Turning a group of stars into a cohesive team is like gluing the Millennium Falcon together while hurtling through hyperspaceNew toys! Never mind the score. Never mind the brittleness in a Chelsea performance that was fun and frisky, but which felt at times like devouring a series of starter plates; and never mind that West Ham might easily have won this game but for the intervention of VAR in the dying moments.Just check out the names. And what a Chelsea starting XI this was at the London Stadium. Here they come, the project boys, the Todd Academy, seven players under 24, five new signings, and a side that carried its own sense of gameshow conveyor belt excitement. A World Cup...
Huge spree on Fernández, Mudryk, Nkunku and Madueke raises more questions about the coherence of Boehly’s plansAmortisation over a long-term deal. Heavily incentivised contracts. A couple of relatively quiet windows before Roman Abramovich was forced to sell the club. There’s been a lot written over the past few months about how Chelsea can afford a spree that will hit £620m when the Christopher Nkunku deal happens next June. But perhaps the bigger question is why? What on earth are they doing?Structure the deals as cleverly as you like, that money still has to be paid at some point. Chelsea’s spending has been of the sort you would expect from a megalomaniac billionaire taking over a club, when the point is...
Arsenal reap the rewards of an old-school striker, Thiago Silva turns back the clock and Ten Hag’s tactics hit a snagFast-paced, tactically intricate and dramatic to the last, Arsenal v Manchester United was a heavyweight clash that lived up to its billing. It also showcased two models of centre-forward that were meant to be extinct: the old-fashioned target man and the old-fashioned poacher. Spearheading United’s attack, Wout Weghorst pressed with zeal and offered a focal point for United’s free-roaming wide men. It was his peeling run, drawing Gabriel to his left, that afforded Marcus Rashford the angle to blast home the opener. Nketiah pressed with similar intelligence but dropped deep when required to link with his midfield. Both his goals...
Pep Guardiola has slowly eased academy products into the first team squad while Chelsea’s have been thrown in at deep endTo be the leading man in slightly smaller productions, or to be an understudy for the elite? It’s not the most significant consequence of the financial stratification of modern football but what the division of the game into superclubs and the rest has done is make that decision far more urgent for promising young players. Which is why, quite apart from anything else, the domestic cup competitions matter. It’s hardly the romance of old, the epic tales of knockout glory that thrilled previous eras, but the FA Cup offers a stage on which the next generation can test themselves.But there...
The striker was largely subdued at Stamford Bridge, which in itself caught the eye as the champions displayed their class It took less than two minutes at Stamford Bridge for Pep Guardiola, dressed for a mild January night in a Captain Haddock outfit of navy blue roll neck and chunky black shoes, to appear on his touchline and begin whirling his arms in a series of lightning-fast rotational gestures.Guardiola whistled and pirouetted. He summoned Erling Haaland and machine-gunned him with tactical instructions. Haaland nodded. What was Pep saying here? Look a bit more menacing? Walk around a bit more? At this stage the game was 90 seconds old. Continue reading...