Jonathan Liew's Blog, page 119
December 19, 2019
Liverpool’s busy 24 hours, manager moves and more – Football Weekly Extra
Max Rushden, Jonathan Liew, Faye Carruthers and Nick Ames discuss Liverpool, Ancelotti and Arteta throw some surprises, the tyranny of Big Dunc, disappearing football stands and a familiar voice down the phone
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We start by discussing Liverpool’s two games in 24 hours – a men-against-boys 5-0 defeat at Aston Villa, followed by a 2-1 win over Monterrey in Qatar.
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December 16, 2019
Ben Stokes’s Spoty crown is a triumph for that silly little game of cricket | Jonathan Liew
Coming 14 years after Andrew Flintoff in 2005, Ben Stokes’s coronation felt like a vindication. But of what, exactly?
No sooner had the polls closed than the recriminations could begin. Horror and dismay at Katarina Johnson‑Thompson HQ. Rumours Dina Asher-Smith would announce her resignation as early as Monday morning. Sources in the Lewis Hamilton campaign briefing that their candidate’s tax policy had gone down disastrously on the doorstep. Back in the studio, white-haired psephologists feverishly picked over the historic implications of the vote, and in particular the crumbling of Alun Wyn Jones’s “red wall”.
Well, maybe not. And yet, as the ticker tape tumbled in Aberdeen, as Ben Stokes clutched the sports personality of the year trophy in his meaty hands, we were again reminded that public opinion is a strange little egg, a slavering argot you try to decrypt at your peril. It was, we were immediately told via an England and Wales Cricket Board press release, a seismic moment not just for Stokes but for the entire sport. A triumph to inspire the next generation. Coming 14 years since Andrew Flintoff in 2005, the last cricketer to win the award, Stokes’s coronation certainly felt like a vindication of something. But what, exactly?
Related: Ben Stokes’ modesty stands in sharp contrast to bloated show
The question English cricket needs to answer is whether this is a transformative moment or a cameo in the spotlight
Related: England cricketer Ben Stokes wins BBC Sports Personality of the Year award
Continue reading...December 15, 2019
Duncan Ferguson gives Everton a plan but hunger will get them only so far | Jonathan Liew
“Och, not Duncan Ferguson again,” Sir Alex Ferguson used to complain whenever his Manchester United side came up against Everton. Not without reason, either. More than once, Sir Alex would find his plans laid to waste by his younger namesake: seven goals in all, including headed winners in 1995 and 2005. For the older Ferguson, “Big Dunc” represented the dangerous unknown: an inimitable cocktail of salt and chaos that a generation later, in his newest guise as a manager, seemed to be undoing United all over again.
As Everton’s interim manager completed his television interview at the end of this 1-1 draw, he turned towards the knot of travelling fans in the corner. Arms pumping, jacket off, shirt sodden, he demanded and received their acclaim. A short distance away in the directors’ box, the power trio of Bill Kenwright, Farhad Moshiri and Marcel Brands gazed inscrutably on. Ten days in and their hasty stop-gap appointment was already giving them plenty to think about.
Related: Mason Greenwood equaliser rescues Manchester United against Everton
Related: ‘We didn’t have the ideas’: Ole Gunnar Solskjær laments lack of United creativity
Related: Manchester United 1-1 Everton: Premier League – as it happened
Continue reading...December 12, 2019
Light lies the crown before Michael van Gerwen’s visit to the Palace | Jonathan Liew
Dutchman is strong favourite to retain his world title while Gerwyn Price looks best equipped to offer a challenge
To the Palace, then, for the 27th edition of a tournament that over its rich and eclectic history has come to occupy a cherished and strangely comforting place in the festive sporting calendar. Depressed by the election result? Fearful of climate change? Never mind: the darts is back on the telly and, for the next three weeks at least, everything’s going to be fine.
Of course, regular followers will be entitled to point out that darts is hardly ever off the telly these days, such has been the prodigious growth of the sport over the last two decades. And yet even in a fattened calendar, in a world of new stars and dizzying new frontiers, there remains a particular cachet to the world championship, a shared bloodline that connects your John Lowes and Eric Bristows to today’s sponsor-encrusted, mineral water‑supping superstars.
Related: The Anti-Sports Personality of the Year awards 2019 | Simon Burnton
Related: Gerwyn Price: ‘I was painted as the pantomime villain of darts’
Continue reading...December 10, 2019
Pulisic's high-speed game of hide-and-seek is making him a Chelsea idol | Jonathan Liew
The attacker looked like a fitting replacement for Hazard on the night Lampard’s side reached the Champions League last 16
Of course, they didn’t make it easy for themselves. It wouldn’t be Chelsea if they did. This, perhaps, has been the underlying theme of Frank Lampard’s first half-season: they are a team of wildly undulating fortunes who are often weakest when they appear at their strongest, and strongest when they appear at their weakest.
But once the nervous final minutes had been negotiated, once they could puff out their cheeks and dry their brows, Chelsea could savour a job circuitously well done.
Related: Chelsea slow up against Lille after Tammy Abraham sets last-16 pace
Related: Chelsea’s Frank Lampard wants strikers in January transfer window
Continue reading...December 9, 2019
General election beckons but sportsmen and women are staying quiet | Jonathan Liew
Three years ago, with the EU referendum on a knife-edge and the Remain campaign struggling to gain traction, No 10 hit on the idea of trying to mobilise support within the world of sport. A well-connected agent called Jon Smith was despatched to try to drum up interest and perhaps secure a few valuable endorsements. As he went, however, he quickly realised he was running against a brick wall.
On learning Leave was doing alarmingly well in the north-east Smith tried to arrange a photo opportunity with Newcastle’s Andros Townsend, Sunderland’s Fabio Borini and David Cameron. Borini was open to the suggestion but Townsend flatly refused and the idea was shelved. It was a similar story elsewhere: virtually nobody within the game was prepared to go on the record. As Smith later wrote in his book The Deal: “Most people in football wouldn’t put their head above the parapet. They felt the campaign had been so onerous they didn’t want to offend potentially half of their club’s fanbase.”
Related: Ten constituency races to watch on election night
Related: Sol Campbell: ‘Trouble is people got the wrong end of the stick about me’
Continue reading...December 8, 2019
Gerwyn Price: ‘I was painted as the pantomime villain of darts’
Gerwyn Price is calm now. On a grey Thursday in the Welsh valleys, he is thoughtful and reflective as he ponders his unlikely journey to the top of a sport he barely played until adulthood. Six years ago, he was a professional rugby player for Neath, throwing a few arrows in his spare evenings. This week, however, he will step out at Alexandra Palace in London as the coming force of darts: the two-time Grand Slam champion, the provisional world No 2 and one of the most electrifying and controversial characters in the sport.
How it all happened is the question everyone wants to ask. He does not quite know the answer, but what he does know is that when he pulls that shiny shirt over his tightly coiled frame, it may as well be a superhero’s cape, awakening something in him. The adrenalin begins to course. He is prone to bellow in opponents’ faces at full volume. And he starts playing devastating darts. In a game dominated by psyche, Price has created a feared character with no apparent ceiling.
Continue reading...December 6, 2019
Marcus Rashford can take cue from Raheem Sterling’s development at City | Jonathan Liew
For a moment all is stillness. Marcus Rashford grinds to a halt. Old Trafford pauses with him. Rashford waits. There’s a wiggle of the toes. And then the explosion.
Rashford’s second goal against Tottenham on Wednesday night was, in many ways, a distillation of everything he does best. As Serge Aurier closed him down on the left flank, Rashford paused for an instant, waiting for his opponent to commit. A twitch of the boot was enough to convince Aurier that Rashford was planning to cut inside. And in that moment, with a conjuror’s cunning, Rashford was away: knocking the ball through Aurier’s legs, sprinting past him, burning around the outside of Moussa Sissoko – himself an exceptionally quick player – and eventually drawing the foul from which he would convert United’s winning penalty.
Related: Manchester United’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic gives Marcus Rashford a tutorial | Nick Ames
Continue reading...December 5, 2019
Sol Campbell: ‘Trouble is people got the wrong end of the stick about me’
Six weeks in and the Sol Campbell regime at Southend has already claimed its first victim. On taking charge at the League One club in October, he quickly identified the players’ diet as one immediate area for improvement and banned ketchup and fizzy drinks from the canteen. At training, a plethora of fitness and conditioning tests sort the greyhounds from the gourmands. Campbell may still be relatively new to the coaching game but he means business.
The data doesn’t lie but then nor does the league table. It shows Southend in 22nd place, with one win and an alarming 53 goals conceded. This is the sort of form that did for Campbell’s predecessor, Kevin Bond, and unless Campbell can turn things around in a hurry – ketchup or no ketchup – relegation awaits. There are plenty out there who would not mourn this in the slightest.
Related: Macclesfield preparing to boycott League Two match with Crewe
Continue reading...December 4, 2019
For Liverpool, rivalry with Everton is matter of history not current concern | Jonathan Liew
Home team rested key players, underperformed all over the pitch and treated game like a perfunctory training session
A rivalry is only really a rivalry if both protagonists want the same thing. They don’t have to be evenly matched, but they do need to share a target. Think Richard III and Henry VII. Ali and Foreman. Girls Aloud and One True Voice. Alas, it’s been a while since this was the case on Merseyside. Liverpool v Everton may be a treasured heritage fixture. But as these 90 skittish, uneven minutes demonstrated, it’s no longer much more than that.
The game ended with Liverpool eight points clear at the top, 11 points clear of Manchester City. With Everton in the bottom three, still two decades without a win here. But you didn’t need to know any of that to grasp the divergence in priorities. It was in the tone and feel of the game, the suck and blow of the Anfield atmosphere, who wanted the ball and who didn’t. Liverpool wanted to win. Everton just wanted to compete.
Related: Divock Origi leads Liverpool feast to raise pressure on Everton’s Silva
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