“From the relegation zone to being level on points with Bayern Munich at the top of the Bundesliga, Xabi Alonso has led Bayer Leverkusen on quite the ride in his 12 months as manager. Some sort of rebound was almost inevitable given the team’s talent, but the complete change in the team’s attitude under the Spaniard has been nothing short of remarkable. …”
The Athletic
“After beginning their season with six straight wins, Real Madrid faced off against Atlético Madrid at the Wanda Metropolitano on Sunday. Whilst Real were coming off a 1-0 win against Union Berlin that saw Jude Bellingham score in the 94th minute, Atleti had seen their share of late drama with Lazio goalkeeper Ivan Provedel scoring in the 95th minute to snatch a draw away from home for Maurizio Sarri’s side. Atleti would take the lead within four minutes via Álvaro Morata, with Antoine Griezmann doubling their advantage shortly after, but Toni Kroos halved the deficit before the break for Los Blancos. Carlo Ancelotti took the opportunity to sub on Spanish center forward Joselu for Croatian midfielder Luka Modrić at halftime, but it wasn’t enough as Morata restored their two-goal advantage immediately after the restart, securing a 3-1 victory for Atlético Madrid. …”
Breaking the Lines (Video)
“Fourteen minutes into the north London derby on Sunday, Destiny Udogie flew into a tackle on Bukayo Saka. It was a genuine attempt to win the ball, but it was late and an obvious yellow card. For the next 75 minutes, Udogie had to face arguably the in-form winger in the Premier League in the knowledge that another foul could be the end of his match. After Tottenham team-mate Emerson Royal’s daft dismissal in this same fixture last season, it seemed history might be about to repeat itself. …”
The Athletic – Michael Cox
“When Xabi Alonso played for Pep Guardiola’s Bayern Munich, he usually operated as a lone defensive midfielder, presumably because he was so handsome that team-mates were too intimidated to stand next to him. Not many clubs play that way now. A decade of increasingly sophisticated pressing has forced sides that want to build up through the middle (as opposed to going over or around the other team) to put two bodies on their defensive midfield line. … Their secret weapon was third-man combinations in the double pivot. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“There were five minutes of normal time remaining at Molineux when Andy Robertson found himself storming forward into the Wolverhampton Wanderers box. He found Mohamed Salah on the edge of the penalty area, took the Egyptian’s return pass in his stride and stroked the ball into the net for the goal that completed Liverpool’s comeback and set them on their way to three more precious points. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“You can see the floodlights as you come off the motorway, just before reaching central Rotherham. Turn onto Masbrough Street and the stadium reveals itself on the left, halfway up the hill and just before Coronation Bridge that goes over the train line. If you just went past with not much more than a glance, Millmoor would look like any other lower league football ground: old, could do with a little care and attention, but identifiably a football ground. Until, perhaps, you caught sight of the barbed wire. …”
The Athletic (Video)
W – Millmoor
YouTube: Abandoned Millmoor Football Stadium Exploration 15:53
“Tactical changes are often associated with switches in shape — a back three becoming a back four, say, or a midfield three turning into a diamond. However, it’s not exclusive to that. Shapes are a way of explaining the positioning of the players on the pitch in simple terms. The dynamic of how a team operates within a given shape is another dimension — two identical formations could attack and defend in different ways depending on the movement of the players concerned with and without the ball. …”
The Athletic
The Athletic: Erik ten Hag’s Manchester United are no longer improving
Guardian: Manchester United had sights set on title charge – but right now it’s chaos
“So that’s what it is all about. Having fun watching football. The crowd at Montjuic stared incredulously up at the scoreboard and down at the pitch. They had practically forgotten this feeling. Barcelona had won La Liga last season, yes. But at Barcelona, it’s not just about winning, you also have to entertain a public with an exquisite palate, who demand excellence incessantly, even at times when they are aware that the club’s current squad doesn’t have it in them. …”
The Athletic
“PSG have, in recent years, built a team of superstars. But by including Mbappe, Neymar and Messi in the same team, they’ve had to say goodbye to many young and homegrown players. Over €400million worth of young talent in fact. They’ve sold so many players, they could theoretically field a team capable of competing at the top level. These are some of those players. Written by Seb Stafford-Bloor, illustrated by Craig Silcock.”
YouTube
“The Liverpool fans at Molineux saved their final song — ‘I’m so glad that Jurgen is a Red’ — until the 99th minute, which was fitting for more than one reason. Jurgen Klopp has let his feelings be known about the premature nature of chanting in his direction before the job is done, so with 99 minutes on the clock and Liverpool 3-1 up against Wolves, it felt like the perfect timing. …”
The Athletic
“After stringing together eight consecutive league wins, Napoli entered March in sensational form and the heavy favorites to pick up a victory at home against Lazio featuring a former player in Elseid Hysaj and a former manager in Maurizio Sarri, who spent three years in charge at the Partenopei and took them within touching distance of the Scudetto on multiple occasions, only to fall at the last hurdle to Juventus. Lazio took the lead within 67 minutes via Matías Vecino and prevailed 1-0, going on to finish second in their second full season under Sarri, a mere 16 points behind Napoli. …”
Breaking the Lines (Video)
“… One way to look at things is Ten Hag was simply answering a question honestly and straightforwardly. Another is that the United manager saw a passing bus and chose to throw Sancho under it, that he could quite easily have fobbed the question off with benign platitudes and avoided potentially alienating one of his squad. It does raise the question: is it ever justified for a manager to single out an individual player for public criticism? What purpose does it serve? Is it just the boss lashing out in frustration, or is there a more deliberate purpose to it all? Does it actually work? …”
The Athletic
“England’s Harry Kane, fresh from his gentle pre-match warm-up, which essentially involved smoking a pipe, is running slightly uphill on a field wearing white knickerbockers. Bukayo Saka, Marcus Rashford, Jack Grealish and James Maddison are all running closely behind him. The four players are shadowing their captain’s run to try to deflect a challenge from Billy Gilmour, who is doing his best to marshal Scotland’s defence in their bold 2-2-6 formation. Gilmour’s hat falls off and he is briefly distracted, allowing Kane to aim a shot that is about to hit the tape fixed between two posts before goalkeeper Angus Gunn catches the ball and runs with it in his hands to the halfway line to start a Scotland attack. …”
The Athletic
“With the cupboards bare, bills to pay and another relegation looming, Scunthorpe United fans were holding out for a hero. Then David Hilton arrived. The Nottingham-born businessman bought the club from the deeply unpopular Peter Swann in late January, clearing a six-figure tax bill and pledging to take Scunthorpe back to the English Football League. …”
The Athletic
“On Monday last week, four days before transfer deadline day, Eric Garcia entered Xavi’s offices at Barcelona’s Joan Gamper training ground and told the manager he wanted to leave the club. Garcia had received an offer to go on loan to Girona, with the promise of more regular game time. Xavi tried to talk him out of it, insisting the defender was part of his rotation plans, that he was a valuable asset to the team. …”
The Athletic
W – João Félix
“Liverpool’s win against Aston Villa resembled an Anfield performance from 2019-20. That season, Liverpool won 18 of their 19 home league games en route to lifting the Premier League trophy. They were wins characterised by four trademarks: three of those being fast starts with them usually ahead by half-time, set-piece goals (because many opponents defended deep to limit open-play opportunities) and Mohamed Salah scoring in front of the Kop. All three happened in Sunday’s win. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“In the vast theatre of human endeavours, where the pursuit of meaning often reveals itself in the most unexpected of places, we find ourselves drawn to the sacred cathedral of football. In this timeless ritual, where passion transcends reason, and the spirit of camaraderie meets the cruelty of fate, a tapestry of narratives unfurls. Picture, if you will, the canvas of a stadium – a canvas that bore witness to a spectacle of Shakespearean proportions. It was a game that encapsulated the very essence of existence–the agony and the ecstasy. …”
Breaking the Lines
YouTube: Tactical Analysis : Arsenal 3-1 Manchester United | Arsenal A Cut Above
“Football has become the establishment. Thirty years since the publication of Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, the gentrification of professional football in England is no longer confined to the executive suites. Where once the middle-class enthusiast—like Hornby—was an exotic presence, now the entire culture of the game is awash with the instincts of the bien pensants. Whatever demotic power football had in the 1970s and 80s has completely dissipated. Like Glastonbury Festival or the Labour Party, Premier League football has mostly decoupled from the affiliations, tastes, and preferences of the everyman. …”
Football Paradise
“You might look at Manchester City, the treble winners sitting top of the table with the only 100 per cent record as they try to win their fourth Premier League title in a row, and think, ‘What could possibly stop them?’ Maybe the answer is: Manchester City. That’s because there are plenty of City fans who worry that the squad is weaker after the comings and goings of the transfer window. …”
The Athletic
“The last thing UEFA wanted to talk about at the annual launch of its club competitions this week was the only thing everyone else has been talking about. So, you could argue it was a case of mission accomplished for European football’s governing body in Monaco, as nobody — not with a microphone, anyway — said ‘Luis Rubiales’. But it would equally be true to say that the fate of the Spanish FA chief was the first topic of every conversation. …”
The Athletic
“Arsenal’s meetings with Manchester United always tend to deliver drama and this latest instalment in one of the Premier League’s longest-running rivalries did not disappoint. Some fine goals, a late controversy involving the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) and Declan Rice’s stoppage-time winner… it all added up to another memorable encounter. …”
The Athletic
“Harry Kane became the most expensive player in Bayern Munich’s history, when he moved from Tottenham Hotspur in the summer of 2023. Although the move wasn’t a great surprise by the time it was finally completed it had survived meddling executives, prankster journalists and a dramatic late crisis. Charlie Eccleshare explains, Craig Silcock illustrates.”
YouTube
“Last summer, reports suggested that Liverpool wanted to sign Ryan Gravenberch from Ajax, along with several other big clubs. Ultimately, the young Dutchman chose Bayern Munich, and Liverpool didn’t sign a midfielder until a panic loan deal for Arthur Melo on deadline day, which worked about as well as you would expect. …”
The Analyst
La’eeb, the mascot of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, at Al Bayt Stadium in Al Khor, Qatar…
“The moral and legal compromises FIFA and the Qatari government made to hold the 2022 World Cup in the Doha metropolitan area range from tolerating the host country’s ban on homosexuality to deadly abuses of migrant laborers at stadium construction sites. According to documents submitted to the record of a lawsuit in federal court late this afternoon, the road to the first Middle Eastern World Cup also began with a series of straightforward bribes. …”
Table
“The Europa League winners played host to a recently promoted side in La Liga this weekend. As expected, the clash of identities was clear. Sevilla’s swashbuckling style under Jose Luis Mendilibar has been a breath of fresh air: direct, uncomplicated and intense. But as they fell to a third-consecutive defeat to open the new campaign, flinging 50 crosses into the penalty area along the way, they were made to look like the flailing underdogs by the side that could well be coming for their top-seven spot. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“Lucas Chevalier is at the forefront of the next generation of French goalkeepers — a generation emerging at just the right time. Some context: 36-year-old Hugo Lloris, the former French national team captain, announced his international retirement after last year’s World Cup and is still expected to leave Tottenham Hotspur this summer. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“Newcastle and Liverpool served up a typically thrilling game at St James’ Park on Sunday afternoon, with Jurgen Klopp’s team — down to 10 men for much of the match — somehow turning defeat into victory and extending their unbeaten league run against Newcastle to 14 games. Here, our writers break down the key moments of the match as it unfolded. …”
The Athletic (Video)
The Athletic: Anthony Gordon was terrorising Liverpool – taking him off cost Eddie Howe dearly (Video)
Guardian: Núñez, Liverpool’s king of chaos, proves a fitting master of the mayhem – Jonathan Wilson
BBC – Newcastle 1-2 Liverpool: ‘Agent of chaos’ Darwin Nunez turns Reds saviour
“It may always look like the same sport to the naked eye, but football is constantly evolving. No, we don’t mean the shape of the ball, or the goal for that matter. Tactical trends come and go as coaches and managers seek the marginal gains that can transform a poor team into a good one, or a great team into the best. One of the most significant shifts this century has related to goalkeepers. Once, they were arguably seen as little more than the person who attempts to keep the ball out of the net and then hoofs it up the other end, as far away from danger as possible. …”
The Analyst
“As AC Milan’s bus wound through Bologna, passing the porticos and red and orange buildings, the colour of the fat and tomato of the ragu that make this city world famous, Christian Pulisic prepared for his upcoming debut in Serie A. When the Stadio Renato Dall’Ara’s iconic brick tower came into view, the American could have been forgiven for thinking it was one of the fortresses that make the region of Emilia Romagna feel like one of those far off lands in Game of Thrones. …”
The Athletic
“Hooliganism in football is nothing new. But whilst tighter rules, regulations and banning orders are preventing it from appearing in the stadiums alongside the games, it continues away from the matchday audience. More organised, more violent and much more secretive, this is the story of how hooliganism is very much still a part of European football, and many of the best hooligans and ultras are now on the front lines defending their nations. Written by James Montague, illustrated by Alice Devine.”
YouTube
“Not much was known about Ederson when he signed for Manchester City from Benfica in June 2017 for £34.7million ($44.8m). But after watching just a handful of clips of him, it was extremely easy to see how he would fit into Pep Guardiola’s system. His range of passing and ability to pick the right pass was obvious. Lo and behold, six years later, he has been a massive part of City winning all there is to win at club level, enabling Guardiola to implement his style of possession football from the deepest man on the pitch. …”
The Athletic
The Analyst
“With his cap on backwards, Jurgen Klopp strolled across to Trent Alexander-Arnold during Saturday’s open training session at Singapore’s National Stadium and affectionately draped an arm around his shoulders. A brief chat was followed by a warm embrace between the Liverpool manager and his new vice-captain before they went their separate ways. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“Wolverhampton Wanderers are experiencing a difficult summer. Sporting director Matt Hobbs and frustrated head coach Julen Lopetegui are negotiating the task of refreshing a tired squad while answering a broader challenge from Fosun. Wolves’ owners require a profit in the summer transfer window — a big one. …”
The Athletic
“The way his first coach tells the story, the kid wasn’t even supposed to be on the pitch. It was his older brother’s game. They were a player short. Salvador Aparicio looked over at the stands and saw a small boy playing by himself, in private communion with the ball. When he asked his mother if he could borrow him, she said he didn’t know how to play football. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“In 2019, Liverpool assistant manager Pep Lijnders waxed lyrical to ESPN about the role of Fabinho in the team, describing him as a ‘lighthouse’. ‘Inside the organised chaos that we want, that we like, he is like a lighthouse, he controls it… His timing, his vision, his calmness, it gives another dimension to our midfield play,’ Lijnders said. His arrival from Monaco in 2018 coincided with Liverpool going from a team that challenged for the top four to one that challenged for titles. Along with Alisson, Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah, Fabinho helped take Jürgen Klopp’s men to the next level. …”
The Analyst
“The summer transfer window is hotting up. Every team is spending (or preparing to spend) millions of pounds to try and improve ahead of next season, while managers and coaching across England will have put in hours of work to try and find a way to get even more from the players already at their disposal. Each team has a weakness – yes, even Manchester City – that the staff will need to address this summer, either through recruitment or tactical tweaks on the training ground. Here, we have highlighted an area of the game that each Premier League team could do with improving (that they haven’t already addressed) ahead of next season. Read on to see where your team needs to strengthen. …”
The Analyst
“… Martyn Margetson, goalkeeping coach for the England men’s national team and Championship club Swansea City, sighs as he thinks about that question. … The role and profile of goalkeepers has emerged as a hot topic during this summer’s transfer window, bearing in mind that Tottenham Hotspur, Brentford, Brighton & Hove Albion and Burnley have all paid substantial fees to strengthen that position, and it is only a matter of time before another Premier League club, Manchester United, do the same. …”
The Athletic
“They knew this problem would come one day. Yet, for Barcelona, finding the perfect replacement for the legendary Sergio Busquets at the base of their midfield has quickly become about finding the sum of his parts before the new season begins. With Real Sociedad’s Martin Zubimendi off the table for at least another year, Barcelona manager Xavi’s options to play as the ‘pivote’ have thinned. …”
The Athletic
“There were two key questions around Liverpool’s midfield rebuild this summer: which players would comprise it, and which formation was the club buying for? More specifically, would Jurgen Klopp return to his traditional 4-3-3 system or continue with the 3-box-3 set-up in which Liverpool ended the season. The addition of Dominik Szoboszlai appears to have provided more clarity because the 22-year-old looks extremely well suited to the right-sided No.10 role of the box midfield. …”
The Athletic
Where Dominik Szoboszlai could fit in at Liverpool in 3 systems
W – Dominik Szoboszlai
“The long throw can be one of football’s most feared weapons. But thanks to a change in the English Football League rules to combat time wasting, the long throw is at risk. From 2023/24 using a towel to dry the ball before a long throw is banned. But why? Will it really make a difference? Written by Nancy Froston. Illustrated by Marco Bevilacqua.”
YouTube
“When Roy Hodgson returned to Crystal Palace as interim manager in April, the question came up time and again. Would he be prepared to stay on for longer if everything went well? His response was to bat the subject away. Firstly, he did not know how things would go, secondly, he did not know what plans the club had for the future. So in the end he simply wanted to focus on the job at hand. …”
The Athletic
“Petr Čech: 202 Clean Sheets. When Chelsea handed over seven million pounds for a goalkeeper who had played just over 50 games in Ligue 1 for Rennes, a few eyebrows were raised. Especially as Manchester United had paid just £800,000 more four years previously to secure the services of FIFA World Cup and UEFA European Championship winner Fabien Barthez. But while the Frenchman would only keep 30 clean sheets for the Red Devils, Petr Čech would go on to set the record for the most in Premier League history. …”
The Analyst
“Spain’s Basque Country harbors some of the greatest architects in the world. Mikel Sanz de Prit and César Azkarate are great examples of that, the architects who have designed San Mames, one of the most beautiful stadiums in the world. Another Basque architect, albeit of a different nature, would be Mr. Europa League himself, Unai Emery. A serial European champion, Unai Emery has already built himself an incredible CV, with his most recent success coming with Villarreal, leading the Valencian club to their first ever UEFA Europa League, a title he’s claimed 4 times, 3 with his former club and Villarreal rival Sevilla. …”
Breaking the Lines
W – Unai Emery
YouTube: TACTICAL ANALYSIS | Unai Emery’s 4-4-2 / 6-2-2 Aston Villa tactics
The trader of Seville: Ramón Rodriguez Verdejo, also known as Monchi. Now at Aston Villa.
“Udinese knew about Alexis Sánchez long before he had been called up to play for the Chilean national team. It knew about him before he had played in the Copa Libertadores, before the rest of South America discovered him and before he had caught the acquisitive eyes of Europe’s biggest, richest teams. …”
NY Times
W – Monchi
“After 11 years of Hugo Lloris, Tottenham Hotspur are about to sign a new No 1 goalkeeper. It’s a big moment for the club, especially given Lloris has been the club captain for the past eight of those years. The man tasked with replacing 36-year-old Lloris is the Italian 26-year-old Guglielmo Vicario, who will join Spurs for a fee of £16.3million (€19million). …”
The Athletic (Video)
“You imagine when Channel 4 secured the UK broadcast rights for Nations League football, they had high hopes for its showpiece. The 2023 edition came to a climax last Sunday with the final in Rotterdam, 120 minutes of Spain and Croatia not scoring. It was labelled ‘absorbing’ by one of Channel 4’s Twitter feeds. Eventually, the customary drama of a penalty shootout put the remaining uncertainty of the 2022-23 senior European season out of its misery. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“‘No playmaker in the world can be as good as a good counter-pressing situation!’ – the words of Jurgen Klopp a true advocate of Gegenpressing, the art of swarming the ball player as soon as the ball is turned over.”
YouTube
Counter- or Gegenpressing
“It ends, like it almost always does, in the familiarity of defeat. What else would you really expect when, in the only occupied stand, there is a group of fans named Brigata Mai 1 Gioia? Translation: the ‘Never One Joy Brigade’. When you are a supporter of San Marino, officially the worst international team in the world, it can be useful to have a sense of humour. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“Three weeks on from Everton’s latest relegation escape and the focus is on how long Bill Kenwright will remain chairman of a board with a population of one. Him. Sean Dyche would be forgiven for asking if anyone at the club was listening when he delivered that blunt, honest and overdue appraisal of Everton’s predicament. ‘There is massive amounts of work to be done, not just from me but from everyone at the club,’ the Everton manager said after securing the club’s top-flight status for a 70th successive season with victory over Bournemouth. …”
Guardian
“Kylian Mbappé has outgrown Ligue 1. It’s been evident for a few years now, to be honest. So, it wasn’t all that surprising to hear the news that he isn’t planning on extending his Paris Saint-Germain contract beyond 2024. … The 24-year-old has already achieved more than most will in their whole career. After helping Monaco to the Ligue 1 title in his first full season as a professional in 2016-17, he moved to PSG, where he has won the league in five of his six seasons, only failing to do so in 2020-21. …”
The Analyst
NY Times: Kylian Mbappé Tells P.S.G. He Won’t Extend Contract in 2024
“Footballers don’t tend to indulge in comparisons, but it’s hard not to reminisce when Martin Zubimendi has the ball. His position holds a special place in the history of Spanish football, his subtle technique evocative of the best. Quietly composing each and every move, floating across the pitch, speeding things up and slowing them down, he’s the calm, collected controller of the quintessential Spanish midfield. At 24 years old, his emergence feels timely. Sergio Busquets has bowed out at Barcelona, while Rodri has reached the pinnacle with Pep Guardiola by his side. …”
The Athletic
W – Martín Zubimendi
“It was 5.30am and the sun was already rising by the time the last of Manchester City’s jubilant supporters made it back from the Ataturk Olympic Stadium to the beating heart of Istanbul. This vibrant, enthralling, gloriously chaotic city at the crossroads of the world, where Asia meets Europe in the waters of the Bosphorus, was waking to a new dawn. … Empires rise and empires fall. Istanbul — Byzantium in the days of the Greek empire, Constantinople to the Romans — is the perfect illustration of that. …”
The Athletic
“Manchester City secured the trophy they have been missing and completed a superb treble with a 1-0 victory in the Champions League final against Inter Milan. Rodri broke the deadlock in the 67th minute after Pep Guardiola’s side had found it hard to fashion chances in the first half, during which Kevin De Bruyne had to go off because of a muscle injury. … Celtic 1967, Ajax 1972, PSV 1988, Manchester United 1999, Barcelona 2009 and 2015, Inter Milan 2010, Bayern Munich 2013 and 2020… and now Manchester City 2023. …”
The Athletic
The Athletic – Pep Guardiola: The man behind the genius
BBC – Manchester City: The big numbers behind the Treble (Video)
SI: Manchester City’s Champions League Triumph, Treble Is a Dark Day for Soccer – Jonathan Wilson
Guardian: Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola enters his third age as all-time great – Jonathan Wilson
The Athletic: Manchester City win Champions League for first time, secure treble (Video)
NY Times: Manchester City Appeals Its Champions League Ban and Awaits Its Fate
Rodri scored the winning goal
“Nike gloves. Vapors. Socks pulled above the knee. It’s a look ingrained in millennial culture by Thierry Henry, circa 2003-04, whose on-pitch style personified ‘va va voom.’ You knew you were in trouble if you were faced with an opponent sporting this triple threat. Until then, football socks were very much rolled once at the knee, but Henry’s stylistic tweak gave license for players at all levels of the game to pull them as high as possible. …”
The Athletic
“Chances are you’ve watched a football match or two in your life. Sophisticated and stunningly handsome subscriber to The Athletic that you are, you’re probably pretty good at it. There’s no wrong way for anyone to enjoy the sport. But when it comes to understanding what you’re looking at, it turns out that trying to follow 22 people all doing a hundred different things to influence which way a ball bounces around the pitch is really hard. Coaches and players (and, in our own dumb way, even journalists) spend whole lifetimes learning to watch games better. Maybe you want to, too. …”
The Athletic (Video)
“At the start of Pep Guardiola’s managerial career, he seemed intent on creating the type of team that would have suited him as a player. A slender, technical midfielder who lacked physicality but could spread play calmly, Guardiola’s playing career ended prematurely because football no longer suited his type of player; defensive midfielders at the turn of the century were supposed to be about power and ball-winning ability. …”
The Athletic – Michael Cox (Video)
“Football is dominated now as it never has been before by a handful of superclubs. For many of them, winning their domestic title has come to be regarded almost as a formality. There are vast imbalances within leagues and that, of course, conditions the tactical approach teams take. If you expect to win most games comfortably, everything becomes focused on attacking – which can cause problems for the superclubs on the rare occasions they come up against a team at around their level: they forget not merely how to defend, but also how to fight. …”
Guardian
“Things could go spectacularly well for Ange Postecoglou at Tottenham Hotspur. They could also go spectacularly badly. Where some managers can be considered the safe option, Postecoglou is the opposite. He is extremely talented, a visionary, and can be deeply empathetic. But he is also completely uncompromising. He has an almost evangelical commitment to his principles — mainly that his teams play exciting, attacking football. …”
The Athletic (Video)
W – Ange Postecoglou
“For a long time, 40 points was assumed to be enough for a team to avoid Premier League relegation. In reality, it’s nearly always possible to survive with fewer. But which team has won the least points and still managed to survive? Who is the worst team not to have been relegated? Seb Stafford-Bloor explains, Craig Silcock illustrates.”
YouTube
“… It is as simple as that for Manchester City now: one more match to win, one more trophy to lift. Do that, and they will be treble winners. Their joy at beating Manchester United in the FA Cup final yesterday was there for all to see. Pep Guardiola in tears, the players bouncing up and down arm in arm, physios lifted onto shoulders, turned upside down and spun around. Had this been the last game of their season, it would have meant the world, but with it setting up a shot at history next Saturday in Istanbul, it must mean even more. It feels like their time. …”
The Athletic (Video)
The Athletic – Manchester City 2-1 Manchester United: Analysing FA Cup final’s Gundogan opener, treble talk, ‘keeper comparison’ (Video)
The Athletic – Welcome to Manchester City 3.0: The latest great Guardiola team
Scissors Kick 