Liverpool have claimed the principles of Bill Shankly are the club’s guiding light but their wage policy for non-playing staff would have outraged the legendary managerSix months ago the Liverpool chief executive, Peter Moore, was asked what distinguished his club from other European football giants. “We had this amazing historical figure: Bill Shankly, a Scottish socialist who built the foundation,” he told El Pais. “Even today, when we talk about business, we ask ourselves: ‘What would Shankly do?’”So what would Shankly do in a global pandemic that threatens to bring the economy and the health system to its knees? The answer, it’s safe to say, would not involve piggybacking on a government scheme to stop mass unemployment when you are...
Liverpool were utterly dominant but could not deliver the killer blow and allowed a defiant Atlético to come back from the dead Midway through this second leg, as the black shirts fell back into their carefully-stitched patterns, as Liverpool’s players struggled a little in their familiar home spaces, it was hard to avoid the feeling of a pair of hands reaching almost imperceptibly for the lapels, the clavicle, and finally the throat. This was a beautifully controlled strangulation, enacted in plain sight by Diego Simeone’s Atlético Madrid.But it was also a heist, a rearguard victory during which the Atlético goal seemed to be protected by some invisible membrane, sealed within a kind of high-strength footballing clingfilm. Related: Atlético Madrid and...
A chance for Bournemouth at Anfield, Burnley and Spurs battle for European slots and Fernandes can seize big derby stageGiven their 22-point lead at the top of the table, no one at Liverpool is likely to be concerned by three recent defeats in four games across three different competitions. Of course, while a win against Bournemouth would help steady the ship and halt the onset of anything approaching mild jitters, Eddie Howe’s men will head to Anfield to face hosts recently derobed of what had previously resembled a cloak of invincibility. With Fabinho in poor form and Jordan Henderson still sidelined with injury, Liverpool look uncharacteristically vulnerable in midfield and are crying out for on-field leadership. While it ought to...
Three defeats in four games for Jurgen Klopp’s side hint at a vulnerability to be found on the flanksEnter: the wobble. On a chilly, slightly wild night at Stamford Bridge Chelsea progressed to the quarter-finals of the FA cup at the expense of the team previously known as Jürgen Klopp’s Irresistible Red Machine.Sport loves a premature note of crisis. Perhaps one or two will now be offered, although Klopp has probably earned a little breathing space before the cleaver is unsheathed. Liverpool played well in patches and might have wrenched the game their way with better finishing. But there was something else here too, a sense of a pattern emerging. Even, whisper it, of some more systemic vulnerability being winkled...
Underrated Pearson has transformed Watford, Wolves’ unsung hero comes to fore and Messi and Griezmann just don’t clickThe sound of a top-flight stadium reverberating to “We’ve got super Nigel Pearson, he knows exactly what we need” (tune: Bad Moon Rising) can be filed among the things few envisaged in August. But Watford’s win against Liverpool was a measure of the uplift one of the season’s less likely appointments has contrived. “He is always about feet on the floor, he [has] never overreacted and you have to stay focused,” said Abdoulaye Doucouré. “He showed us videos and said we can do it. Nigel is a great, great manager, a great lad, and now he will keep everyone on the floor to...