Sacking managers is the traditional response for teams in trouble but there are no easy ways to beat the drop and time is running out for the top flight’s bottom sixSack the manager? Keep the manager? Sell your best player and import seven new ones, five on loan? Go warm‑weather training in Dubai? Cancel the Gulf trip?Switch to a sweeper system? Revert to a flat back four? Play two up front? Keep the faith with a lone striker? Go cold‑weather training in New York? Go lukewarm‑weather training in Benidorm? Abolish days off? Start regretting Champions League progress? Related: Premier League: 10 talking points from the weekend’s action Continue reading...
To have generated unrest and disillusionment among many fans seems all the more unnecessary given the Allams’ tenure has been the most successful in the club’s historyThe semi-detached owners of Hull City spent their long, cold January insisting to widely disaffected supporters that they are not just clearing the decks, hauling in all the money they can net, and battening down for the anticipated relegation of a club they are trying to sell. The £20m trawled from selling Jake Livermore and the season’s brightest attacking force, Robert Snodgrass, did not greatly help their case but the vice-chairman, Ehab Allam, did spend his transfer window final day in a flurry of deadline trading.Sources close to the club say the aim of...
Liverpool’s defence needs to find cohesion fast, Lincoln felt the force with Alan Power and Bastian Schweinsteiger is welcomed back by José MourinhoIt was an afternoon when the ball would not go in for Ruben Loftus-Cheek. The Chelsea attacking midfielder was twice denied by the Brentford goalkeeper, Daniel Bentley, and, when he clipped over him on 58 minutes, the effort came back off the crossbar. Loftus-Cheek had two other moments when he jinked inside the area but could not find a finish. It was, nonetheless, an eye-catching performance from the 21-year-old – in front of the watching England manager, Gareth Southgate – in which he advertised both his power and the deftness of his touch. Could it offer him a...
José Mourinho has won the League Cup three times with Chelsea and can open his account at United by being reunited with an old friend at WembleyAnother Wembley winter date for José Mourinho looms, the latest in a long list of cup finals for the Manchester United manager. His first, though, in the job he craved for so long and perhaps the most significant for some time. Related: Oumar Niasse earns Hull second-leg win but Manchester United reach EFL Cup final Related: Hull City v Manchester United: EFL Cup semi-final – as it happened Continue reading...
Wayne Rooney’s goal at Stoke kept José Mourinho’s side near the top for points won in the last 10 minutes of matches but they have also lost seven pointsSir Alex Ferguson may be long gone, but Manchester United’s knack for scoring late goals appears to be alive and well. Wayne Rooney’s equaliser in the fourth minute of injury time against Stoke City on Saturday not only rescued a draw for his side and took him past Sir Bobby Charlton’s all-time record of 249 goals, but it also ensured United retained second spot in this season’s table of most points picked up following goals registered in the last 10 minutes of matches, having amassed nine in total.In 2012, a study commissioned...