Former Liverpool captain was a Villan but not a villain on his return to the ground where he made his nameSome at Anfield rose to their feet to applaud a returning figure from their past. Danny Ings was back and he was coming off the bench. Meanwhile, Steven Gerrard grimaced in his distinctly damp vigil in the technical area. He has scripted some of the more improbable tales in 21st century football through sheer willpower but a man whose Liverpool career ended amid the humiliation and farce of a 6-1 thrashing at Stoke knows special occasions do not always go as planned.This didn’t. Not for Gerrard, though his Aston Villa side proved awkward opponents in defeat. Nor, perhaps, for the...
Driven by his league title failure as a player, Aston Villa’s head coach has become a compelling prospect as a managerThere is an interesting, and no doubt very common phenomenon called parasocial interaction. This is where people feel they have an intimate, reciprocal relationship with a famous person, a belief that by consuming images of that person, by thinking about them, the mirror becomes a two-way glass; that they can see you too.We all get this to some extent, right down to the entry-level version where you glimpse a famous person in the street and, as you walk past, automatically say hello-all-right-how’s-it-going-bro-safe-see-you-later-ha-ha-ha-be-lucky-how’s-Tanya, because obviously you must know them, and then five paces down the road realise it was Howard from...
Manchester City are leaking goals, Crystal Palace are not scoring enough and David Moyes has a quandaryThe teams that came second and third in last season’s Championship –and now sit in the form table’s bottom four – meet in what looks a seriously important encounter. Brentford go into it without Ivan Toney, who has tested positive for Covid, and Sergi Canós, suspended after getting a fifth booking of the season for taking off his shirt when celebrating a goal against Leeds last weekend. Watford also have significant injuries, most notably to the winger Ismaïla Sarr, and after a run of encouraging performances in extremely difficult fixtures must seize the opportunity presented by their next few games to haul themselves away...
Liverpool stepping up their title charge, Manchester United old boys scuppering Solskjær and Brighton letting it slipIt is a footnote to the weekend’s biggest story, but the final nail in Ole Gunnar Solskjær’s coffin was partly hammered in by four players who were at various points deemed not good enough for Manchester United. Ben Foster, Craig Cathcart, Tom Cleverley and Joshua King all made vital contributions to a Watford performance that brimmed with energy, intent and endeavour. United’s class of 2021 lacked all those qualities, and plenty more. They were simply overrun and, while Solskjær’s departure was both inevitable and correct, they might wonder whether a better engagement with the basics might have helped their old manager’s cause. After the...
Arsenal might fancy their chances at Anfield and three new managers begin survival bidsThis will be the fourth meeting between Leicester and Chelsea this calendar year, clubs of differing resources whose fortunes nonetheless seem tangled together. Leicester went top after beating Chelsea 2-0 at home in January, James Maddison scoring the second goal before cheerfully claiming: “We knew they switched off at set pieces,” an observation that felt terminal to Frank Lampard’s employment. Having played some part in Thomas Tuchel’s arrival, Leicester won the FA Cup final against him in May, before league defeat at Stamford Bridge three days later helped to ensure the Foxes would narrowly miss out on the Champions League yet again. Chelsea are now European champions...