Graham Potter pleads for patience, while Trent Alexander-Arnold’s form is a cause for concern – at least to someCasemiro wins things. Before arriving in Manchester he had claimed five Champions Leagues, three La Liga titles, one Copa América and 15 other trophies for club and country. He’d won 10 of the 12 major finals he’d played. Now he has a Carabao Cup. Manchester United signed a player with an intimate knowledge of that winning feeling. But would any of that experience count in a team that had forgotten what was required to get over the line? Without him they had lost three finals in five years while finishing second in the league on two occasions. How fitting that his headed...
After a decade of entropy the Dutchman’s simple competence has the club enjoying the present and looking to the futureThere was a funny moment at the end of this controlled, slow-burn, oddly inevitable Manchester United Wembley victory. As the final whistle blew and the players fell to their knees and shrieked and yelped, Diogo Dalot found himself running past the slender figure of Erik ten Hag, who was basically just standing there, hands still in his coat pockets.Dalot howled and danced and flexed his neck muscles, apparently expecting some kind of answering victory frenzy. Ten Hag politely shook his hand. Dalot froze, yelped some more, then basically ran off. Continue reading...
Some of Eddie Howe’s team are not likely to stay for much longer but Saudi fortune should see them continue to improveTrafalgar Square, Saturday evening. White smoke against a red sunset, the hot breath of a thousand singing voices wafting into the cold London air like pissed little doves. Wembley is still a day, a three-zone Oyster card journey and several cans away. But in a way, the 2023 League Cup final has already been under way for several hours.They’ve braved the trains, the traffic and London prices. Whole towns have emptied for the weekend. Sam Fender and his band have come along for the party, and pump out a raucous version of Local Hero. Everyone wants a piece of...
In being receptive to new ideas and using specialist knowledge, Klopp has created a culture of continual improvementA 54-year-old performed a dad dance in the Royal Box at Wembley and whipped half of the stadium into a frenzy by hoisting the League Cup aloft not once but three times. Jürgen Klopp’s appetite for the competition, and for winning, should not be questioned again.As is the case after any big club claim the first trophy of the season, the question turned quickly from Liverpool’s Carabao Cup success to its potential impact on other prizes that glitter on the horizon. Klopp’s players have been unequivocal with their answers. On social media Mohamed Salah posted: “One down …” Trent Alexander-Arnold, who stated recently...
Chelsea’s Carabao Cup defeat by Liverpool marked the start of an unclear future in their post-Abramovich eraAs Kepa Arrizabalaga’s losing penalty kick soared high into the dark Wembley skies, still rising, some said, as it cleared Wembley Park tube station, the mass of Liverpool fans behind the goal produced a vast barrelling cheer, bodies tumbling, flares turning the night red.For the Chelsea end, relieved from glorious distraction of an apparently never-ending penalty shootout, the immediate future seems less clear. Continue reading...