Welcoming players back from Qatar now may provide a crucial advantage when the hectic domestic schedule restarts“If they all go out of the competition early and can train with us, that would be absolutely outstanding,” Jürgen Klopp joked of his Liverpool players before the World Cup. The German was lucky that just seven of his squad were called upon to travel to Qatar, although only Darwin Núñez has exited before the quarter-finals. The Uruguayan is one of 73 Premier League players no longer involved in the World Cup, leaving 61 in Qatar for their managers to worry about.Many clubs have enjoyed warm-weather training, and have played or are still to play friendlies to prepare for the Premier League’s Boxing Day...
Assessments of the Manchester City striker’s first season in English football have been reduced to a counting exerciseThere was another Erling Haaland Moment at the weekend. If you didn’t see what happened, I’m afraid I’m going to spoil the ending for you: he scores. The moment came about 20 minutes into Manchester City’s game at Brighton when Ederson sent forward a long goal-kick. Haaland chased it. Robert Sánchez, Brighton’s goalkeeper, came and missed it. All that remained was Haaland and the Brighton defender Adam Webster, shoulder to shoulder, vying for the ball.Football has a familiar and established lexicon for describing what happened next. You could say Webster “lost out”. You could say he “came off second best”. You might even...
Moving Mohamed Salah to the centre proved to revive Liverpool in a thrilling spectacle made all the more wild by the manager’s late sending offTowards the end of this thrilling, slightly wild afternoon at Anfield, Jürgen Klopp could be seen with his arms outspread, a tableau of pathos, disbelief, astonishment, bewildered to find himself handed a red card by Anthony Taylor and sent from his touchline.As Klopp whirled away, almost sprinting from pitchside, air‑guitaring wildly, still barking and yelping and pointing, it was hard to disagree with his look of stunned surprise. This made no sense at all. How exactly had Klopp managed to last 85 minutes out there? Continue reading...
Manchester City’s financial invincibility raises the bar still higher but last season’s quadruple chasers aren’t quite doneEven Jürgen Klopp seemed a little mannered and grave in his pre-match press conference, unwilling to offer up barbs or jokes or amusingly exuberant swear words. There was some headline-grabbing stuff about the limits of being able to compete long-term with clubs owned by nation states, remarks that, while undeniably true and worthy of debate, will still rile the more biddable foot soldiers of the Etihad public relations department.Mainly Klopp sat at his desk talking without hyperbole about Manchester City as the best team in the world and Erling Haaland as the best striker in the world. Nobody disagreed (they shouldn’t: they are; he...
Manchester City are reaching towards football perfection but what happened to the false 9s and intricate tactical forms?Don’t fear the goal-reaper. Or at least, not while we still have this show. Perhaps the only frustration in watching Erling Haaland this season, the only minor gripe in this more-ish spectacular, is that he isn’t available to binge-watch all at once on demand.Each time Haaland walks off the pitch it is genuinely upsetting to realise once again that a scrolling ticker will not be appearing in the corner of your vision saying: “Next episode in 10 seconds,” complete with a button you can click impatiently when 10 seconds feels too long. For now it is necessary to wait for the next hit,...