Gabriel and Arsenal falter under pressure, Crystal Palace have a problem with fan behaviour, Sunderland must keep Didier Ndong while Hull’s Harry Maguire continues his excellent formSean Dyche laughed off the fact James Tarkowski had been struck by a plastic cigarette lighter as Burnley’s players celebrated their first goal but Crystal Palace will find the incident far from amusing. This was the third time a visiting player has been struck by an object thrown from that corner of the Holmesdale stand since the club returned to the Premier League in 2013. Wayne Rooney and more recently Fabricio Coloccini were the others hit and the Metropolitan police appealed for witnesses over the coin flung at the Newcastle defender. The Football Association...
Tottenham’s attacking duo epitomised their side’s youth and vigour in contrast to their opponents’ soft centre and absence of heart in Spurs’ 2-0 winAt the end of this vigorous but ultimately quite straightforward 2-0 victory for Mauricio Pochettino’s focused and muscular Tottenham Hotspur team a large knot of home fans refused to leave their seats, staying instead to dance and sing and hug, gorging themselves on the moment.Half an hour later they were still crammed into the exit walkways of this disintegrating stadium and still singing, appropriately enough, about Dele Alli, who scored the opening goal, who was spiky and incisive when it mattered, and whose partnership with Harry Kane embodied, on the day and beyond, the striking gulf in...
The guiding power behind the Argentinian and his team’s high-octane style has a spiritual dimension that has transformed a mentally weak side into title chasersMauricio Pochettino mentioned the concept at a press briefing last December. “Energía universal,” the Tottenham Hotspur manager said, slipping into his native Spanish. It translates fairly literally into English yet the meaning is altogether more profound.The best way to describe it is as a guiding power, a life force that influences everything. It feels appropriate to consider the Butterfly Effect, which advances the possibility that small causes can have momentous effects, and there is an obvious spiritual dimension to it. Universal energy. It has shaped Pochettino’s approach to life and been at the heart of his...
What does it say that decision not to stick around and continue to see what happens? Something about the way we watch modern footballIt was a sight to make the heart sink. With 10 minutes left on the referee’s watch – plus, as it turned out, four minutes of time added on for stoppages – football fans at one end of Wembley were fleeing through every available exit with hardly a backward glance. From the helicopter camera showing the outside of the stadium, they resembled water pouring out of a colander and sluicing into a gutter.Fourteen minutes in which to turn around a two-goal deficit in one of the biggest matches of the season, for which adult spectators had bought...
The Bayern midfielder increasingly looks a candidate for the title of most startlingly strange meteoric 24-month first-team career ever. Wonderkids bewareAmong the many doomed and dreadful writing projects I occasionally pretend to be working on is a Bret Easton Ellis-style football novel about a hip, talented, existentially glazed and clueless wonderkid being passed around Europe’s super-clubs by the shady financial powers that run the world game.The lead character is an interchangeable young star, probably Portuguese, called something generic like Rui Pinto or José Costa. Tattooed and glossed, garlanded with premature honours, his entire private and professional life is owned by a Gestifute-style talent agency. He wears sunglasses and huge headphones and speaks mainly in emojis, while being shuttled from elite...