FA Cup semi-final shows few goalkeepers are more misunderstood than Chelsea’s under-appreciated Senegal internationalIt must be very strange to be Édouard Mendy, a goalkeeper who seems doomed never quite to be centre stage. And when the spotlight does fall on him, it often feels it’s from a strange angle, that he’s not really appreciated for what he’s best at. Goalkeepers perhaps struggle than other positions to be properly understood, but few seem as misunderstood as the Senegal international.In a very slightly different world, one in which Gianluigi Donnarumma had not made a vastly expensive move and saved crucial penalties in shootouts in the semi-final and final of Euro 2020, Mendy would have won a raft of goalkeeping awards last year....
Colombian was too quick for a punch-drunk City in the first half at Wembley and could provide the magic Liverpool need to make historyThree minutes into the second half of this FA Cup semi-final Luis Díaz took the ball just inside his own half, looked up and saw in freeze-frame the figure of Fernandinho suspended inches above the Wembley turf, rotated at an angle of 60 degrees to the ground, left leg extended to meet the ball – and in the process to send Díaz in a semi-somersault arc as the frame of Fernandino propelled itself through the space where previously he, Díaz, had stood.It wasn’t a foul, although the next one on Sadio Mané was, a slide into the...
Forest come close to a Cup upset, Steven Gerrard tells Bukayo Saka to toughen up and Leicester’s crisis looks to be overLiverpool may have been under full strength but even in defeat it was a test emphatically passed by Steve Cooper’s burgeoning Nottingham Forest side. The hosts displayed impressive defensive discipline and shape to keep Liverpool out for 78 minutes, and arguably should have had a penalty soon after conceding. They almost certainly would have been awarded a spot-kick had Ryan Yates altered his direction slightly and aimed to draw more significant contact from Alisson, the kind of trick pulled so often by Premier League forwards for the benefit of the video assistant referee. The VAR decision to rule Diogo...
The Liverpool manager has reached his first FA Cup semi-final but they were pushed all the way by old foes Nottingham ForestRewind more than four decades and, long before Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp became English football’s defining managerial duel, it was Brian Clough against Bob Paisley. If the German, with his Clough-esque charisma, eminent quotability and seeming ability to shape events by force of personality, seems to borrow more from the architect of Nottingham Forest’s success than his most decorated predecessor at Anfield, he has something in common with both.He has coached teams to glory in the European Cup but never the FA Cup. For a couple more months, anyway. Guardiola still blocks his path. Thomas Tuchel, another Champions...
Riverside’s sparse away end a symbol of visitors’ ongoing crisis, but also of the deep dysfunction at the heart of the gameThe Riverside has been no stranger to the sight of empty seats in recent years, but on Saturday those that surrounded the 700 or so Chelsea fans who had managed to buy tickets before Roman Abramovich was sanctioned by the UK government told not of Middlesbrough’s troubles but a more poignant story of the state of English football.Football’s capacity to normalise the most ludicrous scenarios is remarkable. It is only three weeks since Abramovich declared his intention to hand over “stewardship and care” of the club to its trustees and yet that already feels at least two major news...