Jonathan Liew's Blog, page 9

Amorim’s vision collides head-first with cold business certainties of United Ltd | Jonathan Liew

Manager doesn’t just need better players, he needs his bosses to respect Old Trafford’s passionate loyalists

People travelled for that. People got on planes, decanted liquids into 100ml bottles, queued at passport control, booked taxis and hotels, set the alarm for 4.30am, counted down the days, for that. People braved Northern trains and Avanti West Coast, negotiated the closure of the M67, for that.

And so the first thing you really have to say is: fair play, those people. It was Ed Woodward seven years ago who most strongly articulated the vision of the modern Manchester United, a world in which “playing performance doesn’t really have a meaningful impact on what we can do on the commercial side”.

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De Bruyne’s perfectly timed departure marks tipping point in Guardiola era | Jonathan Liew

The City midfielder made his teammates look like geniuses and once more he is making just the right move at just the right moment

Not for the first time, Kevin De Bruyne read the situation to perfection. Not for the first time, he spotted the right play just a little earlier than everyone else. And of course this was always his gift: not simply to pick the right option but to do it faster than anyone else, buying him those crucial fractions of a second when everything else was in flux and only he in stillness.

And of course this was not the only respect in which De Bruyne understood the game of football better than most. As a struggling teenager in the Genk academy, he noticed the way the club abruptly stopped paying for a foster family to house him, and then quietly resumed when he started banging in goals for the second team. Cast adrift at Chelsea, he noticed how he was ignored while first-team players were lavished with attention and bespoke coaching.

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Ange Postecoglou seeks moment of strength to escape spiral at Spurs | Jonathan Liew

Tottenham manager knows the vultures are circling but his mission is driven by honouring the family name

His passport still bears the name “Angelos Postekos”. It was the name legally given to him by his parents, eager for their children to fit into their adopted home, aware that they would face enough obstacles – a different language, a different culture, a different skin tone – without throwing a long name into the bargain.

But he always hated the name Postekos. To him it smelled too much of embarrassment. Of apologising for who you were. Of changing your essence to please others. Of compromise. And so, as soon as he had any say in the matter, he resolved he would be known by the name his father had used, and those who came before him, back in the old country. Before everything changed forever.

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Anthony Elanga’s solo special stuns Manchester United: Football Weekly - podcast

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Liew and Mark Langdon as Nottingham Forest beat Manchester United, taking a step closer to Champions League football next season

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On the podcast today: Anthony Elanga scores a wonderful solo goal against Manchester United and it proves enough for Nottingham Forest to claim a vital 1-0 win in the hunt for Champions League football.

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Welcome to the Baller League, the future of football – whether you like it or not | Jonathan Liew

The series in London is one of a range of smaller-sided ventures challenging the traditional model of the game

The first ever goal in the UK version of the Baller League is scored by the influencer PK Humble, just in case you ever find yourself taking part in a pub quiz in 2045. Humble – a midfielder for Hashtag United and star of the recent YouTube series Inside – takes the ball out of defence, advances it at a frankly embarrassingly leaden pace and side-foots it past a goalkeeper who should really do better.

Welcome to the future of football. It’s faster, better and more exciting than the real thing. Albeit not faster in a strictly physical sense, or better in a strictly technical sense, or more exciting in the sense that you actually need to care about who wins. But it is, nonetheless, all of these things. Why? Because we said so. And don’t just take our word for it. Maya Jama says so too. Slow, lingering camera shot of Maya Jama. Now, what was the question again?

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Preston’s attempts to bore Aston Villa to distraction crumble like pastry | Jonathan Liew

Championship perennials are beige down to their signature snack but their existence is still something to savour

The man behind the counter at Greggs on Fishergate has never heard of a butter pie, but try Poundbakery over the street. Poundbakery doesn’t do butter pie, but try Greenhalgh’s on the corner. Greenhalgh’s: closed on Sundays. The chip shop on Market Street does meat pie, meat and potato, steak, steak and kidney, chicken and mushroom, cheese and onion. Butter pie? A shake of the head.

You’ve got to try the butter pie. That’s what everyone says the first time you visit Preston. It was created in industrial times, for the largely Catholic working population to eat on Fridays when meat was forbidden. Often you hear it described as a “delicacy”, but even this is to overstate its intensely yeoman nature. It’s layers of potatoes, onions and butter in a pie. It’s cheap. It’s hearty. It’s unpretentious. It exists to be consumed and then immediately forgotten. It is – with deepest apologies – the very embodiment of Preston North End in comestible form.

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Chelsea restore the natural order but must defy it against Barcelona | Jonathan Liew

Lauren James and Mayra Ramírez shine in a convincing Chelsea display but bigger tests lie ahead

Do Chelsea get it done? You might as well ask in what direction the apple falls from the tree. There is an inevitability to them here, an infallible logic to their challenges and their combinations and their fighting and their running, a sense that the natural order of the universe is simply reasserting itself.

As it turned out the last half-hour at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday was a kind of omen, a trailer for the feature presentation. Here the intensity so lacking in the first leg in Manchester was there from the start. By half-time City are red-faced, not out of embarrassment  but exhaustion, as if not just the energy but the simple resolve has been drained from them. It’s three-nil, and to be quite honest Chelsea left a few more out there.

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Why the double standards on ‘leadership’ when it comes to Black players? | Jonathan Liew

Jordan Henderson is a great leader for England. But he has been encouraged and applauded for the very same acts for which minority ethnic players are castigated and stigmatised

How shall I lead thee? Let me count the ways. I lead thee by stepping up and being vocal, around the dressing room, setting standards in training. I lead thee quietly by example, you know, the not-much-of-a-shouter‑and-a-screamer-but-when-he-speaks-people-listen kind. I lead thee by having been there, done that, won everything in the game. I lead thee by never backing down from a challenge. I lead thee by sheer gravitas.

By any of these measures, Jordan Henderson is a leader. He was a leader for Liverpool, raising standards and setting the tone for 12 golden years. He was a leader for the NHS and the LGBTQ+ community off the field. He was still a leader when he left Liverpool and moved to Saudi Arabia in an attempt to create – in his words – “positive change” in the country for his beloved LGBTQ+ constituents.

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Jude Bellingham’s simple, repeated genius can be the difference for England | Jonathan Liew

Midfielder’s talent are subtle but, quite clearly, brilliant enough to take the national team to World Cup glory

The deception begins before he has even received the ball. As Ezri Konsa steps forward, Jude Bellingham leans towards his marker, Ylber Ramadani, and intimates he wants the pass in behind. Ramadani steps across to cover. On this, Bellingham immediately switches direction and takes two quick paces towards Konsa. The pass comes, as it was always going to do. But Bellingham’s sleight has earned him five precious yards of space.

The striker Myrto Uzuni now drops in to close him down. Myrto, meet Jude. Pull up a chair. You’ve played against him before at Granada, you’re familiar with his work, and you want to help, you really do. You try to get around his body to where the ball is, only to find that body and ball have mysteriously vanished: a quick swivel and then off in the other direction, beyond your despairing grab, in the general direction of your penalty area. Four seconds later, England will score.

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Jude Bellingham will antagonise and frustrate, but that is the price of genius | Jonathan Liew

England midfielder’s simple, repetitive talent can make all the difference for Thomas Tuchel. We need to go with it

The deception begins before he has even received the ball. As Ezri Konsa steps forward, Jude Bellingham leans towards his marker, Ylber Ramadani, and intimates he wants the pass in behind. Ramadani steps across to cover. On this, Bellingham immediately switches direction and takes two quick paces towards Konsa. The pass comes, as it was always going to do. But Bellingham’s sleight has earned him five precious yards of space.

The striker Myrto Uzuni now drops in to close him down. Myrto, meet Jude. Pull up a chair. You’ve played against him before at Granada, you’re familiar with his work, and you want to help, you really do. You try to get around his body to where the ball is, only to find that body and ball have mysteriously vanished: a quick swivel and then off in the other direction, beyond your despairing grab, in the general direction of your penalty area. Four seconds later, England will score.

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