Winning run must end at some point but Jürgen Klopp will want to put down a marker at Chelsea, where the Virgil van Dijk-Tammy Abraham battle is one to watchThe shock of the season seems to have arrived already, with suggestions that it is Liverpool’s title to lose following Manchester City’s unexpected collapse at Norwich. The shock being that anyone would be daft enough to make such a long-term prediction after five games. If the Premier League really is the toughest and most competitive in Europe, as everyone keeps saying, then it is clearly not going to be decided in September even if the present gap is five times larger than last season’s winning margin. Related: Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk...
Napoli showed how to play against Jürgen Klopp’s side by looking to exploit the space behind Liverpool’s full-backsIls sont les meilleurs! In the buildup to this game Jürgen Klopp had been at pains to play down any suggestion Liverpool came to Naples with an air of wider destiny about them. The notion had been put to the manager that Liverpool are, in a snapshot, the best football team out there: convincing Champions League winners last season and five points clear in the Premier League.Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day and for once Uefa’s cheese-laden anthem – the soundtrack down the years to so much autumn mediocrity – had seemed to strike the right note at...
Buendía the architect of City’s bad day, Arsenal were woeful in defence and Maguire deserved better from Leicester fansThe Dozen: our pick of the weekend’s best picturesThe way in which Norwich turned a negative into a positive was quite something. With nigh-on a full team of players out injured, the odds of stopping Manchester City looked insurmountable. Instead Daniel Farke’s men gave their best performance of the season by far, not only cutting the champions open but looking solid at the back for the first time. There was kudos for the debutants in defence, Sam Byram and Ibrahim Amadou, but also for more seasoned Norwich players. Emi Buendía and Marco Stiepermann were central to a buccaneering style in the Championship...
Bruce might have what it takes at Anfield, Manchester United and Spurs under pressure and a six-pointer at the Amex?Newcastle don’t have much of a record at Anfield. They’ve not won there since Steve Watson knocked Roy Evans’s side out of the League Cup in 1995; they’ve not tasted league victory there since Andrew Cole and Robert Lee secured a 2-0 win in 1994. It’s been mainly defeats ever since, though they did get a point three years ago against a starting XI featuring Alberto Moreno, Connor Randall and Kevin Stewart. The Magpies won’t be flying down the A1 with too much hope in their hearts, then. Liverpool are on a 13-match Premier League winning run, and Mo Salah and...
Arsenal and Manchester United have offloaded players whose 2018 swap deal conspicuously failed to live up to expectationsThe Liverpool teenager Bobby Duncan appears to have bucked a growing trend by leaving to join Fiorentina in Italy. Whatever the rights and wrongs of a dispute with the European champions that led to the player’s exit, Fiorentina are at least getting a promising young talent at the right age.Most of the recent Italian imports from the Premier League have been just the opposite, with Henrikh Mkhitaryan joining Alexis Sánchez in Serie A after failing to convince he was worth a regular place at Arsenal. Related: Arsenal’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan joins Roma in loan with option to buy Related: Alexis Sánchez says he ‘didn’t...