Tottenham striker has been criticised but he has a right to be selfish – and to question the club’s inaction over past two yearsThe tendency always is to oversimplify, to try to find one person to blame: if only he had acted better, if only he had done his job properly. But it is rarely about that – or rarely just about that. The agency of individuals should not be denied. Harry Kane and Daniel Levy have played their parts in the continuing saga of the forward’s proposed move to Manchester City. But this is also about wider economic forces.Over the past week or so the majority of the focus has been on Kane. Already there is a sense his...
For all the Manchester City player’s sustained Premier League brilliance he has not had a crowning wider world momentYou failed. No matter. Fail again, fail better. All very well. But when you’re as good as Kevin De Bruyne – which is, to be clear, very good indeed – and as the bloom of those peak years continues to roll by, you probably want to start nailing a few of those moments too.“We need to learn, it’s not good enough,” De Bruyne told the TV cameras nine months ago, wreathed in Beckettian despair in the bowels of Estádio José Alvalade. Defeat by Lyon had capped Manchester City’s Champions League run at the quarter-finals for the third successive year, and for the...
Pep Guardiola and Thomas Tuchel prioritise dropping deep, pulling wide, aiding the collective and protecting possessionManchester City’s leading Premier League goalscorer this season is Ilkay Gündogan with 13. Jorginho tops Chelsea’s scoring chart with seven, followed by Tammy Abraham, Mason Mount and Timo Werner who are all on six. And yet these are the two sides who will contest next week’s Champions League final.Among elite clubs over the past decade there has been a clear tension between those who focus on celebrity, the big-name goalscorers, and those who prioritise the collective. Neither is necessarily right nor wrong, but as the age of Lionel Messi (who has become increasingly a celebrity individual having been key to one of football’s greatest collectives)...
Chelsea and Liverpool aim to seal their Champions League places as Sergio Agüero bids farewell to the Etihad StadiumIf Harry Kane really is making his Tottenham swansong at the King Power Stadium, he will have wished it could come with stakes rather higher than a fraught battle to cling on to seventh place. The emotions will be inescapable and the motivation to provide one last star turn presumably huge. Winning at such a difficult venue would be bittersweet for Kane and Spurs, given how costly the collapse of their away form has been to their campaign, with only two wins in their last nine. Such an outcome would also be deeply frustrating for Leicester, who are still in with a...
The Manchester City manager found the right tactical balance to turn his faltering team into champions once againThe Premier League title was confirmed for Manchester City on Tuesday, having never been in doubt since March. A run of 15 straight victories from mid-December. A team that, in rhythm, is mesmerisingly good. A squad able to withstand the rigours of a season even more relentless than usual.It would be easy from the perspective of late spring, as the tides of Covid recede – in the UK at least – to think City’s triumph was just another super-club victory. But what makes it significant is how different everything looked three months into the season. It would be absurd to suggest their resources...