Vesper

shocking GKing by pickford though

wooot offside

fuck off scouser scum

I gotta get some love for jumping on the DCL train ages ago (and got stick for it)

yesssssss 2 2

Mina with the dogshit defence

bloody hell 1 2 Salah

Godfrey has been immense since he came on

A pre GF-dumping him Kepa, yes

Adrian is almost Kepa level bad too he really is shite

1 1 woot

Thiago makes a massive difference

nil 1 the dippers ripped them apart

other than the two GKers (Robin Olsen is better, IMHO, than Pickford) these are the strongest possible line-ups for both teams

2020-21 English Premier League Everton Liverpool http://www.sportnews.to/sports/2020/premier-league-everton-vs-liverpool-s1/ https://www.totalsportek.com/highlights/arsenal-vs-everton-2016-match/

fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk our dregs are the dregs of dregs and they add up to hundreds of millions shit down the loo thank fuck we raped Real Madrid on Hazard

PRE-MATCH BRIEFING: CHELSEA VS SOUTHAMPTON https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2020/10/16/pre-match-briefing--chelsea-vs-southampton

LAMPARD: ZIYECH IS IN THE SQUAD BUT DUO MISS OUT https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2020/10/16/lampard-delivers-an-injury-update-ahead-of-southampton-visit?cardIndex=0-1 Frank Lampard issued a lengthy injury update at his pre-Southampton press conference, with the head coach confirming that Hakim Ziyech will be in the squad for the first time. The Moroccan has recovered from a knee injury and will be in the matchday squad, with Ben Chilwell and Christian Pulisic also fine to feature. Edouard Mendy and Thiago Silva will miss out, however, with the goalkeeper injured and the Brazilian not involved following a long-haul trip for his national side this week. ‘Mendy won’t be fit for this game but we hope he won’t be out for too long,’ said Lampard at his pre-match press conference. MENDY WILL BE RULED OUT OF THE WEEKEND'S HOME FIXTURE ‘Thiago Silva after his trip [with the Brazil national team], is not in the squad. He’s not unfit but he’s not ready to play in the weekend’s game due to the travelling he’s done. ‘Ben Chilwell is in the squad. He’s got over some of the feelings with the injury he has had for a while that took him out of England squad, so he’s available for tomorrow. ‘Christian Pulisic is in the squad, he’s fit and ready, and Hakim Ziyech is also in the squad. He’s not fit to start but is fit enough to participate in some way, we hope.' FRANK LAMPARD: "ZIYECH, PULISIC & CHILWELL ARE IN THE SQUAD, MENDY & THIAGO SILVA ARE OUT" The boss was asked whether Kepa Arrizabalaga or Willy Caballero would replace the injured Mendy between the sticks against the Saints, but our head coach insists that is a decision he still has to make. ‘I’ll make that decision out of the goalkeepers tomorrow, so we will see with that one,’ Frank added. Our head coach did go into more detail about the potential inclusion of Hakim Ziyech, who could make his long-awaited Chelsea debut this weekend, with Lampard excited to add the Moroccan into his side. ‘I’m excited to see Hakim play,’ said Lampard. ‘It feels like a long time since we brought him here, and he hasn’t played since the Dutch league finished before lockdown. ‘He's worked hard to get fit, he looks really good in training and he’s been fantastic with his professionalism in working hard to get back fit. It's just game minutes that we need for him now. ‘I have a good relationship with Hakim, we’ve had plenty of honest conversations and yes, I’m very excited to see him play and hopefully we can see him at his best, like he was for Ajax.’ video at the top link

Deflecting blame for the shameless rip-off of diehard football fans PAY PER BROUHAHA The Fiver didn’t get where it is today by charging readers £14.95 to read random editions of the world’s most daily football email. While we’re hugely confident most would consider a Pay Per View Fiver to be cheap at twice that already prohibitive price, we acknowledge that in these trying times many households are finding the financial going a little tough, and it should go without saying The Fiver has an important role to play in boosting global morale in any way it can free of charge. It will, of course, come as no great surprise for readers to learn that the famously venal and grasping Premier League feels no such compulsion and will roll out the first of its new series of PPV matches on Saturday, when Frank Lampard’s Chelsea host Southampton and Newcastle entertain Manchester United. Yes, folks … for the princely sum of £14.95, fans who already pay a prohibitively expensive subscription fee for the privilege of watching watered-down, Premier League biohazard-era football with no crowds can now watch Frank Lampard’s Chelsea manager Frank Lampard looking haggard, mournful and forlorn as his team of wingers concede another goal on the break. Or stump up to see Harry Maguire (knack-permitting) trip over his feet in the face of yet another mesmerising Allan Saint-Maximin soft-shoe shuffle. Alternatively, they can not bother, do something more productive with any spare money they may or may not have, then wait a few hours for free highlights on Match of the Day instead. Premier League: 10 things to look out for this weekend Read more No stranger to defending the indefensible, mainly because it’s his job, Premier League chief suit Richard Masters has defended his organisation’s outrageous price-gouging of UK-based customers by saying it is – and you really couldn’t make this up – “defensible”, apparently hoping none of them will check to see how much it costs to watch games in foreign countries where it is invariably much, much cheaper. “We’re not the price-setters, but obviously we were fully aware of the prices when we committed ourselves to this service,” he honked. “The main thing is, is all fans still get to watch all Premier League matches while we’re behind closed doors.” Of course that is not the main thing at all and Masters knows it, which is why he was so quick to deflect blame for the shameless rip-off of diehard fans by his own organisation to others that are no less greedy. He has also conveniently overlooked the fact that top-flight football was only allowed to restart after lockdown on the condition all matches were shown live on TV. We didn’t have to pay £14.95 for the privilege of watching them then and there is no earthly reason why we should have to do so now. QUOTE OF THE DAY “We had no positive cases, no one was ill and we were made to say we couldn’t play and I was livid. I am still livid. I understand that the EFL acts cautiously, but there has to be some justification to it and not just based on falsehoods and accusations from another football club and them kicking off. We have been tested again this week because of this and we have had them all back, players and staff – all negative. I bet there are not many EFL clubs that have been tested twice in two weeks, that is for sure. That makes it even more disgusting because we were ready to play a game of football on Tuesday and for whatever reason, someone didn’t want to play” – following criticism from counterpart Karl Robinson, fresh and funky Crewe boss David Artell suggests his team were strong-armed into getting their midweek League One game with Oxford postponed for a second time. RECOMMENDED LISTENING Lay down that boogie and play Football Weekly Extra right now. FIVER LETTERS “Re: lemmings and ‘by way of gravitation they tend to move downwards’ (yesterday’s Fiver). They don’t actually do that. The myth was spawned when Walt Disney dumped a load of them off a cliff out the back of a truck. Well, not him personally, as he’d have been busy strike-breaking” – Steve Allen. “Following on from Justin Kavanagh’s new nickname suggestion for ‘Euro-champions-elect Scotland’ (yesterday’s Fiver letters), it was very disappointing to see Big Website missed someone out in its article on the top 10 Euro 2020/21 contenders. Or was this really just an article on who is going to be the runner-up?” – Stuart McLagan. “Re Edward Dean’s assertions that ‘engulfing an opposition player in a thick cloud of ink could prove to be the next big thing in tactics’ (yesterday’s letters). It might already be with us, since I think that’s how [Snip – Fiver Lawyers] dealt with their recent [Snip – Fiver Lawyers] at the [Snip-snippety-snip – Fiver Lawyers]” – Derek McGee. Send your letters to [email protected]. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’the day is … Stuart McLagan. NEWS, BITS AND BOBS FA chairman Greg Clarke admits he was involved in formulating a document that advocated the introduction of B teams to the EFL and the creation of a Premier League 2 in early talks over Project Big Picture. “As the discussions progressed I and others were unhappy with the direction of travel in terms of major redistribution of money and power to bigger clubs,” he tooted. Fans or not, Pope’s Newc O’Rangers winger Ryan Kent has still got the battle fever on for Saturday’s Old Firm derby at the Queen’s Celtic. “I expect the intensity and the aggressiveness in the game to still be there,” he roared. With Gareth Bale set to make his Spurs debut against West Ham on Sunday, José Mourinho reckons chairman Daniel Levy has been a stand-out star of the transfer window. “Mr Levy showed once more that, when he is really involved, he is a genius in the way he makes deals happen,” he tooted. “We were talking about different targets but I never thought we would go so far as we did.” Herbie Goes to Barnsley is not an unwanted reboot of the franchise, but a possible headline after Liverpool’s Herbie Kane signed a four-year deal with the Tykes. And Brazilian Serie B strugglers Cruzeiro have pulled the Big Phil Scolari lever in an attempt to avoid a second successive relegation. STILL WANT MORE? Chris Hughton is enjoying being Forest’s 14th permanent manager in 12 years: “It’s a good feeling to be manager of a big club,” he tells Ben Fisher. Manchester United must change things after being paddled 6-1 at home, plus nine other things to look out for in the Premier League this weekend. “Reid … Stevens … looking for Sharp …” Steven Pye looks back to 20 October 1984, when Everton arrested a grim derby run to ignite their title charge. Gareth Southgate’s faith in England’s class of 2018 is showing diminishing returns, writes Jonathan Liew. Jacob Steinberg gets rightly judgmental about those taking part in England’s recent triple-header, moving them into winners and losers columns. Teenage kicks: the Manchester United cover version. Oh, and if it’s your thing … you can follow Big Website on Big Social FaceSpace. And INSTACHAT, TOO! HELP MARCUS OUT, IF YOU CAN

The Big Six https://theathletic.com/2133409/2020/10/16/the-big-six-football-premier-league/ In the eyes of those present, it was the ultimate “them and us” episode — the moment the illusion of solidarity across the Premier League was shattered once and for all. It was a Premier League shareholders meeting in November 2016 and, while media coverage beforehand had focused on the safe-standing debate, by far the biggest issue at stake that day was the need to find a new broadcast partner in China. Among several proposals on the table, the most popular was from pay-per-view company PPTV, who were offering £523 million for the right to stream every Premier League match in China over the three-year period from 2019-20. After the pros and cons were debated at length, an executive from one of the bigger clubs ventured they were going to have to go away and think about it. No, said the league’s executive chairman Richard Scudmore; this had to be decided here and now. And so, as they broke off for coffee and biscuits, a remarkable scene unfolded. There, in full view of their counterparts from the other 14 clubs, the executives from Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur formed their own huddle in a corner of the room and proceeded to debate among themselves, in hushed tones, before reaching a consensus that they then took back to the table when the full meeting resumed. “It was just so brazen,” says an executive from one of the other 14 clubs. “A few things had emerged before that about them having their own meetings. There had been a growing sense of a divide between the biggest clubs and the rest of us. But that really seemed to cement it in everyone’s minds.” The 20 clubs ended up agreeing to accept the PPTV deal — a decision they ended up regretting when the Chinese broadcaster withheld last season’s main payment, leading to a bitter split last month. But nobody could have foreseen that. What was abundantly clear was that the “Big Six” meant business. “They weren’t even trying to be discreet about it anymore,” says another executive. “There were the six of them and the 14 of us and that was how it was going to be from now on.” There have been occasions over recent years when the Premier League’s gang of six have flexed their muscles and their smaller competitors, further down the food chain, have been left cowering in their wake. A case in the point was the change to the distribution of overseas broadcast revenue in 2018. Previously it was split 20 ways, but, as of last season, the distribution model changed to reflect league performance — a widening of the divide, with more income for those who, by virtue of Champions League or Europa League qualification, soaring commercial profile and packed stadiums (with packed hospitality suites), needed it least. It all comes back to an attitude that was summed up in 2011 by Ian Ayre, who at the time was Liverpool’s managing director. “If you’re a Bolton fan in Bolton, then you subscribe to Sky because you want to watch Bolton,” he said. “But if you’re in Kuala Lumpur, there isn’t anybody subscribing to Astro or ESPN to watch Bolton — or if they are, it’s a very small number. The large majority are subscribing to watch Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea or Arsenal. So is it right that the international rights are shared equally between all 20 clubs?” The other 14 clubs argued against that one, but seven years later, the elite finally got their way. It coincided with another of those sporadic threats to cut the Premier League down to size — moving from 20 clubs to 18 in order to accommodate a long-planned expansion of the Champions League — and eventually enough of them, led by Everton, Leicester City and West Ham United, ended up falling into line for a two-thirds majority to be reached. This week has brought a very different experience for the six. The so-called “Project Big Picture” caused so much ill feeling among the rest of the league that even the two architects, Liverpool and Manchester United, agreed that it would not be endorsed or pursued by the Premier League. Steve Parish, the Crystal Palace chairman, called for solidarity and Martin Semmens, Denise Barrett-Baxendale and Karren Brady, chief executives of Southampton, Everton and West Ham respectively, criticised the plan and above all the secretive way it had been cooked up. “Project Big Picture” is dead, in that form at least, but the bigger clubs will not be deterred in pushing for more. “They always want more,” one executive from outside the elite says. “A greater share of the revenue and a greater say in what happens.” To an extent, it has always been thus. That is how the Premier League came about in the first place, a breakaway led not by a “Big Six” but by a “Big Five” from the men in charge of Arsenal, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur, persuading the other top-flight clubs to split from the Football League in order to secure their own television rights deals. The balance of power in English football has been fairly fluid over the years, as seen by the way Everton have faded from the powerful position they held in the 1980s, Tottenham have come and gone and come again and Chelsea and Manchester City, enriched and transformed by wealthy owners, have forced their way onto the top table. In theory at least, that group could continue to evolve; hypothetically, Everton could make it seven, or one of the six might run into hard times and slip away into relative obscurity, as Everton did in the 1990s. Fortunes rise and fortunes fall. That is the way it has always been in team sport; even Manchester United were relegated in 1974, six years after winning the European Cup. The concern shared by many, though, is that, with the divide between the richest clubs and the rest getting wider and wider (and this applies even more in many other leagues across Europe), the now-established order is becoming locked in. This “Big Six” threaten to become unassailable in a way the “Big Five” of the 1980s never was. And to judge by some of the proposals in “Project Big Picture”, where the Premier League’s existing one-club-one-vote would have been replaced by a structure whereby power is concentrated among the nine longest-serving clubs (with six votes required), that is the whole point of the exercise. What is driving all of this? “A lot of people would use the word ‘greed’,” says one executive at another club. “I don’t like that word, so I would prefer to use a different word: certainty. They want guarantees that their income is going to go up and up and up. They want to be the clubs getting the UEFA money every year and taking the biggest share of TV money from the Premier League. And here we come to a certain irony because the Premier League success story is based on unpredictability and competitiveness and it feels very much like some of those clubs are trying to make it more predictable and less competitive. They want it to become a two-tier competition — even more than it already is.” The six regard themselves and, to varying degrees, each other as global franchises with a global outlook at ownership and European ambitions on the pitch. There is a feeling that the other 14 hold the six back, which one executive points out is deeply hypocritical because it is the financial gulf within the Premier League — a product of elitism in the “super club” era — that has caused many of the 14 to temper their ambitions and focus on consolidation rather than trying to threaten the elite. There was tension during those regular Zoom conference calls during lockdown, when the bigger clubs felt some of the smaller ones were putting obstacles in the way of “Project Restart” because they feared relegation. The bigger clubs felt the concerns being raised about COVID-19 protocols were parochial, ignoring the bigger picture of a league that desperately needed to honour its broadcast commitments and the competition as a whole. On a more personal level, Liverpool and United were among those who would have been unduly penalised had attempts to null-and-void the season been successful. Yet at the same time, it has long been felt that the elite clubs’ lack of interest in the parochial — in life beyond the “Big Six” and, in particular, beyond the top 20 — is the greatest threat to English football as we know it. Over the past 10 seasons, those six clubs account for 54 out of 60 top-six finishes in the Premier League. Only once (Leicester City, spectacularly, in 2016) has a club from outside the “Big Six” finished in the four Champions League places. Arsenal and Manchester United have gone through darker, more turbulent periods than they could have imagined, but they have never finished lower than eighth and seventh respectively. Leicester and Everton can boast two top-six finishes over the decade and Newcastle United and Southampton one apiece. And now, faced with burgeoning ambition at Everton, Leicester, Wolverhampton Wanderers and perhaps Aston Villa and a resurgent Leeds United, the six seem more focused than ever on shoring up their dominant position. There is a feeling among the other clubs that “Project Big Picture” was a cynical move to exploit the desperation felt across the EFL due to the loss of revenue since the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Some feel the “Big Six” have sought to capitalise on Scudamore’s departure in 2018. His successor, Richard Masters, spent a year as interim chief executive while a club-led nominations committee offered the job to Susanna Dinnage and David Pemsel, both of whom resigned before taking office. Masters has tried to exert his authority since taking charge in the most trying circumstances, but that post-Scudamore interim period did little to curb some of the excesses of the elite clubs. A source at one of the “Big Six” clubs puts it in more diplomatic terms. “The view is that the Premier League is such a great product because those six are the clubs that have the best players, we drive the interest and we are the real draw,” he says. “It’s a question of whether we are capturing enough value relative to contribution when it comes to domestic and international TV rights. It’s no more complicated than that.” It is complicated, though, because the Premier League success story has been founded on the idea of collective approach among the 20 clubs. And it is certainly complicated when it comes to some of the relationships involved. The fierce rivalry between Manchester United and Liverpool dates back decades, on the pitch and on the terraces. But even through the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, relations at boardroom level were almost always cordial. Over recent years, with the Glazer family and Fenway Sports Group (FSG) finding they have more in common than a background in American sport with Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Boston Red Sox respectively, there has been a climate of renewed collaboration, particularly when it comes to strategic issues in English and European football. It all adds up to the Americanisation of the English football business. There are Russian owners and owners from all over the Middle East and Far East, particularly China, but American investors got their hands on what are arguably the crown jewels of the Premier League: the Glazers with Manchester United in 2005, FSG with Liverpool in 2010 (after three years under the calamitous ownership of Tom Hicks and George Gillett) and Stan Kroenke, owner of Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, taking over at Arsenal in 2011. If Abramovich bought Chelsea in the hope of establishing himself as a respectable figure in the western world (as well as having a bit of fun) and Sheikh Mansour bought Manchester City as a soft-power tool for Abu Dhabi, then there is no doubt that the American takeovers at Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United have been about maximising revenue and building the asset up and up. In the short and medium term, that meant selling the brand, driving up commercial revenue year after year. The long term? Those ideas about creating new tournaments and taking Premier League games abroad have not gone away. Neither have fantasies about selling their own television rights abroad, away from the Premier League’s collective approach. A source close to Liverpool’s ownership group FSG explains: “You must remember that in the States, these guys, who also own the Boston Red Sox, hold the majority stake in a cable channel — New England Sports Network. This generates a tremendous amount of cash for those games that are not sold centrally through MLB. They are carried on their own network and this is a consistent and hugely lucrative revenue stream.” John W Henry, Liverpool’s principal owner, sought advice from and exchanged ideas with United’s Joel Glazer almost from the moment FSG bought the Merseyside club a decade ago. Indeed, the terms of Project Big Picture are on their 18th version since talks began in 2017 and it is true that there were initially plans to unveil the proposal in April before the pandemic threatened to curtail last season altogether. One source close to FSG is keen to point out that the Glazer-Henry axis “isn’t a super-close relationship” but adds that what brought it closer was their shared enthusiasm for Financial Fair Play (FFP) as they pushed for tighter, UEFA-style regulation in the Premier League. “That’s how it blossomed,” the source continues. “Look at some of the collective angst over Manchester City shirking the rules. That’s when the Liverpool, United and Arsenal guys — and eventually Bruce Buck (the Chelsea chairman) — started spending more time together and they all got closer and it eventually reached the point with these latest proposals, which, ironically, Manchester City were invited to.” They recognise that irony at Manchester City, where they remember the executives in charge of Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Tottenham writing to Scudamore in 2013 — on Arsenal letter-headed paper, no less — to urge him to “curb the inflationary spending which is putting so much pressure on clubs across the entire league”. They certainly remember a group of nine clubs, which also included Burnley, Leicester, Newcastle and Wolves, writing to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to express their misgivings about Manchester City’s breaches of UEFA’s FFP regulations. Like Chelsea in the seasons that followed Abramovich’s 2003 takeover, City, under Sheikh Mansour, spent years facing up to the establishment with an attitude of, “If you can’t join them, beat them”. Eventually, by dint of on-pitch success and a rising global profile, they forced their way into those cosy little gatherings — or at least most of them, anyway. In October 2017, Avram and Joel Glazer, United executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward, then-Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis and Henry were all photographed at dinner at Locanda Verde restaurant in Tribeca, New York. It is get-togethers like these that have fuelled the notion of a two-tier division within the Big Six: between the three ultimate establishment clubs, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United, which all American owned and very much business-oriented, and the rest. Tottenham may ultimately force their way into that sub-group, but Chelsea and City are nothing like so well integrated. At executive level, there are WhatsApp groups and Zoom calls between the six clubs and, it is widely presumed, between Arsenal, Liverpool and United as a trio. At ownership level, those three clubs connect through Stan Kroenke, Henry and Glazer. One source laughs when asked whether Abramovich has made an appearance in any of those Zoom meetings. Chelsea have Buck, the American lawyer who used to go shooting with Scudamore. Buck is “clubbable”, to borrow a word popular in those circles, in a way that some of his counterparts are not. Buck took a leading role in the Premier League’s audit and remuneration committee and he was the man who presented the idea of a £5 million whip round for Scudamore at a shareholders’ meeting when the executive was due to depart his role in November 2018. Ferran Soriano, the Manchester City chief executive, attracts intrigue. Among the other five clubs, he is casually referred to as “the terrorist” of the group — not a disparaging label, they insist, but one that reflects some perceived rogue, outspoken tendencies when it comes to Premier League politics. Soriano is a great advocate of allowing the leading clubs to set up B teams to exist within the established English league structure, as in his native Spain, though the club’s support for that proposal predated his arrival. Others, though, describe Soriano as a highly-skilled diplomatic and political operator, as he would surely have to be in order to run the City Football Group so smoothly and managing Pep Guardiola deftly while also satisfying his masters in Abu Dhabi. City are regarded as “slightly detached” from the other five. One source makes an analogy from The Great Gatsby, saying that City are acutely aware that they would be seen as “West Egg” (i.e. new money) rather than “East Egg”. Soriano, therefore, chooses his battles and his moments carefully; his club certainly distanced themselves from the drawing up of “Project Big Picture”, but they liked many of the ideas within. They pride themselves on an innovative outlook and a willingness to look beyond English football’s traditional outlook. To some of the clubs outside the elite, this is terrifying. Among those within, it attracts curiosity and suspicion in almost equal measure. Chelsea have been through that process, as the nouveau-riche club. If we are talking about old money vs new money, we can go back to 2003 when they were bought by Abramovich, who, according to the Arsenal vice-chairman David Dein at the time, “has parked his Russian tanks on the lawn and is firing £50 notes at us”. There was deep suspicion from Chelsea towards the established elite — and vice-versa, particularly once they lured Peter Kenyon from Manchester United to take over as chief executive. One former United boardroom executive recalls the “intense shock” at Old Trafford. He says: “There was no player they could have signed that would have made a statement so big as it was to lure Peter away from us.” Chelsea were perceived as rogue upstarts but they played up to the mantle. Kenyon first upset the Football Association by attempting to lure England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, as he had previously attempted to do at Old Trafford, and sources recall Jose Mourinho partially being appointed due to his “anti-establishment” rhetoric. While Chelsea were aggressive in what they considered the love and war of the transfer market, pursuing Rio Ferdinand from United and Ashley Cole from Arsenal, the club started to work the football political spectrum more carefully. Buck, Abramovich’s long-serving lawyer, became a diplomatic presence, establishing influence on Premier League committees and he immediately organised a meeting with the Glazers after their takeover of United in 2005. Fearful United’s American owners may have aspirations to break away from the collective Premier League agreements over the distribution of television money, Buck wanted to reassert Chelsea’s commitment to the shared model. As Chelsea were rising up, the last thing they needed was for United to pull away. David Barnard, the Chelsea club secretary, would later take a place on the FA’s International Committee. Kenyon, meanwhile, had forged strong relationships with UEFA while at United and had particularly strong links with clubs such as AC Milan, Atletico Madrid, Galatasaray and Barcelona. By the time Chelsea had reached a Champions League final in 2008, they felt empowered at the Premier League table but remained under threat in the European circle. The Chelsea hierarchy felt that FFP was initially an attempt to curb the financial excesses of the Abramovich regime. By the time it came to fruition, at UEFA in 2011 and in the Premier League two years later, Abramovich was trying to move towards a more sustainable approach and, with Chelsea becoming more “East Egg” in outlook, the more obvious targets of any clampdown were City and, at a European level, Paris Saint-Germain. A Chelsea source insists to this day that FFP “started as a plan to thwart Chelsea”. But there was a sense of paranoia about the primacy of United, Liverpool and Arsenal in the corridors of power at the Premier League and UEFA. “Chelsea felt marginal decisions went against them,” says one source close to the Big Six clubs. “Mourinho was convinced that Arsenal benefited from more home games than away games after Champions League midweeks. He used to make noises about David Dein’s involvement. He claimed Manchester United benefited from their close relationship with Sir Dave Richards (the former Premier League chairman). There was an imperative to join that club and be closer to those decisions.” There was particular angst at Chelsea over the Mikel John Obi case, when they were ordered to pay Manchester United £12 million to compensate them for the Nigerian midfielder’s breach of the contract he had signed at Old Trafford. “Chelsea as a club felt hard done by over that,” a former Premier League club executive says. “I remember very clearly our perception at the time was that the Premier League was in United’s pocket. If you fast-forward to 2008 or 2009, it didn’t really feel like that anymore.” Maybe it was a Mourinho thing. (And perhaps it says something about a spirit of collaboration, as well as his reputation, that there were figures at United and Tottenham who consulted the Chelsea hierarchy when it came to appointing him and getting tips on how to stay on his good side.) The former Chelsea manager has taken conspiracy theories with him to United, surely the most establishment club of all, and now to Tottenham, where, after recent refereeing decisions, he proclaimed that “I don’t feel Tottenham is respected according to what the club is. No respect”. And yet, perhaps for the first time since Irving Scholar and Alan Sugar made them a serious player among the “Big Five” who led the Premier League breakaway in the early 1990s, Tottenham are commonly viewed as one of the elite once more. They were conspicuous by their absence from a “Big Five” meeting with the American businessman Stephen Ross at the Dorchester Hotel, London, in early 2016, when a proposed expansion to the International Champions Cup (ICC) was under discussion, but eight months later Daniel Levy, their executive chairman, was very much among the six who formed their own separate huddle to talk about the Chinese television rights deal. Some put Tottenham’s elevated status down to American admiration — among owners and potential commercial partners alike — for their stadium and infrastructure as well as the consistency shown in becoming regular Champions League participants in recent years. Others are more inclined to put it down to Levy’s persistence and a feeling that “you would much rather have Daniel on your side than against you”. Levy is an unusual among the big beasts of the Premier League in that, as well as being the club representative who speaks up at shareholder meetings, he negotiates transfers and much else. He has been part of this scene for just under two decades and, through his belligerent approach in the transfer market, has made enemies at just about every club at some stage. But he also commands a level of respect that others do not. It used to be Kenyon and then David Gill, his successor at United, who was the lead voice in the Premier League meetings. These days Levy’s voice is among the most persuasive, something the rest of the “Big Six” have slowly come to embrace. So what next? “They’ll go away and work on another proposal,” says one source. “At any one time, there are various projects being worked on and various consultancies working on different proposals for how things should look in 10 or 20 years’ time. And you can be certain that, whatever comes next, whether it’s about Champions League expansion or changes to the Premier League, it’s going to be about getting more money and more influence for the biggest clubs.” That same source raises a few interesting questions, though. “They seem to be working on the basis that there are these markets available and there are pots of money. But what if those pots of money don’t exist? They’re spending all this time and energy trying to chase something at the end of the rainbow. But what if the pot of gold is what is already right in front of them? We’ve got a Premier League that has grown and grown beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. Do they need to go chasing more? Might it not be counter-productive to jeopardise the Premier League’s unique selling point, its competitiveness, by increasing the divide between themselves and the rest? Might that actually do them more harm than good in the long term?” Other proposals have been made or will be made: one led by the Conservative MP Damian Collins with the backing of the Football Supporters’ Federation, which has long pushed for a fan-driven approach to reform of English football governance; another led by a group including former FA chairman David Bernstein, the former Manchester United and England defender Gary Neville and Andy Burnham, the Mayor of Greater Manchester. What is certain is that the “Big Six” will continue to push for more money, more power and more space in the calendar to play in other competitions, whether that means an expanded Champions League, an expanded Club World Cup or, quite feasibly, an extension of the International Champions Cup pre-season format run by Ross and his Relevent Sports business partner Charlie Stillitano, who has just about every leading Premier League club executive (and some of the managers, such as Mourinho and previously Sir Alex Ferguson) on speed dial. The proposals in “Project Big Picture” included the suggestion of a gap in the schedule every five years for a major summer tournament. It also included a proposed abolition of the Community Shield. This would create the space for a bigger international pre-season tournament involving all the world’s leading clubs. One mantra among the biggest clubs, from Madrid to Munich, from Manchester to Milan, is a desire for more matches between the very biggest clubs. “This,” as one source puts it, “is where all major clubs align.” An expanded ICC tournament, potentially with UEFA’s backing and far more prize money, remains a genuine possibility and initial presentations were made to Europe’s elite clubs and the continent’s governing body earlier in the year. The competition organisers are confident of striking a deal but have also warned Europe’s top clubs that the funding will only continue to reign in if the competition is taken more seriously, featuring first-team players, a group stage, a knockout, a final and a trophy presentation. In short, it cannot be seen as a pre-season jolly. The ICC organisers see potential, particularly as there are also doubts over FIFA’s ability to fund a proposed Club World Cup. The “Big Six” were willing to offer immediate financial assistance to EFL clubs, which have been hit so hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, in exchange for greater control of governance of English football in general and of the Premier League in particular. There are elements of their proposals that are certain to be watered down, or softened, but their priorities — more money, more power, more certainty of future revenue streams — have not changed one bit. If there is one crucial thing the “Big Six” are perceived to lack, it is an ability to win friends and influence people among the other 14 clubs. The post-Gill regime at United, led by Woodward, is considered too aloof — or simply too preoccupied with wooing commercial partners or, more starkly at times, firefighting — to cultivate beneficial relationships among the lower Premier League clubs. When the bigger clubs have got their way, it has frequently been by scare tactics, warning what will happen to the Premier League if the biggest clubs decide to go all-in with Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Juventus and the rest and commit to the “Super League” concept that rears its ugly head every time the UEFA broadcast rights cycle comes up for renewal. There was a time when all 20 Premier League club owners were on speaking terms, whether cordial or not. These days, with more diverse, far-flung ownership regimes, it is no longer such a priority to wine and dine the opposition directors on match days. There is, also, a feeling that the Premier League centrally has lost an element of control over its elite clubs since the departure of former CEO Scudamore, who exited in November 2018. He made a significant concession during his last hard-fought round of television rights, granting a greater proportion of international television rights to the leading clubs, and some suspect he saw the landscape changing. One source explains: “Scudamore was extremely astute, working his relationship with clubs, maintaining visibility at games in boardrooms. He had a touch and feel for where debate was heading. He might hunt with Buck but he’d be at a boardroom at Norwich or Reading on a Tuesday night, so everyone felt valued. You could see him at two games at different stadiums on the same Saturday. Scudamore ran a tight ship because he had the autonomy and respect of stakeholders after securing huge television deals. None of this is a criticism of the new CEO Masters, who inherited a unique set of circumstances, which nobody could have predicted. The big issue here is a changing broadcasting landscape. Scudamore was an amazing success in the Premier League with everything he did and he saw what was coming. He jumped at the right time. The famous New York meeting a few years caused huge shockwaves and Richard made the concession in the last rights’ deal. You could not get a bigger signal of where it was going. American owners are used to closed shops and less risk than they associate with European football.” As relationships splinter, another executive suggests the men leading the biggest clubs are nothing like as “clubbable” as you might expect. Peter Moore, who recently left his position as Liverpool chief executive, was certainly not a mover or shaker in Premier League circles. Woodward is seen as more charismatic in some regards than Gill, but less persuasive. Arsenal have never adequately replaced Dein, who was so adept at the political side of things as well as well being a shrewd, well-connected football operator, but in terms of political influence nor have they replaced Gazidis, who is now at Milan. Vinai Venkatesham is still learning the ropes. For now, Arsenal, in a state of transition, are hanging onto the coat-tails of others, rather than being the driving force they were in Dein’s years. “There have been a lot of changes at those clubs and there aren’t so many close relationships at boardroom level anymore,” one executive says. “Instead you end up with these awkward alliances between clubs who are rivals on the pitch but have roughly the same vision off it. They spend so much time talking to each other away from the rest of that you get the feeling it’s become a bit of an echo chamber. They want more money and they want more votes. Well how are they going to get that if they just go off in secret and come up with a plan that excludes the rest of us? It doesn’t work. This week has demonstrated that.” And yet almost every significant development in the European football industry over the past two or three decades has served to widen the chasm in financial resources and outlook between the haves and the have-nots — or in the case of the Premier League, the haves and the have-lots. And still they want more. More money, more power, more certainty. They will always want more. That is the one thing they have in common.

Friday October 16 2020 Football Nerd Will we finally see goals in a Merseyside derby at Goodison Park? By Daniel Zeqiri Goals in Merseyside derbies at Goodison Park have been rarer than rocking horse manure in the past few seasons, but Saturday's meeting has a different feel. Everton have the safety net of 12 points from their opening four games, which should permit a bold approach against the champions, and Liverpool conceded seven in their last game at Aston Villa. The past three meetings at Goodison Park have finished goalless. Since the 2010-11 season, the fixture has produced an average of just 1.7 goals per game. The highest-scoring Premier League derby in that period has been games between Arsenal and Tottenham at the Emirates, with an average of 3.8 goals per game, matches at Spurs' home averaging 2.8. Will the dam finally burst at Goodison Park on Saturday? I make the case for goals here. Want more sport in your inbox? Sign up to receive our weekly Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal newsletters

How is Arteta different to Guardiola? https://theathletic.com/2128061/2020/10/14/arteta-different-to-guardiola-arsenal-manchester-city/ Since Mikel Arteta took charge at Arsenal, the comparisons with Pep Guardiola have been as constant as they have been inevitable. For some, they remain master and apprentice, guru and devotee. However, Arteta is already showing himself to be more than a mere clone. Guardiola helped open the door to a coaching career, but the younger man is now finding his own path. Drawing parallels is understandable: there are undoubtedly similarities in the two men. For starters, they are both sharp thinkers — and sharp dressers. They share an intensity, a magnetic charisma that makes them natural leaders. They are products of the Barcelona system and their teams share certain key tactical points: they both attack in five channels, and frequently defend in five channels too. Arteta has recently made use of a back three and Guardiola deployed a similar system in his early days at Manchester City. He has returned to it several times since, most recently for the Champions League tie against Lyon. But if there is a clue as to how the two men differ, it can be seen in the role Arteta assumed while working alongside Guardiola at City. With Guardiola looking after the big picture, Arteta was charged principally with working with individual players: improving Raheem Sterling’s movement, Fabian Delph’s positioning or Leroy Sane’s end product. And so it was: Guardiola the ideologue; Arteta the problem-solver. Guardiola’s brilliance speaks for itself, but his rapid ascension through the coaching ranks meant he never served as an assistant. He has always had to consider the next game, the grand plan, the vision. Arteta has enjoyed the freedom and opportunity to focus on the tiniest details. It’s there that he excelled. “People always ask me about training under Pep, but the things I’ve learnt from Mikel Arteta…” Sane once marvelled. Asked about his then-assistant in September 2019, Guardiola told the Telegraph that Arteta “has an incredible work ethic, and he has a special talent to analyse what happens, and to find the solutions”. And find solutions is precisely what he has done in his short time at Arsenal. It should be no great surprise that there are differences between Arteta and Guardiola, given the considerable discrepancies in their respective playing careers. Although Arteta followed Guardiola through Barcelona’s La Masia academy system, he never broke into the first team. Despite being promoted to train with the first-team squad at 16, the pathway to senior football was blocked. “Pep was 29 and captain,” Arteta said in Lu Martin and Pol Ballus’ book, Pep’s City. “Then there was Xavi queuing up behind him. Imagine! I knew that if I wanted to get any game time, I’d be better off developing my career elsewhere.” Arteta was only 18 when he joined Paris Saint-Germain on loan. When he impressed during a UEFA Cup tie against Rangers, the Scottish club began negotiations to sign the young midfielder. Arteta spent two seasons in Glasgow, winning the Scottish Premier League title and the Scottish League Cup. After a brief spell with Real Sociedad, he returned to Britain, spending six seasons with Everton and a further five with Arsenal. It left him with a deep appreciation for British football — at one point, Arteta was even prepared to “half go to war” to fight a FIFA rule that prevented him from accepting an approach from Fabio Capello to represent for England at international level. “I’d say Pep definitely has a healthy respect for English football,” says one Arsenal staff member. “But Arteta really loves it. It’s where he spent most of his playing career. It’s part of who he is.” When Guardiola first brought his vision of football to the Premier League, he had the feel of a missionary attempting an unwelcome conversion process. He had, of course, gained experience outside of Spain as a manager in Bayern Munich with Germany, but the nature of the physicality is different in that league. “In Germany the players run with the ball much more, there’s a lot of racing up and down the pitch with and without the ball,” explains City fitness coach Lorenzo Buenaventura. “Here in England, there’s more physical contact.” Arteta knows that from first-hand experience. Perhaps that has played into his choice of defensive midfielders. In the summer of 2018, when Manchester City were seeking a new holding midfield player, their primary targets were Jorginho and Frenkie de Jong. The aim was to acquire someone even more adept on the ball than Fernandinho, to further emphasise City’s strength in possession. Over the course of the next 12 months, those top targets joined Chelsea and Barcelona respectively. Ultimately, City and Guardiola went for Rodri — a player who is better at resisting the press than instigating it. Guardiola’s focus was resolutely on what his team would be capable of in possession. Meanwhile, Arsenal’s new midfielder, Thomas Partey, is a more natural defender — stronger in the air and the tackle. In Rodri’s final season at Atletico Madrid, he was averaging 56.7 passes per game with a pass completion rate of 91.1 per cent. In 2019-20’s Atletico side, Partey averaged 46.8 passes per game with a success rate of 83.4 per cent. Although Arteta maintained an interest in Chelsea’s Jorginho, Partey was his first choice to play at the base of Arsenal’s midfield as much because of what he does off the ball as on it. There is a stylistic difference between these two players that illustrates Arteta and Guardiola’s diverging attitudes to the physical nature of the Premier League. Guardiola does not take kindly to the suggestion he lacks pragmatism. In December 2016, he insisted during a press conference that he is “so pragmatic”, in the sense that while the common definition of the term involves giving the opposition the ball, sitting deep and inviting pressure, his idea of playing it safe is to have the ball and keep it as far away from your goal as possible, which certainly makes sense. So it’s a question of semantics, but it’s fair to say that Arteta’s approach at Arsenal so far has been more in keeping with the traditional English definition of pragmatism. That’s in part down to resource: it’s easier to play the football you aspire to when the owners give you such extraordinary support. It is perhaps not so much about pragmatism as about flexibility; from day one at City, there has been a dogmatic adherence to Guardiola’s footballing ideals, with only a handful of occasions where they have not dominated possession. For his part, Arteta has been clear in the past about his preferred way to play. In his final season as a player, Arsenal’s website asked him how a Mikel Arteta team might line up. “My philosophy will be clear,” Arteta said. “I want the football to be expressive, entertaining. I cannot have a concept of football where everything is based on the opposition. We have to dictate the game, we have to be the ones taking the initiative, and we have to entertain the people coming to watch us.” It’s difficult to argue that Arteta’s old vision has been realised at the Emirates Stadium. Understandably so: Arteta inherited a team in 10th position. Most of the Spaniard’s landmark victories have come when his team has set up in a relatively deep block, playing on the counter-attack. At the back end of last season, Arteta’s Arsenal beat Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea in quick succession, all while never having more than 40 per cent possession. Guardiola has never taken charge of a team languishing in mid-table. The problems Arteta has faced — and the pragmatism required to work through them — would be new to him. As Arteta put it in September before the match against Liverpool at Anfield: “Sometimes it’s what you want to do as a coach, and sometimes it’s what you are allowed to do with the levels of players and performance that top teams can do against you.” “Mikel knows the ultimate plan for this team, he knows where he wants to end up,” suggests an Arsenal staff member familiar with the Spaniard’s plans. “That doesn’t mean you walk in on day one and immediately make that happen. If you look at what was inherited, there were a lot of things Arsenal weren’t doing right — basics. A sign of a good coach is someone who can separate what they want from what the team needs.” Arteta has nevertheless sought to instil some fundamentals. In fact, one difference between the way the two teams play is that Arteta’s Arsenal seem even more wedded to playing out from the back than Guardiola’s City. It’s early days in the 2020-21 Premier League season, but Arsenal currently have 32 per cent of their possession inside their own defensive third. City have just 17 per cent — and the numbers bear out over the previous campaign too. There are multiple reasons for this. The main one is that Arteta is still in the process of implementing playing out from the back — by enforcing it, he is attempting to make it second nature for his players. He is creating habits. Guardiola’s City are not always as consistent in applying this short-passing strategy. In their title-winning campaigns of 2017-18 and 2018-19, City occasionally took advantage of the fact players cannot be offside at goal kicks by deliberately positioning their front three behind the opposition defence. With Ederson’s superb long passing, and astonishing 80-yard range, he was frequently able to find them. The tactic served various purposes, enabling City to stretch the play, bypass the opposition press and sometimes even create scoring chances. Arsenal fans will have painful memories of Claudio Bravo employing the tactic to release Sergio Aguero in the 2018 League Cup final. The divergence in strategy is also explained by the fact that the two teams are at different points in their development. City’s evolution provides evidence that if you become good enough at playing out from the back, teams will stop pressing you, granting you more possession higher up the pitch. After Leicester City’s recent win at the Etihad, Brendan Rodgers admitted he had asked his side to concede ground “We are normally a high-pressing team but against a team of this quality, we wanted to deny them space,” he said. “We knew we had the players to break out and exploit the spaces.” It may seem counter-intuitive, but the time Arteta is spending developing Arsenal’s ability to play out from goal kicks may ultimately help grant them more territory. This weekend, Arteta’s Arsenal will travel to the Etihad to face Guardiola’s Manchester City. Arteta’s pragmatic approach will surely be in evidence again. These are two sides at different stages in their different evolution, with very different expectations — and with two different men on the sidelines. Guardiola and Arteta’s experience and records are incomparable, so perhaps it’s time to ease off the comparisons. With the work he’s doing at Arsenal, the younger coach is swiftly establishing his own identity. Arteta is steadily emerging from the shadow of his mentor.

Ollie Watkins: the rise of ‘the machine’ https://theathletic.com/2137196/2020/10/15/ollie-watkins-aston-villa-the-machine/ In Ollie Watkins’ first training session at Aston Villa those around him immediately recognised a player ready for the step up to the Premier League. His hard, unselfish running was not lost on the defenders who came up against pace and power of a different kind. Captain Jack Grealish was licking his lips with anticipation after watching Watkins’ early movement both in and out of possession, while on the sidelines manager Dean Smith and his long-term assistant, Richard O’Kelly, could see a different beast to the one they previously had at Brentford. “He looked like a more mature and confident player right from the start,” Smith tells The Athletic. “He scored 26 goals last season and he believed he should have scored 36 as well which just shows he is not one who is going to rest on his laurels.” Watkins, who sang Luther Vandross’s Never Too Much as his initiation song, backed up those early impressions in training by getting off to a flying start at Villa. After scoring in a pre-season friendly against Manchester United and then following it up with a goal on his debut against Burton Albion in the Carabao Cup, his perfect hat-trick in the 7-2 win over Liverpool in the last Premier League outing took his early tally to five goals in six games in all competitions. Little over three weeks after that first training session, there was Watkins, standing under the Villa Park lights clutching onto the match ball for dear life. The chief executive Christian Purslow, the man who negotiated the record-breaking deal to bring him to the club for £28 million rising to a possible £33 million, was wrapping his arms around the striker as a global media scrum gathered. His first words in reply to one question about his hat-trick was that he “should have had five goals rather than three”. There was nothing cocky or arrogant about his tone. He is down to earth. This was an in-form Premier League striker living in the moment. It wasn’t always like this, though. Ripping into the usually rock-solid defensive pairing of Virgil van Dijk and Joe Gomez and announcing himself on the global stage was the product of years of hard work. That he recognises his previous times of struggle, and still has a never-ending desire to improve, will also keep him grounded. In Watkins’ late teenage years at Exeter City, his game was in such a state that he still hadn’t nailed down a position of preference or strength. He could play down the middle or out wide, but wasn’t making any great gains. Those close to him speak about a defining period that helped shape his future, and also cement an early steeliness in his mindset. Aged 18, he ditched the comfort of under-21 football at Exeter for a loan spell at Weston-super-Mare AFC, six divisions deep in the league pyramid. Ryan Northmore, his manager at Weston, told The Times: “When I had him, he had real superpowers, but he was too predictable to play against.” Yet that loan spell, where he scored ten goals in 24 games, was the making of him. He returned to Exeter with a purpose and was rough and ready. Not only had he shown courage to go and mix it with battled-hardened men, he also had the bumps and bruises to prove that he was up for the fight and worthy of consideration for the first-team. After scraping onto a pre-season tour to Scotland in 2015 as the 24th man and the final pick, he didn’t look back. Kevin Nicholson, his under-18 coach at Exeter tells The Athletic: “The potential was always there for Ollie. However, he needed support, guidance and good coaching from the people at the club at that time to help him on his way to fulfilling that potential. His technical and physical attributes were impressive from day one of working with him but he needed help to improve his general game understanding at that time. “Credit should go to Paul Tisdale (manager) and Steve Perryman (director of football) for the work they did with Ollie at Exeter once he became a young professional with the first team.” Tisdale worked tirelessly with Watkins, initially asking him to hustle more when playing in a wide position rather than simply waiting for the ball to come to him. A slight tweak to his position at the back end of 2015 paid dividends. During his time at centre-forward he scored 25 goals in 74 games, earning him a move to Brentford. It was here, in the Championship, where he took his game to a new level. None of it was left to chance, though, as one former staff member explained: “Ollie always wanted to know the areas where he could improve. He was a constant learner; always searching for ways he could better himself.” Nicholson echoes such thoughts from his earlier years, adding: “Through the ups and downs, he never stopped believing in himself and his ability. He was prepared to work hard and he demanded honesty and feedback. He wanted to know what he was doing well and how he could build on it.” Under Smith and O’Kelly in his first season at Brentford, Watkins scored ten league goals and missed just one game. He chalked up another ten strikes in the following season but the majority of the goals came from cutting in from the flank or playing as a supporting striker. Pre-season training would often make for interesting viewing when Watkins was involved as he consistently topped the charts for speed, stamina, high-intensity sprints and a stack of other metrics. Brentford’s programme editor, Chris Deacon, tells The Athletic: “Ollie transformed himself into a physical specimen. We’d call him a machine because it looked like he would set himself into third gear and then cruise along at the front while everyone else was blowing.” It’s his blend of technical and physical attributes that have helped him settle into the Premier League with ease, but the 24-year-old’s sky-high confidence stems back to the start of last season. It was when Brentford’s recognised No 9 Neal Maupay left for Brighton & Hove Albion that summer that those around Watkins sensed a coming of age. He took on the responsibility of becoming Brentford’s main source of goals and his hard work was rewarded with 26 strikes in return. Coaching staff remember the early stages of that campaign where he asked for individual sessions to work on his movement and finishing to help him adjust to the change. Watkins also dedicated time to improving his heading and the rewards could be seen in his performance for Villa against Fulham earlier this season where he dominated the defence. It will come as a surprise to many that, among Premier League forwards, only Oli McBurnie (22) Andy Carroll (22) Dominic Calvert-Lewin (17) and Chris Wood (16) have won more headers then Watkins (15) this season. Maybe more telling is that, of those strikers, recognised for their aerial dominance, only Carroll (22 won, 10 lost) has a better win-to-lose ratio in headed duels. Unwittingly, Watkins finds himself once again in a comparison contest with Fulham’s Aleksandar Mitrovic, the man who beat him to the top goalscorer award by a single goal last season, as both players have won and lost 15 headers a piece so far for their respective clubs and are seen as among the best in that particular category. But such individuals battles are of little relevance to Watkins as one source said: ”He had no interest in what Mitrovic was doing last season, it was more about how he could get the better of the defender he came up against.” It’s that attention to detail before a match day that is maybe giving him an edge. He studies forthcoming opponents religiously before games and knows exactly the type of defenders he is coming up against. Pre-match analysis is, of course, common across every professional league in the country, but Watkins’ preparation is as detailed and thorough as you can get. If a defender has slipped up in the past, or made a mistake that could be repeated, Watkins will try to expose that weakness himself. The way he hassles defenders and stretches the backline with his clever and unselfish runs into the channels that create space for his team-mates also helps. He will also know exactly how the opponents like to play, as well as their strengths and weaknesses, as he asks for additional clips from analysts to aid his preparation. It was clear that Watkins had done his homework on Liverpool. Immediately after the win he told Sky Sports how the team as a collective targeted their opponent’s high line. Deep down, he’d have also planned ways to unsettle Van Dijk and Gomez, although he remained respectful and humble enough to keep it private. On top of his on-field qualities, there’s a likeable lad who receives glowing references from every club he has been at. At Exeter his legacy lives on as they still show videos of their academy graduate to young players before training. A £4 million windfall from the deal that took him to Villa has also been well received. Along with his goals, Brentford miss his cheeky smile, as well as his honesty and generosity as he always helped with charity events. The boy who parked himself in a modest apartment on the River Thames and shirked the lavish lifestyle of London after moving up from Devon will always be welcomed back with open arms. There was never a change in his behaviour either as five clubs battled for his signature this summer. Watkins never let his standards drop. He was consistently friendly and engaging around the training ground right up until the day he cleared his locker to head up to Birmingham and complete his late-night move. But it’s at Villa where he is progressing now and there’s a belief that the record-signing is very much the real deal. Watkins’ consistency in front of goal is special. It’s over 18 months since he went longer than three games without scoring a league goal and Smith confidently revealed his thoughts about the man he has now signed twice. “I have no doubts he will score goals for us this season and be a very much loved Aston Villa centre-forward,” he said. The players feel the same too, and have noticed how he demands more from them in a measured but encouraging way. He sets high standards and wants those around him to match up, but that’s nothing new; it has been the case since day one.

Taking Spain form back to Chelsea would be first step to redemption for Kepa https://theathletic.com/2137188/2020/10/15/kepa-spain-chelsea-future/ Last week Luis Enrique offered some rare words of encouragement to the world’s most expensive and perhaps most criticised goalkeeper. “Kepa is not in a nice situation, but it is not the end of the world,” the Spain coach said in a press conference ahead of a friendly against Portugal. “It’s the ideal moment for him to rise again, for us to see what Kepa is made of. What he is going through at Chelsea now is something that happens to all players throughout their careers.” Kepa responded by keeping a clean sheet in Lisbon — his first of the new season and only his fifth in 16 appearances for club and country in 2020. But the match also highlighted the flaws of using clean sheets to judge goalkeeper performance; Cristiano Ronaldo and Renato Sanches both crashed shots off the underside of the bar with Kepa beaten and Joao Felix missed a gilt-edged chance virtually on the goal line in injury time. Had things fallen less favourably, he could have conceded three times without having done anything differently. More encouraging for Chelsea were several flashes beyond those headline moments. Despite producing the chances to win fairly comfortably, Portugal only mustered one shot on target. It was a big moment though; Francisco Trincao slipping substitute Felix clean through on goal in the 75th minute. Kepa closes the distance without committing himself, makes his body as big as possible and eventually gets down low to his right to smother the Atletico Madrid forward’s slightly scuffed shot… Kepa also showed notable conviction in an aspect of his game frequently highlighted as a weakness throughout his Chelsea career: commanding his penalty area in the face of high balls delivered into the box. Spain opted to defend set pieces with a high line — a system that gives the goalkeeper space to roam but requires him to be assertive in coming to claim the ball… On this occasion, Kepa rushes out confidently to catch Ruben Neves’ inswinging cross between two Portugal attackers: A few minutes later, Portugal tried to expose Spain’s high defensive line again, with Joao Cancelo advancing from the right-back spot and chipping a precise pass in behind for Diogo Jota to chase… The pass is slightly overhit, but Kepa is quickly out to beat Jota to the ball and snuff out the danger… If these seem like relatively routine interventions for a top-level goalkeeper, that’s because they are. But within the context of Kepa’s very public crisis of confidence during a horrendously bad 2019-20 season, they are welcome signs of progress towards the unflashy competence he displayed for much of his first season at Chelsea under Maurizio Sarri. After the game he credited Luis Enrique for the improvement in his mindset. “I’ve felt confidence, at ease (with the national side),” he said. “I think it was a good game and I’m happy with the confidence of the coach. When I’m needed to help on the pitch, I try to do the best I possibly can.” Whether that growth in confidence survived seeing David de Gea picked to start Spain’s subsequent Nations League matches against Switzerland and Ukraine remains to be seen. Chelsea will soon find out; Edouard Mendy’s untimely thigh injury, while not expected to sideline him for more than a couple of weeks, looks to have opened the door for Kepa to reverse his club fortunes sooner than anyone would have anticipated. Frank Lampard’s lack of faith in Kepa was exposed by his selection decisions for Chelsea’s most important matches of 2019-20, picking Willy Caballero over the Spaniard to face Wolves on the final day of the Premier League’s top four race, and against Arsenal in the FA Cup final at Wembley. It would be a surprise to see him do so again with Mendy out, however, given that the club remain committed to trying to recover Kepa’s confidence and value for the time being. He, not Caballero, was the goalkeeper on the bench in the last two games. It is essentially a marriage of necessity. Kepa’s price tag, wages and current underperformance would make it impossible for Marina Granovskaia to get anything like acceptable resale value in a normal transfer market, let alone one utterly distorted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In any case, few European clubs of stature are even looking for a starting goalkeeper right now; sources have told The Athletic that the Spaniard’s representatives searched long and hard for loan suitors in the final days of the transfer window, but none emerged. Kepa will likely be at Chelsea for the foreseeable future, so it is in the best interests of all parties for him to embrace the challenge of competing with Mendy and rediscovering his best form. De Gea took the opportunity to consult former Spain youth team coach Miguel Angel Espana during the shortened offseason to address certain specific technical flaws in his game. Kepa will need to be similarly open to exploring every possible avenue towards self-improvement in the weeks and months ahead. De Gea is once again Spain’s No 1 goalkeeper, reinstated by Luis Enrique following his return to the national team, but Kepa’s senior international outings have showcased plenty of what he can offer in peak form. Here he is in a Euro 2020 qualifier against Romania in November 2019, faced with a shooting chance for George Puscas in the penalty area… Puscas’ shot is high and hard, but Kepa leaps to his right to tip it wide. Spain have no more serious defensive scares and go on to win the game 5-0. That was the second time in three months that Kepa had denied Puscas a famous goal. In September 2019 in Bucharest, with Spain leading 2-1 but down to 10 men, the Chelsea goalkeeper stuck out a vital left leg to block the striker’s powerful downward header after he rose highest to meet a dangerous cross from the right flank in the second minute of injury time. The ability to make saves in key moments, coupled with a more consistent general projection of calm to his defenders, are the two boxes Kepa must tick to have any chance of reviving his Chelsea career. He is at least saying all the right things on this front, even if he couldn’t realistically be expected to say anything else. “I’m feeling good, strong and confident,” he insisted heading into the October international break. “Perhaps it’s not the situation I dreamed of or hoped for, but we all have to go through moments like this. I’m confident I can turn things around and am willing to work hard to do that.” It will take a lot to change Lampard’s mind, particularly if Mendy can build upon two relatively solid showings prior to the international break. He, unlike Kepa, also speaks French, revealed by Cesar Azpilicueta this week to be the new unofficial language of Chelsea’s defence. More generally speaking, it’s hard to think of a precedent for Kepa re-establishing himself at Stamford Bridge after such a spectacular confidence crisis at any other elite European club. Mendy’s injury may have opened the door slightly, though, and Kepa bringing his Spain confidence onto the pitch with Chelsea would be a first step in the right direction.

Lampard and Southgate love Mount – and the trolls won’t change that https://theathletic.com/2134576/2020/10/14/mason-mount-chelsea-england-southgate-lampard/ Has anyone got a legitimate explanation as to why they dislike Mason Mount so much? There are many reasons why a footballer becomes very unpopular with members of the general public. It could be because they’re arrogant in interviews, guilty of terrible tackles on the pitch or that they behave badly in their private lives. Mount is guilty of none of those things. So, what is his crime? Being selected regularly for club and country by Frank Lampard and Gareth Southgate. It has become a common occurrence for the 21-year-old’s name to be trending on Twitter lately and when you click to find out why, a stream of negative, abusive comments flash up on the screen. It is all rather bizarre. Rightly or wrongly, many will explain it away by saying, “That’s just the way it is with social media”. There isn’t a professional player in the sport who doesn’t get something nasty written about them at one time or another. However, it is the level of outcry over Mount that is particularly surprising. Throughout the Roman Abramovich era, Chelsea fans have called for their academy players to be given a chance. Lampard obliged last season by playing the youngsters regularly, none more so than Mount, who made a remarkable 53 appearances. Lampard’s backing has continued into this campaign so far, too, the Chelsea manager starting the midfielder in the first five matches before naming him on the bench against Crystal Palace last time out. But among sections of Chelsea’s global fanbase, his constant presence in the first XI has not been greeted warmly. The vitriol among this group reached new heights when Mount missed a decisive spot kick in the Carabao Cup shootout defeat to Tottenham Hotspur last month. His omission from the Palace fixture was cause for celebration in their eyes. The international break has provided no respite. Being with England on international duty has only succeeded in putting a new target on his back. He is public enemy No 1, especially among Aston Villa fans, for being picked ahead of Jack Grealish. The Villa playmaker certainly impressed during a 3-0 victory over a weakened Wales side and many expected him to feature in Sunday’s UEFA Nations League fixture against Belgium but there was outrage when Grealish was on the bench and Mount appeared in the first XI instead. Whether Mount was a conservative option or not, it seemed to evade the hate mob’s attention that he actually played on the right, a position that was filled against Wales by Danny Ings. It was Marcus Rashford who played in the position on the left that Grealish had filled three days before. Mount ended up scoring the winner, albeit via a deflection, but that didn’t stop one national broadcaster from adding fuel to the flames by inviting callers to ring in, with the host saying: “I’d rather not win a World Cup with Jack Grealish entertaining us in the side than not win a World Cup with Mason Mount’s quality pressing.” Should Southgate make the same decision against Denmark on Wednesday evening, inevitably, the Chelsea man’s presence will be seen in a negative light once more. Football will always generate differences of opinion and there is nothing wrong in debating why you think one individual should be in the team ahead of another, but surely there is room for a little perspective? Mount isn’t the bad guy here. Amid all the protests, one suitable question can be asked but no one seems to want to explore the answer: why is it that Lampard and Southgate choose Mount in their teams so often? Well, whether you think he is not as gifted as Grealish for England or Mateo Kovacic or Hakim Ziyech for Chelsea, that doesn’t mean he is not a good player. Lampard and Southgate have played at the very highest level alongside team-mates boasting tremendous skill, so they know what it takes. When you speak to people around the scene at club and international level, they talk in glowing terms about Mount’s attitude, desire and work rate. Sure, he has the flair — many players over the years can say that — but this youngster has the hunger to improve, too. It is understood that when the Chelsea players are put through physical tests, he is up there with N’Golo Kante as one of the fittest players within the ranks. As a club insider puts it: “One of the reasons Lampard likes Mount is because he trains every day as if it is his last. He has the ambition to be one of the best. When the club made all the signings during the window, he reacted positively and made it obvious he was going to fight for his place.” Mount said as much in an interview with Sky Sports ahead of the new season: “Chelsea are a massive club and they will always bring players over so, as an English player from this club, you know that’s going to happen. “When you have players coming in, they are going to help the team out. You always have to have that outlook on it. There is always going to be that little bit of a feeling they could be coming into your position but with me, I am always positive and up for the challenge. “The manager is massive on training, having that standard, so that when we go into the games, we are all ready. I love competing against my fellow players.” He will know that many of the new arrivals are on a lot more money than he is. Sources at the club suggest Mount, who signed a five-year contract in July 2019, is one of the lowest-paid members of the Chelsea squad. Yet there has been no sulking or demands for a meeting to negotiate a pay-rise. Mount has clearly earned Lampard’s trust. A credible nine goals and eight assists from 58 appearances means he either creates or finds the net for Chelsea almost once every three games. That helps. But he is also prepared to put the team first before himself. Mount’s best position is as a No 8, where he can get between the lines, see the play in front of him and threaten in the final third. This is where he operated to help Chelsea come back from 3-0 down at West Bromwich Albion last month, scoring the opening goal with a sublime shot from 25 yards. Yet he is not played there very often. Indeed, he has been used in a variety of roles, some of which don’t complement his creative instincts. For example, against Bayern Munich in the Champions League at home last season and for the visit of Liverpool in September, Lampard asked him to play on the right — primarily, that move seemed to be designed for the midfielder to press and help defensively. Southgate did the same for last weekend’s Belgium contest. Mount offered more protection for Trent Alexander-Arnold at full-back but using up all that energy chasing opponents and the cautious nature of England’s tactics meant he did little with the ball when it did come to his feet, especially in the first half. If Grealish had been switched from the left to the right for this match, would he have had the discipline to curb his own game for the good of the side? One can imagine that is the question Southgate asked himself and thought otherwise. Speaking to Talksport following the victory, the England coach said: “In a tactical game, where it’s just as important defensively what the forwards do, to have a player like him (Mount) who can do both sides… the way that Marcus Rashford did, the way Dominic Calvert-Lewin did. I read a lot of things about Mason and I think he’s a very underappreciated player — but not by us.” Southgate’s appreciation of Mount isn’t a new thing. Chelsea’s academy graduate first came to his attention when he had the role of England Under-21 coach. They spoke a few times at St George’s Park, conversations that continued after Southgate had been promoted to the senior job. Mount’s performances to help England win the 2017 Under-19 European Championship, where he was named player of the tournament, didn’t go unnoticed. Sources in the England camp suggest they also shared an exchange after Mount was loaned to Vitesse Arnhem by Chelsea in the 2017-18 season. Before England departed for the last World Cup in Russia, he spent a week training with the squad. Mount also joined Phil Foden and Ryan Sessegnon on a trip to Russia during the tournament with team sponsors Nike, where he got to see how the team and Southgate prepare for a game. Despite playing in the Championship for Derby County on loan at the time, Mount’s first call-up to the senior ranks was for the UEFA Nations League fixtures games with Spain and Croatia in October 2018, so it is clear Southgate had Mount earmarked as a potential member of his side for some time. It is not a sudden decision or should be taken as an insult to anyone else. Naturally, there is a lot of room for improvement at club and international level but the midfielder is only in his second season playing in England’s top division, so that is understandable. His potential is vast. Lampard had a legion of critics at West Ham at the start of his career. With his uncle as manager (Harry Redknapp) and his dad working as assistant, he was often accused of only playing because of nepotism. There is no better man to help Mount as he experiences a similar thing with Chelsea and England. Earlier this month, Lampard said: “There’s a fascination with Mason. He’s homegrown and he’s a young player who’s got regularly into the team. “He is a humble lad, who has had a real dream to play for Chelsea. The thing that makes him special is he’s gone and attacked that dream with the talent he has and made it through pure hard work. “He’s been picked regularly in the England squad because I know Gareth Southgate and (assistant) Steve Holland have absolute respect for how he comes and trains and performs for them. What Mason’s done is exceptional and there is a lot more to come. That’s part of the great thing about working with someone who has that attitude, mindset and quality.” What’s wrong with that?