English Premier League News
A draw that had huge ramifications at both ends of the Premier League
Manchester City get the ball rolling. A fine Saturday-evening-pints atmosphere!
The teams are out! Pretty bubbles in the air. West Ham in claret and blue, Manchester City in second-choice black. Not sure that’s the best combo for colour-blind fans, but that particular consideration seems to have fallen by the wayside pretty much across the board this season. We’ll be off in a minute.
Continue reading...Humbled English clubs must realise that what works against the very good turns out to be inadequate against the best
If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. If the only tool you have is a set play, the solution to everything starts to look like a pre-programmed move based on blocking runs. And perhaps that’s especially true if you’re worn out, knackered by the attrition of a persistent schedule of two games a week against teams who are frustratingly well organised and physically imposing. Think? Dribble? Make a surprising run? Who has the bandwidth for that? Just sling it to the back post and get in the way of the keeper.
Arne Slot had spoken in the buildup to Liverpool’s defeat by Galatasaray on Tuesday of how difficult it is to create chances in modern football, and how set pieces are a way to circumvent the sophisticated defensive setups of most Premier League teams. He is certainly not alone in taking that approach in the Premier League. But the Champions League is not like the Premier League. The crowding of the six-yard box, the full bearhug grappling, the meat wall to block the goalkeeper … it turns out all of those are penalised by European referees, and that is a problem for Premier League teams.
Continue reading...Burnley and Bournemouth played out a tepid goalless draw that does little to help either team’s Premier League ambitions. The Clarets managed just a fourth clean sheet in the league this season, but remain eight points adrift of safety with eight games left, while Bournemouth are now unbeaten in 10 matches but really needed three points to boost their European hopes.
Both teams hit the woodwork while Evanilson had a very early shot cleared off the line but neither did enough to merit victory.
Continue reading...Max Dowman came on to rescue the Gunners and become the youngest scorer in Premier League history
The players are out there. Bukayo Saka, Arsenal’s stand-in captain, leads his team as they hand-slap their way along the Everton line. Mikel Arteta greets David Moyes with the obligatory hug, plus a broad smile. The crowd sing North London Forever and give themselves a round of applause.
“Bayern have just drawn 1-1 at Leverkusen too,” says Lenny Peters. “So it’s clearly a tough place to go.”
Continue reading...With nine games to go, we assess the Premier League teams behind Arsenal and Manchester City who are most likely to fill the remaining berths
Reasons for optimism: Michael Carrick recently professed himself as “definitely a glass half-full” manager so the interim surely looks at the final nine games and sees a huge opportunity. Particularly positive here are the fixtures with Aston Villa (Sunday), Chelsea (18 April) and Liverpool (2 May): three chances for Manchester United to seriously damage the Champions League qualification prospects of the three teams currently directly below them and enhance their own. Carrick’s men are third but only three points above Liverpool in sixth and, with fifth probably enough for a Champions League berth, beating even one of the three would be a big boost to hopes – provided results are rosy in United’s other fixtures.
Continue reading...Leaders Arsenal host Everton on Saturday while struggling Tottenham head to Anfield to face Liverpool on Sunday
Saturday 3pm Venue Turf Moor
Continue reading...Bukayo Saka could switch to No 10, Brentford’s Igor Thiago sets sights on 20-goal mark and a key selection dilemma looms for Chelsea
In the summer, Burnley signed two new goalkeepers. Martin Dubravka agreed a one-year deal after leaving Newcastle, and has been one of the successes from a questionable round of recruitment. At 37, however, and with a need to cut costs should relegation be confirmed, it feels unlikely the veteran would be kept on at Turf Moor in the Championship. On the bench throughout the Premier League season has been Max Weiss, 16 years Dubravka’s junior. The German has featured in cup competitions but is awaiting his league debut and it feels as if Scott Parker should give him one soon as part of planning for next season. The head coach needs to look beyond the next nine games and to the future, which is more likely to include Weiss, who has another three years remaining on his contract, than Dubravka. Will Unwin
Burnley v Bournemouth, Saturday 3pm (all times GMT)
Sunderland v Brighton, Saturday 3pm
Arsenal v Everton, Saturday 5.30pm
Chelsea v Newcastle, Saturday 5.30pm
West Ham v Manchester City, Saturday 8pm
Crystal Palace v Leeds, Sunday 2pm
Continue reading...Of six teams in the last 16, only two – Arsenal and Liverpool – look more likely than not to get to the quarter-finals. But does it matter?
The coefficient is safe. The coefficient is yours. You’re going home with the coefficient. But perhaps not, on this evidence, with the microwave, the washing machine or the Jet Ski.
England’s soccer shame. Premier League in EURO MELTDOWN. Robot-ball crisis: how Arteta’s Arsenal destroyed all that is good and true, including the ploughman’s lunch and probably Woolworths. This kind of stuff has begun to do the rounds after this week’s Champions League last-16 matches.
Continue reading...The leaders haven’t won the title in more than 20 years. Yet very few neutrals are excited about seeing them as new champions
What was striking after Arsenal’s grim 1-0 win at Brighton on Wednesday was less Brighton manager Fabian Hürzeler’s attack on the Gunners’ style than the way his criticism seemed to resonate. In England, it feels as though almost nobody, other than Arsenal supporters or anyone-but-City fans, wants them to win the title.
“If I would ask everyone in the room: ‘Did you really enjoy this football game?’ I’m sure maybe one raises his arm because he’s a big Arsenal fan but, besides that, no chance,” Hürzeler said.
This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition.
Continue reading...Spurs took the lead but Micky van de Ven was sent off conceding a penalty and Palace won easily from there, leaving the home side just a point off the relegation zone
Palace, meanwhile, will look to play off Strand Larsen, with Sarr and Guessand asked to run at defenders, width supplied by the excellent wing-back pairing off Munoz and Mitchell. I quite fancy those two to cause problems, especially if, behind them, Wharton and Kamada are at it with their passing.
So where is the game? I imagine Spurs are playing 4-3-3 – if they are – partly to get down the sides of Palace’s outside centre-backs and in behind their wing-backs. For what it’s worth, 4-4-2 is also a decent antidote to three at the back. Otherwise, they’ll want to serve Solanke cut-backs and low crosses to the front post, with Kolo Muani asked to clear space for him, by carrying the ball, bumping defenders out of the way or both.
Continue reading...The Brighton manager, Fabian Hürzeler, accused Arsenal of playing by their own rules in a void left by weak Premier League refereeing after the Gunners' 1-0 win at the Amex Stadium on Wednesday.
Bukayo Saka’s early goal moved Arsenal seven points clear at the top of the table, with Manchester City drawing 2-2 at home against Nottingham Forest.
'I think there was only one team who tried to play football today,' said Hürzeler. 'If they win the Premier League, no one will ask how ... [But] I will never be that kind of manager who tries to win in that way.
'Of course, every team will manage and waste time but there has to be a limit, and the limit has to be set by the Premier League.'
Continue reading...From grappling at corners to VAR, the endless list of complaints reflects a wider sense of dislocation from ‘the product’
A terrible boredom stalks the land. Across the nation’s television studios and podcast armchairs, wearied men grizzle accursedly with forked tongues into branded microphones: entombed by a game they despise and yet are paid so generously to discuss. Out there in the wild digital beyond, the sickness festers still deeper. The game has gone, they type into a little white box. This is not the football I once loved, click send. The beautiful game is broken, pleads the Telegraph. They think it’s all over, and perhaps it always was.
Arne Slot is no longer enjoying himself, and presumably a good proportion of the Liverpool fans at Molineux on Tuesday night know exactly how he feels. John Terry is no longer enjoying himself. Yaya Touré is “disappointed”. Ruud Gullit is so disgusted he has decided to stop watching. Chris Sutton thinks Arsenal will be the ugliest winners in Premier League history. Mark Goldbridge is bored out of his mind, albeit nowhere near as bored as you would presumably need to be to watch a Mark Goldbridge livestream.
Continue reading...Eddie Howe accepts his Newcastle side are at their best when they create chaos and no one in black and white is better at conjuring it than Will Osula.
The maverick Denmark Under-21 striker is, to say the least, unpredictable. No one, least of all Osula himself, ever seems quite sure what he will do at any given moment. Here though he stepped off the substitutes’ bench to score a fabulous, virtuoso 90th-minute winner for a home team reduced to 10 men by Jacob Ramsey’s controversial 45th-minute sending off for a perceived dive.
Continue reading...Will Osula scored a majestic 90th-minute solo goal to secure the points – deservedly so - for ten-man Toon
2 min: Newcastle get onto the front foot immediately. Hall bombs down the left; Trippier probes down the right. Shaw looks to have tugged Trippier back, but the referee waves play on. Not too much in the way of fume from the players, but the fans aren’t happy that’s for sure.
Manchester United get the ball rolling. They’re kicking towards the Gallowgate in this first half.
Continue reading...“Vamos, vamos!” (“come on, let’s go!”) screamed Rodri in his native Spanish following a 62nd-minute header that seemed to grab a precious victory for Manchester City.
But the title chasers’ 2-1 lead lasted only 14 minutes as Phil Foden allowed Elliot Anderson to run off him and the Nottingham Forest midfielder, from range, curled a sublime equaliser beyond Gianluigi Donnarumma. City’s faithful were silenced.
Continue reading...