When Arsene Wenger arrived at Arsenal in October 1996, the bespectacled Frenchman was hailed as a revolutionary – a man whose methods would not only shake up the English game but ultimately shape its future, too. Aston Villa’s players and fans, though, were probably wondering what all the fuss was about. After all, they’d seen it all before, during the brief and somewhat calamitous reign of the top flight’s first foreign manager. Following the departure of England-bound manager Graham Taylor in 1990, Villa chairman ‘Deadly’ Doug Ellis was left searching for a suitable replacement for a man who had just led the Birmingham giants to second place in the old First Division. Gerry Francis, Arthur Cox and David Pleat were...
Amid the brouhaha and ballyhoo surrounding this season’s big-name managers – the Mourinho/Guardiola rivals, Conte's arrival, the Klopp revival – a landmark has been quietly passed. The summer’s new intake means that English top-flight football has now hired a nicely round number of 50 foreign managers. Let’s define our terms. By “foreign” we mean those from outside the British Isles; obviously there has long been a history of Irishmen hopping across our Atlantic archipelago, but that’s another, quite different, story. By “English top-flight” we mean the Premier League and it predecessor the English First Division, along with the England national team – you may recall they have also hired from without, as it were. And by “hired” we mean someone...
Most take-ons – Raheem Sterling (10/13) Pep Guardiola has simplified Sterling’s role by instructing him to stand still on the wing rather than float infield in search of the ball, removing the England international’s mental blockage while creating space for Kevin De Bruyne to flourish. Guardiola instructs his wingers to hug the touchline and only move infield once the ball enters the final third –that way the opposition defence has to stretch wider, which in turn creates space in central areas. Sterling benefits from this by receiving the ball with space ahead of him in which to build up speed. Unsurprisingly, his dribbling skills suddenly look a lot more refined. Sterling still needs to improve his final ball, but is...
Best performance: Liverpool (vs Chelsea) Sometimes it's too easy to translate a winning performance in a big game into genuine significance.The Premier League's broadcasters have always prioritised marquee fixtures and so, inevitably, the temptation is to overstate simple victory. But Liverpool did produce a worthy display on Friday night and, as is becoming a weekly habit, they showed us something new. There may not be anything novel in watching them win at Stamford Bridge –they've developed a recent trend for that –but the manner of their victory was striking. Against the division's superpowers, Jurgen Klopp has typically reverted to counter-pressing type.His record against the traditional top-four clubs, evidenced in wins away to Chelsea and Manchester City last season and Arsenal...
It’s perhaps a little scruffy to behold at times (especially the Xbox One version), is often less than user-friendly, and probably won’t make a brilliant first impression if you’re attuned to FIFA’s customary polish. Stick with it, though, and PES 2017 is one of the most remarkable football games in many years. It’s a little too early to be making definitive statements on its relative position in subjective all-time lists, but its robust and authentic simulation of real-life player behaviours and team tactics makes it a genuine contender. With FIFA 17 a fortnight away, and with PES 2017 beguiling many players (seen our review of the brilliant PES 2017 yet?) with the sheer variety and substance of the stories that...