The blue side of Liverpool has not been able to celebrate victory in the derby since 2010 but Everton’s midweek win against Arsenal has shown them the way for Monday nightAshley Williams’s 86th-minute winner against Arsenal on Tuesday was his first goal for Everton and the surge of blue pride it provoked could not have been better timed. It would be overstating the case to suggest Ronald Koeman and his players can now go into Monday’s Merseyside derby brim full of confidence, especially with Phil Jagielka suspended as a result of the last-minute mayhem in the Arsenal match, but at least the cloud of gloom that was beginning to surround Goodison has been lifted.Before the Arsenal victory Koeman had been...
The balance shifts from Arsenal to Manchester City, Chelsea could take a defining step away from the pack and Jack Wilshere’s chance to crack onGiven Chelsea’s rampaging form at the top of the table, the first Premier League meeting between Pep Guardiola and Arsène Wenger feels hugely significant, particularly for Manchester City who could find themselves 10 points off the title pace should they suffer defeat at the Etihad. A week ago Arsenal might have started this contest as favourites, but their 14-game unbeaten streak in the league came to an end in the midweek defeat at Goodison Park, while City rectified their recent slump with a confident 2-0 win over Watford. City’s performance was enhanced by Raheem Sterling’s return...
Jürgen Klopp was right to take Loris Karius out of the spotlight, Tottenham’s back three can set their full-backs free and Marcos Rojo has not learnedIn truth, Simon Mignolet did not have much to do during Liverpool’s 3-0 victory at Middlesbrough, but Loris Karius was taken out of the spotlight nevertheless. The saga involving Liverpool’s first-choice goalkeeper before the midweek fixtures overshadowed all else at the club, but Jürgen Klopp’s team responded with a convincing performance, one of their best this season. On Karius, the Liverpool manager said: “I’m not interested in public pressure, I’m interested in the boy and there’s no reason to push him through this situation.” Mignolet appears set for an extended run in the team while...
The Manchester City and Everton managers confirm that mastering English football and the emphasis on second balls is making life more difficult than they imagined it to beEnglish football. Is it any good or not? Do we have the game we desire, a contest with extra dimensions such as aggression and bravery, or is our version just a primitive ancestor of what everyone else is playing, a throwback revelling in the physical aspects of confrontation that more cerebral exponents bypassed years ago?In some form or other the question has been debated for decades. The reason for asking it now is that on Tuesday 13 December 2016 both Pep Guardiola and Ronald Koeman made the same point about English football. They...
Hearts and heads were put to fine use by an Everton side who reawakened a home crowd with a gutsy display to which Arsène Wenger’s men had no answerEnglish football, bloody hell. The last five minutes of this game alone were worth the admission price, and that was after all the goals had been scored. Everton went down to 10 men, at one point both goalkeepers were standing in the same net, and how the ball stayed out as Arsenal saw shot after shot stopped on the line in the closing seconds is a mystery that will only be solved by a close examination of slow‑motion replays. If you like your action raucous and loud, and as long as you...