West Ham have the talent to cause Manchester City problems on opening weekend while David de Gea has a point to proveWhile there is plenty of excitement to be drawn from Liverpool’s much-lauded front three, a good argument could be made that the two most thrilling players in Jürgen Klopp’s side are defenders. Technically, anyway. In reality, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Andy Robertson spent last season making a mockery of their job descriptions, zooming forward with exuberant abandon and each laying on more goals than any of the side’s so-called attackers. Meanwhile, down in the Championship, a similar operation was in progress. Norwich’s full-back duo, Jamal Lewis and Max Aarons, are under strict instructions from Daniel Farke to play with the...
The Community Shield was sufficiently even for Liverpool to have won eventually and that is good news for the Premier LeagueIt is the Community Shield. Both sides were very obviously rusty. Both sides were slack in ways one would not expect them to be. Even the spray of shiny streamers to greet the winners felt understated, a little half-hearted. It is probably unwise to draw too many conclusions from a sultry August afternoon at Wembley but, if there is a lesson to be drawn, it is that last season may not be a blip, that there really may not be much between Manchester City and Liverpool.This has the potential to be one of the great rivalries, what Sunderland v Aston...
For once, emotions are genuinely stirred by the story of Rwanda and how the game helped heal its divisionsIt can be hard in England to get a feel for the scale, the power and – yes really – the beauty of the Premier League’s vast global reach. Probably this has something to do with the way it is reflected back, most often through the wild frontier, the cranks’ rodeo, the Hobby Horse Derby of social media.More toxic still is the way the Premier League’s commercial success is so often described as simply this and nothing more, couched in tones of crowing economic triumphalism that reduces its devotees to numbers, eyeballs, units of desire. Related: Back to the future: Bradford bring...
City are serial winners with a great manager and squad but their short price is unusual when they have never reached the finalThe second week of Wimbledon is probably far too early to be thinking about football and what may happen at the business end of next season, unless you happen to be an ante-post gambler looking for some value in the long-term market before the competitions get under way.In which case you may be disappointed and surprised to find Manchester City priced as low as 4-1 to win the Champions League next season. Most bookmakers and betting exchanges have the English champions as clear favourites, with Barcelona offered at around 6-1 and Liverpool, Real Madrid and Juventus a little...
Reds were ahead of the curve with £75m Virgil van Dijk transfer but champions could trump that for Harry Maguire as a duopoly emerges in the Premier LeagueThere are weeks of the transfer window still to go, an opportunity to keep spending money stretching ahead of Premier League clubs like the seemingly endless summer holidays of schoolchild memory, yet it is already clear that the prices being quoted are not only adult but in some cases X-rated.It was said when Virgil van Dijk joined Liverpool for £75m that in a short space of time the fee would look a bargain, and that time has now arrived. If Manchester City succeed in persuading Harry Maguire to reject Manchester United’s overtures and...