José Mourinho hasn’t really mellowed, it’s just that his old enemy Arsène Wenger, whom he will face when Arsenal host Manchester United on Sunday, no longer seems a threatUnfortunately for Arsène Wenger, it is not necessarily a good sign that José Mourinho is no longer talking about him with a curled lip and the overwhelming sense that he has made it a personal mission to see how close he can push his old adversary towards the brink of spontaneous combustion.If it is true, as both managers have said over the last few days, that a truce has been called, it is some turnaround bearing in mind it is not so long ago that the two men could barely bring themselves...
With odd positional shifts, a lumpen midfield and perhaps the least Wenger-like team in two decades, the Arsène Wenger endgame has taken a surprising turnAmong the many oddities of Arsène Wenger’s long goodbye at Arsenal – the anger, the corporate vacuum, the sense of some dying sun-king exploring the outer edges of his own vanity – one of the more interesting details is the weird, gimmicky switch to a back three in the past few matches.It is an unsettling move at this stage, a kind of ageing-swinger version of tactical innovation. At one point in his classic Rabbit novels, John Updike sends his paunchy, middle-aged anti-hero Harry Angstrom off on a slightly sad wife-swapping escapade during a golfing holiday in...
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...
Recent wins have given Arsenal hope of qualifying again for the Champions League but slow recovery from setbacks ensures the title remains beyond themFor the best teams dealing with adversity is second nature. Losing a game, especially a big one, inevitably leaves a few psychological scars. It happens to everyone, even at the top. The trick is developing and maintaining a mentality tough enough to ensure that self-doubt, kryptonite for any professional athlete, is kept at a safe enough distance to ensure that the mind does not conspire against the body. By working hard and keeping the faith, the chances of one setback turning into a crisis are diminished.Momentum matters, of course. When Chelsea lost at Manchester United two weeks...
One of Wenger’s first acts at Arsenal was to shun the system but 21 years on it is in fashion and – partly out of desperation – his team are employing wing-backsIn late September 1996, Arsenal travelled to face Borussia Mönchengladbach in the second leg of a Uefa Cup tie. Arsène Wenger had been confirmed as manager but was supposed to have only a watching brief, formally taking over after the following weekend’s match against Sunderland. At half-time, with the score 1-1 and Arsenal trailing 4-3 on aggregate, he came down from the stands to the dugout where, according to the caretaker, Pat Rice, he offered “one or two ideas”.Arsenal had begun the game with three central defenders (given the...