City suffered for the wrong choice of goalkeeper last season and Guardiola’s hopes will be compromised if Claudio Bravo’s inexperienced replacement does not prove worth the £34.9m outlayThe success of Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City tenure could hinge on a 23-year-old goalkeeper who is untested in English football and has only one full season behind him at a major Portuguese club.Ederson Santana de Moraes was bought for £34.9m from Benfica this summer. The size of a fee close to the world record for his position indicates two things: how good the Brazilian is believed to be and how keenly Guardiola wishes to remedy his problem at No1. Related: Pep Guardiola under pressure while he oversees Manchester City spending spree | Jamie...
There has been much talk about strikers this summer but apart from Kylian Mbappé, exciting and emerging names are not exactly flooding the marketAccording to just about every manager interviewed on the subject, not to mention the accumulated wisdom of more than 100 years of professional football, the hardest task in the game is putting the ball into the back of the net. It often looks deceptively easy, a tap over the line here, a well-timed header there, but at the highest level you are up against organised defences and highly-trained goalkeepers. Opportunities do not normally come along that often in a game, and frequently most of the team will have been involved in some way in creating the space...
The manager faces a defining season at City after an underwhelming opening campaign and his summer rebuild could cost the club around £250m“I have high confidence we are going in the right direction. I am very excited about how we are developing as a team, how Pep has taken the squad and really started a process of going through that natural cycle of development.”Khaldoon al-Mubarak, Manchester City chairman, May 2017 Related: Manchester City confident of signing Alexis Sánchez from Arsenal Related: Dani Alves confirms Juventus departure with Manchester City waiting Continue reading...
At 23, the signing from Benfica is short on top-level experience but he is tipped to be Brazil’s next No1 and is comfortable with the ball at his feet – if occasionally a little overconfidentEderson made sure he left Benfica for Manchester City with a bang. In the goalkeeper’s penultimate league match for the Portuguese champions, not only did he keep his 17th clean sheet of the season, he also got an assist.A goal-kick from the 23-year-old led to Benfica’s second goal in a 5-0 defeat of Vitória Guimarães. It was a kick that found the forward Raúl Jiménez on the edge of the Vitória penalty area, the Mexican controlling it with his feet before turning it into the goal...
Premier League sides have struggled to impose themselves in Europe in recent years because the domestic competition is seen as an obstacle to successNext season, assuming Liverpool can negotiate the play-off round, there will be five English clubs in the Champions League. That is a large number, though it does not necessarily follow that a greater representation will lead to a better chance of English success. Premier League sides have been struggling to impose themselves in Europe in recent years. From a position a decade ago when finals were being reached on a regular basis and Uefa had genuine concerns when two English clubs faced each other in Moscow in 2008, the strength of the Premier League now seems to...