Manchester City’s joyous romp to the Premier League title presents the manager with a different kind of opportunityYou won. Fine. Now win again. Win better. Even in a moment of triumph, with his beautifully engineered seventh domestic title safely stowed away, it is hard to avoid that nagging paradox that runs through Pep Guardiola’s managerial career.Although not before making space for a little grateful applause. It was fitting Manchester City’s Premier League title arrived at a canter in the end, leaving some clarity around the edges, some time to step back and simply admire. A prolonged stutter to the line may have confirmed a few hard-to-shift Proper Football Man Prejudices. But it would also have been misleading. Related: Vulnerable channels...
Max and co talk Manchester City’s title win, Manchester United’s latest slip-up, the pre- and post-Pardew bounces, big Bayern news and FerrarisRate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, John Brewin and the Racing Post’s Mark Langdon to take a look back at the weekend in which Manchester City finally, formally, won the Premier League, which was effectively sewn up in October. Continue reading...
José Mourinho needs to make drastic changes, Rafael Benítez is getting best out of his players and Jordan Ayew is on a missionHaving so meekly allowed Manchester City to claim the Premier League title, a process of rebuilding Manchester United into future champions starts now. The non-inclusion of Marouane Fellaini, Daley Blind, Matteo Darmian and Luke Shaw in José Mourinho’s match‑day 18 for this game at Old Trafford indicated where a long-awaited clear-out of David Moyes and Louis van Gaal recruits is likely to begin. But it will take more than that to revitalise United. The shapeless sludge of this performance against West Brom was no anomaly. Chief among the reasons United have been left in City’s wake is Mourinho’s...
Dzeko, who did not do himself justice at Manchester City, has reached a first Champions League semi-final at Roma, showing players can reach the heights after falling short in EnglandOne of the joys of European football is catching up with familiar faces who have slightly fallen off the radar since leaving England. This applies less to global stars like Gareth Bale and Luis Suárez, both of whom play for clubs who are always in the news, and more to foreign players with a quirky character, like the maverick talent who gains cultish adoration despite never quite living up to the hype, or the flop who disappears without a trace before surfacing again to complain about the food, the people and...
The Premier League may never have had a greater friend of the football than David Silva, but time wears down even the most boyishly irrepressible of footballersAnd breathe again. On a misty night at Wembley Manchester City squared their shoulders, slapped themselves about the chops a few times and produced a performance to ease the bruises of a difficult 10 days.By the end a 3-1 defeat of Tottenham Hotspur wasn’t so much winning ugly as winning with the usual frictionless beauty, in the process clamping at least one hand on the Premier League trophy. Related: Gabriel Jesus sets Manchester City on their way to victory over Tottenham Related: Pep Guardiola: ‘Premier League is harder to win than the Champions League’...