Football (Soccer) News
Keane Lewis-Potter’s equaliser earned the Bees a deserved point as Arsenal dropped two in the title race
3 min: … but then Gabriel inexplicably toe-punts a wild backpass out for a corner. So careless. An early chance for Brentford to cause some of that six-yard-box chaos their manager was talking about before the game.
2 min: Brentford stroke it around a bit. Then Arsenal stroke it around a bit. One of those starts.
Continue reading...Burnley were dead and buried. Trailing 2-0 to the £48m striker Jørgen Strand Larsen’s first goals for Crystal Palace after half an hour, it looked inevitable that Scott Parker’s side would match their club‑record 17-match winless run in the top flight that dates all the way back to 1890.
Yet after all the misery since their last victory in October, everything changed in the space of seven scintillating minutes just before half-time. Burnley hit back through Hannibal Mejbri, Jaidon Anthony and an own goal from Jefferson Lerma to record only a second away win of the season since being promoted. It keeps alive their slim hopes of survival, although Parker will know it will take several more results like this to conjure up the greatest of escapes.
Continue reading...Manchester City’s week is moving along sweetly, this win closing the gap to three points to Arsenal, who travel to Brentford on Thursday. On Sunday, they defeated Liverpool at Anfield, on Wednesday they downed Fulham at home to reel off a 20th consecutive victory against them.
The rosiest moment for the title challengers was Erling Haaland’s 39th‑minute strike, a first in the competition from open play in nine games, though more concerning was his removal at the break, when City led 3-0.
Continue reading...There were big wins for City at the top of the table while Nottngham Forest fell short against Wolves and Burnley stunned Palace
Alessia Russo has just scored Arsenal’s fourth goal of the night. Sarah Rendell has the details.
That last news item makes this next email even more topical. “The LA Galaxy vs Los Angeles FC derby,” says Marek Wojenski in Connecticut, “is known as El Tráfico.”
Continue reading...Sunderland finally lost this season at the Stadium of Light, Virgil van Dijk making the difference with his second-half header
2 min: … the ball’s played back to Angulo, who tries to trick Alisson at his near post. The keeper reads the danger and claims. That’s got the home fans, already giving it plenty, going some. Meanwhile here’s Peter Oh: “Liverpool have had such bad luck with injuries, shipping comical last-gasp goals, and suspensions. How could things possibly get worse? Running into eleven Black Cats maybe? Sigh.”
1 min: It has been belting down on Wearside all day. It’s still raining. Windy as well. And Sunderland are on the front foot early doors, Mukiele in space on the right and winning a very early corner off Robertson. From which …
Continue reading...The world of soccer throws up no shortage of questions. In today’s column, we endeavor to answer three of them
Last season’s 17th place finish was meant to be rock bottom for Tottenham Hotspur; a nadir for the club in the Premier League era that was awkwardly offset by glory in the Europa League. There is, however, no glory in what Spurs are going through this season and no guarantee that rock bottom isn’t still around the corner.
Continue reading...To his extensive list of problems at Tottenham, Thomas Frank can add another. The manager is dealing with a ghost from the club’s more successful recent past. There were 49 minutes on the clock when the South Stand choir took up the song. “He’s magic, you know. Mauricio Poch-e-ttino.” The message was clear. They want their former idol back. They cannot persist any longer with Frank.
The only wonder here was that Newcastle, who had arrived on the back of three successive Premier League defeats and with numerous issues of their own, were not out of sight at the interval. If they were bright in the first half, Spurs were impossibly awful. Frank’s injury list numbered 10 players and he lost another one – Wilson Odobert – in the 34th minute. The captain, Cristian Romero, is suspended, of course. Nobody wants to hear excuses.
Continue reading...Benjamin Šeško rescued a point for Manchester United deep into injury time to keep Michael Carrick’s unbeaten record intact
That version of Bubbles with the bouncy bassline ends, the whistle goes, and Manchester United get the ball rolling. A roar from all four corners.
The teams are out! West Ham United sport their famous claret and blue, while Manchester United wear their second-choice kit of “snowflake … with flashes of purple and lilac.” A rare old noise at the London Stadium ahead of a fixture that delivers, one way or another, more often than not. We’ll be off in a minute!
Continue reading...Middlesbrough took over at the top of the Championship as an impressive first-half performance secure a 2-1 victory at Sheffield United.
Goals from Tommy Conway and Riley McGree during the opening 45 minutes proved to be crucial, taking Boro two points clear of Coventry at the top after a sixth successive win.
Continue reading...Referee Craig Pawson sent off Dominik Szoboszlai by the letter of the law; the only way it should be done
Refereeing is the most thankless of jobs. There are times when you can get a decision absolutely right and still you get criticised on all sides.
In the final seconds at Anfield on Sunday, with the Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson caught upfield, Rayan Cherki rolled the ball towards the Liverpool goal. Erling Haaland gave chase and would have gotten there to nudge the ball definitively over the line but he was pulled back by Dominik Szoboszlai, who would then have caught up with the ball to clear had he not been pulled back by Haaland. The ball crossed the line but the referee Craig Pawson, after a VAR review, gave not a goal but a free-kick for the first offence, sending Szoboszlai off for the denial of an obvious goal-scoring opportunity.
Continue reading...VAR’s application has been a divisive topic everywhere it has been introduced. It was more of the same in Serie A
You might not be shocked to learn that Daniele De Rossi thinks football has gone soft. Since retiring and moving into management, the man with the “beware the sliding tackle” tattoo has acknowledged he sometimes misses getting to stick the boot in. But would the stick figure seen flying into an opponent on the back of his right calf even stand a chance in this era of VAR?
“I don’t know what to say any more,” lamented De Rossi after his Genoa team lost 3-2 to Napoli on Saturday. “The football we played no longer exists. We were naïve, but it seems I don’t know anything. I don’t know what sport I am coaching.”
Continue reading...Liverpool rue costly mistakes, Viktor Gyökeres builds up a head of steam and Rayan gets the hype train chugging
Arne Slot was close to landing a coup against Pep Guardiola, the coach he admires most. Then came more of the individual errors that have ruined Liverpool’s title defence. Aching weaknesses within Slot’s squad were exposed again. Dominik Szoboszlai playing Bernardo Silva onside for Manchester City’s equaliser was an error midfielders playing full-back will make. Szoboszlai’s late red card was, though, foolish. Alisson’s foul on Matheus Nunes for Erling Haaland’s decisive penalty was another rush of blood. Liverpool’s huge summer spend was motivated by their executives’ belief in buying the best individuals to unlock the Premier League’s tactical cages. City’s key individuals showed such a policy can pay off, with Silva inspirational, Gianluigi Donnarumma making the save that sparked the game’s chaotic final scenes, Marc Guéhi looking an astute defensive signing and Haaland supplying Silva’s goal. City had been unconvincing but their mentality held, allowing them to eventually profit from Hugo Ekitiké’s misses and the waning of Mohamed Salah. John Brewin
Match report: Liverpool 1-2 Manchester City
Match report: Brighton 0-1 Crystal Palace
Match report: Arsenal 3-0 Sunderland
Match report: Newcastle 2-3 Brentford
Continue reading...Dembélé doubles up in 5-0 mauling
Kane and Díaz on target in Bayern win
Ousmane Dembélé struck twice as Paris Saint-Germain blew away bitter rivals Marseille on Sunday, reclaiming top spot in Ligue 1 with a crushing 5-0 victory at the Parc des Princes.
Dembélé opened the scoring after just 12 minutes and added a second before half-time as PSG delivered a real statement of intent going into the crucial months of the season.
Continue reading...Ismaïla Sarr’s second-half strike was enough to give Palace their first league win since November and take them nine points clear of the relegation zone
I’ll probably end up looking silly, but I quite fancy Palace here. Brighton lack a reliable scorer – though Katsoulas’ brilliant goal against Bournemouth tells us he knows where the goal is – and I think Palace have the speed of foot and of pass to cause them problems.
So where is the game? Brighton will expect – and probably allowed – to have more of the ball, with Mitoma and Rutter staying narrow and Kadioglu and De Cuyper keeping width outside them – especially useful when facing a three-at-the-back system. The space will be in behind the wing-backs and down the sides of the centre-backs, though I’d also expect Katsoulas to target the space in behind.
Continue reading...Pep Guardiola has led the way with his tactics for a decade but he has changed course and Arsenal have taken advantage
Great rivalries are always more about feel than about numbers. There have been only four Premier League seasons in which Manchester City and Liverpool have finished in the top two positions in the table (and one of those occasions was 2013-14 when the managers were Manuel Pellegrini and Brendan Rodgers, which is not a duel anybody is writing books or making documentaries about).
Yet for most of the decade that Pep Guardiola has been at City, it has felt that English football was defined by his struggle with Jürgen Klopp and Liverpool, and by a form of the game that developed as each learned from the other.
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