Jonathan Liew's Blog, page 37

A dream of conquering the Palace: contenders line up for electric world darts championship

Michael Smith, Michael van Gerwen and the rest will chase perfection at the most thrilling tournament of them all

It was a little before 9pm on a sticky night 11 months ago at Alexandra Palace that Michael Smith threw the nine darts that would change his life for ever. Even now, during his quieter moments, he will go on YouTube and watch them back. The crescendo in the commentator Wayne Mardle’s voice. The thud of the final double 12. The utter pandemonium in the crowd. The greatest adrenaline rush on earth. And, quite simply, the moment at which darts was perfected.

In that moment, you didn’t need to be Smith, or a Smith fan, or even very much of a darts fan, to appreciate the spine-tingling magnitude of what had just occurred. It was an energy and an electricity, an explosion of endorphins that transmitted itself around the world. The video clip has been viewed 25m times on X and 5m times on YouTube. The basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal featured it on his television show. On 30 November, Smith was at St Helens town hall to receive the freedom of the borough.

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Elliott’s late winner sends Liverpool top with comeback at 10-man Palace

A scrappy, tetchy game of football; two disputed penalty decisions; a deflected equaliser; whole minutes of aimless waiting around while a man in shorts watched a little screen. And then, finally, a moment of grace that this game categorically did not deserve and Liverpool barely did. It came from Harvey Elliott, gliding through the Crystal Palace defence like a man dancing on lily pads, scoring the injury-time goal that earned Liverpool another grubby and scowling three points. Improbably, almost imperceptibly, they are now top of the Premier League, after Arsenal’s defeat at Aston Villa.

And in the end, the only thing that ended up “spoiled” was Roy Hodgson’s day. After being forced to apologise for his comments in midweek that Palace fans needed to be more grateful, this was a fixture that suited his browbeaten underdog persona perfectly. Palace did almost everything right here: frustrated, defended tightly, scored on the break. Until a soft second yellow card issued to Jordan Ayew with 15 minutes remaining, they were good value for a famous victory.

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‘I am absolutely sick’: Roy Hodgson rails at state of laws and refereeing

Crystal Palace manager angered by Liverpool’s 2-1 victory‘Who’s refereeing the game? Anyway, I’m in a bad mood’

The real-time disintegration of Roy Hodgson continued after Crystal Palace’s crushing 2-1 defeat against Liverpool. The 76-year-old coach railed with a certain bitterness and a good deal of sadness at everything from Jordan Ayew’s second yellow card, the interpretation of the handball law to fourth officials who try to stop coaches from stepping out of their technical area. “I’ve been in football a long time,” he said, “and games like today make me realise that when the day comes to leave it behind, I won’t be missing anything.”

Palace were harshly treated by the referee, Andy Madley, who issued eight yellow cards to the home side, including one to Hodgson. “We’re talking too much about the referees,” Hodgson told TNT Sport, before going on to talk for several minutes about the referee. “I am absolutely sick of the handball interpretations, the yellow cards for time-wasting.

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Fortress Villa Park and McTominay magic – Football Weekly Extra

Robyn Cowen is joined by Jonathan Liew, Will Unwin and Nooruddean Choudry as Manchester United beat Chelsea, while Aston Villa emerge as potential title contenders

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On the podcast today: Manchester United deliver, arguably, their best performance of the season, beating Chelsea 2-1 at Old Trafford. Are things finally starting to click? They’re only three points outside the top four despite losing six times already this season.

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Ten Hag’s gamble pays off against Chelsea as McTominay steals show | Jonathan Liew

After another week of turmoil off the field, midfielder rose above the noise and executed his manager’s risky plan bravely

Imagine what Manchester United could do if Erik ten Hag hadn’t already lost the dressing room. Yes, it’s been another of those weeks at Old Trafford: rancour, rumour and recrimination, barbs in the press and barbs at the press, defeat at Newcastle followed by this stirring recovery against Chelsea, and the startling realisation that United are now three points behind Manchester City. It’s still only Thursday, by the way.

Perhaps ultimately this win only buys Ten Hag a few days’ grace, a warm flume of goodwill that lasts only as long as it takes for Dominic Solanke to run through on goal for Bournemouth on Saturday afternoon. Back in the grip of crisis, back in the now-familiar lexicon of surly unsourced stories about dressing room discontent. Such is the way of things at football’s most reliable content provider. This beast must always eat.

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Women’s football must be wary of following men’s game into financial cesspit | Jonathan Liew

New breakaway competition is expected to attract massive investment but comes with familiar risks of vulture capitalism

One of the things I find most amusing about women’s football in England is the absolute level of fume and bristle that arises whenever a contentious refereeing decision occurs. “We need VAR now,” goes the seething howl. To which the only possible response is: maybe be careful what you wish for? And if you set aside the obvious corollary that perhaps people just like being furious, this is a situation that encapsulates the women’s game in this country quite well at the moment. Proud to be different from men’s football. But also, insulted and a bit outraged.

This is perhaps the central tension in a sport trapped between two competing, almost paradoxical forces: the urge to be a distinctive counterpoint and an alternative space to men’s football, with all its greed and toxicity and rapacious disaster capitalism, and the urge to emulate its growth and wealth, to thrive and prosper. Right now, those two forces are colliding in strange and unpredictable ways.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please .

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How a Yokohama drama won Ange Postecoglou respect of Pep Guardiola

Spurs and Manchester City managers face each other for the first time since a friendly set the Australian’s star on the rise

In a weird way it all began with a pre-season friendly. The sort of game that tends to wipe itself from the memory as soon as it’s finished, sometimes even earlier. A sweltering July night in the Tokyo outskirts. Yokohama F Marinos v Manchester City at the Nissan Stadium for an entirely made-up trophy called the EuroJapan Cup. But in retrospect, it is the moment when a convivial Australian coach called Ange Postecoglou begins his journey to the Premier League.

It’s 2019 and Postecoglou is halfway through his second season in Japan. His first, charitably put, was a mixed bag. There was a cup final but also one of the worst league finishes in the club’s history. There has been relentless attacking football and remorseless defensive collapses. A first relegation from the J-League has been narrowly avoided. But the top brass at Yokohama like the direction of travel. Now, against their parent club and the mothership of the City Football Group, we are about to discover why.

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Wiegman’s Lionesses rekindle lost energy to fire spectacular comeback | Jonathan Liew

Nations League victory against the Dutch arrives at the last despite a lack of clarity and brittleness creeping into the team

They’ll always have Paris. Throughout this Nations League campaign this has been an England team fighting its own sense of entropy, still giving everything, still trying the same plans and processes in the hope that eventually something would click. And at 9.34pm on a briskly cold Wembley night, it finally did. Ella Toone’s injury-time goal earned England three points and kept their faintly glowing Olympic dream alive. But somehow it also did so much more.

It breathed life into a team and a cycle, and a moment that for so much of the evening had felt like it was drawing to its natural conclusion provided a rousing encore to a cast preparing for its final curtain. There will be new challenges and new frontiers to conquer soon enough, a fresh set of European Championship qualifiers in the spring, but for now this iteration of the Lionesses still has tricks up its sleeve, still has talent and creativity to burn, still has a fire that can scorch any team on the planet.

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Lewis Miley makes his name on biggest stage amid Newcastle’s righteous rage | Jonathan Liew

The 17-year-old from County Durham starred on the game’s biggest stage and local hero provided green shoots of joy

Power finds a way. Albeit for Paris Saint-Germain, the road to redemption here would consist of a scandalous late penalty, a midfield made of sugar syrup and some of the worst distance shooting seen this side of a Soccer AM Crossbar Challenge. At full time the Parc des Princes roared with relief, heaved and exhaled, not with conviction but with the begrudging acceptance of something stolen, not earned.

And this really was tough on Newcastle, who were 97 minutes in to perhaps their greatest away win in Europe. Annihilated by injuries and with about three grown adults on their bench, they weathered everything the world’s richest club and the world’s greatest forward could throw at them: a home crowd, chances saved and blocked and thwarted, the sort of pressure that makes the Montpelliers and Lyons of this world crumble on a weekly basis.

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Football’s next big tactical opportunity? Jérémy Doku and the joy of the dribble | Jonathan Liew

Pep Guardiola’s faith in his new winger suggests that, in an increasingly structured sport, dribbling is an art on the rise

The roar begins before the ball has even reached his feet. A lunchtime crowd at the Etihad Stadium, breath visible on the air, cooked breakfasts still sitting heavy in the stomach. And this is a crowd accustomed to excellence, to the known known, a crowd who in their post-treble glow do not so much anticipate as expect. Still, as the ball rolls towards him, they rise. Football is a cage in search of a bird. And here, that bird is named Jérémy Doku.

Something interesting has been happening at Manchester City this season. The melodies and harmonies have remained largely the same, but the backing track is different. Doku’s arrival from Rennes in the summer scarcely registered at the time, and indeed the rumour is that he was not a Pep Guardiola signing at all but a transfer driven by the director of football, Txiki Begiristain. Like the spa break you would never actually buy for yourself, Doku may not be the player Guardiola craved, but perhaps Begiristain could see that he was the player City needed. The scrawl of graffiti on the palace walls. The little spark of invention that renders the machine flesh. The pure joy of the dribble.

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