It took a while but the Manchester City manager has conquered England with a football that is not merely beautiful but also dominant. The question for 2018 is: can he now do it in Europe?The year ends with Pep Guardiola ascendant, his juego de posición, evolved over time and amended and slightly repackaged for England, cutting a swathe through the Premier League, just as it overwhelmed all in La Liga and the Bundesliga. There will be the usual complaints about how much money has been spent and, more pertinently, about the origin of that money, but English football has never seen anything quite like this.When Guardiola was winning two Champions Leagues in three seasons at Barcelona, their style became hegemonic. There...
The value of a reliable, unfussy midfield shield can be easily overlooked in an era of statistics and analysis but even the most expansive and exciting teams need a Kanté, a Busquets or a MakéléléOne man doesn’t make a team but one player can make the difference, which is what I witnessed as we put in a fine though fruitless performance at Old Trafford last weekend. Although the winning goalscorer, Ashley Young, got the praise and adulation he deserved for his role, there was one man completely unmentioned and unappreciated who thwarted our dangerous counterattacks time and again.He didn’t have the pace or skill of Paul Pogba, Marcus Rashford, Romelu Lukaku or Anthony Martial but there wasn’t a moment in the match...
The mistrust harboured by a minority of hardliners in each community for the other will continue to provide a rich seam of entertainment for the rest of usAs debate not so much raged but gently percolated over the merits of “expected goals” as a useful metric for analysing football last week, it was difficult to shake off the feeling that the battle for survival and relevance between old-school pundits and the growing army of stats buffs had reached a somewhat pivotal phase.The sound may have been drowned out by the white noise generated by quarrelling over other, far more important global concerns, but the latest volley was fired by Jeff Stelling. The Sky Sports presenter went viral after footage of...
Once a position for the energetic and combative, Manchester City showed it has become one for those who can exploit the space in front of them to shape a gameThis is what the Premier League has been waiting for since Pep Guardiola arrived at Manchester City. There had been hints of it before, most notably in the first half of the derby at Old Trafford last season, but City’s performance at Stamford Bridge on Saturday was the first time a Guardiola side in England has so thoroughly dominated another member of the elite from start to finish. All the familiar tropes were there – the domination of possession, the rapid transitions, the tenacity at winning the ball back; all that...
Sead Kolasinac has the steel Arsenal need to end their run of five defeats at Stamford Bridge but Arsène Wenger must play him on the left and stick to three at the backArsenal fans will travel to Stamford Bridge on Sunday with a dram of hope, even though they know that by most measures their spirits should be low. Recent visits to Chelsea have been harrowing for the north London club, with Arsenal losing their last five matches there by a combined score of 15-2. Both their away games in the Premier League this season have brought similar ordeals, with Liverpool thrashing them 4-0 and Stoke City punishing errant finishing and flaky defending to inflict a 1-0 defeat. A strong...