Jonathan Liew's Blog, page 63

Strauss off key as he seeks to strike the right chord for English cricket | Jonathan Liew

To Strauss’s mind it is all about high performance, a problem-solving exercise that requires evidence. He doesn’t get it

It’s the design that hits you first. The soft, translucent swatches. Teal for the soothing, explanatory stuff. Bold navy blue for the action points. Coloured boxes with clean, bevelled corners and arrows directing you to the next coloured box, like signs in an airport terminal. The cover design incorporating hundreds of dotted lines, evoking the seam on a cricket ball, but also – eureka! – the road markings on a superhighway to the future.

Yes, I read Andrew Strauss’s high-performance review so you didn’t have to. Although as ever, interpreting the gist of these documents is not so much an exercise in reading as cryptography. We are told that a High-Performance NED and a PCC will be set up, advised by a PAG, in collaboration with FCC leadership, to improve our shared understanding of WITTW. (Non‑Executive Director, Performance Cricket Committee, Performance Advisory Group, First-Class Counties, What It Takes To Win. Come on, guys. Do the work.)

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England’s rousing comeback highlights Germany’s vulnerability | Jonathan Liew

Hansi Flick has a long list of issues to solve if the four-time World Cup winners are to challenge for more success in Qatar

Serge Gnabry was on the pitch. They thought it was all over. With Germany 2-0 up at a sullen Wembley, Hansi Flick decided to kick back and roll out his substitutions. On came Gnabry, trying to play himself back into form after an indifferent start to the season with Bayern Munich. On came Robin Gosens, spying a chance to reclaim the left-back berth. But with 20 minutes to play, the prevailing sense was of a winding down, a gear shift, an opportunity to knock the ball around as the stands slowly emptied around them.

On this front, it’s fair to say things didn’t quite go to plan. Indeed, perhaps the clearest indication of the suffering Germany endured during those final 20 minutes came at full time. As the whistle blew, centre-backs Nico Schlotterbeck and Niklas Süle bent double, the weariest men on the pitch, having borne the brunt of a chastening late England assault. Kai Havertz’s equalising goal had salvaged a little solace from the jaws of catastrophe. But Germany’s body language told its own story: the basic dislocation of a team coming to the collective realisation that it does not know itself quite as well as it thought.

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Germany still confident about World Cup hopes despite lean run of form | Jonathan Liew

Hansi Flick’s side just lost to Hungary and have no regular source of goals but believe everything will come good in Qatar

A proud footballing nation on a lean run of just one win in six games. A humiliating defeat at home against Hungary. And above all, a sense of stasis and frustration, a lack of creativity, the suspicion that for all the talent and trophies in this team, it remains considerably less than the sum of its parts.

Germany and England may share a common predicament, but as they prepare to meet on Monday night only one of these nations is currently racked by existential crisis. And curiously, it’s not the one that has bombed out of its last two international tournaments.

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Hungary stake Nations League finals claim as Szalai strike stuns Germany

If Hansi Flick was perturbed, he was doing a fairly good job of hiding it. As he watched his side toil in their last home fixture before the World Cup, he simply paced down the sideline, hands in pockets, as if taking a stroll in a park. Is there a word for the intense, borderline-irrational calm that overcomes German teams in the buildup to major tournaments? If so, it is probably German.

The irony, perhaps, was that Germany were beaten by the one thing they do not possess, the one thing they have arguably never won a major tournament without: a seasoned old-school No 9. The veteran Hungarian Adam Szalai is 34 years old and could probably try to recreate his winning goal for 34 more without finding the net. Still, his flash of inspiration was enough to give his side the win and keep them on course for unlikely Nations League glory.

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Liverpool stun Chelsea and Daly dazzles as WSL kicks off – Women’s Football Weekly

Faye Carruthers, Suzanne Wrack, Jonathan Liew and Moyo Abiona reflect on the thrilling opening weekend of the WSL season

The delayed opening weekend did not disappoint …

We had a dazzling display from debutant Rachel Daly at Villa Park and it was penalties only at Prenton Park in a shock defeat for champions Chelsea by Liverpool. Arsenal and Manchester United both hit four, while there were also wins on the board for West Ham and Tottenham.

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Todd Boehly’s arrival marks the end of Premier League’s era of quiet Americans | Jonathan Liew

The reaction to the Chelsea owner’s throwaway ideas shows the English game prefers its foreign benefactors to keep quiet

Bob Dylan once had a piece of advice for aspiring artists: write 10 songs a day, and then discard nine. In a way this also appears to be Todd Boehly’s approach to improving English football. He is just putting stuff out there, you see. Running ideas up the flagpole and seeing if anyone salutes them. Throwing them out on the stoop and seeing if the cat licks them up. Not necessarily good ideas. Or practical ideas. Or popular ideas. Or ideas that really bear the weight of a moment’s logical thought. But ideas nonetheless.

As such it is not necessary at this stage actually to engage what the Chelsea owner said on stage at Bros, Brews and Brunch business conference in Jerky Falls, Connecticut last week. Spoiler: none of this is actually going to happen. To soberly assess the merits of a north/south all-star game, or relegation playoffs, would be to lend these ideas more consideration and seriousness than Boehly has probably lent them himself. More interesting is the shrillness and scorn of the subsequent discourse: why the throwaway comments of a man named Todd seem to have created such a bruise on the psyche of English football.

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After joyous summer English women’s football faces a battle for its soul | Jonathan Liew

Danger lies ahead if the game follows the men’s lead and ends up locked in a toxifying money-driven arms race to the top

Rule number one of English football: when Leah Williamson tells you to do something, you do it. Particularly when she is screaming it at you over the din over 90,000 supporters at Wembley. “We want them to come to WSL games!” she yelled of the 17 million viewers watching the triumphant climax of the Euro 2022 final on the BBC.

Happily, the public have taken Williamson’s advice to heart. Something has changed here. On Friday night, Arsenal and Brighton kicked off the new Super League season with a sell-out at Meadow Park. Manchester City have already sold 20,000 tickets for their derby against Manchester United in December.

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Arsenal win WSL opener, Premier League wins for Fulham and Villa – as it happened

Arsenal kicked off the WSL season with a 4-0 win against Brighton while Fulham and Aston Villa both won in the Premier League

A terrible start for Brighton. Emma Kullberg is shown a straight red card after challenging Stina Blackstenius of Arsenal, who was going through on goal.

Gerrard is asked about Philippe Coutinho who was dropped for the match against Manchester City: “He’s trained with a little bit of hurt … I’ve seen a different performer, a really driven one.”

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Arsenal make perfect WSL start as Beth Mead punishes early Brighton red card

Curtain up. As the Women’s Super League season began on a freezing Friday on the fringes of London, the hazy sunlit pastures of Wembley felt a long way away. Perhaps this was for the best. There are new battles to be fought, new rivalries to nourish, and for Arsenal a new campaign that brings with it the familiar hope of finally deposing Chelsea from their throne. Time to get to work.

There was a capacity crowd of 3,238 and a sparkling welcome for the conquering heroes Beth Mead and Leah Williamson. There was Gunnersaurus posing for photos in his black armband, because after all dinosaurs can feel sadness too. Most importantly there was a routine win for last season’s runners-up, an outcome that felt inexorable from the moment Emma Kullberg was sent off in the sixth minute to reduce Brighton to 10 players.

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The Haaland fling and Potter’s Chelsea bow – Football Weekly Extra

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Liew and Troy Townsend to discuss the latest from the Champions League. Plus, Sid Lowe joins for an update from La Liga

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Today: Erling Haaland continues to do ridiculous things as he scores a volley from about about 7ft off the ground as Manchester City beat Borussia Dortmund 2-1.

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