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...
Forward answered his critics with a fine hat-trick to set a new Fifa goalscoring record and secure victory over TottenhamCristiano Ronaldo has been a problematic signing for Manchester United. Particularly in the last few weeks he has – finally, at 37 – begun to look his age. He would create tactical problems for any coach, especially one as devoted to gegenpressing as Ralf Rangnick. He is not the player he was. But though much was taken, much abides.That this was only his second hat-trick for Manchester United is testament to how he has changed as a player. As he moved past Josef ‘Pepi’ Bican in Fifa’s charts as the leading goalscorer of all time, it’s easy to forget that when...
The Italian has form for erupting after matches but latest show of rage points to manager and club being a poor fitOn Saturday night, flushed with the glow of the stunning 3-2 win at Manchester City, Antonio Conte declared that his Tottenham players were the best group he had worked with in terms of attitude. On Tuesday lunchtime, the manager cut a relaxed and contented figure at a media briefing, suggesting that his relentless messaging about mentality, the need to suffer, to live and breathe the job – particularly the lows – were getting through.To those in attendance, it seemed like a turning point in Conte’s near four-month tenure. After the home Premier League losses to Southampton and Wolves, a...
Jürgen Klopp’s ‘greatest squad’ are closing in on Manchester City with Liverpool now just six points behind them in the tableAs if from nowhere a title race has appeared. Manchester City’s 12-point lead is down to six which means that if Liverpool win their game in hand and if Liverpool win at the Etihad Stadium in April, they will be level on points. City are still in the better position, particularly given they have not lost a league game at home to Liverpool under Pep Guardiola but what had started to look like a procession, quite unexpectedly, has regained a sense of intrigue.It is an indication of how dominant City had come to appear that this feels surprising. Liverpool, after...
Striker burgled a spectacular winning goal but helped his team as a pressing midfielder, playmaker and false forwardAbout an hour before kick-off at the Etihad Stadium a member of staff walks around handing out puzzles. At most grounds they are more popularly known as “team sheets”, but ever since Pep Guardiola arrived at Manchester City the exercise of deciphering his starting XI has become almost as absorbing as watching it. Brows are furrowed. Heads are scratched. Is that Bernardo Silva as a false 9? João Cancelo in midfield? That can’t be an 8, or a 7, and the 5 goes there, so … Ederson at centre-half?The real trick, of course, is realising that at Guardiola’s City, formations and starting points...