Odds are against depleted Spurs, Everton need to respond after their derby woe while Solskjær is feeling the heat againJosé Mourinho’s life in football can be measured out in vendettas. There are two clubs he reserves a special enmity for, and for much the same reason. Both Barcelona and Liverpool passed over his services, choosing instead to turn to Pep Guardiola and Rafa Benítez, by little consequence two managers he has most enjoyed getting the better of. Only recently arrived at Tottenham, his latest club are near powerless to stop Liverpool’s procession to the Premier League title, save for performing the unlikely act of ending the leaders’ unbeaten run. To do so would be one of the shocks of the...
An early onslaught from Pep Guardiola’s side gave the watching Sir Alex Ferguson and Ryan Giggs nothing to smile aboutYou can’t hit what you can’t see. On a mild but riotous night at Old Trafford, Manchester City served up a beating as swaggering and dominant as any they have managed at this ground. In front of the grandees of Red Manchester – Wayne Rooney, Sir Alex Ferguson, Ryan Giggs – City executed a coup de grace borne of pure disrespect, United taking the best part of an hour to work out just what, exactly, was going on out there.What had happened was that City had simply disappeared from view, slipped into the cracks, eluded detection. Had Raheem Sterling been a...
Lamptey may not last long at Chelsea, Leicester can be regular title contenders and have Pereira and Ndombele finally arrived?Welcome to the Premier League, then, Tariq Lamptey. And – quite possibly – farewell. For the 19-year-old right-back, the Emirates Stadium was some place to make a professional debut. He rose to the challenge, keeping Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang quiet and making one thrilling foray into Arsenal territory before playing in Tammy Abraham. It says plenty about Chelsea’s short-term youth policy that Lampard felt able to throw an untried teenager into a game of this magnitude. It says plenty about Chelsea’s long-term youth policy that they may not be able to keep him. Lamptey’s contract is up at the end of the season,...
Adama Traoré stole the show with his bustling runs and goal that gave Wolves confidence to go on and beat Manchester City“It’s not football any more,” the Wolves fans sang at one point during this bizarre festive vaudeville. On this point, at least, they were wrong. This was, in many ways, modern Premier League football in its purest distillation: from the stark verticality to the puce-tinged rage, from the video-inspired plot twists to the freezing Molineux mist, from the humming madness of its start to the electrifying anarchy of its finish.At the end of which: an instant classic, and probably a fair result, albeit by wildly circuitous means. For all the outrageous swings in fortune, for all the operatic fury...
Leicester’s title hopes are fading, Danny Ings makes his England case and John McGinn’s absence is a huge blow for VillaAt this rate there is every chance two of the Premier League’s deadliest English strikers will not be part of Gareth Southgate’s squad at Euro 2020. Jamie Vardy is unlikely to be tempted out of international retirement and then there is Danny Ings, the Southampton striker who took his tally to 13 goals for the season with a double. Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford, Tammy Abraham and Callum Wilson may be ahead of Ings in the pecking order but seven goals from his past seven games means it is impossible to ignore the 27-year-old’s credentials for a recall. Ings’s only cap...