Leicester can test City but Liverpool face a challenge of their own, it’s all or nothing for Cardiff and Watford need to regroupFollowing the disappointment of their reasonably heroic Champions League defeat at Barcelona, Liverpool must rouse themselves for what could be an extremely tricky Saturday evening appointment at Newcastle in which they simply cannot afford to slip up. With only two matches of the Premier League campaign remaining, anything less than a win for Liverpool would leave the door open for Manchester City to all but wrap up the title on Monday. One suspects this is a far tougher assignment than Jürgen Klopp would like so soon after a gruelling and dispiriting game at the Camp Nou and the...
Manager once again turned to his blundering centre-back and the attackers had to atone for his team’s defensive failingsBefore this match Valencia had always had Arsenal’s number. They had won all three previous ties between the pair and then, in 2016, took £35m off the Gunners for Shkodran Mustafi. That is what folks in north London might refer to as being properly mugged off and if it did not exactly make this a grudge match, it at least reinforced the need for Arsenal to win for their own sense of worth, before anything else. That was true for Mustafi more than anyone.Although the first meeting between these clubs ended in a penalty shootout defeat for Arsenal after a 0-0 draw...
A chance for Shaqiri to shine, City may need to show their dark side and Cardiff can pile pressure on BrightonPep Guardiola is not usually short of post-match praise for his players, but he struck a different note after the Manchester derby win. “Tonight we can enjoy it, but tomorrow it’s over, so we have to be focused,” he said. “I know people are going to talk about how beautiful, how handsome we are, but now we have to go to Burnley”. Guardiola is rightly taking nothing for granted even after taking the necessary six points from Spurs and United. Burnley were one of six teams to take points off City last season and have routinely posed problems for the...
Arsenal used to be in a strikingly similar position to Tottenham now but Spurs dont want to follow their rivals path since 2006the short interval since Tottenhams wild, fun, chancy away-goals victory at Manchester City in the Champions League there has been a shared urge to draw the starkest of comparisons between the two clubs: their finances, their structure, the various degrees of faux-humble Jedi-cardigan fraudulence exhibited by their managers. It is in many ways a meaningless exercise. This is a comparison of two entirely separate things, entirely separate ways of trying to reach the same point, not to mention one that is inevitably flattering to Spurs and inevitably bruising for Pep Guardiola and the football-style soft-power project operating in...
Its awards time for the most incompetent teams in the Premier League, from those who cant take throw-ins to others who revel in needless yellow cardsWelcome to the Guardians fifth annual index of ineptitude, a catalogue of calamity, a prospectus of the piss-poor.As each season draws to a close, the best moments, players and teams of the year are all charted, celebrated and cheered. Which means that what comprises most of the rest of the Premier League experience is missed. Related: The Premier League teams ineptitude index 2017-18 Continue reading...