Category Archives: FC Liverpool

Liverpool 2 Wolves 1 – A vital win but why did Arne Slot’s team look so nervy?


“It was nervy and, at times, desperately unconvincing but Premier League Liverpool closed out a home win they desperately needed against relegation-candidate visitors Wolverhampton Wanderers. Arne Slot’s side were 2-0 up at the interval and apparently cruising towards a comfortable three points. But a sloppy second-half display and a fine goal by Matheus Cunha, ensured an anxious finale. Ultimately, Liverpool did enough to close out the game and restore their seven-point cushion over Arsenal at the top of the table. We analyse the major talking points. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
NY Times/The Athletic: Liverpool need to calm down

The impact of being only player from your country to play in the Premier League

“Gunnar Nielsen’s Premier League career was brief. Extremely brief, in fact: it lasted 17 minutes. The goalkeeper was introduced as a late substitute for Manchester City against Arsenal in 2010 after Shay Given had aggravated a shoulder injury he picked up a week earlier when diving in vain for Paul Scholes’s late winner in the Manchester derby. But it was a big deal back home. Those 17 minutes represented the first — and only — time a player from the Faroe Islands had played in the Premier League. It was such a big deal that a local radio station couldn’t even wait until the game had finished to call his brother for some reaction. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Champions League: Bayern drown out the noise, and was this the worst penalty award ever?

“Football very rarely goes to plan. AC Milan’s new strike force were supposed to quickly start scoring a lot of goals. Feyenoord selling their best player was supposed to mean their season was over. Bayern Munich were supposed to crumble away from home again. Oh, and VAR was supposed to eradicate horrendous refereeing decisions. As you can see from last night’s Champions League play-off knockout clashes, the sport rarely fails to disappoint when it comes to predictability. Here Tim Spiers analyses the key talking points from Wednesday evening’s matches. …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)

Plymouth, Exeter and the football wilderness where Liverpool came unstuck


“The English county of Devon is in the spotlight, with two of the best three teams in the country making the long journey south-west in the FA Cup fourth round. For some, rugby union is more synonymous with the area than football — the Exeter Chiefs won the Premiership in 2017 and 2020 — but dig beneath the surface and look beyond the stunning coastline, popular tourist hotspots and cream teas and you will find an area that has forged its own footballing culture. And if Arne Slot’s Liverpool thought they were heading for a pleasant weekend by the coast at the weekend, they got a rude awakening at Home Park on Sunday afternoon. Like seagulls at the seaside, Plymouth swooped in to steal one of Liverpool’s quadruple chips. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
YouTube: Plymouth Argyle vs. Liverpool | FA Cup Highlights, Highlights: Plymouth Argyle 1-0 Liverpool | FA Cup Fourth Round

A mural at St James Park, Exeter’s ground

Lucky Liverpool? Possibly, but their spotless results make it hard to argue – Jonathan Wilson

“Liverpool this season have been very good at being good enough. There have been very few games in which they’ve dismantled the opposition. They have won fewer league games by more than three goals than Tottenham have, but ended the day nine points clear at the top with their closest rivals to play the defending champions on Sunday. If Liverpool do, as they surely will, go on to win the title, it will have been an old-fashioned sort of success, a league won not by the spectacular or the flamboyant but by consistency and calmness, by ruthless accumulation. This was Liverpool’s sixth 2-0 win in the league; more than a quarter of their games so far. It’s a scoreline that speaks of control, of winning games with a little to spare, taking freakish equalisers, ill luck and odd refereeing decisions out of the equation, without being flashy and demanding overexertion: 2-0 is the scoreline of champions. …”
Guardian
NY Times/The Athletic: Mohamed Salah’s future and whether it’s breaking records or Saudi Arabia

How Bournemouth became the Premier League’s best team to watch – and worst to play against

“Few people expected Bournemouth’s game with Liverpool this weekend to be so important. The Premier League’s broadcast partners certainly didn’t as they made their five picks for live TV from the 10 matches in this latest round of fixtures. Sky Sports and their TNT counterparts choosing to leave the Vitality Stadium clash in the Saturday 3pm slot, behind English football’s longstanding television ‘blackout’, means only viewers outside the UK will be able to (legally) watch what could be one of the matches of the season as it happens. Because this might be the toughest fixture league leaders Liverpool have left as they chase a record-equalling 20th league title. …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)

 

The numbers that show Virgil van Dijk is playing as well as ever – 300 games into his Liverpool career


Virgil van Dijk was heading home to mark his latest Liverpool milestone.. … Liverpool’s talismanic captain became the 65th player in the club’s history to reach 300 appearances, but his win percentage of 69.7 puts him in a class of his own. When that impressive statistic was put to the Netherlands international, his response was typically self-deprecating. … Saturday was win number 209 for Van Dijk at Liverpool with 47 draws and 44 defeats. The only source of frustration was that Jacob Greaves’ late consolation denied him a 120th clean sheet. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Does the Premier League’s ‘Big Six’ still exist (on and off the pitch)?

“.Over halfway through the 2024-25 season, for fans of certain teams outside the traditional ‘Big Six’, the first item is all they need. Specifically, that is, a table of the current Premier League standings..Nottingham Forest are in third. Newcastle United and Bournemouth are within a point of Manchester City — who, until this weekend, were outside the top four in January for the first time in 15 years. Sixth-placed Chelseaalso look likely to be in the Champions League qualification battle. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

‘Fly high three beautiful butterflies’ – how Southport FC helped a town in mourning

“Inside the dressing room, there is a poster permanently positioned above the door. Three hearts, angel wings and the names of the girls — Alice, Bebe and Elsie — who, tragically, shockingly, have become known around the world. It was put up after the almost unspeakable horrors, on July 29 last year, that have traumatised this seaside town. … If you are not familiar with Southport, 20 miles outside Liverpool in the north west of England, you might not realise how close the club’s stadium is to the scene of the savage, indiscriminate attacks that resulted last week in Axel Rudakubana being jailed for 52 years. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Champions League Briefing: Playoffs take shape; Bellingham’s backheel; Wembanyama sees City’s collapse

A mural of Arsenal co-chair Josh Kroenke on the approach to the Emirates Stadium
“There was plenty of drama and some stunning goals as the penultimate matchday of the Champions League’s league phase drew to a close on Wednesday. Real Madrid and Arsenal barely broke a sweat, putting themselves in strong positions to qualify for the knockout stages. Manchester City, however, are in danger of suffering elimination after collapsing and letting a two-goal lead go to lose 4-2 to Paris Saint-Germain at the Parc des Princes inspired by the brilliance of Ousmane Dembele. With so much still to play for, here are the main talking points with just one matchday remaining of the league phase. …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)

Will Liverpool win this Premier League title – and, if so, when? Our experts’ views

“It is 76 days since Liverpool moved back to the top of the 2024-25 Premier League table with a 2-1 home win against Brighton & Hove Albion — a position they haven’t relinquished since. Arne Slot’s side are not always showing imperious form but have still only been beaten once in their 20 league matches so far and have a four-point advantage over second-placed Arsenal, with a game in hand, going into the weekend’s fixtures. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Diogo Jota took 22 seconds to settle Liverpool’s No 9 debate

Diogo Jota had been deep in conversation with Kostas Tsimikas as the Liverpool duo waited to come on at the City Ground. The clock was ticking towards the midway point of the second half and Arne Slot’s side still trailed to Chris Wood’s first-half opener. For all their possession, the Premier League leaders hadn’t produced a single attempt on target. They were crying out for some inspiration as in-form Nottingham Forest, who were chasing a seventh successive league victory for the first time since 1922, held firm. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Liverpool’s contract stand-offs, Jamie Carragher’s role, and a battle to shape the narrative

Trent Alexander-Arnold kept his counsel as he left Anfield on Saturday afternoon. The Liverpool right-back did not speak to the media at the weekend but the smile on his face underlined what a difference a week makes. He had just swapped shirts with Accrington Stanley midfielder Liam Coyle, who used to play alongside him for Liverpool Under-16s. There was also a warm exchange with visiting manager John Doolan, who coached Alexander-Arnold at the Kirkby academy at the age of seven. ‘Such a wonderful and humble guy — he showed his class,’ Doolan said. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

How Bruno Fernandes’ unusual positioning exploited Trent Alexander-Arnold’s defensive issues

“When the post-match discussion focuses on the player who has been dominating headlines in the previous days, it’s fair to question if that analysis is reasonable, or whether it’s simply a convenient narrative to keep everyone talking. On this occasion, the analysis was entirely fair: Trent Alexander-Arnold, subject of a transfer approach by Real Madrid, had a very difficult game in Liverpool’s 2-2 home draw against Manchester United on Sunday. The idea that Alexander-Arnold can struggle defensively is, clearly, nothing new. He is, at heart, a playmaker who got converted into a right-back because that was the simplest pathway into Liverpool’s first team. The last couple of seasons have featured attempts to field him more centrally when they are in possession, but he remains a problem without the ball. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
NY Times/The Athletic: Liverpool 2 Manchester United 2 – Something for everyone in incredible rollercoaster game at Anfield

How does this end? Amorim’s best Man Utd XI? Is 1-0 to the Arsenal a problem? – The Briefing

“Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday during this season The Athletic will discuss three of the biggest questions to arise from the weekend’s Premier League football. This was the weekend when Manchester City recorded a convincing scoreline (if not performance) against West Ham, Chelsea dropped more points, Newcastle’s fine form continued and Southampton arguably reached a new low with their 5-0 home defeat to Brentford. Here we will ask if the remainder of the Premier League campaign is a confusing mess, whether Ruben Amorim has found his best team and whether Arsenal have a 1-0 problem. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Organised crime, burners and cyber attacks: Inside Liverpool’s fight with ticket touts


“… With Arne Slot’s Liverpool side top of the Premier League, leading the way in the Champions League and in the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup, there is a buzz of excitement around Anfield. The redevelopment of the Anfield Road Stand may have lifted the stadium’s capacity beyond 60,000 last year but the demand for seats still far outstrips supply. Liverpool have 28,000 season ticket holders and a further 11,000 tickets per game are hospitality seats. Visiting teams receive around 3,000 tickets, with the rest sold to members (who pay an annual fee of between £37 and £46) via a ballot. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Best of 2024 from The Athletic UK: Our staff pick their favourite pieces (by their colleagues)


“We didn’t expect to write about flowery wallpapers in 2024, that’s for sure. Or Taylor Swift. We did expect to write about Jurgen Klopp, Erik ten Hag, and Lamine Yamal, and Andy Murray retiring. It was a wild old year in the world of sport and we wanted to take a moment to look back at — and celebrate — the excellent work of our writers over the past 12 months, covering not just football (soccer), but tennis, the Olympics, the Paralympics, and athletics, too. We wanted to know what they liked, too, so we asked them to nominate articles, podcasts or videos produced by their colleagues and tell us why. So here are all the pieces of work selected by writers, editors and producers on The Athletic UK and North American soccer staff (the editors in the U.S. did their own version of this, too). Enjoy! …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)

Johan Cruyff and the incredible wallpaper drawings that explain modern football

The art of scanning in football

“Earlier in the season, Frank Lampard spent some time with Rodri at Manchester City, breaking down the Ballon d’Or winner’s game as part of a ‘midfield masterclass’ that he was filming. ‘I did about a 50-second run of him against Aston Villa where he was scanning through the pitch,’ former Chelsea and England midfielder Lampard tells The Athletic. ‘He kind of went deep, got the ball, checked his shoulder five times, did it again and ended up putting (Ilkay) Gundogan through on goal. So he’s a scanner.’ Lampard was a scanner too. When Geir Jordet, a professor at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, carried out a study a decade or so ago, after getting his hands on a pile of Premier League ‘Player Cam’ DVDs, he discovered that Lampard scanned more frequently than any of the other 117 footballers he watched. …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)

Ranking every team in England’s top four divisions based on their performance in 2024

“English football in 2024 served up a bit of everything: stunning strikes, comical own goals, baffling errors, refereeing controversies, promotions, relegations, trophies lifted, CVs sifted and much more besides. So as 2024 draws to a close, we have decided ignore those opposed to calendar-year stats and unify all 94 teams (yes, Sutton United and Forest Green Rovers, you may no longer be in the EFL but we haven’t forgotten your efforts between January and May), even if it is only for a few hours before yet more football gets under way on New Year’s Day. You can sort the main table by games played (which includes play-off games), wins, defeats, win percentage and points per game (the latter excludes play-off games, for obvious reasons). Click on a column header to sort by that category. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Mohamed Salah: The best season of any Premier League attacker ever and the numbers that prove it

Mohamed Salah is having the greatest Premier League season for an attacker ever. Opinion? No. This is a fact. The Liverpool star sits at the top of the list for the best minute-to-goal-contribution ratio of any Premier League player and shows no signs of slowing down though he turns 33 in June. Salah’s 30 goal contributions in 18 appearances means he is averaging a goal or an assist every 52.7 minutes, six fewer than the second-best (Gabriel Jesus, Manchester City 2016-17, 59.1) and 10 better than Erling Haaland for City last season, the closest player on the list who had also played more than 1,000 minutes. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
Guardian: Why did it come to this with Salah, Van Dijk and Alexander-Arnold contracts at Liverpool
NY Times/The Athletic – West Ham 0 Liverpool 5: Breaking down Salah’s extraordinary assist and why Diaz is scoring

Liverpool’s corners: ‘Sugar huddles’, more inswingers – and room for improvement

“It has been hard to find fault with Liverpool’s performances this season. Six points clear at the top of the Premier League and making serene progress in the cups, this has been a dream start to the Arne Slot era. There is, however, one metric where the Dutchman may find room for improvement: corners. Liverpool are the top flight’s leading scorers this season with 40 but, according to Opta, only two have come from corners — a steep decline from the Jurgen Klopp era, when they would regularly lead that particular metric. Their set-piece struggles were underlined against Leicester on Boxing Day when Liverpool won eight corners in the first half but failed to create a chance from any of them. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Premier League half-season review: Tactics and trends that have shaped 2024-25 so far

“This week brings up the midway point of the 2024-25 Premier Leagueseason. It’s already been a memorable campaign, with Liverpool clear at the top, the two Manchester clubs in turmoil and the increasingly-familiar sight of the three promoted teams in the bottom three. But what have been the tactical and numerical trends that have captured our experts’ attention, and how do they see the second half of the campaign playing out? Ahmed Walid, Thom Harris and Anantaajith Raghuraman discuss their key takeaways. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

The four ‘seasons’ of the 2024-25 Premier League campaign so far


“As we ease into the dreamy relentlessness of football’s festive period, it’s easy to forget the staccato nature of the opening months of the season, short sprints of fixtures punctuated by the four words most Premier League fans hate hearing: ‘It’s another international break.’ Supporters may despair as their favourite players disappear around the world three times in three months but these mandated interruptions do allow the season to be divided into four neat sections, something many managers exploit by targeting a block of games almost as a hyper-focused mini-season. For those of us on the outside, splitting the campaign into smaller chunks can offer us a bit more insight than simply looking at the league table, especially as the campaign progresses. Welcome, then, to The Four Seasons of the Premier League So Far. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

The Transfer Radar 2025: The Athletic’s ultimate guide to players who could be on the move

“Welcome to The Transfer Radar. Each major tournament, The Athletic has built a scouting guide highlighting the players to watch. This winter, we are launching a new version of The Radar — one focused on transfers across 2025. We began with 25 players we expect to be of transfer interest to major clubs across Europe over the January and summer windows in 2025. As of December 19, we have added three more players we expect to be of interest. This is not to say that they will move, but based on the conversations our reporters have been having, they are players that are being talked about among recruitment departments. While most fans are focusing on the January window, clubs are already having conversations about next summer. …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)

Tottenham 3 Liverpool 6: Slot’s side top of league at Christmas, Gray day, smart Szoboszlai

Liverpool beat Tottenham to cement their spot at the top of the Premier League for Christmas. Luis Diaz opened the scoring at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium after a pinpoint cross from Trent Alexander-Arnold before Alexis Mac Allisterdoubled the lead when he nodded home from close range. The home side hit back with a curling effort from James Maddison but Arne Slot’s team showed their class with a swift counter-attack just before half-time, which Dominik Szoboszlai converted after winning the initial flick-on, and two second-half strikes from Mohamed Salah. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
NY Times/The Athletic: How Trent Alexander-Arnold’s passing style has changed – and the importance of the letter ‘L’

Arne Slot at Liverpool – what the rest of football thinks: ‘He’s cool as hell’


Liverpool’s style impressed Brighton manager Fabian Hurzeler 
“To fully gauge the impact of Arne Slot at Liverpool since his arrival in June, you need only talk to those around his squad. The Athletic has been told that at least three players at Anfield have said in private that Slot’s methods could have served the team well during times in recent seasons when they just missed out on the biggest prizes. This is not to denigrate Slot’s predecessor, Jurgen Klopp, an Anfield legend who brought the club unparalleled success in the Premier League era and over a far longer period of time than the Dutchman has worked on Merseyside. The ease of the transition has also, in part, been down to Klopp laying such solid foundations. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Introducing the most dangerous pass in football

“A sharp, anxious intake of breath, followed by a round of applause that carries a mixture of quiet admiration and, more than anything, relief. On other occasions, it ends with supporters shaking their heads and asking why. We are talking about the crowd reaction to — and I’m borrowing this description from a colleague who is a regular at Stamford Bridge — ‘the most dangerous pass in football’. It’s the short, vertical ball from the goalkeeper to — typically, but not always — the midfield pivot, who is receiving under pressure, back to goal and close to their own penalty area. …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)

Liverpool 2 Fulham 2 – Slot’s team come from behind twice after Robertson red card

Liverpool dropped points in the Premier League title race on Saturday afternoon, but after coming from behind twice with only 10 men, a 2-2 draw with Fulham feels like a semi-positive result. Arne Slot’s side played most of the game with 10 men after Andy Robertsonwas sent off for bringing down Harry Wilson when the former Liverpool man was through on goal. By that stage, Liverpool were already losing, Andreas Pereira’s acrobatic finish putting the high-flying Londoners 1-0 up. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Champions League projections 2024-25: Each team’s probability of qualifying for knockouts

“The Champions League has a new format for 2024-25. Forget group tables, we now have a 36-team league stage before we get to the knockout stages in February. But who has the best chance of qualifying for the knockout stages, either directly or via the playoff round? Throughout the season, we will publish projections — powered by Opta data — to show how teams are expected to perform. These will update after each gameweek. When the league stage is over, there will be probabilities for reaching the quarter-finals, semi-finals and final. The competition’s expanded format might take a little time to get used to, but these projections can show you how it might all unfold. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Girona 0 Liverpool 1: Was it a penalty – and what now for Darwin Nunez?

Liverpool are within touching distance of the Champions League last 16. A sixth straight win in the competition this season, secured through Mohamed Salah’s penalty, controversially awarded after a VAR check for a foul on Luis Diaz, tightened Arne Slot’s grip on first place in the league phase. This was far from Liverpool’s best display but Slot is unlikely to be concerned. Here, we analyse the major talking points. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Steven Gerrard’s Olympiacos goal, 20 years on: ‘What a hit, son! What a hit!’

“Even now, 20 years on, it is a moment which takes the breath away. Steven Gerrard had no right to score the goal that he himself described as the most important of the 186 he plundered for Liverpool. He was around 20 yards out, faced with a ball bouncing across his body, and with two Olympiacos defenders desperately closing him down. But with a perfect swing of his right leg, Gerrard hit the sweetest of half-volleys to secure Liverpool’s passage into the Champions League last 16. … Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Gerrard’s goal and to mark the occasion, The Athletic spoke to those who were there to unpick its brilliance and significance. …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)

Liverpool have made Virgil van Dijk contract offer in attempt to keep captain at Anfield

Liverpool have made a contract offer to Virgil van Dijk as they attempt to end uncertainty over his future by tying the Netherlands defender to a new agreement. Van Dijk is among three crucial players — alongside Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold — whose existing terms are scheduled to expire in the summer. Their situations have become a subject of intense discussion and Salah, 32, recently said he has not yet received any proposals to prolong his Anfield career. That remained accurate as of Sunday’s 2-0 win over Manchester City, however, the anticipation is it will change soon. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
W – Virgil van Dijk
NY Times/The Athletic: How Virgil van Dijk added another layer to his game at Arne Slot’s Liverpool
NY Times/The Athletic: How Ryan Gravenberch became one of Liverpool’s ‘untouchables’
W – Ryan Gravenberch

Liverpool 2 Man City 0: Slot’s side dominate struggling champions to go nine points clear

“A team flying at the top of the league playing at home against a side without a win in six games brought the result you would expect, as Arne Slot’s Liverpool went nine points clear on Sunday with a 2-0 win over Manchester City. The home side went at City from the start and were ahead early through Cody Gakpo after a brilliant cross from Mohamed Salah, but that was surprisingly the only goal of a first half Liverpool dominated. City manager Pep Guardiola made tweaks in an attempt to stop the Premier League leaders, but his wobbling four-in-a-row champions could not cope and victory was sealed when Salah converted a penalty in the second half after goalkeeper Stefan Ortega fouled Luis Diaz. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
NY Times/The Athletic: Liverpool vs Manchester City dissected: The rivalry, key battles – and predictions
NY Times/The Athletic: Pep Guardiola on ‘sacked in the morning’ chants during Liverpool loss: ‘I didn’t expect it at Anfield’

How Liverpool’s Caoimhin Kelleher’s technique makes him a penalty expert

Liverpool forward Darwin Nunez wasted no time when chest-bumping his way into Caoimhin Kelleher to congratulate his goalkeeper. Kelleher had just denied Kylian Mbappe from the penalty spot in the Champions League on Wednesday night. Right-back Conor Bradley did the same in appreciation for the Republic of Ireland international. Kelleher had just helped preserve Liverpool’s clean sheet by palming away the Real Madrid forward’s spot-kick in a game Arne Slot’s team went on to win 2-0. Andy Robertson, who gave the penalty away against Madrid and in the previous game against Southampton, said he owes Kelleher dinner. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

How Arne Slot is proving to be the master of the half-time tactical tweak


“It’s not like Arne Slot needed to fix Liverpool’s attack at half-time against Real Madrid. But despite his side creating multiple chances in the first half, he was able to tweak a few things in search of an improvement. And since the start of the season, Liverpool have been noticeably raising their level after the break — with the 2-0 victory against Madrid just the latest addition to the list of impressive second halves. This was on show in Slot’s first Premier League game, a 2-0 victory away to Ipswich Town, when during the break he told his players to focus on winning duels and playing balls in behind because of the opponent’s man-to-man approach. That tweak guided Liverpool to victory, and another half-time tweak against Madrid brought Slot’s team closer to reaching the Champions League’s round of 16. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
NY Times/The Athletic: Liverpool 2 Real Madrid 0: Are Slot’s team the best in Europe? And what now for Mbappe? (Video)
NY Times/The Athletic: Kylian Mbappe’s night to forget: That tackle, a missed penalty and attitude questions
NY Times/The Athletic: Liverpool’s Conor Bradley and a tackle for the ages

Champions League projections: All the talking points after matchday five

“Five games into the new-look Champions League and the 36-team table is finally starting to take shape. Sort of. Strong favourites to progress have emerged, with Arne Slot’s Liverpool sat top of the pile after an impressive 2-0 victory over Real Madrid made it five wins from five. Inter are yet to concede a goal, while Barcelona and Arsenal— with convincing results this week — have increased their chances of qualifying for the knockout stages, via the play-offs or otherwise, to at least 90 per cent. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Man City loss feels seismic, Salah’s contract claim, is Mascherano right coach for Messi?

“… Hello! Manchester City have won fewer games than San Marino in the past month and Mohamed Salah could leave Liverpool. It’s all happening. City show weakness again. Another friend to coach Messi?. Galaxy shining bright. ’Keeper howler of the season? Every once in a while, the Premier League throws up a genuinely seismic result that feels like it symbolises the end of an era. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Liverpool’s 2019-20 Premier League champions v Slot’s 2024-25 contenders


Arne Slot
“With a five point lead over a faltering Manchester City, and a nine-point advantage over the rest of the chasing pack, Liverpool have a 60.3% chance of winning the Premier League according to Opta. Arne Slot’s team, who visit bottom-of-the-table Southampton on Sunday, have 28 points from the opening 11 games. Liverpool have bettered that only once in the past 34 seasons, when last winning the Premier League in 2019-20. We assess how the current Liverpool squad compares with Jürgen Klopp’s champions. …”
Guardian
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)

The Slot Machine: How Liverpool set up against elite teams – and beat them

“It was the elephant in the room that Arne Slot went out of his way to address. Up until the last international break, Liverpool’s head coach repeatedly referenced the kind early-season schedule when assessing his team’s start. The run of fixtures from the October break to this international window was meant to give a clearer indication of where expectation levels should be set. Premier League matches against Chelsea, Arsenal, Brighton & Hove Albion and Aston Villa were broken up by Champions League fixtures versus RB Leipzig and Bayer Leverkusen, with a trip to Brighton in the Carabao Cup squeezed in. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

The Premier League Owners: Who has invested the most?

“From the local businessmen propping up boyhood clubs to the Gulf states chasing reflected glories, an eclectic mix has taken over English football’s top 20 clubs. Owners of Premier League teams have spent millions to secure a seat at the top table but no two stories are the same. Some are in for billions, gambling on long-term prosperity. Others have already assured themselves of vast returns. To begin a series on the Premier League’s owners running across this week, The Athletic has calculated the total investments of those at the top of all 20 clubs. And, yes, we’ve even put them in descending order for you to argue over. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Fear and loathing in Premier League academy football: Scouts in a pen, no team sheets and denying access

“At a Manchester City Under-16s game last month, 21 academy scouts were corralled into a tight square next to one of the corner flags, far from the rest of the spectators. They had not congregated together out of choice. This was the designated area, outlined by bright cones, other clubs’ talent spotters were frogmarched to before kick-off. A few years ago, it would have been a peculiar sight. Today, it is a scene recreated every weekend across most of the Premier League academy landscape. The motive? To keep rival scouts isolated from parents, so they cannot lure away your top players. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Is Premier League title race already down to two teams?

Has the Premier League title race been whittled down to two teams after just 11 games of the season? Leaders Liverpool had the dream weekend after victory over Aston Villa coupled with defeat for Manchester City against Brighton – and Sunday’s 1-1 draw between Arsenal and Chelsea. They now lead City by five points – and the rest of the pack by nine points or more. Opta’s ‘supercomputer’ gives Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal just a 3.5% chance of the title, with Chelsea down on 0.2% and anybody else on 0%. …”
BBC

How Liverpool turned the underlap into a potent weapon under Arne Slot

“Different season, same Mohamed Salah. Nine goals and nine assists in 16 games in all competitions show how the 32-year-old is in white-hot form. Questions will continue to swirl around the club until there is greater clarity over Salah’s future — his contract is up in the summer and he is free to negotiate a pre-contract move with a foreign club from January 1 — but there is little doubt his dual-threat from a creative and goalscoring perspective. As The Athletic has recently analysed, much of Salah’s creativity has been directed towards the back post, with last week’s assists for Cody Gakpo and Luis Diaz against Bayer Leverkusen adding to his suite of services provided to his team-mates from his switched crosses. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

The Briefing: Are we set for a thrilling title race and can Forest’s form continue?

“Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday this season The Athletic will discuss three of the biggest questions to arise from the weekend’s Premier League football. This was the round of games where Tottenham produced a brilliant second half to thrash Aston Villa, Southampton finally got their first win of the season — and Ipswich came so close to theirs — while Chris Wood’s amazing form continued. We will ask whether the flaws of the contenders will give us a thrilling title race over the coming months, what Ruben Amorim will think after watching Manchester United’s draw against Chelsea and whether Nottingham Forest are the most impressive team in the 2024-25 Premier League so far. …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)

Why the Premier League table after 10 games is a reliable guide to how the season will end

“There is an understanding that a league table does not truly “take shape” until clubs have played 10 of their allotted matches in that season’s competition. It is an ancient and arbitrary threshold we have created for ourselves, but it has merit. First, it is a nice round number. Second, it’s… double figures. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

RB Leipzig 0 Liverpool 1: Rampaging Nunez, Liverpool go three from three and Leipzig stutter

Darwin Nunez’s poacher’s finish fired Liverpool to victory at RB Leipzigand maintained their flawless start to life in this season’s Champions League. Arne Slot’s side made it three wins from three in the competition with a 1-0 win in Germany, with former Leipzig players Ibrahima Konate and Dominik Szoboszlai tasting victory against their old team thanks to Nunez’s first-half goal. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Liverpool’s patience out of possession under Slot is working – but Chelsea showed the approach isn’t flawless

“For long periods of their 2-1 victory over Chelsea on Sunday afternoon, Liverpool didn’t feel quite like Liverpool. It’s been two months since Arne Slot’s first competitive game in charge, but this was something new: his first Premier League match at Anfield against genuinely strong opposition. Previous home games were against Brentford, Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth — sides you expect Liverpool to dominate. There was no guarantee of that against Chelsea, who wanted to play out from the back and enjoy long spells of possession. Liverpool, for most of the last decade, would try to deny opponents that luxury. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Premier League: 10 talking points from the weekend’s action

Wolves 1-2 Manchester City
“… 2 – Tight margins go against O’Neil again: The obvious topic of debate at Molineux centred on whether Bernardo Silva impeded José Sá’s ability to save John Stones’s 95th-minute header. The officials concluded Silva had no impact on the goal and, while hugely disappointed, the first thing Gary O’Neil did when he got into his manager’s office was to study how Stones was able to register an effort on goal. O’Neil acknowledged the minutiae make the difference in tight games, leading him to bemoan having to substitute the 6ft 4in Wolves goalscorer Jørgen Strand Larsen, owing to fatigue. …”
Guardian

Liverpool have the best defence in the Premier League – can they maintain it?

Liverpool are the early leaders for the best defence in the league competition. Yet while there has been plenty of talk about the impact of Arne Slot’s possession-based philosophy, less remarked upon is that his side have conceded just two league goals in their opening seven games — four fewer than the joint-second lowest, Arsenal and Nottingham Forest. In their 10 matches in all competitions, they have conceded just four goals and kept six clean sheets. That is a significant improvement from last season when they kept the same amount of clean sheets in their final 27 games. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

How the best Premier League managers stay one step ahead: New ideas, adaptation, evolution

“In the future, looking back on current tactical innovations and unique styles of play will not provide a dopamine hit. By then, they will be normalised. What seemed novel 20 years ago is the minimum requirement to excel in football nowadays — just ask Jose Mourinho and Rafa Benitez. Their meticulous planning before Chelsea and Liverpool faced opponents was on another level by Premier League standards and helped them create defensive structures that opposition players hated. Mourinho also worked on attacking and defensive transitions in his first period at Chelsea — when he won the Premier League in 2005 and 2006 — which was not conventional at the time. ‘Mourinho placed more emphasis upon the transition than any previous Premier League coach,’ writes The Athletic’s Michael Cox in his book, The Mixer: The Story of Premier League Tactics. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

The Biggest Question Facing Every Premier League Team

“The most popular soccer league in the world returns on Friday at the Theatre of Dreams as Fulham visits Manchester United. If it feels like the soccer season is never-ending after the European Championships, Copa América, and Olympicinternational tournaments all summer, you’re correct. Just 89 days after Manchester City won a fourth straight Premier League title, the English top flight is back for the first of 38 matchweeks. While many in England remain on summer holiday, the clubs have been busy with preseason tours and final preparations for the grueling marathon season that will go into late May 2025. To preview the 2024-25 Premier League season, I ranked all 20 teams by posing the biggest question facing each club. …”
The Ringer
BBC: Who will finish in the Premier League’s top four?

Why Liverpool want Giorgi Mamardashvili – the ‘Georgian Wall’ goalkeeper coveted across Europe

“Before an unforgettable footballing adventure had even begun, a nation had one man to thank. Such was the magnitude of Georgia’s penalty shootout win over Greece in March — a victory clinched by Giorgi Mamardashvili, and which ensured the country reached their first major international tournament — that every player, coach and member of the football federation received the Order of Honour from the national president. Mamardashvili’s reputation has rocketed after a shot-stopping clinic at that tournament, the European Championship in Germany this summer, with onlookers incredulous as the saves stacked up. It’s no surprise the man known as the ‘Georgian Wall’ has admirers — although Liverpool might not have been the first team on everyone’s lips to be among them. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
W – Giorgi Mamardashvili

2024-25 Premier League – Location-map, with 3 charts

“The map is a basic location-map, with an inset map of Greater London. Also shown are small labels which point out both the three promoted clubs (Leicester City, Ipswich Town, Southampton), and the three relegated clubs (Luton Town, Burnley, Sheffield United). And there are three charts… The Attendance chart, at top-centre of the map page, shows 4 things for each of the 20 current Premier League clubs…A) 2023-24 finish (with promotions noted). B) 2023-24 average attendance [from home league matches]. C) Stadium capacity [2023-24]. D) Percent-capacity [2023-24]. At the right-hand side of the map page are two more charts. The chart at the top-right shows Seasons-in-1st-Division for the 20 current Premier League clubs. …”
billsportsmaps
W – 2024–25 Premier League

The Transfer DealSheet: Latest on Man Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Barcelona and more

“Welcome to the latest edition of the Transfer DealSheet, your weekly guide to what is happening in the summer window. Our team of dedicated writers, including Adam Leventhal and David Ornstein, will take you inside the market to explain the deals being worked on, the players who could arrive and the ones who are on their way out across the Premier League and beyond. In last week’s edition, we looked at Liverpool’s pursuit of a No 6 and the situation with Chelsea’s Englandmidfielder Conor Gallagher. The information found within this article has been gathered according to The Athletic’s sourcing guidelines. Unless stated, our reporters have spoken to more than one person briefed on each deal before offering the clubs involved the opportunity to comment. Those responses, where they were given, have been included in the Transfer DealSheet. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Is the cult of the manager over? How English football’s power structure changed

“There is no escaping the cult of the manager in English football. From Busby to Ferguson, from Chapman to Wenger, from Shankly to Klopp, from Revie to Clough, from Mourinho to Guardiola, it sometimes feels like one of the last bastions of the 19th-century ‘great man theory’ — as if, to bastardise the words of Thomas Carlyle, the history of English football is but the biography of great men. Some of the greatest are commemorated with statues outside their clubs’ stadiums: Herbert Chapman and Arsene Wenger at Arsenal, Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley at Liverpool, Sir Matt Busby and Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United, Sir Alf Ramsey and Sir Bobby Robson at Ipswich Town, Don Revie at Leeds United, Stan Cullis at Wolverhampton Wanderers. These men did not just win hearts, minds and trophies. They shaped eras. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

2023–24 Premier League

“The 2023–24 Premier League was the 32nd season of the Premier League and the 125th season of top-flight English football overall. The season began on 11 August 2023, and concluded on 19 May 2024. Manchester City, the defending champions, won their fourth consecutive title, the first men’s team to do so. … All three of the newly promoted teams were relegated (Luton Town, Burnley, and Sheffield United), the first time this happened since the 1997–98 season; those three teams had a combined total of 66 points. Nottingham Forestavoided relegation with 32 points (including a 4 point deduction), a record low for a team to do so. …The new stoppage time rule was used in the league for the first time this season. In an effort to improve clamping down on time-wasting and to improve the accuracy of time added on, stoppage times were longer across matches. The new rule accounted for stoppages due to injuries, goal celebrations, yellow and red cards, and VAR reviews. …”
W – 2023–24 Premier League
Watch: How 2023/24’s FINAL DAY unfolded (Video)

The Real Jurgen Klopp, part 1: The ‘normal guy from the Black Forest’


“After almost nine years in charge and seven major trophies, Jurgen Klopp is leaving Liverpool. He has been one of the most transformative managers in the club’s history and in English football’s modern era. To mark his departure, The Athletic is bringing you The Real Jurgen Klopp, a series of pieces building the definitive portrait of one of football’s most famous figures. …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)

How to win a Premier League penalty: A deep dive into the best masters of the dark arts


Arsenal are still level with Bournemouth after 41 minutes and are getting frustrated. They need a win to keep the pressure on Manchester City, who play Wolverhampton Wanderers later that day, in the battle for the Premier League title. Kai Havertz has made a career of finding pockets of space and does so again, gliding into the penalty area to meet Martin Odegaard’s through ball. He uses the outside of his left boot to flick the ball away from onrushing goalkeeper Mark Travers — before keeping that foot down on the turf, elongating it towards the floor like a ballerina performing an axel turn. Travers cannot avoid it and makes contact. …”
The Athletic (Video)

Why progressive actions are football’s most important metrics


“Every sport needs a currency, some basic stat to keep track of the important stuff that happens along the way to scoring and winning. A good currency should be easy to count and have an obvious relationship to the point of the game. … Progressive actions are not advanced metrics. You can see them with your eyes instead of a statistical model. If you got bored enough, you could sit in the stadium and tally them up with a Sharpie on some accommodating seat-mate’s bald head. But simple as they are, progressive actions are fundamental to how the game works and can give you a pretty good idea of which teams and players are good at it. …”
The Athletic

Echoes of errors: why has VAR sparked so much fury this season?


“Seven months ago Englandthe country came the closest yet to entering thermonuclear war over a refereeing decision. When the referee Simon Hooper mistakenly ruled out a Luis Díaz goal at Tottenham for offside and the video assistant referee Darren England failed to correct him, the initial response was heated and only bubbled up from there. … The next morning, Liverpool released a statement arguing ‘sporting integrity had been undermined’ the supporters’ group Spirit of Shankly said that ‘VAR and PGMOL are not fit for purpose’ and the club’s former striker John Aldridge alleged corruption. …”
Guardian