Champions League final’s star forwards have countless goals between them – but no major trophies. In Madrid one will shed the nearly-man tagHanging on to a rising balloon presents you with a difficult decision: let go before it’s too late, or hold on and keep getting higher. When Harry Kane injured his ankle in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-final against Manchester City, Tottenham’s chances of ending their season in Madrid on Saturday night seemed to have narrowed to a fine point.Kane has of course been the razor edge and all-round attacking totem of Mauricio Pochettino’s team, with an entire system set up to funnel and shift around him. Yet fast forward two months and in his absence...
Keep Virgil van Dijk fit, hope Mohamed Salah recaptures his form and deal with the demands of European footballWin, win, win, win, win and win again (and pray Manchester City slip up) is the obvious answer to what Liverpool must do to be finally crowned Premier League champions. As they prepare for Friday’s visit to Southampton, we look at five key areas that can help Jürgen Klopp’s team maintain their push for that elusive title … Related: Jürgen Klopp unconcerned by Mohamed Salah’s goal drought Continue reading...
Salah could not have a better moment to rediscover his best form but the title will be decided by togetherness not star powerThere was an interesting story last year on the Al-Monitor website about Mo Salah’s home town of Nagrig. An Al-Monitor journalist had travelled the dust roads from Cairo to discover exactly how Salah’s rise had inspired hope, laughter and joy. And found … no joy, very little laughter and only a grudging amount of hope.Instead the people of Nagrig wanted to talk about how nothing works, how they have no jobs and how all the people suddenly turning up looking for a kind of Scouse Bethlehem were quite annoying. As were the newspaper stories about beaming, Salah-crazed Egyptians...
The solidity of Jürgen Klopp’s team in defence has come at a cost in attack and against Everton they passed up five decent chances in a draw that kept them off the topAnother Sunday away against a local rival, another goalless draw, and another point that will either be what ended up winning Liverpool the league or that ended up costing them the title. That’s the problem with games like these: it can never be said an away point in such an environment is a bad result, but equally too many of such outcomes could be costly. And again there is the underlying thought that something has gone wrong with the forward line, that just when Liverpool could have done...
In the past 10 years, any Premier League attacker who can maintain an A-list run has become a target of La Liga super clubs – but it would be a terrible idea for the Liverpool strikerIs English football in danger of losing Mohamed Salah to Real Madrid or Barcelona because he is now simply too good to stay?Mido certainly thinks so. Yes: that Mido. The same Mido who once issued a formal apology to Middlesbrough fans for being too fat. The same Mido who is, it turns out, a very good pundit these days and who raised a doubly interesting point this week about Salah’s trajectory in this, his second season of outright Premier League supremacy. Related: 11.7mm from glory:...