City’s treble hopes and Manchester derby make things interesting but the unappealing aspects of elite football remainHas the FA Cup lost something? You know, something intangible. Something that made it more special all those years ago. What’s the word? It’s “Tada”, it’s “Abracadabra”, it’s “Piff Paff Puff” … it’s magic perhaps – yes that’s it. Remember when it was magic. Ricky Villa, Norman Whiteside, the Crazy Gang, the Cream Suits. Bert Millichip, velvet bags, Sutton United, Tim Buzaglo, Mickey Thomas, Ronnie Radford.How could we get it back? Did Des Lynam remember to cryogenically freeze the legendary Gerald Sinstadt before he retired? Could we reanimate him and get him on the Manchester United coach at 8am? Could we all give our...
A brilliant team are demolishing even closest rivals and can make history. But glory lies in drama as well as excellenceManchester City are brilliant. They can win games with and without the ball. They can stifle teams with possession or eviscerate them on the counter. They can produce moments of breathtaking combination play but also have in Erling Haaland a centre-forward with a set of attributes, physical and technical, that has been seen only perhaps half a dozen times before. They are magnificent and seemingly on course for a treble. They are also a symptom of the financial structures that are destroying the game football was once understood to be.The naive and the wilfully blind will say there have been...
Erik ten Hag can be satisfied with an FA Cup final place but Brighton show how fine football is possible on a limited budgetSemi-finals, famously, are not for playing but for winning. It doesn’t matter how you get to the final, just that you do so. Brighton will wonder how on earth they didn’t win a game they dominated for long periods, but it is Manchester United who will face Manchester City in the final on 3 June. They just have to hope spite and the desire to prevent City emulating their 1998-99 treble proves a better motivator than overcoming Roberto De Zerbi’s side.This was not a good United performance, nothing like one. As the Wembley PA belted out “Glory,...
Trust, courage, brains and a process: Sunday’s FA Cup semi-finalists have defied all the odds under Tony BloomIt all began with fruit machines on the Brighton seafront: cherries and bells, the flickering lights and weathered carpets of the West Street arcades, the little tinkle of change as a nine-year-old boy’s pocket money disappears down the chute, never to be seen again. Later it would be the horses and dogs, football and cricket, stocks and shares, poker and property empires. And later still the happiness and livelihoods of real human beings, the pride of an entire town.From his very earliest years Tony Bloom knew he had an addictive personality that drove him to gamble. And as the stakes began to rise,...
After a mixed start to life at Manchester City, the Algerian has grown into one of Pep Guardiola’s most influential playersFour years ago Riyad Mahrez may have been excused mixed feelings when, at the end of his first season with Manchester City, they won the domestic treble. He had hardly been incidental to the fact but nor had he proved pivotal: form-wise it had been a mixed introduction to the relentless demands of Pep Guardiola’s football and he would admit, in hindsight, that settling in took time. You hardly needed to scour the internet’s darkest corners to find references to a £60m flop but his only crime was not being the finished article.Now City are on course for a more...