Jonathan Liew's Blog, page 35
January 23, 2024
In football’s crisis of trust the Premier League as referee is hard to stomach | Jonathan Liew
A fifth of Premier League clubs are being investigated for financial misconduct by the very body that enabled this unregulated free-for-all
“Most Premiership fans will have a lower league club that they also support,” Caroline Dinenage observed of the culture, media and sport committee last Tuesday afternoon. As in, less than a week ago. Not the 1970s, which was probably the last time the statement in question was true. Not 2007, the last time the competition was actually called the Premiership. But anyway, here we are at the cutting edge of modern football governance. Seems like these guys are right on top of things!
In any case, a mild grilling from a toothless parliamentary committee – the interrogative equivalent of a toaster on its lowest setting – will have been the least of Richard Masters’s problems last week. The announcement that Everton and Nottingham Forest have been referred to an independent panel for breaching the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules now means that a fifth of the clubs in the division – Manchester City and Chelsea the others – are under some sort of investigation for financial misconduct. Many of the rest are reining in their usual January shopping spree in order to avoid sanctions. If this isn’t a crisis – of legitimacy, of probity, of trust – then it will certainly do until the crisis arrives.
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January 20, 2024
Roy Hodgson has few words to share as Palace’s gentle decline continues | Jonathan Liew
The Premier League veteran has been battling with an injury crisis, but his quiet arrogant streak may soon cost him his job
The full-time whistle blows at the Emirates: the trigger for roughly 400 coaches, stewards, broadcasters, support staff and various other items of football’s background scenery to swarm the pitch. Roy Hodgson folds his glasses into a coat pocket and stands on the touchline, gazing bleakly out into the maelstrom, looking – as he often does these days – like a man reminiscing about a sandwich he once had in 1962. A cameraman spots the opportunity for the perfectly framed shot; he wheels around Hodgson and captures him from behind, staring out at a distant banner in the Crystal Palace end:
WASTED POTENTIAL
Continue reading...January 4, 2024
Humphries scaled his Everest but can he avoid darts’ curse of the champion? | Jonathan Liew
What happens in the Palace very often stays in the Palace with past winners struggling to sustain form over a long season
The warm, ashy afterglow of a world championship final is the perfect time to reflect and celebrate, but a terrible time to make predictions. It’s a long old season, most of the big prizes are backloaded towards the end, and a lot can happen in those early placeholder months, some of it relevant and some of it not.
Meanwhile, the recency bias is still strong in this one. What happens in the Palace very often stays in the Palace. This time last year a lot of people were talking about how Michael Smith had finally cracked the code and after winning his first world title could go on to dominate the sport for years to come. Often this new era was depicted as a duopoly with beaten finalist Michael van Gerwen, who would surely return hungrier than ever. This time last year the rise of Gabriel Clemens, Germany’s first world semi-finalist, felt inexorable. This time last year there was a lot of buzz about how 2023 would be the year of Josh Rock.
Continue reading...January 3, 2024
‘He’s going to dominate world darts soon’: winner Humphries lauds Littler
Finally, Luke Humphries could smash his glass cage of emotion and savour the sensation of achieving his dream. The new world darts champion paid tribute to his beaten opponent, Luke Littler, after winning a pulsating match by seven sets to four, and stated his belief that the rise of the wonderkid from Warrington was a phenomenon unprecedented in the sport.
“All day, in the back of my mind, I’ve been thinking: ‘Get this won now, because he’s going to dominate world darts soon’,” Humphries said after his draining triumph. “Luke has been an unbelievable talent. Not just on the dartboard: he has been fantastic with all the media, and he took defeat so well there. You will never see another 16-year-old kid like him. He’s something else. He’s one of the finest players in the world, there’s no doubt about that.”
Continue reading...Luke Humphries ends Luke Littler’s fairytale in epic PDC world darts final
And with a rush of blood, a flick of the wrist and the pock of a pointed dart in the double-eight bed, it was all over. One dream made and one dream dashed, one destiny fulfilled and one destiny deferred. Luke Humphries, the world No 1, is the new champion of the world, and he did it not simply by defeating the genius of Luke Littler, but by pushing back the tides of fate: standing in the seemingly irresistible path of a great sporting fairytale and meeting it with his own singular brilliance.
It was one of the great Ally Pally finals, one of the greatest and most dramatic tussles this famous stage has ever seen, under some of the greatest pressure ever known, in what will almost certainly be the biggest global audience this sport has ever enjoyed.
Continue reading...January 2, 2024
‘I’ve not faced anything difficult’: belief fuelling Luke Littler’s world title charge
It looked easy, it was easy, and the world’s newest sporting sensation admitted as much. “I don’t think I’ve faced anything difficult,” said Luke Littler after reaching his first world championship final by thrashing Rob Cross 6-2.
“I don’t think anything’s been difficult to me, no disrespect to anyone I’ve faced. A few sets went 3-2. But I just believe in myself, believe in my own ability.” Whatever happens in Wednesday’s final against the new world No 1, Luke Humphries, Littler’s life and the sport of darts have already changed for ever.
Continue reading...Teenager Luke Littler to face Luke Humphries in PDC world darts final
Now we know for sure. And perhaps on some level we always suspected it, from the moment a 16-year-old kid arrived at these championships on a wave of froth and hype and good tidings and started doing whatever he wanted.
Everyone who has ever seen Luke Littler throw a dart, from Phil Taylor to his hapless beaten opponents at junior level, will have told you that this was the next giant of the sport. But sometime in the future. Not right now. Surely not now.
Continue reading...January 1, 2024
PDC world darts: Michael van Gerwen dumped out by Scott Williams
The hurricane that blew the great Michael van Gerwen out of the world championship did not materialise in a single evening, or a single tournament, or a single year. Arguably these shocks are no longer even as shocking as they once were, back in the days when Van Gerwen was at his imperial peak and the pyramid of talent beneath him was far narrower. And so the story of Scott Williams’s famous 5-3 triumph was really the story of modern darts in microcosm: a sport with no safe places, no certainties and no guarantees, no fealty to reputation and no respect for history.
At the moment of the greatest victory of his life, having played the match of his life, Williams walked calmly across the stage, savouring the cheers and the boos in equal measure. The world No 52 from Lincolnshire has always been a cussedly divisive presence among the darting public, a big snarling yapping dog of a player, whose entire persona is essentially based on a magnificent disrespect. Earlier in the tournament he celebrated a febrile win over Germany’s Martin Schindler by boasting about England having won “two world wars and one World Cup”, for which he later issued the world’s least sincere apology. Williams is basically the fishing emoji in human form.
Continue reading...‘I can go all the way’: Littler dreaming of world darts title after easing into semis
For the first time, Luke Littler allowed himself to dream. Perhaps the only thing harder to imagine than the 16-year-old prodigy winning the world championship is the thought of someone beating him. And after brushing aside Brendan Dolan to set up a semi-final against the 2018 champion Rob Cross, Littler admitted for the first time that as soon as the winning dart hit the double-four bed, he was thinking about lifting the trophy.
“I know I have the ability to go all the way,” he said. “This is the first time I have thought about it. I have a good feeling in myself. It will take a lot to stop me, based on my past performances. It’s whatever Luke Littler and Rob Cross turn up tomorrow evening.”
Continue reading...Luke Littler, 16, thrashes Dolan to reach World Darts Championship semi-finals
It was a wild and festive atmosphere at the People’s Palace, the kind you get when the darts is back, the crowd is still drinking off last night’s hangover and the result is not remotely in doubt.
They came to praise Luke Littler, not to bury him, and the 16-year-old from Warrington duly obliged by despatching the gallant but outmatched Brendan Dolan by five sets to one. As the tables emptied, the venue reverberated to the strains of “Walking in a Littler Wonderland” (and yes, at some point someone is going to have to come up with a better chant than that).
Continue reading...Jonathan Liew's Blog
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