Arsenal reap the rewards of an old-school striker, Thiago Silva turns back the clock and Ten Hag’s tactics hit a snagFast-paced, tactically intricate and dramatic to the last, Arsenal v Manchester United was a heavyweight clash that lived up to its billing. It also showcased two models of centre-forward that were meant to be extinct: the old-fashioned target man and the old-fashioned poacher. Spearheading United’s attack, Wout Weghorst pressed with zeal and offered a focal point for United’s free-roaming wide men. It was his peeling run, drawing Gabriel to his left, that afforded Marcus Rashford the angle to blast home the opener. Nketiah pressed with similar intelligence but dropped deep when required to link with his midfield. Both his goals...
Expectation and reality seem to have aligned in north London, giving Mikel Arteta’s side a sense of unstoppable momentumSunday in London and all you can see is fumes: hot breath on cold air and vape smoke and dope smoke and steam rising from sweaty heads and a hype they can finally believe in. Of course Eddie Nketiah is delighted and of course Oleksandr Zinchenko is delighted, but have you ever in your life seen such happy unused substitutes? Sunday in London and it doesn’t matter whether you’re in the back row pressed against the stained glass, or so close you can grasp the hem of the preacher’s garment. Everyone in this congregation gets saved in the end.The post-Christmas Emirates is...
United’s controversial equaliser exposed a major flaw in the rules but also gave them a platform to close the gap on CityA forward makes a run for a through-ball. The defender steps up. The ball is played and the forward is in an offside position. The forward chases the ball, following it, escorting it. Something in his head – perhaps Bruno Fernandes screaming – warns him that he might be offside and so he pulls away, allowing another forward (let’s call him “Bruno Fernandes”) to sweep the ball into the net. Is that forward offside?He hasn’t touched the ball but can he be deemed to not have been interfering? Did his presence not prevent the initial defender charging back and...
Defender overcame a slow start and ahead of Saturday’s derby is contesting aerial challenges like a piranha on a trampolineAfter one minute of Manchester United’s game against Liverpool in August, you knew: Lisandro Martínez is for real. Because that was when he clattered, then barged through Mohamed Salah for no apparent reason and no obvious gain.English football’s frequently toxic and forever self-mythologising rhetoric tells us this is just how big men behave. But reality is different: save, perhaps, an airport, there’s nowhere safer to start a row than on a Premier League pitch, because the chances of reprisals are almost zero. Consider, for example, Martin Keown and Ruud van Nistelrooy: jumping on someone from behind works well in football’s posturing...
Newcastle need to invest in squad depth, Bryan Gil is in derby contention and Coventry count cost of ‘embarrassing’ lossHalf a week is a long time in football. On Thursday, for 45 minutes, Chelsea were good enough to make Manchester City look pedestrian. On Sunday, they were so poor that City located their unstoppable mode, which had gone missing since mid-October. Chelsea are now out of both domestic cups, and in the Premier League, after scraping one win from their past eight games, they are closer to the bottom (13 points ahead of Southampton) than the top (19 behind Arsenal). Top four? They’re not even in the top four in London, with Brentford and Fulham lording it over them, never...