6 h. ago Grandees River Plate all at sea and banking on new president with a familiar name | Jonathan Wilson

With their election looming, the Argentinian club hope stable leadership can reverse worst form in four decadesStefano Di Carlo was two months old when, in 1989, his grandfather, Titi, became the president of River Plate, taking over after the resignation of Hugo Santilli. He was seven months old when, that December, his grandfather narrowly lost the presidential election. He was three years old when his grandfather took him to his first River Plate game.Titi Di Carlo remained a senior figure at the club and was on the board when he went to a Copa Libertadores quarter-final against Banfield with the 16-year-old Stefano. The first leg had finished 1-1. Continue reading...

Politics

5 d. ago Ange Postecoglou and Nottingham Forest never made sense. So why did it happen?

The former Tottenham manager made a rash Premier League return, and it will probably be his lastSign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson hereThe weirdest aspect of Ange Postecoglou’s 40-day reign at Nottingham Forest was how inevitable it all felt. The only shock was that he was sacked on Saturday, within minutes of a 3-0 home defeat to Chelsea, rather than a day or two later. But by then, it was obvious this ill-starred adventure had run its course; perhaps it was kinder to everybody to bring it to an end. Forest, certainly, had to act quickly if they are to make the most of their first European campaign in three decades.But why was such an obviously terrible appointment made in the first place? What was it that made the Nottingham Forest owner, Evangelos Marinakis, ever think that Postecoglou was the right man to succeed Nuno Espírito Santo? They met in July at an event staged by the Greek league to celebrate Postecoglou winning the Europa League with Tottenham, but was it really j...

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7 d. ago Arne Slot’s Liverpool tactical shifting is gambling on more Wirtz and less Salah | Jonathan Wilson

Winning the Premier League means the Dutchman can ride out the setbacks after making radical changes to his gameplanReplacing a legend is difficult. Even if that legend has lingered too long, even if he has stayed beyond the scope of his powers, coming next is an almost impossible job. David Moyes could not follow Sir Alex Ferguson. Unai Emery could not follow Arsène Wenger. Brian Clough could not follow Don Revie.When there has been a successful transition it has tended to come from within. George Allison continued Herbert Chapman’s work at Arsenal. Dave Mackay took the Derby Clough had built to another league title. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago Why there is no such thing as a perfect football tactic | Jonathan Wilson

In this mailbag edition of his newsletter, Jonathan answers questions about the evolution of tactics, heat and World Cup outsidersSign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson hereDo you believe playing styles are developing incrementally or cyclically? Will things naturally come back around, or is it more a matter of rock, paper, scissors where one style counters another for a short while, as the current style gets broadly adopted? – PaulI dislike the term “cyclical” for tactics because it implies inevitability. Winter, spring, summer, autumn is a cycle; what happens in football tactics is not. When older ideas are repurposed for the modern age, they come with knowledge of what went before. So, to take an extreme example, when Pep Guardiola started fielding teams in a sort of 3-2-2-3 shape, it wasn’t the W-M used by Herbert Chapman in the late 1920s, because in the 100 years since, football has changed enormously: players are fitter, pitches are better, kit is better, we understand press...

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2 w. ago Aston Villa must stop crying foul and focus on the Europa League instead | Jonathan Wilson

There is no grand PSR conspiracy against Unai Emery’s side. They should be challenging Newcastle or Tottenham for fifthFour wins in a row, seven games unbeaten and suddenly life does not seem so bad for Aston Villa. They are up into mid-table and if a 2-0 victory over Feyenoord in the Europa League will not quite live in the memory in the way last season’s games against Bayern Munich, Juventus and Paris Saint-Germain do, a return to Rotterdam at least evoked the glory days of 1982.It will be a while yet before the frustration at missing out on the Champions League fades, but there does now seem to be a gathering recognition that Villa have a decent chance of winning the Europa League, potentially adding Istanbul’s Besiktas Park to De Kuip as a venue where they have won a European trophy. Continue reading...

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3 w. ago WSL clockwatch: Spurs v Brighton, London City Lionesses v Liverpool and more – live

⚽ Latest news from the WSL and the East Anglia derby⚽ Jonathan Wilson on Palace’s flight | And email us hereThere were some pretty unhappy scenes in the EFL yesterday, namely at Hillsborough where play was stopped for five minutes due to the latest fan protest against Sheffield Wednesday owner Dejphon Chansiri. It was a miserable afternoon for Owls fans as their side was shellacked 5-0 by visitors Coventry. Steve Bruce also had a bad day. Blackpool’s poor start to the season continued with a 2-0 home defeat against AFC Wimbledon and afterwards Bruce was dismissed from his position at Bloomfield Road. Blackpool fans, who do you want to see come in? Still plenty of time to turn the season around. Wednesday fans, I’m sorry, you have my deepest sympathies.On the subject of doing the opposite, how are Ipswich fans feeling about today? Will the Old Farm hoodoo finally be broken? Get in touch via the link above or below the line the comment section. Continue reading...

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3 w. ago WSL updates from four games, plus Ipswich v Norwich in Championship – clockwatch live

⚽ News, previews and discussion before Sunday’s action⚽ Jonathan Wilson on Palace’s flight | And email us hereThere were some pretty unhappy scenes in the EFL yesterday, namely at Hillsborough where play was stopped for five minutes due to the latest fan protest against Sheffield Wednesday owner Dejphon Chansiri. It was a miserable afternoon for Owls fans as their side was shellacked 5-0 by visitors Coventry. Steve Bruce also had a bad day. Blackpool’s poor start to the season continued with a 2-0 home defeat against AFC Wimbledon and afterwards Bruce was dismissed from his position at Bloomfield Road. Blackpool fans, who do you want to see come in? Still plenty of time to turn the season around. Wednesday fans, I’m sorry, you have my deepest sympathies.On the subject of doing the opposite, how are Ipswich fans feeling about today? Will the Old Farm hoodoo finally be broken? Get in touch via the link above or below the line the comment section. Continue reading...

Sport

3 w. ago Postecoglou searching for Forest win, WSL action and Ipswich v Norwich – matchday live

⚽ News, previews and discussion before Sunday’s action⚽ Jonathan Wilson on Palace’s flight | And email us hereOn the subject of doing the opposite, how are Ipswich fans feeling about today? Will the Old Farm hoodoo finally be broken? Get in touch via the link above or below the line the comment section.This is a textbook case of the football fan reverse anxiety complex, it’s commonly associated with the great philosopher George Costanza, who said that if everything is telling me one thing, then I must do the opposite: Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago The secrets of Glasner’s success and why Palace system would be lost in translation elsewhere | Jonathan Wilson

Why does a system that has drawn so much scepticism at Manchester United work so well at Crystal Palace?Some fixtures just don’t sound right. Maybe it’s just about conceivable that, had things gone slightly differently in the 70s, Malcolm Allison or Terry Venables could have been leading their side behind the Iron Curtain for a crack at Valeriy Lobanovskyi’s cybernauts, but Dynamo Kyiv against Crystal Palace is still a clash that provokes a double-take. It feels like a category error: how can those two clubs possibly be in the same competition?But this is the modern world. Ukraine is battling invasion, its teams diminished. The Premier League is extremely rich. And Crystal Palace are managed by one of the rising talents of the European game. They didn’t just play each other on Thursday, but Palace won with a degree of comfort. It was their third straight win, their 19th consecutive game without defeat. Continue reading...

Politics

3 w. ago It’s early, but every Premier League title contender already looks flawed

With late goals a major factor, the four major players for the trophy saw their narratives crystalize over the weekendSign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson hereThere’s always a danger this early in the Premier League season of reading too much into a single set of games. Titles may be lost in September but they are very rarely won. This past weekend, though, did feel like one where many of the prevailing narratives crystalised as Arsenal dug deep to win the sort of game they’ve become used to losing, Liverpool’s defensive shortcomings were exposed as they lost for the first time this campaign, Manchester City swept aside lesser opposition in the manner of old and Chelsea fell apart again.Liverpool have looked defensively shaky all season. Having been the team of control in the last campaign, making the unremarkable 2-0 win a trademark, they have become the side of the late winner, clinching games this season in the 88th, 94th, 100th, 83rd, 95th, 92nd and 85th minutes. That was nev...

Politics

4 w. ago Isak debacle shows Newcastle remain stuck outside elite despite Saudi windfall | Jonathan Wilson

Bewilderment at letting a prolific forward join a Premier League rival has bolstered the sense of the club as a diminished entityThere is another world, not so very different from this one, in which Newcastle took the pragmatic decision early in the summer that Alexander Isak was leaving, there wasn’t much they could do about it, and they might as well make the best of it: selling players at a profit, after all, is just what clubs on the rise have to do.That was always true to an extent, but has become especially so in a world governed by profitability and sustainability rules (PSR). They could have taken the £125m, bought players at their leisure, and the sense going into the season would probably have been one of quiet satisfaction at a decent summer. Continue reading...

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