Jonathan Liew's Blog, page 29
May 16, 2024
Dead hand of the immovable Glazers keeps strangling Manchester United | Jonathan Liew
Leaky Old Trafford roof was almost a too perfect sign of neglect by owners who love the money but don’t seem to like the club
Back in February, the NFL players’ union carried out its second annual survey of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and let’s just say it wasn’t pleasant reading. Tampa Bay players reported that the changing room was “not clean, constantly smelly and has a persistent bug issue”. The sauna was described as “dirty and/or mouldy”. This barely a decade after an MRSA outbreak infected three Buccaneers players, two of whom never competed again.
In addition, players complained about being forced to pay $90 for childcare on match days (most teams offer this for free), being charged $1,750 a season for the privilege of having their own hotel room on away trips and being made to sit at the back of the plane while club staff travelled first-class. Most of the blame for this state of affairs was laid squarely at the team’s ownership, whom the survey ranked 29th out of the 32 NFL franchise owners, and who go by the name of the Glazer family.
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May 14, 2024
Ange Postecoglou’s Spurs project is a magnificent act of misdirection | Jonathan Liew
There is no shame in losing to the champions and Tottenham manager has made the same failure taste much better
The open-top bus parade begins at Monday lunchtime. Thousands of fans are expected to line the streets to pay tribute to Ange Postecoglou and his team as they wind their way down the High Road, before a civic reception at Tottenham town hall. There, captain Son Heung-min will end 16 long years of silverware famine by hoisting aloft the Denying Arsenal The League Trophy, and frankly few men have done more to earn it.
Of course Spurs have never made things easy for themselves and there were plenty of heart-stopping moments during that crucial defeat by Manchester City on Tuesday when it looked like they might salvage a draw, or even a disastrous win. To come through in the end was a genuine team effort, key players standing down when it mattered most: that reliably unreliable defence, Pierre-Emile Højbjerg failing to plug the gaps in midfield, Son gloriously fluffing that one-on-one chance in the closing stages.
Continue reading...May 10, 2024
Is this a real Premier League title race or a skilfully maintained illusion? | Jonathan Liew
Intrigue, mind games and a credible chance of Manchester City slipping up are all missing from this supposedly epic battle
Hello, hello. Testing. Is this thing still on? As we head into the penultimate weekend of the Premier League season, a title race does putatively appear to exist. Arsenal are top, a point ahead of Manchester City. City have a game in hand. Mathematically speaking, nothing yet is decided or settled.
What remains to be seen, of course, is whether this is actually a real title race, or whether we are simply living through a skilfully maintained illusion. After all, it’s almost three months since City dropped points against anybody other than a direct title rival. They haven’t lost in the league since December and are on a run of six straight wins. Three more will be enough to retain the league title. Two will do if Arsenal slip up at Old Trafford on Sunday.
Continue reading...May 7, 2024
Erik ten Hag’s exit may be near but when will the Manchester United cycle stop? | Jonathan Liew
Change is probably coming with Manchester United playing so badly, so often, but this is a club trapped in constant transition
Erik ten Hag arrived at Manchester United promising to inspire flowing, thrilling transition football. And, you have to say, mission accomplished. You only had to watch Crystal Palace pouring forward at speed on Monday night, or Sheffield United bombing up the pitch at Old Trafford a couple of weeks ago, or indeed Coventry City in the recent FA Cup semi-final. Thanks to Ten Hag, United fans are being treated to sumptuous counterattacking fare on a near-weekly basis, even if – unhappily for Ten Hag’s job prospects – most of it these days seems to be getting played by the opposition.
Yes: it’s an even-numbered year, so we’re discussing whether the Manchester United manager should be sacked. And so to David Moyes (2014), Louis van Gaal (2016), José Mourinho (2018), Ole Gunnar Solskjær (a pandemic-delayed 2021) and Ralf Rangnick (2022) can almost certainly be added Ten Hag (2024), another well-credentialled manager who just didn’t have what it takes to manage a massive club like United. Seriously unlucky! How do they keep ending up with these guys?
Continue reading...Men in football get full rein to pursue their dreams while women must compromise | Jonathan Liew
Two female WSL managers are leaving for reasons of work-life balance. When it comes to sacrifice, it’s not the same for men
Famously, when Emma Hayes was agonising last autumn over whether to leave Chelsea and take the US national team job, she sought the advice of her son, Harry, at bedtime. “Let’s go to the USA, Mummy!” came the reply, a moment that Hayes later described as the “endorsement” she needed. And so we must at least brook the extremely funny possibility that an entire era of modern women’s football – from this season’s enthralling WSL title race, to the trajectory of Chelsea, Lyon and their European rivals, to the fate of the next Olympic Games and World Cup – will swing on the verdict of a sleepy five-year-old child.
And, frankly, why not? When you consider some of the decisions adults have taken for the health of the game in recent years, it’s hard to make the case that children would have done a markedly inferior job. A five-year-old child would certainly not have sanctioned the introduction of VAR, because waiting is boring, and they would have been right. A five-year-old child could have devised far better World Cup venues than Qatar or Saudi Arabia, although it remains to be seen whether Pizza Express would have had the capacity to host a gathering of such magnitude.
Continue reading...May 4, 2024
‘I love it here’: Joyous McKenna pledges to take Ipswich party to Premier League
Kieran McKenna has pledged his future to Ipswich after leading them into the Premier League. On an emotional afternoon at Portman Road, McKenna was in a contemplative mood as he reflected on the journey taken to consecutive promotions, and the challenges that await them next season.
Naturally, McKenna’s success has earned him numerous admirers and he has been linked with a number of big jobs over recent months, West Ham and Brighton among them. But speaking after the 2-0 win over Huddersfield, McKenna argued that the hard work and focus he has displayed over the past two seasons were proof of his loyalty.
Continue reading...Ipswich seal stunning promotion to Premier League as Huddersfield drop
Someone has brought an actual tractor. Someone has brought a flag the height of a small house. Someone has brought about two dozen smoke bombs and is letting them off one by one, like rounds of gunfire. Someone is holding a giant drum and someone else is beating it with all his might. A wheelchair emerges out of the blue fog, crushing the broken glass and discarded canisters and empty Madrí cans under its wheels.
It’s 11am and already the centre of Ipswich feels like a battlefield being looted and pillaged. There are thousands gathered here, descended from the Suffolk villages and the Essex commuter towns and the London suburbs, some with tickets and some without: all here on the promise of joy, trying to grasp and gulp and plunder as much of it as they can.
Continue reading...May 1, 2024
Füllkrug’s rocket gives Dortmund slim advantage over PSG as Sancho shines
As the final whistle blew on this pulsating, perplexing game you could see the two sides stumbling around in a kind of daze, still trying to process things. Wondering how their combined efforts and errors had resulted in just a single goal. Wondering whether – for all their boldness and brittleness – this really could be Borussia Dortmund’s year.
Niclas Füllkrug’s first-half goal ultimately settled matters, even if very little felt settled during a subsequent hour during which Gregor Kobel’s goal seemed to be doused in holy water. Kylian Mbappé had 52 touches, three shots on goal, hit the post and still left empty-handed. But perhaps Dortmund had earned their luck too. They could quite easily have scored more themselves after a performance of utter conviction and a maturity that has not always been their hallmark. “The result is OK,” Edin Terzic said afterwards, refusing to get carried away. “We have a small lead and a good opportunity.”
Continue reading...Can Bayern Munich win Champions League with revolution afoot? | Jonathan Liew
Tuchel is leaving and Rangnick likely to come in, with several Red Bull alumni already in place amid disquiet among fans
There is always something now. There is always something later. Even as the sweat was drying on Bayern Munich’s 2-2 draw against Real Madrid on Tuesday night, thoughts were beginning to turn, with alarming speed, to new plans and new eras. While the outgoing Thomas Tuchel dissected the performances of Kim Min-jae and Leroy Sané in the broadcast zone, the top brass were a few yards away discussing his likely successor: Bayern’s present, and future, and soon-to-be past, all gauchely colliding against each other in one big hot mess.
The deal with Ralf Rangnick is not quite done at the time of writing, but by all accounts imminent. Rangnick is said to be keen, a three-year contract is waiting to be signed, and a seven-figure compensation deal with the Austrian Football Association, where Rangnick is contracted as national team coach, should be a formality. “We all know that Ralf Rangnick is a good coach and has achieved a lot in his career,” the sporting director, Christoph Freund, said. “If everything fits, then it will be done.”
Continue reading...April 30, 2024
Carlo Ancelotti admits Jude Bellingham ‘not at his best’ against Bayern Munich
Carlo Ancelotti admitted that Jude Bellingham was “not at his best” in the first leg of Real Madrid’s Champions League semi-final against Bayern Munich, but backed him to come good in the return game at the Bernabéu next week.
Ancelotti revealed that Bellingham was suffering from cramp and fatigue during the game, a problem that has often afflicted him in the past, and one that led to his substitution here after 75 minutes.
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