of circumstances – personal, professional, medical – in which I will not drop everything to watch Usain Bolt. Naturally, my personalised YouTube algorithm has already known this for some time, and will now instantly recommend me a selection of his greatest hits whenever I log in. “Usain Bolt | IAAF Daegu 2011 (200m s/f)”: yes please! “Bolt beats Gatlin | 2015 World Championships [HD]”: click! “Men’s 200m final | London 2017”: er, I think you’ll find Bolt didn’t run the 200 metres in London that year. Nice try, algorithm. Now get this grubby irrelevance out of my sight.

Perhaps you have your own favourite Bolt race. Perhaps it’s the first time he truly astonished us: the 100m at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, where he smashed the world record despite basically doing jazz hands from about 70 metres, like a Victorian street magician. Perhaps it’s the 9.58sec in Berlin the following summer, a truly ridiculous effort, one best remembered for the collective and involuntary noise the crowd makes when it sees the clock: a sort of aaaawwweuuurrrrgh. This was sport as testimony: after all, you didn’t simply watch Bolt breaking a world record. You witnessed it. You shared it. You shook people by the shoulders and asked – a little superfluously – did you see that?

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Published on August 03, 2020 15:20

Newcastle have had a narrow escape and may realise that in the fullness of time | Jonathan Liew

Only when a new owner buys out the hated Mike Ashley will the club’s fans appreciate the Saudi Arabia deal was not the one they needed to hitch themselves to

Put the cans back in the fridge. Take down the Kylian Mbappé poster from your bedroom wall. Quietly delete the Saudi Arabia flag from your Twitter handle. Yes, the end is nigh for one of English football’s most unlikely summer romances. Boy meets sovereign wealth fund. Boy loses sovereign wealth fund over television piracy issues. Boy pockets £17m deposit. A tale as old as time itself.

Of course, you don’t need to be a professional satirist to spot the heavy irony in Saudi Arabia’s bid for Newcastle United being thwarted by due legal process, something so strikingly optional in its own justice system. Having spent the past few months bullishly briefing that a deal was imminent, unfairly raising the hopes of millions of fans desperate to see the back of the hated Mike Ashley, the country’s Public Investment Fund – along with Amanda Staveley’s PCP Capital Partners and the billionaire Reuben brothers – have been forced into a hasty retreat. You hate to see it.

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Published on July 30, 2020 13:38

FA Cup final preview and a farewell to Griffin Park – Football Weekly Extra

Elis James is joined by Barry Glendenning, Simon Burnton and Jonathan Liew to discuss Brentford dashing Swansea dreams, Arsenal and Chelsea’s date at Wembley, and fantasy league players to sign for next season

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Elis and the pod discuss the end of Swansea’s dreams, as Brentford make it through to the Championship play-off final at Wembley. We also say goodbye to Griffin Park, before looking ahead to Saturday’s FA Cup final between Arsenal and Chelsea, and also casting an eye forward towards the players who might be worth picking for your fantasy league team next season.

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Published on July 30, 2020 08:59