After a season whereby Chelsea chose to concentrate on winning the Premier League and Manchester United on winning the Europa League, Arsenal chose to win the FA Cup and Arséne Wenger, much to the irritation of almost every Arsenal fan, chose to stay on as manager for a further two years.
This choice is purely selfish as Wenger just doesn’t know what he is going to do when he retires and has already said as much when commenting on Lord Ferg’s retirement. Read the rest of this entry »
Manchester United currently sit top of the Premier League after four games. They have won three of them without conceding a goal. The fourth, away at Stoke, was always going to be their toughest game to date and it was the one which ended their 100% record and their non-concession of goals but still saw them remain unbeaten with a 2-2 draw.
They have yet to play one of the recognised top six but will certainly need to improve on their last performance if they wish to maintain their current position. Read the rest of this entry »
After only four games of the new Premier League season it is, possibly, a little early to be making comparisons between the two summer signings.
Had things worked out the way most people expected them to we would now be writing this article about Chelsea’s Romelu Lukaku and Manchester United’s Alvaro Morata but, in one of those ubiquitous twists of fate United, with a little help from super agent Paul Pogba and an initial fee of ÂŁ75 million, secured the signing of Lukaku who just happened to be on holiday in Los Angeles with Pogba at the time of his signing. Read the rest of this entry »
Having seen the Premier League season rudely interrupted when only three games into it’s new beginning, normal service was resumed on Saturday morning with the first game of the day.
This pitched Manchester City against their newly nominated “bogey team” Liverpool at The Etihad.
A win for City would maintain their unbeaten record and take their points tally up to ten. A win for Liverpool would do exactly the same, so a draw was the sensible, even-money bet. Read the rest of this entry »
As usual there has been a knee-jerk reaction by the FA. This time it is to complaints from some Premier League clubs that the transfer window stayed open for too long.
The fact that the window was still open after the season started meant that squads couldn’t be finalised and players were still on the move, sometimes after having played a game for their previous club as in the case of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, who played against Liverpool in one game and then for them in the next. Read the rest of this entry »
Alexandre Lacazette – Arsenal
A ÂŁ52.7 million signing from Lyon, Lacazette scored with his first attempt at goal in his Arsenal debut. Shortly afterwards he was, totally inexplicably, dropped for the game against Liverpool where Wenger, in a moment brought on by ever-increasing bouts of insanity, preferred Danny Welbeck up front.
Arsenal, unsurprisingly, lost the game heavily and question marks have been raised again, and very early, about the role of the manager in this loss.
Why spend all that money on a player then drop him to the bench for the first “big” test? Read the rest of this entry »
Mourinho, Guardiola, Conte and Klopp all have it, Pochettino is not far behind and Wenger never had it.
What are we talking about? Well, there probably isn’t one word for it. We are talking about charisma, je ne sais quoi, magnetism, talent, personality, winning mentality and other attributes we can’t even think of at this moment! If there is ONE word which encompasses all of these then please let us know.
Remember, we are not judging the most successful manager here, or the one with the best results on the pitch. This is just a bit of fun to see which one of them is the most complete. Read the rest of this entry »
We have always said that the “London” thing is overrated and used as an excuse far too often, usually by the press when they haven’t got the true answer as to why a player, such as Eden Hazard for example, chooses Chelsea over United or City.
The fact is that he didn’t.
At the time Hazard moved to Stamford Bridge, Chelsea were competing on all levels and were in the process of rebuilding having just won the Champions League. Manchester City had been favourites to sign him but grew frustrated at the protracted negotiations and ended up walking away. Read the rest of this entry »
Having initially chosen to stay with Atlético Madrid through a warped sense of loyalty, many people are of the opinion that Antoine Griezmann will move to Manchester United in the January transfer window.
Those opinions will have been strengthened by the recent news that his buy-out clause has been halved to €100 million. This is because, in January, Atlético Madrid will be able to buy players again and will also be in a position to be able to replace Griezmann.
There is no guarantee, however that the player will sign for Manchester United because, by then, Mourinho or his underworked and overpaid scouts, may have identified an alternative. Read the rest of this entry »
One of two things can happen to United’s form between now and January. It can remain consistent whereby they stay at the top of the table, or it can tail off from the blistering start they have made and see them in one of the lower top four places.
If the former happens, then don’t expect a player to be signed in January unless Mourinho can get exactly who he wants. If it is the latter, then rigorous attempts will probably be made to fill the position he feels he has missed out on this time.
If Dithering Ed Woodward had gone the extra mile and signed Ivan Perisić, as he did with every other player he has bought to date, then there would, we assume, be no need to bring in a player in January. As he didn’t go the extra mile will this see JosĂ© turn back to one of the original favourites in Antoine Griezmann? Read the rest of this entry »
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 