Manchester United and Leicester under pressure to start well, Emery’s formidable opening task, heightened ambitions for Brighton and Wolves Related: Summer transfer window verdict: how every Premier League club fared Related: Transfer window 2018 – every summer deal from Europe's top five leagues Related: The big Premier League preview – Football Weekly Extra Continue reading...
Manchester United’s grumpy manager should take a leaf out of Gareth Southgate’s England book and stop clinging to an old-fashioned, confrontational management styleIt is strange to think everyone in England was stocking up on waistcoats this time last month. Now the news is all about tinned goods flying off the shelves, which is probably because we don’t have the World Cup to distract us from reality any more.As a sign of how much patriotic fervour had taken hold of the country, there was no better guide than people deciding to dress as Gareth Southgate, fashion icon. Nothing in life made more sense than buying a Southgate waistcoat before the semi-final against Croatia and it was because of one man finding...
Manager’s soap diva histrionics perfect for a fly-on-the-wall production guaranteed to take ratings through the roofIn 2007, coinciding with the moment David Beckham made his debut for LA Galaxy, I was at their Home Depot Center ground in Los Angeles to watch José Mourinho’s Chelsea compete in something called the World Series of Soccer. Don’t look for this competition – they don’t play it any more. As part of their US summer tour, Chelsea beat LA Galaxy in the last match, though the competition was won on goal difference by – hang on, let me get my reading glasses on – Tigres UANL. Suwon Samsung Bluewings finished fourth.Before the Galaxy game, Mourinho was asked by an American journalist how much the World Series of Soccer trophy would...
Isolated outing for forward in the cup final was dismaying proof that skilful attackers are being left to regress at Old TraffordOn a sweaty, heavy, oddly gruelling Wembley day Manchester United’s sweaty, heavy, oddly gruelling season was finally euthanised to a close.It has been a good season in some ways, with obvious progress made in the Premier League. But it passed here without the garnish of a trophy as Eden Hazard’s first-half penalty settled a largely forgettable FA Cup final in Chelsea’s favour. Related: Chelsea’s Eden Hazard spot-on to sink Manchester United and win FA Cup Related: Antonio Conte: ‘I showed in a difficult season that I’m a serial winner’ Continue reading...
José Mourinho’s dig at Antonio Conte has diverted attention from the FA Cup final’s pivotal confrontation in which Chelsea’s midfield could be overrun by Manchester United“I’m not,” José Mourinho said after Manchester United’s home win over Liverpool in March, “the kind of mechanic coach that says player A pass to player B, player B pass to player C and player C to player D. I’m much more a supporter of preparing the players to decide well and feel the game.”As so often with Mourinho, there was perhaps a coded jibe; this may have been (it’s very hard to know for sure with a man whose every utterance is subjected to intense scrutiny) another sortie in his protracted war of words...