If the buying period was shorter the playing out of footballer frustrations would be over in a few days rather than dragging on all through the summerIn newspaper terms this time of year has long been known as the silly season; everyone on their holidays, very little taking place in sport or politics, nothing much to report except exaggerated human interest stories or increasingly inane speculation.In football terms that still applies. Everton made their earliest start to a season the other night and despite their entire European campaign hanging on the result against Ruzomberok it still felt like a mid-summer friendly. Ronald Koeman even excused a below-par performance by claiming you could not expect 100% from players after a mere...
The Chilean striker has revealed his frustrations at how Arsenal’s season has gone but losing him would send a damaging signal about the club’s futureAs usual the vast majority of the punters in the Club Level seats that ring all the way round the prime view at the Emirates Stadium took their time to re-emerge into the sunshine after half-time of Arsenal’s game with Manchester United on Sunday. It is a particularly expensive area of the stadium, with plush concourses and refreshments to enjoy at leisure. These are season-ticket holders who are especially important to Arsenal because they generate handsome income, with an outlay roughly between £2,500 and £4,000 per seat, per season. Related: Arsenal’s Danny Welbeck rises high to...
Tottenham’s attacking duo epitomised their side’s youth and vigour in contrast to their opponents’ soft centre and absence of heart in Spurs’ 2-0 winAt the end of this vigorous but ultimately quite straightforward 2-0 victory for Mauricio Pochettino’s focused and muscular Tottenham Hotspur team a large knot of home fans refused to leave their seats, staying instead to dance and sing and hug, gorging themselves on the moment.Half an hour later they were still crammed into the exit walkways of this disintegrating stadium and still singing, appropriately enough, about Dele Alli, who scored the opening goal, who was spiky and incisive when it mattered, and whose partnership with Harry Kane embodied, on the day and beyond, the striking gulf in...
Arsène Wenger’s reaction to Sánchez’s behaviour was a halfway house that demonstrated Arsenal would be better off with a new managerEvery week seems to bring a new episode in the Arsène Wenger endgame. Calamitous results, the same old frailties, worn excuses and now it seems a training-ground row with Arsenal’s best player. Alexis Sánchez now looks very likely to leave the club after arguing with Wenger and his team-mates, a disagreement that led at least in part to his omission from the starting XI for the defeat at Liverpool on Saturday.This development really acts only as confirmation of what even the most amateur of body language experts may have suspected for a while. Sánchez has cut an increasingly irked figure...
The Arsenal manager shunned his usual approach against Liverpool to counter Jürgen Klopp’s pressing tactics but Sánchez’s pace could have been valuableIf this proves to be Arsène Wenger’s final season as Arsenal manager, the 3-1 defeat against Liverpool may be remembered as his most damaging loss. It would be a peculiarly unfitting finale, as the focus here was almost entirely upon Wenger’s shock decision to omit Alexis Sánchez, the Premier League’s top goalscorer and Arsenal’s most dangerous attacker. Wenger later claimed this was a decision made for purely tactical reasons, which would rank as the most atypical selection decision he has made during his two decades in charge of Arsenal.Wenger is not, in simple terms, a keen tactician. His basic...