Harry Maguire can build on England display, N’Golo Kanté plays against the league’s best ball-winner and Everton face a character testWith Trent Alexander-Arnold injured, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané still physically and emotionally recuperating from Tuesday’s World Cup qualifying playoff in Dakar – complete with extra time, penalties and laser beams – various South Americans making late returns from distant internationals and the first leg of a Champions League quarter-final to come on Tuesday, there could hardly be a better time for a plucky underdog to turn up at Anfield. But even allowing for the massive advantages the division’s leading clubs hold over the upstarts, Watford’s record at their grounds is abysmal: in all competitions since 1990 the Hornets have...
Chelsea fans air support for Roman Abramovich as they faced club backed by a nation that executed 81 people on SaturdayThere cannot have been a better way to sum up the rotten state of English football than the moral vacuum that lay at the heart of this strange and upsetting occasion at Stamford Bridge, where a capacity crowd turned up to watch one club with a disqualified owner take on another backed by the public investment fund of a nation which executed 81 people on Saturday.This was a dark day for anyone who cares about the game’s soul. No amount of sportswashing could make the putrid air hanging over this fixture disappear. Not when some Chelsea fans were still determined...
Chelsea’s ownership is finally facing deserved scrutiny but there is a double standard when it comes to Newcastle’s ownersThe internet always knows what you want. This week a particular video clip has been popping up in those wormholes filled with adverts at the side of my screen, pressing its nose up against the glass for hours on end like an unhappy cat mewling at the window.Alan Shearer slams Roman Abramovich over Ukraine statement. There it is again. And here is the text of Alan’s actual slamming: “There’s still no condemnation from Roman or the club about what’s happening in Ukraine.” It is a robust and sincere statement, deserving of serious treatment. So let’s break this down. Continue reading...
Brentford and Newcastle fans come together to hail sight that felt impossible on grim day at the Euros last summerIt was 259 days ago that Mathias Jensen came on for Denmark against Finland at the Euros, replacing Christian Eriksen, who had been carried away on a stretcher an hour and three-quarters earlier having suffered a cardiac arrest. That substitution was leant poignancy by its banality, an ordinary act in extraordinary circumstances. What nobody realised then was that it was a substitution that would echo forward as well as back: it was Jensen who went off on Saturday as Eriksen made his return to football, the sort of coincidence that hints at wider patterns and things that are meant to be.“If...
A mouthwatering match-up on Tyneside, early pressure on Frank Lampard and the issue of crowd conductThere could be no quibbling with Ralf Rangnick’s decision to drop Cristiano Ronaldo for Tuesday’s game at Burnley. The 37-year-old provided evidence in the manager’s defence by adding to Manchester United’s catalogue of bungled opportunities after being introduced from the bench. Earlier in the season Ronaldo’s sharpness regularly saved United. Now he has gone five matches without a goal and Rangnick cannot ignore the fact that, when Ronaldo is not scoring, he does not offer much else, unlike Edinson Cavani. With a resurgent Southampton visiting Old Trafford this weekend and United still chronically fragile at the back, Rangnick will need to field forwards who can...