A win at Crystal Palace will give City 19 league wins on the trot, a feat the coach also achieved in Munich. How do Pep’s record breakers compare?Manchester City managers of the future have a problem. The football played at the end of 2017 will always be the standard to which they are held. This month, City fan Noel Gallagher, a man not known for his compliments and somebody that has seen 250,000 people at Knebworth sing his name, described what is going on at the Etihad as “the greatest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life”.Hyperbole perhaps, but if you do not agree that Pep Guardiola’s side are playing the best football of the Premier League era, then...
Max and co discuss superior goalkeeper distribution, celebrations at both end of the enthusiasm scale, Celtic losing, Sunderland winning and Ryan BabelRate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and Philippe Auclair for Football Weekly, to look back at the weekend just gone. Continue reading...
On course for their fourth manager in under five months, Las Palmas had drifted to the foot of La Liga before a lifeline emerged against Espanyol …The new manager of Unión Deportiva de Las Palmas is on holiday and won’t be back until the new year. He wasn’t on the bench at the Estadio Gran Canaria on Sunday and won’t be on the bench at the Coliseum on Wednesday either, while the man who will be there in Getafe knows he’ll be gone by the end of the game: he won’t make it to Christmas – which wouldn’t be that unusual except he only started work at the end of November – and the man replacing him won’t make it...
Fans would be content just to see Milan’s ship steadied so they can have a chance to enjoy their rivals’ mishaps. Even that, apparently, is too much to askYou could not blame Milan fans for enjoying a moment of schadenfreude. They had endured abundant humiliations already this season, from the 4-1 mauling at Lazio through to the last-gasp draw against pointless Benevento. It was time for somebody else to suffer. Better yet that it should be their neighbours, Inter, who had begun the weekend top of the table.The Nerazzurri were expected to extend their unbeaten start at home to 13th-placed Udinese on Saturday. There was a festive vibe at San Siro, where fans were given Santa hats before being invited...
A swarm of clutch finishes marked out the final round of games before the winter break, including drama for leaders Bayern in their win at StuttgartThe memo, it appeared, was widely received. As the Bundesliga’s Hinrunde – the season’s first half – came to a close, there was plenty to offer succour for the four weeks ahead. There were 36 goals rattled in across the nine games and a swarm of clutch finishes that owed as much to Hollywood as they did to Berlin.Augsburg, one of the surprise overachievers of the opening half, looked like finishing with a whimper as they went into the 90th minute 3-1 down at home to a revitalised Freiburg. No problem – two stoppage-time finishes...