Tag Archives: Manchester City

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

What Omar Marmoush brings to Manchester City: Lethal on the break, runs behind and a passing option

“Before Omar Marmoush was racking up goals and assists in the Bundesliga, he was figuring out how to use the washer-dryer and prepare his own meals. As an 18-year-old, the transition from Cairo, the vast capital of his homeland Egypt (population: 10million), to the small German city of Wolfsburg (pop: 125,000) wasn’t the smoothest. After impressing with Cairo club Wadi Degla’s youth sides and featuring in their first team in 2016-17, Marmoush set off to Germany the following summer having accepted an offer from Wolfsburg. Initially, he spent two seasons in the reserves. This was a period which shaped him and improved his mental resilience. He took time to adapt off the pitch, too. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

The Manchester clubs striving and thriving in the shadows of City and United

“Living on the doorstep of footballing monoliths can come in handy sometimes. With Greater Manchester in the grip of a cold snap last week, Salford City were left without anywhere to train. The pitches at their Littleton Road base were frozen solid. Salford rent the pitches from Manchester United for a nominal fee. A call into Old Trafford asked whether there were any alternative options. The offer of an indoor pitch at The Cliff, United’s old headquarters, was happily accepted. ‘The problem we’ve got is it’s only 50 yards wide and I think only 80 yards long,’ said Salford’s manager Karl Robinson before Saturday’s trip to Manchester City. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

The Briefing: Arsenal’s worrying start to 2025, a fix for the FA Cup and Walker’s legacy

“The quality was not the same, but Manchester United’s FA Cup third-round win over Arsenal felt like a throwback. The red card started proceedings, but the contentious penalty decision followed by the team-wide scuffle will be a memory that could rival some of the battles between Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson’s sides of the 1990s and 2000s. Two of the most iconic moments of that rivalry involved penalties taken by Ruud van Nistelrooy so it seemed fitting the first meeting in a cup competition between Mikel Arteta and Ruben Amorim should end with another Dutch striker dispatching a winning spot kick. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

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

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

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)

‘I don’t digest food properly now’: The all-consuming pressure of managing a football club

“Pep Guardiola’s list of symptoms is long and unsettling. He has trouble sleeping. He can only take light meals in the evening. On some days, he does not eat at all. He finds it difficult to read because his mind keeps wandering. He feels, at times, intensely lonely. Things can get so bad that they begin to take on a physical form: bouts of back pain, breakouts on his skin. They are not isolated to moments like the one in which the Manchester City manager finds himself trapped, when his team are locked in a tailspin he has spent the better part of two months trying and failing to halt. By his own admission, he is always like that. Guardiola cannot sleep, or eat, or relax even when things are going well at work. …”
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)

Kyle Walker is caught in the grip of a crisis. He has become the on-pitch face of Man City’s struggles

“Kyle Walker never expected this. He didn’t expect to be captain of the Premier League champions at the age of 34. He didn’t expect to be closing in on 100 caps for England. He thought the treadmill would have slowed down by now. He thought the spotlight would have become less intense. If you had invited him to map out his career 10 years ago, or even after Manchester City signed him for £50million in the summer of 2017, he would have guessed he would be back at Sheffield United by now. That was his only real ambition growing up on the Lansdowne Estate in Sheffield, his horizons and dreams stretching little further than Bramall Lane half a mile away. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Man City 1 Man Utd 2 – Amad’s genius, Nunes’ errors and Amorim’s set-piece problem

“Amad scored a brilliant late winner in the Manchester derby shortly after earning the penalty that had put Ruben Amorim’s team level as Manchester City crumbled in the closing stages at the Etihad Stadium. The main story before the game was Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho being left out of the United squad, with United head coach Amorim saying he made the decision after evaluating ‘everything’. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
Guardian: Rashford runs out of road at Manchester United as Ratcliffe shows steely edge
NY Times/The Athletic: Why Lisandro Martinez’s new creative role was key to Manchester United beating City

Mikheil Kavelashvili used to play for Manchester City. Now he’s Georgia’s far-right president-elect

“It was an April’s day in an era when Manchester City were still playing at Maine Road and a visit from Manchester United was a lot more daunting than it has been in recent years. City were on the attack. The ball was swung over from the left into the penalty area. Gary Neville was never going to beat Niall Quinn, the 6ft 4in (193cm) City striker, in an aerial contest. Another player in blue was waiting for Quinn’s knockdown. And that was the moment Martin Tyler’s voice went up an octave in the Sky Sports commentary box. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

Dean Henderson’s ‘head saves’ – and how they are lifting Crystal Palace

“Dean Henderson is using his head in helping Crystal Palace return to form. The England goalkeeper has been showcasing an unusual kind of save in recent months, stopping three goal-bound efforts with his face after rushing out to close down an attacker. The first was against Pablo Sarabia during the 2-2 draw with Wolves on November 2; then, a week later, he denied Andreas Pereira even though Palace were eventually beaten 2-0 by Fulham. Most recently, and memorably, he repeated the trick against Erling Haaland in another 2-2 against champions Manchester City. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

What Ruben Amorim can expect from his first Manchester derby: Vomit, hostility and a proper rivalry

“Ruben Amorim has faced a range of clubs during his first six games as Manchester United head coach, from Arsenal in the Premier League to Bodo/Glimt in the Europa League. Those six matches have brought positives, negatives and mixed results, but his opponents on Sunday, Manchester City, will pose a different challenge. Pep Guardiola’s side go into the game at the Etihad looking a shadow of their dominant selves, winners of the past four Premier League titles, but derby days are different, even if Amorim is playing down its significance. …”
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

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’

Inside the mind of Erling Haaland: Everything and nothing

“Inside the mind of Erling Haaland there is a searing, scorching, unplayable nothing. This may not sound like much of a compliment, not when we are considering the most prolific striker of his generation — a man who has taken a flamethrower to the history books — but it is precisely this destructive blankness that elevates the Manchester City and Norway centre-forward into football’s stratosphere. Not convinced? This is what Haaland said to Alan Shearer, the Premier League’s record goalscorer, in an interview for The Athletic a couple of years ago when the pair of them bonded — communed, really — over the art and obsession of ball meeting net. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
NY Times/The Athletic: Putting Manchester City’s month-long losing streak into too much context

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

Kyle Walker was not to blame for Manchester City’s vulnerable right side, Pep Guardiola was

“Modern football coverage has never been so focused on individuals, at a time when the game itself has never been so systemic. The reaction to Manchester City’s 4-0 home defeat against Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday was a good example — this was, from City’s perspective, surely a collective collapse rather than one based on individual failings. But post-match coverage focused largely on Kyle Walker and the space Tottenham found in behind him. So here, by way of providing some balance, is a defence of Walker, who was put in a very difficult position because of City manager Pep Guardiola’s approach. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
NY Times/The Athletic: How Tottenham stunned Manchester City
NY Times/The Athletic: Sixteen things that help explain Pep Guardiola losing five games in a row for the first time

What does Pep Guardiola staying mean for Manchester City?

“At a time of significant uncertainty around Manchester City and the Premier League, Pep Guardiola’s new contract is a major boost for the club. The Brighton fans sang “you’re getting sacked in the morning” as City lost their fourth match in a row before the international break, but the quality of the manager and his employers’ absolute confidence in him meant that, far from scrutiny, in his two weeks off, he was handed a new deal that should see him stay at City for another two years. Guardiola’s ability speaks for itself and has been reiterated by the latest City in-house documentary, but the very fact he remains in place is surely just as valuable given the change of sporting director, the possible departure of some key players and, of course, an impending outcome of the Premier League charges. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
BBC: Five challenges ahead for Guardiola and Man City

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

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)

Defensive issues have impacted Manchester City’s week – could they undermine the entire season?

“All of a sudden, Manchester City look rather mortal. If Wednesday night’s Carabao Cup defeat at Tottenham Hotspur can be chalked up as a blessing in disguise for a side with a packed schedule, Saturday’s Premier League loss away to Bournemouth was, at best, sobering, and at worst, genuinely concerning. It means City have been beaten in consecutive games for the first time in over a year. The last time it happened was September 2023, when they lost 1-0 at Newcastle United in the Carabao Cup’s third round and then 2-1 at Molineux by Wolverhampton Wanderers in the league three days later. …”
NY Times/The Athletic

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

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

Manchester City have a specific defensive flaw – but will their rivals be able to take advantage?

“The thing with Manchester City is that everybody seems to have learned not to worry too much about any dips in form. Whether you are a fan of the club or one of their rivals for the Premier League title, City have proven that they smooth things out sooner or later. (There were doubts about the team in the second half of the season during the last two years, but they won the title on both occasions anyway.) Heading into the international break, following City’s fairly uncomfortable 3-2 victory over Fulham, Pep Guardiola said he would use his time to look at the goals that his team have conceded this season. …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)

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

Advantage Amorim? How Hugo Viana appointment might influence City’s Guardiola succession-planning

“Life at Manchester City is generally pretty calm, but this week’s events could be a sign that times are changing. Monday brought the much-disputed outcome of City’s associated party transaction legal challenge to the Premier League, Tuesday the news that Txiki Begiristain is to step away from his role as director of football at the end of this season and now it has been revealed that Hugo Viana will leave Sporting Lisbon to replace him. …”
NY Times/The Athletic (Video)

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

Why Guardiola, Maresca and Salah love chess: Space, patterns and ‘controlling the centre’

“What do Pep Guardiola and Enzo Maresca have in common? Coaches wedded to a certain style of football? Midfielders who became managers? Worked together at Manchester City? Bald? All of these things are true, but that’s not the answer we have on the card. The answer we’re looking for? Chess. Both men, who meet at Stamford Bridge this afternoon, are keen proponents of the idea that football can learn plenty from chess, and they as coaches can take valuable lessons from it too. After leaving Barcelona in 2012, Guardiola took a sabbatical and travelled to New York, where he met with Garry Kasparov, the Russian grandmaster. He has also studied the methods of the world’s top-ranked chess player, Magnus Carlsen. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
Chess, W – Chess, W – Computer_chess

Game Of The Century | Byrne vs Fischer (1956)

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?

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)

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)

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

Tottenham 2 Arsenal 3: Quick start key again? What is Havertz? How unlucky were Spurs?

“The title race remains on. Arsenal made sure of that at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. For Spurs, though, the race for a top-four spot looks less likely to be won after a chastening defeat to their north London rivals. This derby victory put Mikel Arteta’s side four points clear at the top of the Premier League before second-placed Manchester City’s match against Nottingham Forest. City’s victory means there is now one point between the top two, with City having a game in hand. …”
The Athletic
The Athletic: Nottingham Forest 0 Man City 2: Haaland’s impact? Champions League exit benefit? – The Briefing

How long do you give a ‘project manager’?

“When asked at which point a club gives up on a ‘project’, a mixture of current and former directors at Premier League clubs tend to arrive at the same answer. ‘When the fans say so,’ says one of them, who would like to remain nameless because he does not really want to admit publicly that, in the past, he has helped pull the trigger because of the pressure he and his colleagues were under. …”
The Athletic

Many Premier League champions have ‘choked’ – the true test is can you recover in time

“Fred Done had been a bookmaker for more than three decades, with more than 100 betting shops across the north west of England, before he unwittingly stumbled upon a brilliant but expensive way to make more people aware of his brand. In March 1998 he announced he was paying out early on the Premier Leaguetitle race. Manchester United were 11 points clear of second-placed Blackburn Rovers and 12 points clear of third-placed Arsenal. Both of the chasers had games in hand — three in Arsenal’s case — but, as far as the bookie was concerned, it was all over. …”
The Athletic (Video)

Erling Haaland is not in crisis – but the Man City striker is human after all

“Erling Haaland is not in crisis. Let’s not be silly here. He’s the odds-on favourite to win the domestic double and the Premier League Golden Boot for the second season in a row, a feat not even Thierry Henry managed to pull off. If Antonio Rudiger’s final shootout penalty for Real Madrid this week had hit the post one more inch to the left, Manchester Citymight still be favoured to make it back-to-back trebles. …”
The Athletic

Football’s elite are tightening up – and Arsenal lead the pack

“Tho said football was supposed to be fun? Sunday’s meeting between Manchester City and Arsenal was billed as an epic showdown between sorcerer and apprentice that might decide the league title. It produced a total of three shots on target – which is to say as many as Brentford had against Manchester United between the 53rd and 55th minutes. Admire the tactical machinations if you like, the levels of concentration and the planning that went into it, the obviously refined level of the lack of action, but this was shit on a stick for the TikTok generation. ….”
Guardian – Jonathan Wilson

Manchester City 0 Arsenal 0: Defences on top as title rivals cancel each other out – The Briefing

“Manchester City versus Arsenal was one of the most anticipated games of the Premier League season but its sheer importance in the title race — and how equally matched the two sides are — resulted in a cautious and goalless first half. The energy and aggression were dialled up after the break but chances remained at a premium. After we witnessed 99 touches in the penalty area in Brentford’s game with Manchester United yesterday, this was a very different sort of game. Technical, tactical, tense. …”
The Athletic

The Premier League, where scoring first doesn’t matter anymore

“It takes commitment to support Norwich City. There’s the flitting between the Premier League and the Championship. There’s your arch-rivals becoming very good at football. There’s competing in a financial world that feels increasingly distant from Carrow Road. And speaking of distance — the travel distances from East Anglia make every away day an odyssey. …”
The Athletic

Champions League quarter-final draw: Predictions, tactics and players to watch

“The Champions League quarter-final draw is complete — and there is no shortage of intrigue. From the winners of the last two seasons (Manchester City and Real Madrid) being paired against each other to Harry Kane returning to north London to face Arsenal, or one-half of the draw opening up for one of the less-fancied teams in the last eight (something unlikely to ever happen again given the format changes from next season), the sub-plots are fascinating. The Athletic assembled an expert panel to cast their eyes over the four ties to explain where they will be decided, who they are tipping to go through and which team they are expecting to lift the trophy at Wembley on June 1. …”
The Athletic (Video)

Liverpool vs Manchester City: This is what a Premier League classic looks like

“Jurgen Klopp summed it up perfectly: ‘What a game, what an atmosphere, what an afternoon.’ Even his wife enjoyed it. ‘She was completely buzzing,’ the Liverpool manager said — and just about everyone inside Anfield must have felt the same. It ended with the points shared: Liverpool 1-1 Manchester City. In that respect, perhaps the biggest beneficiaries were Arsenal, who remain top of the Premier League with 10 games left, ahead of Liverpool on goal difference. But it was one of those afternoons when it feels legitimate rather than trite to suggest football was the winner — another epic battle between these two teams who, in terms of speed and imagination, can give you the feeling you are watching 4D chess. …”
The Athletic (Video)
The Athletic: How Guardiola’s double substitution helped save Manchester City against Liverpool
The Athletic: Breaking down four minutes of chaos that could change course of Premier League title (Video)
The Athletic: Liverpool’s ‘exceptional’ display against Man City should fuel belief this team can go the distance (Video)

The Premier League Title Race Hasn’t Been This Thrilling in Years

“… And, of course, there’s the three-way ongoing slugfest in the English Premier League. Ahead of Man City and Liverpool’s consequential matchup on Sunday, the Reds are top of the table with 63 points, while City, the reigning champions, are on 62 points and third-place Arsenal have 61 points—each with 11 games left to determine who will lift the Premier League trophy in May. …”
The Ringer

Inside Liverpool’s commercial strategy: Blue-chip deals, U.S. focus and closing Man City gap

“The battle off the field in the Premier League is as keenly contested as the one on it. Liverpool’s recently published accounts for the 2022-23 season showed that commercial income had risen by £25million to £272m ($345.5m at the current exchange rate) – moving above broadcast and other media revenue to become the club’s biggest source of cash. That figure has almost doubled in the space of five years but they are still playing catch-up on two of their domestic rivals. Manchester City lead the way with annual commercial revenue of £341million, followed by Manchester United on £303m. …”
The Athletic

Goal kicks: How does each Premier League club take them?

“An outfield player taking a goal kick used to be a rare treat, a sign that the goalkeeper had pulled a muscle and needed a willing team-mate to launch the ball towards the centre circle. But since a tweak of football’s laws in 2019, the once-humble goal kick has become an increasingly integral part of how a club chooses to build up play. Some teams choose to have a defender pass the ball laterally to the goalkeeper, some ask the goalkeeper to play short to team-mates in the box, while some still prefer to go long and direct. …”
The Athletic

Nottingham Forest 0 Liverpool 1: Was this the kind of win champions deliver? – The Briefing

“Somehow, Liverpool keep finding a way. An afternoon which looked certain to finish in frustration ended in frantic, joyous celebrations as Darwin Nunez’s header in the last minute of stoppage time secured a 1-0 win at Nottingham Forest. It extends Liverpool’s lead at the top of the table to four points ahead of Manchester City’s game against Manchester United tomorrow and Arsenal’s at Sheffield United on Monday. We dissect the main talking points of another remarkable day. …”
The Athletic
The Athletic – Explained: Liverpool’s winner, a drop ball, angry Marinakis and a vocal Clattenburg cameo

Erik ten Hag is imagining bad faith from Jamie Carragher. Perhaps he senses the ground shaking

“As Erik ten Hag addressed reporters in a media suite at the club’s Carrington training ground, he opted for the oldest trick in the book of any Manchester United manager: go after a man from Liverpool. Sir Alex Ferguson was never shy in reminding the BBC how many former Liverpool pundits the national broadcaster had on its books. In 2012, Ferguson accused the ex-Liverpool defender Alan Hansen of criticising United publicly as a favour to his friend and then Liverpool boss Kenny Dalglish in a bid to rile United before a cup tie between the two clubs. …”
The Athletic

Introducing the 8.5, the hybrid role that is shaping the Premier League title race

“This season’s battle for the Premier League title is now unquestionably a three-horse race. In May, Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City will become the first side in English football history to win four titles in a row. Or Jurgen Klopp will win his second Premier League title before departing Liverpool. Or Mikel Arteta will lead Arsenal to their first league title in two decades. Whichever outcome transpires, the victorious side will have depended on a player who has fulfilled an unusual role this season. …”
The Athletic – Michael Cox

How Chelsea stopped City initially – and the tactical tweak that earned Guardiola an equaliser

“When a team performs below their normal standards, questions are often asked about the manager’s decisions and the players’ output. Yet, it takes two sides to play a game of football. The opponent’s level could be one of the reasons a certain team aren’t as good as usual on a given day. ‘It’s in general, when you perform like this always there are many reasons, not just one,’ said Manchester City manager, Pep Guardiola, when he was asked about his team’s performance in the first half of their 1-1 home draw against Chelsea on Saturday. …”
The Athletic

Arsenal, Manchester City or Liverpool? The Premier League’s title race analysed

“The maths are pretty simple. Only two points separate the top three with one-third of the season remaining — three points, if Manchester City win their game in hand against Brentford on Tuesday. For the first time in a long time, it looks like we have a proper three-horse race on our hands. There is just a small snag that someone might want to share with Messrs Guardiola, Klopp and Arteta — three does not go into one. So who are the favourites to win the title? …”
The Athletic