Football at this time of year comes with ready-made excuses. The Christmas calendar drains players, it leaves teams running on fumes and turn most of the games into a confused mess. But real as those asterisks may be, Wednesday night was still ugly for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer.Because his ManchesterUnited have been here so many times before. Not just beaten by a more vibrant side with a better, brighter and broader range of ideas, but reduced to passivity in a game of note.United and Arsenal used to enjoy such a wonderful co-dependency. They were colliding armies that would smash into each other to the sound of twisting steel. This time, though, United saved their opponents the time. They fell on their...
25. Unai Emery's SevillaThe Europa League is a notoriously tough tournament to win, so Sevilla’s achievement of bagging three trophies on the bounce shouldn’t be underestimated. In 2014, 2015 and 2016, Unai Emery’s side emerged triumphant from a competition in which 56 sides from across the continent take part.Sevilla failed to crack the top four in La Liga during that three-year period, but they reigned supreme on the Europa League stage. A team that at various times featured the talents of Carlos Bacca, Ever Banega, Coke, Vitolo and Ivan Rakitic was expertly guided by Emery, who went on to reach another final with Arsenal in 2018/19.24. Louis van Gaal's NetherlandsDrawn in a tough group alongside Spain and Chile, many tipped...
The VAR situation in the Premier League has grown so fractious that IFAB (the International Football Association Board) has felt the need to be publicly critical. Speaking on Monday, Lukas Brud, the organisation’s general secretary, said that:"With VAR we see some things that are going in a direction that we may need to re-adjust.“If you spend multiple minutes trying to identify whether it is offside or not, then it's not clear and obvious and the original decision should stand. What we really need to stress is that 'clear and obvious' applies to every single situation that is being reviewed by the VAR or the referee.“In theory, 1mm offside is offside, but if a decision is taken that a player is...
We’ve done the hard work, toiling over 10 years of Premier League action to name and rank the division’s 10 best managers this decade. Now it’s time for some fun. At least, it’ll be fun unless you support a club managed by a member of the rogue’s gallery below, in which case it’ll be harrowing. Remember these sorry sods? In FFT’s opinion, and therefore law, they were the worst of what the 2010s had to offer.Candidates weren’t in short supply. The tricky part was selecting only 10. Among those who just weren’t quite bad enough were Iain Dowie (technically he wasn’t even Hull’s manager) and Avram Grant (less technically, he’s suffered enough). Our nominal joint-No.11s are Alan Irvine and Mauricio...
The Manuel Pellegrini era has ended at West Ham and in the way it was always likely to. With a long stretch of bad form, a statement, and the club’s future seemingly in the hands of a tediously familiar list of replacements. By Sunday morning, The Athletic’s Roshane Thomas had broken the news that David Moyes was a prohibitive favourite to take over and, with his return to London Stadium confirmed by the end of the day, this cycle of futility had its fitting emblem.Fitting and literal, because West Ham now find themselves in exactly the same position they were in 18 months ago, albeit in a worse league position and short the £160 million which has been spent on...