Eddie Howe’s side have recaptured early season form but visitors struggle without Casemiro in their midfieldSome great mysteries endure, some just fade away. Does anybody talk about the Marie Celeste any more? The quest for El Dorado has run out of steam. Even, with all due respect to Visit Scotland, the Loch Ness Monster feels a busted flush. And Tottenham Hotspur are no longer fourth in the Premier League.For weeks, Spurs remained inexplicably in the Champions League qualification slots. They kept losing, kept being booed off, kept being embarrassed, and yet always they clung to fourth. It was one of the world’s great mysteries. Graham Hancock wrote the sort of book on the subject that enrages academic historians and archaeologists....
As both clubs continue to face questions over their ownership, supporters and players just want to get on with the footballWith the utmost diligence and care, the Newcastle fan pulls a neatly folded green Saudi Arabia flag from a holdall, pulls it taut at the corners, drapes it over his shoulders and walks on.Across the road, by the big Asda, with equal diligence and equal care, some Manchester City fans are collecting and cataloguing non-perishable donations for the local food bank. Behind them the giant steel beams of the Etihad Stadium glisten in the watery morning light, like candles on the world’s largest birthday cake. Continue reading...
The current position is unsustainable with foreign states buying clubs and taking a seat of power in the national game“It’s a fund.” There was something captivating about watching Tracey Crouch MP say these words in front of a parliamentary committee in December 2021; like the moment, six episodes in, when you realise – oh yes, of course – that your favourite character is actually a robot replicant too.Crouch was responding to the suggestion during a discussion of the fan-led review of professional men’s football that Newcastle United’s ownership is in effect an arm of the Saudi Arabian government. And it was an impressive moment in other ways, evidence of the smartness, the excellent optics, of getting someone relatable and unaffected...
Graham Potter pleads for patience, while Trent Alexander-Arnold’s form is a cause for concern – at least to someCasemiro wins things. Before arriving in Manchester he had claimed five Champions Leagues, three La Liga titles, one Copa América and 15 other trophies for club and country. He’d won 10 of the 12 major finals he’d played. Now he has a Carabao Cup. Manchester United signed a player with an intimate knowledge of that winning feeling. But would any of that experience count in a team that had forgotten what was required to get over the line? Without him they had lost three finals in five years while finishing second in the league on two occasions. How fitting that his headed...
After a decade of entropy the Dutchman’s simple competence has the club enjoying the present and looking to the futureThere was a funny moment at the end of this controlled, slow-burn, oddly inevitable Manchester United Wembley victory. As the final whistle blew and the players fell to their knees and shrieked and yelped, Diogo Dalot found himself running past the slender figure of Erik ten Hag, who was basically just standing there, hands still in his coat pockets.Dalot howled and danced and flexed his neck muscles, apparently expecting some kind of answering victory frenzy. Ten Hag politely shook his hand. Dalot froze, yelped some more, then basically ran off. Continue reading...