Offering Paul Pogba to his club’s rivals is a classic, aggressive Mino Raiola trick. But does this join up some of the dots when it comes to the deterioration in the player’s form?The first time Zlatan Ibrahimovic met Mino Raiola, the agent who has looked after his business for the last 15 years, was when a journalist friend, Thijs Sleiger from Voetbal International, had set them up with a meeting at the Okura hotel in Amsterdam. Ibrahimovic’s former agent, Anders Carlsson, had blown the previous arrangement by offering his client, then a player at Ajax, a move to Southampton (to which the young Zlatan apparently replied: “What the fuck! Southampton! Is that my level?”) The next guy, Ibrahimovic had been...
By the benchmark they have set, Manchester City were terrible at Liverpool – light up front, porous at the back and less than tigerish in midfield – and they need to react quicklyOnly four managers have outwitted Pep Guardiola this season, and while Wigan’s Paul Cook, Shakhtar Donetsk’s Paulo Fonseca and Basel’s Raphaël Wicky were perhaps unexpected beneficiaries of propitious circumstances, Jürgen Klopp has done it twice to order.The stakes could not have been much higher than in the last encounter either, and the emphatic nature of Liverpool’s win in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final gives some credence to Klopp’s insistence that but for Sadio Mané’s unfortunate dismissal at the Etihad in September, Manchester City might not...
The Manchester United manager’s track record at the top end of the market is under scrutiny given the struggles of Pogba and Sánchez and with City aiming to clinch the title in Saturday’s derbyRegular readers of the Jeeves and Wooster stories will be familiar with the plot device which involves Bertie’s favourite aunt having to keep her rich husband sweet because she will shortly be asking him for a substantial sum of money to prop up Milady’s Boudoir, the perennially unprofitable women’s fashion magazine of which she is proprietor.“I thought you said Milady’s Boudoir had turned the corner,” Bertie observes on one occasion. “Yes,” Aunt Dahlia replies. “Until you have tried running a women’s magazine you don’t know what corners...
From Chelsea captain at 18 to a generous-spirited pundit, he was the most well-mannered and courteous of football menIn the eyes of all who watched him captaining Chelsea at the age of 18, Ray Wilkins was a golden boy of English football. To an instinctive vision of the game and a superlative range of skills he was already bringing elegance, composure and, most of all, a precocious sense of responsibility that enabled him to instil a sense of purpose into a team who had just been relegated to the old Second Division.As a classical inside-forward, Wilkins was always a joy to watch. He led Chelsea back into the top tier in his second season as the captain of a team...
Arsène Wenger is given a striking decision, Hugo Lloris climbs the wrong table and Christian Benteke’s woes rumble onAlexandre Lacazette heard one of the loudest cheers when he came on for Danny Welbeck against Stoke City. Arsène Wenger said Welbeck had hurt his back and so Lacazette’s return from a knee injury seemed even more timely – given Arsenal play CSKA Moscow in the Europa League on Thursday, for which Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is cup-tied. Wenger loved the gesture Aubameyang made towards the end, passing up a possible hat-trick by allowing the Frenchman to take their second penalty – from which he scored. The manager said it showed the strikers had a good understanding. But can they prosper together in the...