19 h. ago All cake, no icing: Arteta’s Arsenal left sensing a familiar ghost in the shadows | Barney Ronay

Arsenal dominated the start of the match, as they knew they had to, but without a genuine centre-forward it was all in vainHow to lose a game of football part 94: losing while appearing to win, advanced level. It will be tempting to see in the opening 27 minutes of this Champions League semi-final second leg a perfect little miniature, an executive summary of a team and a mini-era, out there under the hard white lights of the Parc des Princes, Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal pinned and wriggling on the wall.The club’s supporters will feel the pain more keenly because for the first 26 of those 27 minutes this was a slick, luminous, dominant Arsenal away performance. They flooded the midfield, controlled the ball, won it back aggressively. Martin Ødegaard squirrelled about, all malevolent invention. Arsenal had 75% possession, six shots and 10 crosses. They were all over this game, arms on both lapels, pressing PSG back against the edge of things. Continue reading...

Politics

35 h. ago Trajectory, vibe, a sense of progress: why Arsenal can’t afford a Paris mismatch | Barney Ronay

There is a fair chance Mikel Arteta’s team won’t beat Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League. If they must lose, lose rightIs this thing still on? After last week’s strangely enervated first-leg performance against Paris Saint-Germain at the Emirates Stadium it has been tempting to get a bit ahead of things, to see Arsenal’s season as already a zombie entity, still out there walking around the place, limbs twitching, skinny hands rattling the perimeter fence, not exactly dead, but not too far from undead.On Monday night, even, Paris police declared Wednesday’s return leg at the Parc des Princes an event “of no particular concern”, as in no great flashpoints, no obvious tension. Just don’t tell Mikel Arteta that. And not just because rumours of the death of Arsenal’s season are widely exaggerated. There is even a nightmare scenario available to the club’s supporters, a product of the deep banter-verse, where Arsenal don’t make the Champions League next season but Tottenham do. A...

Politics

8 d. ago Mikel Arteta’s Big Energy show splutters against PSG to reveal Arsenal’s frailties | Barney Ronay

Absences were keenly felt by hosts whose aggressive approach was disrupted by visiting side’s physical pressureReasons to be cheerful. Hmm. Let’s see. Well, it’s only 1-0. There’s that. And this is a significant achievement given Arsenal were basically suffocated in the opening 20 minutes of this semi-final first leg, unable to breathe in their own stadium, stretched thin, starved of air and light by the deep blue machine of the Paris Saint-Germain press.In those moments PSG just seemed to have more players in every sector, to be self replicating, João Neves appearing at the shoulder of every teammate like a ghostly butler. In the process Arsenal’s own aggressive approach was entirely disrupted by PSG’s combination of physical pressure and just making you chase, filling your legs with lactic acid, fogging the brain. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago Unruffled Liverpool and Salah serve up theatre and euphoria on title day | Barney Ronay

Arne Slot’s team faced the perfect opponents as the afternoon became a dual celebration for their Covid season triumphFootball is often compared to theatre. Sometimes it just is theatre. With 63 minutes gone at Anfield, and Liverpool already 3-1 up, Mohamed Salah took the ball on the right in an empty square of deep green, veered inside, and then paused, leaving just enough time for the entire home crowd to freeze the moment, to see a snapshot of what was about to happen.Salah rolled the ball to his left then spanked it hard into the near corner, drawing a vast, rolling cheer that just didn’t want to stop, a self‑fuelling cheer for this relentless one-man highlights reel, face of an era, the curator of moments, who then made another one here by taking a mid-match celebration selfie with the Kop. Continue reading...

Society

1 week ago Eubank Jr v Benn feels like a mistake – bad TV pretending to be good sport | Barney Ronay

Without their fathers’ surnames there is zero chance the mixmatched catchweight contest would take placeBack in his pomp as an era-defining, generational dog-torturer, the great Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov did an interesting experiment with shapes. This involved showing a dog called Vampire a combination of circles and ovals. Circles meant he was about to be fed. Ovals meant no food and possibly, maybe, at a push, being electrocuted.Before long Vampire was showing the familiar conditioned response, salivating when he saw a circle, shying away from the oval. At which point Pavlov began to show him shapes that were weirdly pitched between the two, not quite an oval, not quite a circle, half a food promise, half something else, until eventually Vampire snapped, yelping and running around in circles, unable to interpret the truth of the thing in front of him. So, top work there everyone. Another dog successfully confused. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Liverpool one victory from title and Villa win big in race for top five – Football Weekly

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Barney Ronay and Jonathan Wilson as Aston Villa, Manchester City and Chelsea secure important wins in the race for the five Champions League spotsMax Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Barney Ronay and Jonathan Wilson as Aston Villa, Manchester City and Chelsea secure important wins in the race for the five Champions League spots.Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email. Continue reading...

Sport

2 w. ago It’s complicated: Awkward marriage of Maresca and Chelsea provides great drama | Barney Ronay

Enzo Maresca loves controlled buildup play from the back. Chelsea fans tend to like forceful, direct football. Conflict of some kind always seemed inevitableThere was a new story this week about a team of a hundred scientists who have spent nine years analysing a single cubic millimetre of mouse brain. The one hundred scientists have finally published their results. And those results are basically: “Whoah, have you seen this stuff?”What they found inside the cubic millimetre of mouse brain was an eternity of wiring, just miles and miles of tiny wire to be untangled, pictured in the accompanying article clumped into a single mass, like a pan of mouse brain vermicelli left overnight in the sink. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago Rice finds antidote to Madrid’s magic and provides glimpse of his ultimate potential | Barney Ronay

Arsenal conclusively outplayed Real Madrid, led by brilliant performances from Bukayo Saka and Declan RiceWhere is your magic now? As the night wore on at an increasingly sullen Bernabéu, as the latest keepers of the Real Madrid shirt tried and failed to crank their way up through the emotional gears, this felt a bit like watching a conjuring act gone wrong. Pick a card. Any card. No. Not that one. Wait. Keep your eyes on the ball. The glass. Hang on.Such is the voodoo around Real Madrid, the white magic stuff, it had been necessary to process quite a lot of this chat in the buildup. Had Arsenal won too well at the Emirates Stadium? Was a three-goal advantage further proof of their naivety? Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago Salah staying doesn’t change one key point: Liverpool still need to rebuild | Barney Ronay

On the face of it the Egyptian’s new contract has no downside – but this is not entirely a free ride for Arne Slot and the clubWell, that’s good then. Things fall apart. But sometime they also don’t. And the centre does actually hold.Perhaps the most interesting part of Mohamed Salah’s contract extension at Liverpool is the fact this is a rare crossover story, a signing that steps outside its own tribal margins. There will of course be localised delight. Liverpool fans can look forward to their own lost weekend in the sun, a sense that the good times will now continue to roll, that the time bar has shifted. Return to your seats. This is a lock-in. Continue reading...

Politics

4 w. ago Declan Rice topples Real Madrid with black swans and silver bullets | Barney Ronay

Arsenal midfielder had never scored a free-kick before nailing two in 12 minutes to sink European championsSo that’s how you beat Real Madrid then. Here it is, the silver bullet. Improbably brilliant, aesthetically lovely, statistically semi‑impossible right-footed free‑kicks. What’s the problem here exactly?Before this fun, wild, unbound night at the Emirates Stadium Declan Rice had scored exactly zero free-kicks across his eight-year professional career. On Tuesday night he scored two in 12 minutes, against the champions of Europe, in Arsenal’s biggest European game in almost 30 years. Continue reading...

Politics