Rodgers reaches his first English final, Spurs wait on Harry Kane’s ankle and Norwich make a welcome returnBrendan Rodgers’ previous FA Cup semi-final visit, in April 2015, ended in disaster, a deserved 2-1 loss with Liverpool to an Aston Villa team inspired by a teenage Jack Grealish. That was an afternoon when Liverpool froze but six years on, Rodgers is a manager with considerably more chops. His Leicester team approached their Sunday night visit to Wembley with poise, confidence and patience. On the sidelines, and even above the 4,000 fans in the stadium as part of a post-Covid experiment, Rodgers’s baritone was audible, talking his players through each passage of play. His suit is always reassuringly expensive but Rodgers remains...
Top finishers are a varied bunch, from classic or false 9s to target men and wide-rangers who cut in to score – and adapting teams to match their gifts is what makes the best sides tickAs Arsenal’s rebuild under Mikel Arteta has stalled over the past few weeks, one of the most common quick-fixes suggested has been to move Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang from the left into the middle. He’s a goalscorer, runs the argument, so you need to put him in the middle, nearer the goal. Which, frankly, is the equivalent of those Victorian doctors who believed malaria was caused by the bad air around swamps – the theory isn’t entirely unrelated to the reality, but a series of vital stages...
It would hard to find an attacking pair anywhere that takes such obvious pleasure in their own rampant chemistry. Kane and Son have made Tottenham title contendersTrue love will find you in the end. Is there an attacking pair anywhere that takes such obvious pleasure in their own rampant chemistry as Harry Kane and Son Heung-min?On a chilly night in north London, Tottenham Hotspur went to the top of the Premier League table with a pared-back 2-0 defeat of a possession-heavy Arsenal; a victory that raised the tantalising possibility this Spurs team could become the first to play the full 38-game season engaged in an expertly managed relegation battle, only to look up and notice they’ve won the league. Related:...
Prolific captain has added assists to his game and could thrive in a deeper role in Gareth Southgate’s 3-4-3 formationIt was the second game of Gareth Southgate’s tenure as England Under-21s head coach – away to Finland in 2013 – the team were trailing 1-0 and they needed a creative spark. On the bench was Harry Kane. “Which showed what we know about talent observation,” Southgate says with a smile.Southgate brought him on in the 58th minute, he played him as a No 10 and, nine minutes later, he watched him accept a pass in midfield, squeeze in between two challengers and drift away from a third before releasing Wilfried Zaha with a perfect ball around the full-back. Zaha crossed...
Defensive solidity plus a lethal forward pairing may be all it takes for Tottenham to be considered serious challengersThis has already been a deeply confusing season. Nothing makes much sense and as the impact of the virus and the compacted calendar continues to be felt, nothing is likely to any time soon. But still, particularly given how the opening weekend went, there can be few details weirder than Tottenham, who host Brighton on Sunday, would have gone into this weekend top of the Premier League had they not let slip a 3-0 lead against West Ham. Related: Lanzini's late gem completes stunning West Ham fightback at Tottenham The likelihood is still that Liverpool or City win the title but suddenly...