Pep Guardiola failed in his effort in the summer to sign Arsenal’s star forward but the club’s youthful front line has blossomed without the Chilean this seasonYou can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes – and you’re not too scarred by a complex, deadline-week, dual-jurisdiction triple-swoop involving both Raheem Sterling and Thomas Lemar – you might find you get what you need.Manchester City might have been flying even higher at the top of the league and have scored more than their 35 goals had Alexis Sánchez signed from Arsenal in late August. Who knows, as the fixture list starts to bite, City’s fans may look on their brilliant but callow front line and think wistfully of...
Liverpool’s search for a penalty-taker goes on, Mauricio Pochettino appeared unruffled after defeat at Old Trafford and Manchester City don’t look invincibleNext Sunday, Manchester City host Arsenal at 1.30pm and Manchester United play Chelsea at 4pm; it really is amazing just how often the fixture list throws up these coincidences! And whatever happens in the first game, the pressure will be on those playing in the second, because if City win, those teams will be fighting to stay in touch; if they do not, they will be fighting to take advantage of a rare City slip. So how do Arsenal make that happen? Well, their attacking trident of Mesut Özil, Alexis Sánchez and Alexandre Lacazette are good enough to give...
Arsène Wenger must continue with golden front trio; Christopher Schindler was a great buy for Huddersfield; Manchester City defence is as key as their attackThis was the first time Arsène Wenger had started Mesut Özil, Alexandre Lacazette and Alexis Sánchez in his XI. Yet until Everton went down to 10 men Arsenal were hardly a goal machine, having struggled to a 2-1 lead when Idrissa Gueye was sent off. At this point Özil was on the scoresheet, and by the final whistle Lacazette and Sánchez had also registered. Wenger, of course, cannot rely on the opposition having a man getting his marching orders every game. But even before this happened there was cause for optimism: Sánchez created Özil’s strike while...
Both teams lurched from one disjointed moment to the next at Goodison Park and Everton’s 5-2 defeat will damage the Dutchman’s long-term job prospectsThis curiosity of a contest said everything about these two teams’ current travails. It pitted one in serious crisis – Everton – against one always seemingly near to the next – Arsenal. An odd sense of elite professionals muddling through prevailed until Idrissa Gueye was sent off on 68 minutes and the Gunners pulled away.Before then Everton and Arsenal had each suffered from an absence of stability and clearness of vision. Instead the players lurched from one disjointed moment to the next. The Gunners began like the proverbial train that suggested a seventh defeat in 11 matches...
Özil has been accused of not running enough or working hard enough but after four years at Arsenal he remains basically the same player with the same skillsYou’d have to try pretty hard not to like Paul Merson as a TV pundit. Even if you insisted on making a public show of not liking him – rolling your eyes, clutching a scented handkerchief, pointing out, pedantically, that he often talks a load of rubbish – it would be hard to avoid secretly liking him all the same.Maybe not in the same way you might like Ian Wright, who has in the past few years taken a breath, realised he can just say whatever’s on his mind and become in the process...