First face second in the Manchester derby on Sunday – and yet has ever a game between the Premier League’s top two sides ever felt so essentially inessential? The look on Sir Alex Ferguson’s face was a curious mixture of disbelief, shock and amusement. “You can’t believe that scoreline,” he said. “First 45 minutes, we were outstanding. The sending off was a killer for us. And after that, we kept attacking. That’s the nature of Manchester United, fine. But it was crazy. Unbelievable.” And then, remarkably, he smiled. Because even though Manchester City had come to Old Trafford and dished out a 6-1 trouncing, Ferguson somehow sensed amid his disappointment that the fundamentals of his side would survive this single...
United cross town to City for a Manchester derby, while there’s a big old meeting of strugglers on Sunday lunchtimeIt’s been a bad week for Steve Bruce. Saturday’s draw with Wolves means Newcastle have won just two of their last 15 league games, and are now hovering just above the drop zone. Bruce’s post-match comments – “unfortunately Matty didn’t get the directions on quick enough” – appeared to blame substitute Matt Ritchie for not passing on tactical instructions shortly before Wolves’ equaliser, which led to a training-ground argument between the pair this week. Ritchie has since apologised but morale seems to be low, particularly with mounting injuries. Callum Wilson, Miguel Almirón and Allan Saint-Maximin have scored more than half of...
Fulham continue to struggle in front of goal, Leicester threatening a second collapse and West Brom play by the rulesAt the start of Scott McTominay’s United career, his place in the team seemed predicated in José Mourinho’s antipathy towards Paul Pogba, his receipt of the manager’s player of the year award the nearest Mourinho could get to presenting it to himself. Since then, though, McTominay has improved by several orders of magnitude, contributing power, tenacity and personality – skills that have been crucial in helping United improve from sixth to second. They still struggle to dominate, however, and when Pogba is absent the entirety of the creative burden rests with Bruno Fernandes, who had an off-day at Stamford Bridge. To...
The mesmerising dominance of Pep Guardiola’s side made a talented team look like a bunch of choreographed patsiesThe critical passage of this game, you felt, arrived around an hour in, when Borussia Mönchengladbach – 1-0 down and having just enjoyed a rare shot on goal – threw on two attacking players in attempt to wrestle back control. On came Marcus Thuram and Valentino Lazaro, jogging onto the pitch with vim and purpose, pointing in various directions for no reason, in the way that substitutes often do.At which point, with Ederson in possession, Manchester City simply walked the ball up the pitch and scored. Ten passes in total, broken only by a desperate sliding clearance from midfielder Florian Neuhaus by his...
Nominally a versatile full-back the Portuguese played an elusive anti-role, popping up in places you would least expectOn a mild Sunday Cancelo evening at the Emirates Gündogan Stadium, Manchester Fernandinho City restored their Cancelo 10-point lead at the top of De Bruyne Fernandinho the Premier League with Gündogan a comprehensive victory over Arsenal. Bernardo after being blown Fernandinho away in the early Stones Fernandinho part of Zinchenko the game, Arsenal gradually Sterling Bernardo came into Cancelo the match more and Mahrez more as it went on, but were ultimately Fernandinho unable De Bruyne to strike Cancelo the Gündogan telling Cancelo blow.Quite disorienting, isn’t it? Hard to follow. Probably very annoying. This, in essence, is what it is like playing Pep...