Everton’s defence has gone walkabout, Swansea and Southampton are serving up stodgy fare and Antonio Conte may rue being in a tougher league than Serie AChris Hughton, the Brighton & Hove Albion manager, said it all when he highlighted how his team had not been “out of sight” against Arsenal, just as they had not been against Manchester City on the opening weekend of the season. On both occasions, the final scoreline of 0-2 hinted at respectability. Which, in truth, was Brighton’s priority. The gap to the Premier League’s top six clubs yawns like a chasm and Hughton’s approach at the Emirates Stadium – an approach born out of necessity – was characterised by damage limitation. Hughton used a 4-5-1...
The only two players signed by the Scot during his disastrous tenure at Old Trafford have defied all expectations to remain among the star-studded cast assembled by José MourinhoIn the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall a phenomenon bubbled up in Eastern Europe called “ostalgie”, or nostalgia for the old east. Seized with ostalgie, citizens of the new world found themselves tiring of the glories of capitalism, with its treacly soft drinks, unfettered access to soft-rock music and a natureless ecstasy of identical consumer products; and yearning instead for the old certainties of communism, the gulag and mass-produced cardboard trousers. As recently as last year a majority of Romanians said they missed the murderous despot Nicolae Ceausescu. Presumably,...
Sean Dyche was worked up about nothing, Mark Hughes hopes life for Stoke will get easier and Ronald Koeman played his last cards to get Everton out of troubleIf Brighton survive this season – and they survived this game thanks to several Newcastle misses and some good goalkeeping – there is every chance we will be talking about the signing of Pascal Gross as a masterstroke. The German midfielder with a picture-perfect delivery has been involved in all of Brighton’s Premier League goals, and was instrumental again at the Amex in the 1-0 win over Newcastle when his free-kick homed in on Dale Stephens, who headed down for Tomer Hemed to finish. The value of an accurate set-piece taker cannot...
Southampton victory shows José Mourinho’s men have rediscovered their ruthless streak just as a testing month of fixtures loomsFor more than half an hour, José Mourinho sat waiting on the Manchester United team coach outside St Mary’s doubtless basking in the comfort of a job well done after extending his side’s unbeaten run to eight matches. They displayed a callous efficiency and a charming stubbornness in an unforgiving and occasionally ugly performance that earned United victory and a fifth clean sheet in six Premier League matches. Romelu Lukaku, though, was still stationed inside in doping control, and, such is the ruthlessness of this United team at present, they left for Southampton airport without him.Lukaku was ultimately the match‑winner but this was a...
United are making a habit of winning 4-0 – the perfect José Mourinho scoreline – and his second-season changes have given his side an authoritative airNobody is such a master of the humdrum four-goal win as José Mourinho. When his sides start winning 4-0 and 4-1 and others start rolling their eyes, it is a sure sign that things are going well. In claiming the league title in 2004-05, his Chelsea side scored four goals in a game seven times. The victory against Everton on Sunday was the third time already this season that Manchester United have won a league game 4-0.It is the perfect Mourinho score, a brusque assertion of superiority rather than an artefact or a drama to...