The English Football Thread

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Manchester United are ‘good’? (Excuse the question marks)

https://theathletic.com/2275798/2020/12/24/manchester-united-league-cup-derby-city/

“Manchester United are not a good football team at the moment (although they can be capable of good moments) and it’s getting harder to predict at what point they will start being one. The view that the 2020-21 vintage of United are a “roll the dice and see what happens” side grows stronger, not weaker by the month.”

One month and one day after we wrote that, Manchester United seem to have entered that area marked “good”. Wednesday’s 2-0 League Cup victory over Everton saw United win three games in a row under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer for only the third occasion and they achieved it with a performance that was “good”.

We kept those quote marks for a reason. Try to imagine The Athletic talking to you from a COVID-responsible, safe social distance. We would say the word with an upward inflexion at the end. Manchester United are… good?

Solskjaer made nine changes from the team that beat Leeds United 6-2 at the weekend and came sprinting out of the blocks against an Everton side that had defeated Chelsea, Leicester and Arsenal in their last three matches? Only seven weeks ago, before their last trip to Goodison Park, before the international break, some commenters believed Solskjaer’s job was in danger if he suffered a defeat. But since then, the team has grown from strength to strength?

This was United’s 14th consecutive away win in domestic competition? They had won five corners within the first 10 minutes against Everton and could have scored from any of them? In the 28th minute, broadcast commentary said Solskjaer’s side could have been three goals up already as Sky Sports threw up a graphic that showed they had 71 per cent possession and nine attempts on goal (three on target) after 28 minutes? But then between the half-hour mark and the end of the first half, they only managed one more attempt? But rather than that be a sign of United’s vulnerabilities of old coming in, they still controlled the game and shut Everton out?

Forgive the question marks in the above paragraphs, but we want to stress the difference of United going from a bewildering, contradictory, but consistent mess, to a good team in the space of just a few weeks. How has Solskjaer managed to get his side to regroup after the gut-punch of Champions League elimination so quickly? Especially when he’s making so many changes to his starting XI?

It’s The Athletic’s role to answer questions for the reader, rather than ask them, so we’ll drop the question marks and get into how Solskjaer has built a team that achieves victory through versatility.

There are some basic fundamentals to this. United are good more times than they are not and improve game by game as players get used to each others’ habits. Against Everton, Solskjaer went for his favoured 4-2-3-1 shape with Nemanja Matic and Paul Pogba holding, Donny van de Beek on the left, Mason Greenwood on the right, Bruno Fernandes as the 10 and Edinson Cavani leading the line.

It was United’s work in the pivot that left Everton dazed and confused in the game’s opening minutes. Pogba gave Gylfi Sigurdsson a headache by trying to stand in his blindspot to receive passes (the Icelander did not know whether to pressure Harry Maguire on the ball or to hold his position and cut out passes to the Frenchman). Elsewhere, Matic stationed himself just in front of the centre back pairing of Maguire and Eric Bailly to give added protection in case either defender, or indeed Alex Telles or Axel Tuanzebe in the full-back positions, tried driving into space.

It was a good 25 minutes that turned into a “good” first half when United failed to score and there is a growing sense of control and options to this side recently. Bailly, who returned to the side for the first time since United’s 6-1 loss to Tottenham Hotspur, was “good”. The scars of that defeat, which had led to United being so shaky and uncertain of themselves, look to be fading. Embodied by their captain Maguire and their lynchpin Fernandes, United are beginning to look durable (those two are in the top 10 for minutes played across the world, according to the CIES Football Observatory) and always trying something. Even though United lost a bit of puff in most of the second half, they kept Everton from registering a shot on target in the last 45 minutes (although some of that has to do with Richarlison going off injured after suffering a head injury).

Not only did this United team seem controlled in defence, but they possessed variety in attack. Solskjaer’s 67th-minute switch of Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford for Van de Beek (who still needs time to gel with this team so they can pick out more of his off-the-ball runs) and Mason Greenwood (who plays better when part of the “MMA” trio) was United replacing quality with quality in a way only a handful of clubs in England can do.

A latter change of Luke Shaw for Telles in the 84th minute may have raised some eyebrows, but showed the method behind the mythology and sometimes madness Solskjaer invokes. Telles is a good penalty taker, but with six minutes to go, why not bring on the left-back more important to how your teams build moves? United might have won a shootout against Everton, but the Norwegian knew he had the cumulative talent to get the game finished early. He was proved correct moments later as Martial picked up the ball in Sigurdsson’s blindspot to thread through Cavani (who was hanging about on the right-hand side, sensing gaps Everton were leaving). Cavani turned a good chance into a goal and a “good” United performance with 30 minutes of frustrating control into a good win that keeps the team’s tails up. Martial’s goal with the last kick of the game capped off proceedings.

“We’re happy with the squad at the moment,” said Solskjaer in his press conference before being notified he had drawn Manchester City in the semi-final. He also mentioned on three occasions (to UK broadcasters, international broadcasters and written press) his annoyance that United play Leicester City in Saturday’s early kick-off. After Leicester, it’s Wolverhampton Wanders, before Aston Villa, and then the League Cup semi-final on either January 5 or 6 between now and United’s FA Cup game against Watford on January 9. This is one of the annoying things about United’s status of “good” — it’s going to get tested very quickly.

There are still questions as to when and how United will make the jump and become a great football team, capable of turning the semi-finals into silverware and dominant performances such as the one over Everton, into more dominant scorelines, but those can wait.

Because for a little bit we need to get used to United being… “good?”

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Wijnaldum’s contract is a test case for Liverpool which many will watch keenly

https://theathletic.com/2278735/2020/12/23/liverpool-wijnaldum-contract-ozil/

When Jurgen Klopp gave Liverpool’s fans an early Christmas present 12 months ago, extending his contract until June 2024, he said something about how the nature of his job would begin to change.

“We will see what we can achieve together in that time, but there will probably be a moment where we have to change things,” he said. “We are ready to win whatever we can, but (also) to make sure — because there is always a time after me, after another manager — that the club is in the best possible position to carry on in the best possible way.”

Better that, he said, than “another manager coming and having to do this kind of not-really-thankful job and, like, rebuild or whatever”. It might look like the most enviable of jobs right now, in charge of a group of players he has described as “mentality monsters”. But rebuilding that squad over the coming years, deciding when and how to replace players who have been so integral to Liverpool’s resurgence, is indeed a tall order — particularly when you consider how hard Klopp and his players found it to say goodbye to Dejan Lovren and Adam Lallana, who were peripheral, albeit highly popular, squad members over their final two seasons at Anfield.

The difficulty of the rebuilding question has crystallised with the case of Georginio Wijnaldum. The midfielder is about to enter the final six months of his contract, which means that, unless a new deal is agreed before January 1, he is only nine days from being able to sign a pre-contract agreement to join Barcelona, Inter Milan or another overseas club on a free transfer at the end of the season.

Wijnaldum, not unreasonably, is looking for a salary in keeping with his status as one of the Premier League’s most influential midfielders, a considerable improvement on the deal he signed upon joining Liverpool from relegated Newcastle United in the summer of 2016. He wants a contract that brings long-term security — again, not unreasonably, given that this will probably be the last deal he signs before his earning power starts to recede.

Klopp and Liverpool want to keep him, but there is unease — again, understandable — at the idea of offering a long-term contract, on increased terms, to a player who has just turned 30 and is unlikely to be quite such an integral part of their team in three or four years’ time. And for the first time in a long, long time, a Liverpool manager can tell his star players that, if they want to compete for the game’s biggest prizes, they are better off staying on Merseyside than moving to Barcelona or Milan (and if they really want to know whether the grass is greener elsewhere, they could ask Philippe Coutinho or Emre Can).

So many decisions like this lie ahead for Liverpool. It is far from an old team, but one consequence of getting their recruitment so right, investing in a core of players who have improved together under Klopp, coming to a collective peak together without the need for significant reinforcement over the past two seasons, is that this same core of key players are now in their late twenties or moving just beyond. While James Milner (34) is very much the old man of the squad, Wijnaldum and Jordan Henderson are 30, Virgil van Dijk, Joel Matip, Roberto Firmino and Xherdan Shaqiri are 29, and Alisson, Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane are 28.

Handing out big, long-term contracts left, right and centre isn’t going to be an option, particularly given the severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the club’s revenues. Neither, generally, is it advisable. And so Wijnaldum is, in some ways, a test case for Liverpool, one that will be watched with interest by several of his team-mates and their agents.

So many times we see big clubs misjudge these situations. In February 2018, Arsenal, amid great fanfare, handed a 29-year-old Mesut Ozil a £350,000-a-week, three-and-a-half-year deal to stop him leaving on a free transfer a few months later. They have been counting the cost almost ever since.

Ozil rarely played better for Arsenal than in the winter of 2017-18, scoring four goals and registering eight assists in 13 Premier League appearances before signing his contract. In just under three years since then, he has made just 48 Premier League appearances, scoring six goals and registering five assists. They tried and failed to offload him in each of the past four transfer windows. This season Mikel Arteta did not even register him in Arsenal’s Premier League or Europa League squad.

In September, again from a position of weakness, Arsenal re-signed a 31-year-old Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang on a three-year contract worth an initial £250,000 a week. Again what seemed like a huge statement of intent from the club has been followed by a loss of form from a player who is no longer negotiating the most significant contract of his career.

Arsenal signed Willian, 32, this summer after offering him the kind of three-year deal that Chelsea had sensibly ruled out. That one isn’t going well either. (Remember when Arsenal, in the late 2000s, used to be criticised for offering only one-year extensions to players once they reached a certain age? In the post-Wenger era, they have gone to the other extreme.)

There are always other factors, of course — in Aubameyang’s case, Arsenal just aren’t creating chances like they were towards the end of last season — but the post-contract comfort zone is a well-known phenomenon in football. With older players, it is a risk that needs to be weighed up with extreme care, albeit not as dogmatically as Arsenal did in the late 2000s. There is a balance to be found, each case on its own merits and all that.

Ozil is an extreme case, though, and Wijnaldum seems to be on the opposite end of the spectrum as a physically durable player who barely misses a game and often appears immune to the usual fluctuations of fitness, form and motivation.

In that understated way of his, Wijnaldum is performing so well right now. You will not see it in the goals or assists columns — or even in the more nuanced category of goal-creating actions per 90 minutes, where so far this season he ranks alongside goalkeepers Emiliano Martinez and Karl Darlow — but the recent wins over Wolverhampton Wanderers, Tottenham Hotspur and Crystal Palace featured superb performances from the midfielder. They showcased his consistency, his intelligence and his ability to receive and recycle the ball in the tight areas in which opponents try to force Liverpool to operate.

In a team that has lost Van Dijk to injury, causing Fabinho to drop back into defence, Wijnaldum has played a hugely important part in helping them retain that all-important drive and intensity in midfield and helping the wonderfully talented Curtis Jones, 19, make such impressive progress alongside him. Jones’s emergence could be said to have strengthened the case against a new contract for his team-mate, but the teenager does not underestimate how much Henderson, Milner and Wijnaldum have done to help him on and off the pitch.

Wijnaldum has without question been one of Liverpool’s key players this season. Not because he’s “playing out for a new contract” but simply because that’s the way he plays, a top-class player at the peak of his powers in a top-class team. The challenge for Klopp and for Michael Edwards, the sporting director, is to try to work out how long that peak will last and to establish whether common ground can be found with the player’s (and his agent’s) expectations.

That is a calculation they found themselves making in relation to Thiago Alcantara last summer. The Spain midfielder, 29, arrived from Bayern Munich in September on a four-year contract which made him one of Liverpool’s best-paid players. So far, with a positive COVID-19 test followed by a wild challenge from Richarlison in the Merseyside derby, he has played just 135 minutes for Klopp’s team. (The impression he made during those 135 minutes can be gleaned from the excitement with which Liverpool supporters have greeted his return to full training.)

Bayern were faced with a dilemma over Thiago last summer when he entered the final year of his contract. They made the tough decision to sell him while they still could. By contrast, Liverpool, amid interest from Barcelona in Wijnaldum, avoided the temptation to cash in, a calculation based on his continuing importance to the team even if it involved the risk of losing him on a free transfer next summer.

At this point in time, it seems pretty reasonable to suggest that keeping Wijnaldum was the right decision even if they end up losing him on a free transfer (in which case the mistake, arguably, was allowing that contract to run down so far in the first place). Whether they made the right decision to pay £27 million for Thiago, even with just £5 million up front, when he would have been available on a free transfer at the end of this season, can only be judged over the course of time.

What is certain, though, is that Liverpool will face a series of dilemmas like this over the next couple of years. Van Dijk, Fabinho, Henderson, Naby Keita, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Salah, Firmino and Mane are all under contract until June 2023. That is enough time to give the club some breathing space, but it will mean there are some tough decisions ahead. To have Salah, Firmino and Mane all roughly the same age, at the same stage of their contracts, is not ideal. Keeping hold of them all until they are in their early thirties, with fast-declining resale value, would seem unlikely given how proactively they have played the transfer market under Fenway Sports Group’s ownership.

Manchester City have had this with several of their key players over the past decade. Yaya Toure, such a giant of their team under Roberto Mancini and Manuel Pellegrini, ended up staying longer than he would have wished before departing on a free transfer at the age of 35. Vincent Kompany left for Anderlecht a year later at the age of 33, David Silva another year later at 34 and Sergio Aguero might do so next summer at 33. It is hard to appreciate the added value that Kompany and Silva in particular have brought to the dressing room even as their game time reduced, but keeping key players into their thirties has not necessarily helped the transition from one great team to another, as conventional thinking suggests it should.

Those situations remain a long way off for Liverpool, but in the meantime they certainly won’t want many players entering the final year of their contracts as Wijnaldum has. Whether that ultimately means losing him on a free transfer or offering a bigger, longer contract than they would otherwise have wished, it is the type of situation that clubs wish to avoid wherever possible.

The one certainty with Wijnaldum, as Klopp has said, is that his application and his consistency will not waver even if his contract runs down to the final weeks. It is one of the qualities which has made him such an integral part of their success story under Klopp — and which might just suggest he is worth making an exception for.

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So, with Poch going to PSG, the following would be the main ones I would think would take over Manure (IF Ole is sacked, which is looking highly unlikely atm)

feel free to add some I may have missed

this list would also be for us if Lamps was sacked (NOT saying he will be), except for Conte

the first 5 are the big guns (not listing Conte as such, although Manure may consider him, as he has proven he can win the EPL, but he is not a Manure type either)

5 are German or Austrian (would have been 6 but Marco Rose is going to Dortmund)

 

Diego Simeone

Massimiliano Allegri

Julian Nagelsmann

Zinedine Zidane (hard pull, as he doesn't speak English and has said he doesn't want to learn (typical French cunt), and thus has no interest in the EPL)

Luis Enrique

Antonio Conte

Joachim Löw (no chance he would leave Germany until post 2022 WC, unless he is sacked)

Thomas Tuchel

Didier Deschamps (no chance he leaves France until post 2022 WC)

Laurent Blanc

Erik ten Hag

Ralph Hasenhuttl

Ralf Rangnick

Gian Piero Gasperini

Julen Lopetegui 

Marcelo Bielsa

Rudi Garcia

Nuno Espirito Santo

Peter Bosz

Lucien Favre

 

 

 

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Can you sleep your way to the top in football?

https://theathletic.com/2273523/2020/12/24/sleep-football-injuries/

When his players drove into the Manchester United training ground, Sir Alex Ferguson often liked to look through the window and out into the car park.

“He would do this every day,” recalls United’s former power development coach Mick Clegg. “He would spot the ones who looked tired, or notice the ones having a row with the wife on the phone as they came in. The difference between the ones who were waltzing in, nice and relaxed, could be amazing.”

Ferguson is often caricatured as the hairdryer, the master blaster whose sheer force of personality catapulted his club to incomparable success. Yet this does a disservice to a man whose attention to detail and support for innovation often far exceeded that of his peers.

In the early 2000s, for example, Ferguson spent time with the United groundsman and requested printouts detailing the length of the grass and how it was watered for every square metre of the Old Trafford pitch. He wanted a pitch cut and watered perfectly to suit United’s style of play. When a peripheral vision specialist wrote to him, he invited her in to ensure the vision of United’s players was perfectly monitored. As with many spheres, he was also ahead of the game when it came to footballers and their sleep.

Late in the 1990s, Nick Littlehales, then a marketing director of the mattress company Slumberland, wrote to Manchester United to ask how they monitored and improved their players’ sleep. Sir Alex Ferguson responded by inviting Littlehales into the club, where, according to the sleep specialist’s own book, Littlehales developed “the first training-ground sleep recovery room on the planet at United’s Carrington facility.” When United did double sessions during a pre-season, this room could accommodate 12 players at a time to rest up on the sleeper loungers between sessions. Littlehales’ profile grew, working closely with the England national team at Euro 2004 and he has since liaised with Arsenal, Manchester City, Southampton and even Real Madrid during Cristiano Ronaldo’s spell at the club.

The question of sleep and footballers is an important one. Anna West, the sleep specialist who works with Brentford, wrote in an academic paper: “Sleep deprivation leads to poor performance, reduced motivation and arousal levels, and reduced cognitive processes, leading to poor attention and concentration, and heightened levels of perceived exertion and pain perception.”

Not only can poor sleep lead to poor performances but she also points to a study of high school athletes where the individuals who slept less than eight hours per night were on average 70 per cent more likely to report an injury than those who slept more than eight hours.

James Bunce, Monaco’s director of performance, previously held similar senior roles at the Premier League and the US Soccer Federation, after also working with Mauricio Pochettino at Southampton. He says: “Our three overarching pillars for performance standards are: eat right, sleep right and train right. Sleep is important because it is the most proven way of the body recovering, both mentally and physically. You can talk about ice baths, compression garments, fancy drinks, all the gadgets and gizmos, but the number one thing to regenerate the body is a good quality and depth of sleep.”

During the first decade of the current millennium, Ferguson wanted more from his sport science department. Robin Thorpe was a sport scientist at United from 2009 until last year, where he held roles including head of recovery and regeneration. He tells The Athletic: “The first thing is to isolate and understand the importance of an area. Sir Alex always asked us ‘Are my players ready?’ We intuitively had an answer but Tony Strudwick, United’s head of performance, and the chief executive David Gill invested in an academic process that would help us understand it better. There was club-wide backing.”

United began to more proactively study sleep, partly for the benefit of the research but increasingly to assist the coaching staff by providing information that could inform training load and selection. Thorpe’s process began by monitoring a player’s subjective sleep, which took the form of a very simple questionnaire response. This asked athletes how well they had slept and how many hours they had slept each day. The answers showed a fluctuation around games, so United then took an objective reading by asking players to wear a wristwatch that would quantify their total hours of sleep by monitoring movement. By that stage, United had identified a player’s chronotype; in essence, whether they are a night owl or a morning lark or somewhere in between.

Thorpe explains: “We found a difference in length and quality of sleep the night before and the night after games. We found our United players were sleeping on average eight hours before games, which was pleasing, but after the game it was less than seven hours. The more we studied, and this is where it is important, we found big individual variants. When I say they got seven hours, the time these athletes fell asleep ranged from 10pm to 5.30am. Some of these guys were only getting three hours of sleep. We could highlight which players were more severely disrupted in terms of sleep around games, which was crucial because we know that around the game could be a limiting factor to performances on the field.”

Across the board, clubs now more frequently monitor their players sleep. Callum Walsh, head of physical performance at Championship side Huddersfield, performs a daily wellness check on the club’s players. He says: “We do a daily questionnaire, where a player can raise any issues but we also weigh the players on a daily basis too, as nutrition and sleep are closely aligned. We know whether if a player is a little light, compared to normal, on matchday minus one. If they are depleted, we can then intervene and say they need to take a little more on. We also adapt those portion sizes based on what a player will need according to his weight.”

Monaco currently do the questionnaire but they are also considering the introduction of Oura rings to closely monitor player’s sleep. Bunce continues: “It is a ring tailor made to your finger size. You wear it all night and it measures your rapid eye movement, your body movement, your heart rate variability and a lot of different objective markers.”

One of the major challenges for United would be European away trips. This season, both Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp and United boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer have complained that their teams have been asked to play at 12.30pm on a Saturday after playing a European fixture away from home on a Wednesday evening. They cite the short recovery turnaround and how sleep can be disrupted by travel.

Thorpe continues: “One of the first things we majorly changed at United was to stay at a hotel when playing abroad rather than flying back straight away. No matter where we went, we would rarely be home before 3am, so players were crawling into their beds at home at 4am. Typically, coaches want players in the next day as you have players not in the team who need to train and coaches just want athletes in every day. There had been occasions before that decision when we had stayed over sometimes because airports were not open or logistical issues. It enabled us to monitor how sleep rated compared to when we flew back. We saw a pattern of sleep being negatively affected when we flew back straight away. When you stay over, you can feed in the hotel, which is better than aeroplane food and you have the opportunity to sleep for ten hours.”

 

Most remarkably, United’s recovery staff stayed up through the night and in the early hours to do recovery sessions with those players they knew struggled to sleep in the aftermath of a game. Given the short timeframe before the next game, this could prove to be a crucial marginal gain. Thorpe says: “We could monitor those who had difficulty falling asleep and those who had issues staying asleep from a recovery point of view. I was available there to assist the recovery process. We had pool and spa facilities and I was on hand to help that until after 2am but then also from 6am for those players who struggled to stay asleep.”

West is a Danish sleep specialist who has worked with Brentford’s players since 2016. She has previously worked with the Danish military and the country’s Olympic Games committee. She echoes Thorpe’s sentiments when emphasising how altering routine can improve performances. “I did a 2012 project with the swimming team,” she says. “We battled existing cultures and structures. The training schedule has always been very early morning sessions. We moved this one hour forward, meaning they could sleep an extra hour and it completely improved their performance outcome.”

Different performance departments have contrasting methods when it comes to the ideal routine. Monaco, for example, adapt training schedules the day after an evening game to provide an increased window to sleep. Bunce says: “They don’t come in to train at 10.30am, like normal, but they come in at 3pm. We want to give them the amount of time needed for good quality sleep. It can be 3am when they fall asleep, so to wake up at 8am can be counter-productive and crush their proper recovery which is sleep. We have a lot of 9pm games here, so we change the next-day schedule to protect the sleep schedule. It breaks football traditions, as players usually come in for 10am, but we are listening to what science and data tells us. On the screens around training ground, we provide a countdown to next game, a food recommendation and a sleep or a nap schedule. After an early kick-off last Sunday, we recommended a 30-minute nap before 3pm the next day.”

Monaco have also individualised the routine the evening before a game. Players are usually allowed to stay at home with their families on the eve of a home fixture. Yet there are instances, where those players who struggle to get a full night’s sleep at home, in some cases due to the demands of the early hours with young children, are booked into hotels.

Huddersfield, by contrast, do not push back their training time on the day after a game. In the space of 29 days, Championship clubs have competed in nine fixtures over the past month and Walsh, in partnership with head coach Carlos Corberan, who assisted Marcelo Bielsa at Leeds previously, devised a season-long strategy of training patterns to keep players energised. Earlier on in the season, for example, Huddersfield had a couple of weeks without midweek fixtures, yet the coaches went highly intense in the middle of the week to replicate what the experience would be like for players later in the campaign. The GPS results for the weeks where training replicated the experience of a midweek match have now mirrored results the performance staff have recorded from actual matchday experiences.

Walsh adds: “We put that Wednesday session later on in the day, so players could get used to getting up that little bit later on a Wednesday morning, peaking, having good physical performance and then recovering and training the next day. If we get back from a game at 1.30am, we still ask players to come in in the morning, as we take the view that we are better to get them in front of us and refuelling them with breakfast, a snack, lunch and an active recovery. We then can get them home at 1.30pm to have a nap in the middle of the day to accrue some of the sleep debt they have lost. We did try a different approach, where we started later, but the feedback from players was that a lot of them were up with children very early anyway so they could not maximise the window that emerges by pushing training back. There is no correct blueprint that works for everyone. On matchday, we stay in hotels the evening before a match both at home and away, and we also protect a gap between 1pm and 4pm for players to sleep.”

For any experts in the field of sport science at football clubs, the major challenge is securing the buy-in from the coaching staff and the players. Several sources in medical departments say players will often say they “know their own body” or “have always done things a certain way”. As such, the number of performance-based interventions must be limited to those a club feel most directly impact a player’s performance.

Monaco’s Bunce says: “If you don’t have buy-in from a coach, you are paddling upstream. Head coaches like Pochettino, or Niko Kovac at Monaco, are reliant on performance-driven and the athletic nature of the player for repeated sprintability and high pressing in their style of play. This gives them an inherent belief in the recovery process. One of the things that ruined sport science for a while was wanting to test and monitor everything. If you collect data for data’s sake, without legitimate outcome, change or practice, it has no effect. I want to be able to justify anything I push for or introduce to our sporting director. For instance, I just today spoke with the head coach and all the players around Christmas programming and he stood by my side and backed up the importance of it, repeating the same strong messaging. It is crucial.”

Thorpe, previously of United, says: “You cannot throw the kitchen sink at it because some athletes only give you one chance for buy-in. We must be concise in our requests. We focused on key athletes whose data concerned us around sleep. The process was to make four cycles of 10-day monitoring periods during a season, to see the trend, outline an issue and give tips, whether they be lifestyle or nutritional to try and improve that.

“There seems to be a culture where there are sport scientists who do credible work but more for the inner circles that will listen. People put time and effort into creating these processes or visualisations, showing data in a sexy or sophisticated way but you need to get it to key stakeholders. If not, it is not the best use of time. Sir Alex knew these things were really important and knew the club needed to be at the sharp end of innovation and he put trust in us and backed us. We had an amazing culture where the players bought in because there was a trust element throughout the first-team environment. That is key to getting these processes to be effective.”

At United, Thorpe points to case studies. He says: “One example is we signed a South American player and our training would be at 10am. When he turned up at 9.30am, he often had bloodshot eyes. So that was an anecdotal case where we could say, ‘Let’s look at this and see how he goes’. You can see a lot from body language and then we saw how he subjectively told us how he slept. There were strange fluctuations, so we then objectively dug a little deeper. We found that, on average, this player over 10 days fell asleep at 3.30am across a fairly large period of time. This is not what we wanted from an elite athlete.

Generally, we found Hispanic players were sleeping later, perhaps as they are used to eating and socialising later. We also had a couple of Brazilians who would stay up watching their team in the Brazilian league. But if you have a player from a different culture accustomed to a different pattern, do we want to change that? We came to a consensus that drastic change would not be ideal, so we instead educated the athlete. We showed him the data and evidence of how this could help. We suggested introducing a strategy in the afternoon after training, which would accrue some sleep debt that has been missed and some immune responses that are beneficial if you are an athlete willing to nap. We retested and saw some improvements. We were not ordering him to go to bed at 10pm. A one-size-fits-all approach does not work. It is important to hammer home basics but it needs to be bespoke and individual.“

In March 2021, Monaco will open a brand new €55 million performance centre and a focus on recovery and sleep is high on the agenda. There will be a specific sleep room for players to have naps, based on research across the United States and including the UFC Performance Institute. Monaco’s centre will be built and carved into a mountain overlooking the Mediterranean and Bunce says the club want to be known as “innovators and outliers” in the market. For any player who wakes up groggy after a nap, there will also be a neurocognitive chamber to increase alertness, which would also be used across training more generally.

Bunce says: “The neurocognitive chamber is an area of science overlooked in football. There are things you can do technology-wise but even something like juggling or hitting lights that pop up on the wall is neurocognitive training that stimulates the mind. If you watched the Formula One documentary on Netflix, a lot of drivers do juggling and drop tennis balls and catch them before they hit the floor as that is basic neurocognitive training. They are switching on their brains to be ready to go around a corner at 200 miles per hour. I am close to a partnership with a start-up company; they produce sleep pods with mattresses to record movement, as well as personalised light settings and personalised meditation. We will do academic research on data based on the movement sensors and feedback from players.”

Even with all the advances, football is now a globalised sport and players are drawn from all manner of backgrounds and experiences. As such, further help can be required. West, who works with more than 90 players across the UK, Denmark and Germany, explains one particularly remarkable example. She says: “I worked with a player who is now quite famous. He grew up as a child refugee but because of his background, until his first contract, he lived in 13 different residences and never had his own bed. When I started working with him, I asked how much sleep he had and when it was happening. But then I broke down the disruption to see the history. I could see every night he would go to bed and then get out of bed. There was no camera in the room but what I could see was corrupted sleep. I gained his trust and he explained he would go out of bed and lie on the floor because that was the place he could find calmness. That reflected his sleep history due to his childhood.

“In order to break his pattern, he needed strategies in place to be calm when he is in bed. What works on him may not work on something else. You can do breathing exercises but it needs backing up with scientifically low-hanging fruits to create a consistent rhythm. This could be how warm the bedroom is, whether he uses his phone in bed, even the hygiene of the bed covers. It affects your airways if you do not change the sheets. If it is not dark enough, you stimulate the hormone that makes you alert. If you do those good things, you give space for him to work on the psychological side. He overcame the issue.”

In her work during the COVID-19 pandemic, West has noted an uptick in players revealing they have increased their caffeine intake as a way to replace the adrenalin rush that would ordinarily come from fans in a stadium.

She says: “Players often struggle to sleep at night anyway, as they have had a very high light exposure, too. But depending on the intake, it takes a lot of time to get rid of the caffeine, which hinders production of the sleep hormone. Caffeine has a proven positive effect on muscle recovery but a higher amount before a game makes the body pumped up after a game and everything is buzzing, in addition to the adrenalin and light exposure.

“If my players have a high caffeine intake as opposed to pre-COVID, it produces a higher tendency of post-game sleeping challenges. Once you’ve taken in that volume of caffeine you are slightly doomed. But there are strategies; you need to de-arouse rather than arouse the system, by destimulating the house and making sure the TV and lights are not on.

“Screen time is then an interesting one. It is not straightforwardly negative. There has been recent research looking at the positive impact of screen time before bed. If you are not on screen, young people can have a fear of missing out and using up cortisol because you are not following along on social media. In an elderly population, this has an opposite effect as it makes people feel connected and alert. But I followed objective data of a footballer when he decided to disengage from social media as his arousal level was massive before sleep. We came to the conclusion one of the stresses in his life was dependency on social media. So we had a test period of disengagement and we saw an immediate impact on physiological data. His heart rate variability stabilised and his resting heart rate went down. His sleeping pattern was better and sleep latency was reduced.”

---

During the hectic Christmas period of fixtures, Premier League managers must balance the pressure of results with the recovery of players between the three top-flight fixtures that begin on Boxing Day and run until January 4.

Different clubs have different periods of recovery. Tottenham, for example, have 71 hours between their fixture at Wolves and fixture against Fulham and 66.5 hours before their home game against Leeds. Tottenham’s cumulative recovery time between the three games is the lowest of the established “big six” clubs at 137.5 hours compared to Liverpool’s at the opposite end of the spectrum with 195.5 hours between fixtures.

Both Manchester City and Chelsea have a substantial five-day break before the two teams meet on January 3 but both clubs have only 48 hours separating their first two fixtures of the Christmas period. In essence, all clubs could probably find an argument to say their schedule is in some way unfair but Liverpool, who have 75.5 hours between a home game against West Brom and trip to Newcastle, before the standalone final match of the period on January 4 (meaning 120 hours rest between the second and third games) do appear to have lucked out.

As clubs seek marginal gains in this period, there are coping strategies. Thorpe, who now works on a consultancy basis with an NBA side and a baseball team, explains: “One of the big things is cold-water immersion and ice baths. Ice baths provide what we call a parasympathetic response. This has been shown to improve sleep. Not only do we get the more local physiological responses to cold water but we use it to improve sleep. Those players who we identified to have struggled to fall asleep or stay asleep would be a cause for cold water immersion.

“The five-substitution debate has been raised quite a lot but in some cases, managers are not making all the substitutions available. At United under Louis van Gaal, we looked retrospectively at the top six teams during Christmas one year and how many squad rotations were made during this period. We were the least on that and we had a bad phase of injuries. We had a congestion of fixtures but we were also not making as many changes as other teams. I presented that to the manager who actually took it on really well. It was constructive and it changed the behaviour of the coach the following season.

“The next time around, we did it better. Louis was amazing on that kind of thing. I would go into a meeting with him three days before every game. I said to him if had the opportunity to make substitutions after 60 minutes, if we were winning comfortably for example, then here are the three players at the highest risk. He took that on board. I was never saying ‘He isn’t playing’. People in our industry sometimes think they can make technical decisions. But our job is to provide evidence and data to assist.”

Monaco have adapted further techniques to ease the sleeping process. Bunce adds: “I always offer a slow-released casein protein. It is a little like the effect milk and cookies has on children to send them off to sleep. It is a slow drip of protein that and makes you that little bit more lethargic. I did it at Southampton as a hot cocoap-style protein shake. At Monaco, we have a sport psychologist who does sleep meditation sessions, not so much to put them to sleep but the techniques to switch off. He runs individual and team-based sessions to control breathing and ease players into a relaxed state. When you are high on adrenalin and in bed, players can have mindfulness and meditation techniques. A lot of players have bought into it. We don’t force them but it is in their armoury.”

In other cases, the causes of sleeping issues may be more deep-rooted. At United, players have in the past approached the club doctor Steve McNally, who could then give advice, if the issues are more psychological or provide the right sleep hygiene or medical advice if this is felt more appropriate. United also took the gains into player’s homes, while Monaco provide pillow and mattress recommendations and also have detailed preferences for hotel rooms (“blacked-out windows, limited sun exposure and expectation of quietness”) when booking their residence.

Thorpe continues: “Manchester United developed a commercial partnership with the mattress company Milly and I worked very closely with them at United to develop a mattress suited to an elite footballer. The end game of my project was to attempt to get each player sleeping on the same surface at home in Manchester, when staying over at Carrington and also when they went home in the off-season.

“Other than the lumbar support for the muscular-skeletal system, the key thing is to have a high-heat-capacity mattress. When we sleep, we need to cool a person down as that is associated with falling asleep. The mattress needs to take the body heat onto the surface of the mattress to reduce body heat. In early 2018, the Mexican national team manager Juan Carlos Osorio visited Sir Alex Ferguson and I got a call from Sir Alex, who had retired. Sir Alex asked me to meet them at a restaurant in Manchester, as Juan had reached out to Sir Alex wanting to know how he had optimised performance and recovery. Juan Carlos is termed ‘the student’ as he is big into sport science. They flew me to the US for the pre-competition of the 2018 World Cup and we put in strategies for jet lag and sleep. The big one was making sure the training base had every optimisation for sleep and the environment, including mattresses.”

And, finally, the question most players are too shy to ask: should they have sex the evening before a game? While Clegg points out that most people would argue sex makes them fall asleep more quickly, West counters by saying; “The technique of de-arousing has a greater effect where it is consistently used, so you should relax rather than be energetic before going to bed to have a desired journey of sleep.”

Despite United’s long-term advances and most clubs now subjectively asking players to rate their own sleep, not all clubs go into the same depth. West, who works with Brentford, concludes: “It is quite uncommon still. There is no doubt it is getting more recognition as a game-changing factor. In some bigger clubs, they want quick-fix solutions.

“I would argue that you can have the most expensive bed but if the player cannot shut down and fall asleep, is the investment in the bed the right place to start? They go for easy low-hanging fruit, sleep aids that are easy to apply, like asking players to wear blue-light-blocking glasses at night. The tendency is that athletes do it in the beginning and lose interest, or ear plugs or eye shades, which are good things but the aim and ambition should be to create sleep as part of the performance optimisation DNA. Sleep is very physiological, emotional and psychological, it needs to be trained and tended to.”

[Vesper 28,772]

Sensible Transfers: Will Tagliafico or Lodi finally end City left-back problems?

https://theathletic.com/2259760/2020/12/24/sensible-transfers-manchester-city-tagliafico-lodi-left-back/

Another transfer window, another opportunity for Manchester City to look at signing a left-back.

This time last year, City were looking for a new centre-back and were ready to make a signing in January, but they knew it would always be very difficult to find the right man. Pep Guardiola had always said there would be no business and, in the end, he was right.

At the start of this month he said the same, declaring that he is happy with his current group and that there will be no new additions in January.

Like last season, he’s probably going to be proven right.

The Athletic understands that City would sign a left-back if they could make it happen, but just like last January, and indeed the last few days of the summer transfer window, that may well prove too difficult.

As the window closed in October, City were trying to engineer moves that involved Oleksandr Zinchenko leaving the club and Nicolas Tagliafico coming in from Ajax. It couldn’t be done in the end but it might be an option again soon, especially as City had held talks with the Argentinian’s people much earlier in the summer and will still know his desire to move to the Premier League. One thing that makes a deal is harder is that Tagliafico has extended his contract in Amsterdam by a year to 2023.

It was one of the areas of the squad — along with centre-back — that stood out as really in need of strengthening ahead of the current season, but it didn’t happen and publicly the club were bullish, insisting they already have enough options to get by.

“We have two top players that can play there,” chief football operations officer Omar Berrada said in an interview with The Athletic. “Benjamin Mendy had multiple injuries that made the start of his career at the club difficult, but he has come back quite strong. We are hoping for him to have an injury-free season and show his potential. We think he is a top left-back and, hopefully, he will be able to demonstrate that throughout this season.

“Zinchenko has performed really well there, even though it is not a natural position for him. We have three other players that can play there: Joao Cancelo did it last season, (summer signing Nathan) Ake has already done it this season and with his national team, and (Aymeric) Laporte can also perform in that position if we wanted to. So it’s a position that we feel is very well covered.”

Zinchenko hasn’t really had a look-in this season, with just one 22-minute Premier League appearance, while Mendy’s had his usual ups and downs: injuries and unpredictable form.

Cancelo, to his and Berrada’s credit, has proven to be more than a dependable option so far this season, arguably playing better on the left than he does on the right. Guardiola has noted his defensive improvement, he has created 20 chances from open play (the second highest at City) and the numbers suggest he is one of the league’s top-performing left-backs.

He is right-footed, however, and combined with Guardiola’s preference for a right-footed winger, Cancelo’s presence can cost the team width. The City boss plans things down to the finest details, including playing the ball with a particular foot so it spins in the right direction, and there are times when the simple mechanics of being a right-footer on the left side of the pitch has forced City inside and made them narrower.

Cancelo certainly appears to be a good option but City just cannot afford to overlook the position for another two transfer windows. They’ve fallen into that trap before.

Would Tagliafico be the man for the job? City will use a combination of data, traditional scouting and character references to decide which players would fit into their set-up and how they will adapt to new surroundings, but there are ways we can try to identify who might be most suitable.

Earlier this year, The Athletic’s data and analytics expert Tom Worville compiled an analysis of Liverpool’s squad, and identified several possible left-backs they could try to sign by using an online tool called smarterscout. Among those options was Kostas Tsimikas, who the Reds did eventually sign from Olympiakos.

Smarterscout is a site which gives detailed analytics on players all over the world, producing a score between 0-99, a bit like the player ratings in the FIFA video games but powered by real data and advanced analytics. It works by assessing a player’s strengths and weaknesses and allows us to find similar players based on that data. It even adjusts the data of players from different leagues to try to predict how they will get on in another division, in this case the Premier League.

For starters, we can compare Tagliafico and Cancelo’s respective performances at left-back.

“Passing towards goal” is defined as a pass that brings the ball at least 10 metres closer to the centre of the opponent’s goal, whereas “link-up passing” is any other pass.

The ratings for link-up passing, passing towards goal, dribbling, receiving in the box and shooting do not tell us how good a player is at them, but how often they perform each action in a match. Likewise, disrupting opposition moves and recovering a moving ball show how often a player does these things per minute spent out of possession.

It’s also possible to see where and how players use the ball.

City generally have two different types of left-back, ones who attack the space out wide and ones that tuck inside.

The in-possession activity maps of Mendy and Zinchenko demonstrate this. The larger the blocks, the more frequent the action (blue/green are shorter passes, yellow/orange are longer passes/crosses).

Mendy’s in-possession activity map, 2019-20

Zinchenko’s in-possession activity map, 2018-19

Here is Tagliafico’s:

Tagliafico’s in-possession activity map, 2019-20

We can also search for players who compare to Tagliafico’s form last season, as well as his form this season (which is rated better by smarterscout).

A few filters can be applied to ensure the player fits City’s profile a little better, so the following players are aged between 22 and 28, play in the top divisions of England, France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Portugal, their performances have come this season and they have played more than 500 minutes as a left-back.

Ben Chilwell (a player City came close to signing in 2019, before he moved from Leicester City to Chelsea) and Villarreal’s Alfonso Pedraza are judged as similar to Tagliafico’s performances last season. Pedraza is more of a converted winger, who spent time on loan at Leeds United three years ago, and may not even be the best possible new City left-back at his Spanish club. More on that later.

Everton’s Lucas Digne and Lucas Hernandez of Bayern Munich are also on the list, as they are similar to Tagliafico’s performances this season.

If we run a search based on Cancelo’s performances, Chilwell comes up again, and so does Tagliafico’s Ajax team-mate Lisandro Martinez, although the versatile Argentinean has only played 250 minutes at left-back in the Eredivisie this season.

To add a bit of variety, because Chilwell and Hernandez are particularly unlikely to be signed by City, we can simply set the basic parameters (attacking output, defending quality, defending quantity and ball retention) to 75 or more and see if there are any players who could fit the bill.

As a result, we get two options that may be worth keeping an eye on: Villarreal’s Pervis Estupinan, who has been catching the eye in La Liga, and Stade Rennais’ Adrien Truffert.

Estupinan was actually a Watford player for four years but work permit difficulties meant he never played for them and spent his time on loan at Granada, Almeria, Mallorca and Osasuna before signing for Villarreal in the summer. Whether or not he ever signs for City, he has been impressing in Spain for a while now and is a player to keep an eye on.

The chances of City signing players who don’t have Champions League experience seems pretty slim, however, and many readers will have come here hoping to see some bigger names. So here are a few more!

Some of those numbers may catch the eye for one reason or another, and remember they have been adjusted to Premier League standards, which may help or hinder certain candidates.

The best option, just looking at his ratings, appears to be Atletico Madrid’s Renan Lodi. The 22-year-old has made a good impression since signing from Atletico Paranaense in his native Brazil in summer 2019, as he is fast, strong and likes to get forward, although he is not especially creative (this season, he has just 0.72 shot-creating actions per 90 minutes, compared to Cancelo’s 3.62 — although that may be a function of the style of teams they play for.)

He has eight senior caps for one of the game’s elite nations, Champions League experience and a buy-out clause (which is as yet undisclosed), so certainly seems to tick a few of the City boxes.

Lodi’s in-possession activity map, 2019-20

There’s also something to be said for Jack Harrison, who is already a City player, and is playing on loan in a Leeds team with a similar philosophy while getting Premier League experience, although he is used in a more advanced position by Marcelo Bielsa.

Jack Harrison’s in-possession activity map, 2019-20 (Championship)

At the bottom is RB Leipzig’s Angelino, another City loanee.

The data does not reflect too well on his form this season, which may hint at why Guardiola did not play him much last season and why the Spaniard was keen to move elsewhere. His few performances for City last season are included for reference, although there is a clause in his loan agreement and it seems set that he will stay in Germany on a permanent basis.

Angelino’s situation sums up the difficulty City have had in finding the right man to be their left-back over the years, but when they decide to act it will be interesting to see whether one of the names above turns out to be the chosen one.

 

[Vesper 28,772]

Sensible Transfers: Leicester need to do another ‘Robert Huth deal’

https://theathletic.com/2270345/2020/12/23/leicester-january-transfers/

Brendan Rodgers has been quick to shut down any transfer talk during the midwinter window and historically Leicester City have not been a busy club in the January market but they do have one position that could really do with being strengthened this time round.

While Leicester have not signed many players at mid-season, they have added some notable ones, such as when Riyad Mahrez was plucked from obscurity in 2013-14 and when Wilfred Ndidi arrived in the January of 2017. Both have been among some of the best pieces of business Leicester have done.

However, right now, Rodgers could do with another piece of business to replicate the deal the club did in early 2015 when Nigel Pearson took towering centre-back Robert Huth on loan from Stoke City. The German was out of favour at the Britannia Stadium and Leicester were in dire need of his Premier League experience as they looked to avoid an instant return to the Championship.

The scenario may be very different now, with Leicester competing at the top of the table, but the need to bolster the rearguard is of no less importance. Rodgers has four recognised central defenders at his disposal but injuries and suspensions so far this season have limited his options and forced him to seek creative solutions.

Before the arrival of Wesley Fofana, Rodgers had only Jonny Evans, Caglar Soyuncu and Wes Morgan to call upon. The plan seemed to be that Evans and Soyuncu were to be his No 1 pairing, with Morgan playing a tactical supporting role in games, while Fofana was eased into action slowly to help the youngster acclimatise.

Soyuncu’s groin injury, picked up while with the Turkey national team, threw a spanner in the works and Fofana has been plunged straight into the action, making 12 starts. Although the Frenchman has been outstanding, Rodgers wouldn’t have wanted him to face the physical demands of the Premier League so intensely so early on.

Needs must, though, as Soyuncu’s return date is still unclear. After his setback against Zorya Luhansk in Ukraine, when his comeback lasted just 15 minutes, scans have revealed no new damage, but Soyuncu doesn’t feel ready to try again and the medical staff will not force the issue, with Rodgers stating the 24-year-old will only be selected when he tells the club he’s confident he has recovered. It’s his decision.

The usually reliable Evans has missed four games through suspension and to further hinder the situation a back problem for Morgan, which he has managed since the Champions League campaign of 2017, has meant Rodgers has been reluctant to throw him into the fray from the start. He has started just three games and came off after 56 minutes in Luhansk.

“I don’t think that was the role for Wes, in all honesty,” Rodgers says of having Morgan in the starting XI. “I think his role was to come into games when required. We’ve obviously wanted to push him a little bit more in one or two of the games and unfortunately he broke down when we were away in Ukraine, but he still has a role to play, a very important role, on and off the pitch here. We’ve got other options that we can use but we know if we need Wes at any point he is there.”

Rodgers has looked for solutions internally, with Wilfred Ndidi reverting to the position he played as a youth at the start of the season and, after a long injury absence himself, against Everton this month, but playing him in defence takes away one of the strongest elements of Rodgers’ midfield. Another midfielder who has dropped in to defence is Daniel Amartey, who played in a back three on Sunday against Tottenham.

Papy Mendy deputised manfully this season while Ndidi was sidelined with a groin issue, but Ndidi adds more power to the midfield, in a similar way to the job Abdoulaye Doucoure did at the King Power Stadium a week ago.

“That mobility and athleticism in the middle of the field is so important,” Rodgers says. “You look at the modern game, the agility of teams and how fast they are and he gives you that real base defensively. He brings an extra dimension of his height and reading of the game. He smells danger so quickly, so having him available is huge for us.”

The other alternative has been a change of shape with full-backs Christian Fuchs and James Justin stepping in on the sides of a back three, which has then become a back five on the road, and has proven effective, but certainly less so on home soil. As good as those two are defensively, Rodgers does not see either as a central defender in a back four.

Leicester do have another natural central defender on their books, Filip Benkovic, who is out on loan at Cardiff City in the Championship to gain experience. However, another injury hampered his move to Wales initially and since then he has been unable to chalk up a single appearance this season, raising question marks of whether he will be recalled. If he is, he is more likely to be heading elsewhere on loan as Rodgers doesn’t believe the Croatian is ready for the Premier League.

“I’ve seen the level he can play for myself,” says Rodgers, who had Benkovic on loan at Celtic in 2018-19 before he switched to Leicester. “He played against RB Leipzig and he was sensational in the game, but then after the first 10 games at Celtic, he really hasn’t been at the level of fitness and performance that I know he can.”

Rodgers can’t look to the development squad for a short-term solution either. The cream of the crop has risen so far and while 16-year-old Ben Nelson travelled to Ukraine in the Europa League at the start of this month with the first-team squad for experience, it is way too soon for him to be a consideration.

It all leaves Rodgers with a defensive dilemma, but not one that is unfamiliar to him. Last January, he looked to the loan market for a short-term fix and brought in Ryan Bennett from Wolverhampton Wanderers, but then opted not to make the move permanent as Bennett played only a supporting role.

The impact of the pandemic, and Leicester’s belief that there is very little value to be had in the January transfer window as clubs are reluctant to lose their best players mid-season for anything other than inflated fees, will mean another loan is the most likely move.

Manchester United’s Marcos Rojo and Phil Jones, Chelsea’s Fikayo Tomori, plus Sokratis and Shkodran Mustafi at Arsenal are all expected to be available in January, but whether any of them will be tempting or plausible options for Rodgers remains to be seen.

That may leave him to look for his own Robert Huth-style fix for his central defensive conundrum by exploring an option outside the top flight.

[Vesper 28,772]

James Justin has become undroppable

https://theathletic.com/2273966/2020/12/21/leicester-james-justin/

There is light at the end of the tunnel for Brendan Rodgers as, one by one, his defensive injury headache begins to ease.

Timothy Castagne and Daniel Amartey made their long-awaited comebacks at Tottenham Hotspur, and Rodgers revealed afterwards Caglar Soyuncu could also return over Christmas, while Ricardo Pereira is not too far away. But as that particular headache eases, Rodgers faces a new, more welcome conundrum. When he has all his key defenders at his disposal, how on earth does he leave James Justin out of his defence, in whatever tactical guise Rodgers chooses that to be?

The 22-year-old may not have been in Rodgers first-choice defence when he had everyone available previously. Belgium international Castagne was expected to be Ben Chilwell’s replacement at left-back, and Pereira, Soyuncu and Jonny Evans were regular starters last season. But in the absence of all three at various stages, Justin has been asked to step up, despite having just half a season of Premier League experience under his belt.

It has been just over a year since he made his Premier League debut on December 4 against Aston Villa but whether as a right-back, left-back or on both sides of a back three, the consistency of Justin’s displays have seen him emerge as one of the most important players in Rodgers’s defensive system.

His versatility and attitude have been crucial to how Rodgers has been able to redeploy his troops depending on the challenge ahead of them, especially away from home, where his preferred back five has proven so effective.

He has become Leicester’s Mr Dependable, playing every minute of their 14 Premier League games to date as Rodgers’ side has risen to second in the table at Christmas. He has only failed to start two games so far this season, the Carabao Cup defeat to Arsenal and the opening Europa League clash against Zorya Luhansk.

In an attacking sense, of Rodgers’ defensive options, only Castagne has scored more and provided more assists on average than Justin, and no defender has put more balls into the opposition box (3.64 per 90 minutes) and created more big chances (0.21 per 90 minutes) than Justin. His assists statistics would have been improved even more had his superb pass that set James Maddison through for what Leicester thought was their second goal at Tottenham not been ruled out.

However, it was his defensive abilities and athleticism that saw him employed with a very specific task against Jose Mourinho’s men. Justin started on the right of the back three and was given the responsibility of handling Son Heung-min in what was a key battleground of the contest.

After scoring 11 goals and providing four assists this season for Jose Mourinho’s men, Son’s attacking threat was obvious, but along with Marc Albrighton, Justin also had to be aware of the danger full-back Sergio Reguilon posed. Then, Justin was switched over to the left in the closing stages as Rodgers shuffled his pack.

Justin played a vital role in shutting out an attack that also carried the potent attacking threats of Harry Kane and Gareth Bale in the second half.

“He has been remarkable,” Rodgers says. “When you think he has come straight from League One into playing in the Premier League, and you think today he has had a specific job to do on Son, who is so fast and dynamic. How he handled that showed how well he is improving and developing as a player.

“If you look at the left side of the pitch, they are very strong. Reguilon runs on and Son plays on the inside. The thing that caught us out the last time we played here was that space was too open. So, I think when we were defending, we were asking Albrighton to look after Reguilon and then when Son was on the inside James could press him and be aggressive with him. Or if the ball went over the top he could match his run, because he is super fast as well. I thought he did that very well.

“Then when we had to make the change with Timothy coming off, he went over and played on the left side and did equally as well. Tactically he was very good and very concentrated, and he was a big player in our performance.”

Justin’s attitude and versatility have also seen him become an established member of Aidy Boothroyd’s England Under-21 set-up. Gareth Southgate has plenty of right-back options for the senior side, but Justin’s ability to take on such roles of responsibility and play in numerous positions will not have gone unnoticed by the England manager.

“He has been absolutely incredible,” Rodgers gushed. “From the moment Ricardo went out with his injury, he has played all over the pitch for me. He has never moaned or said he was tired. He gets up and through the lines, is aggressive and concentrated.

“You talk about values of a team, he typifies it all. He takes responsibility, he shows great courage, he’s a team player, he respects the game and prepares that way.

“He is another young player who is only going to get better.”

[Vesper 28,772]

Gomes outclassed by Fernandes – this was not the game for him

https://theathletic.com/2282293/2020/12/24/everton-gomes-andre-bruno-fernandes/

In the end, it was a familiar story. Everton’s Carabao Cup charge falling feebly at the same hurdle as last season.

Once again, when it mattered, they were found wanting. Once again the trophy they have never won eludes them. There was a cruel irony in Edinson Cavani, a player who should not have been on the pitch after shoving Yerry Mina to the turf off the ball, proving to be the match-winner on the night. But despite the controversy, the visitors were comfortably the better side and deserved their 2-0 win. They were crisper in possession, played with a swagger and had depth on the bench to call on when necessary. 

Everton, by contrast, looked tired and leggy, a consequence of a lengthy injury list that has heaped an extra burden on the squad during a gruelling schedule. Nowhere was their inferiority more glaringly obvious than in central midfield. 

Before the game, Ancelotti had cautioned against the threat of Bruno Fernandes, the midfielder who has had such a superlative start to his time in England. The last time the two sides met back in November, Fernandes scored twice and set up a goal in 3-1 away win. 

“I learned that if you leave space to him or to them, we are dead,” Ancelotti said of that game. “So we have to avoid leaving space. He is a fantastic player. I think he is the key point of United at this moment and of course we have to take care of this.”

The Everton manager’s task was made tougher by the enforced absence of injured midfield destroyer Allan, as well as a host of other key names including James Rodriguez and Lucas Digne.

Given the injuries Everton have suffered, their margin for error against this Manchester United side, so evidently brimming with confidence, was minimal.

They had to be perfect technically and tactically. For all the controversy around certain decisions in the game, they were neither. 

Without Allan, Fernandes was given free rein, taking advantage of the space left by his fellow Portugal international Andre Gomes and others. Gomes was curiously preferred to Tom Davies after being left out of the win over Arsenal as a precaution, but looked an ill-fitting part in this pragmatism-first set-up. At his best, the former Barcelona player looks elegant in possession, but he has never been the man to do the dirty work in front of the defence. 

Everton were caught between a rock and a hard place tactically. Gylfi Sigurdsson, playing as the No 10, pushed high alongside Dominic Calvert-Lewin in an attempt to cut off the passing lines to Fernandes and Paul Pogba. The Icelander was there to sit in the space occupied by Pogba in particular and muddy the waters but the implementation was sloppy, allowing for a regular stream of passes between the lines. On the rare occasion Everton did press high, they were pulled apart by razor-sharp passing moves. 

By half-time, the game should have been out of sight — Everton with a combination of Robin Olsen, Lady Luck and shoddy finishing to thank for their temporary stay of execution. 

Only Abdoulaye Doucoure, with his tireless running, offered any real resistance in the centre of the park. But even he could not compensate for the lack of activity around him as Fernandes thrived in the gaps, all smart flicks and tricks. 

The contrast between the two Portuguese midfielders on display was stark. Cruel, even, given they are so evidently on different trajectories. Fernandes has quickly become one of the Premier League’s best players after moving from Sporting Lisbon to Old Trafford last winter, a transformative influence for his side, while Gomes is yet to stamp his mark at Goodison since leaving Barcelona.

In 58 minutes, the Everton man failed to complete a tackle or make an interception. He could not get near his fellow Portuguese — and, in truth, should not have been asked to do so in the first place. 

Like Fernandes, the 27-year-old prefers to scheme and dictate. But he also failed to muster a single key pass or shot in his time on the pitch.

In normal circumstances there would be a temptation to put this down in part to his side’s cautious approach. Yet this is not an unfamiliar trait. According to WhoScored, this season Gomes has averaged just 0.6 key passes per game and 0.3 shots in the league. Given he is not in the side for his defensive work, it is increasingly hard to see what he brings when he is not on his passing. 

Ancelotti had already worked out by half-time that his blueprint was not working. He admitted afterwards that his side had experienced “difficulties in build-up properly” and “were a bit worried”. During the interval, Davies did a vigorous warm-up, replacing Gomes 13 minutes after the resumption. 

As Wednesday proved, the sad truth for Ancelotti though is that nobody in the squad can fully compensate for Allan’s loss. Davies may have been the more obvious pick on Wednesday but the Brazilian has already become such an integral part of Ancelotti’s set-up. His absence for the remainder of the festive fixtures remains a potential barrier to progress.

Everton know this. With Fabian Delph also out and Jean-Philippe Gbamin still yet to resume full training, there is a chance they will be forced to look for midfield options in January. 

Should that happen, it would be a further warning sign to Gomes. Wednesday was a collective failure but the contrast with his fellow Portuguese was reflective of the gulf between the two sides. 

If Everton are indeed to challenge, bringing to an end their barren run in cup competitions, they simply need better. From Gomes and others. 

[Vesper 28,772]

Sensible Transfers: Everton need back-up for Richarlison and Calvert-Lewin

https://theathletic.com/2276089/2020/12/22/everton-january-transfers-2/

Marcel Brands is not a huge fan of doing business in January transfer windows.  

Everton’s director of football has made just one signing in the winter market since arriving in the summer of 2018: youngster Jarrad Branthwaite from Carlisle United for an initial fee of less than £1 million. 

It is a response, in part, to the simple fact that, very often in January, clubs do not get what they want. Top players come at an absolute premium, while the sides that do the most business tend to be those in the most peril. 

Instead, what you get at mid-season is normally the excess. The players out of favour. Brands is acutely aware of this.

Last winter, shortly after the appointment of Carlo Ancelotti, Everton did at least sound out the prospect of signing a midfielder to strengthen their options. Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, then of Southampton, was high on their list following a personal request from the new manager. Yet the logistics of a deal for the Dane never really made sense and Hojbjerg went on to join Tottenham Hotspur in the summer instead.

With Everton fourth in the table at Christmas, the question now is whether this particular January window will be any different. As injuries mount and a European qualification charge looms over the second half of the season, will Brands and co decide to change tack? 

Once again, there will be a predominant focus on trimming the squad. Earlier this month, the club announced record losses of £139.9 million in their latest set of annual accounts, £67.6 million of which were put down to the impact of COVID-19. The year before, that figure was just under £112 million. 

Everton have long been aware that a loss of this magnitude was on the cards, and have planned for it. The Athletic understands the overarching plan is unlikely to change as a direct result of this new set of figures.   

Yannick Bolasie, Muhamed Besic and Matty Pennington are among those who will be allowed to find new clubs. Bernard, courted by Roma, was also available for transfer late in the summer and is likely to be again. 

Everton will look at and assess their options but it would be a surprise at this stage if significant money was invested in new signings.

The caveat here is that the same appeared to be true at the end of the summer window, when loans were initially sounded out for central defenders before the addition of Ben Godfrey for an initial £20 million. Farhad Moshiri’s penchant for ploughing in extra funds when most needed, and the willingness of Norwich City and Godfrey to discuss a move, serve as an example of how quickly things change.

It is why nobody at Everton will completely rule out new signings this time around, especially if the right option comes available.

All of this is not to say the club should not do business. 

Despite their impressive form in the first half of the campaign, they have suffered with injuries that led to Godfrey and Mason Holgate filling in at full-back. Although they have done so admirably, eventually, the pair will be needed elsewhere. 

In this context, the lack of faith shown by Ancelotti in Jonjoe Kenny, together with Seamus Coleman’s age (32), means a long-term right-back option remains somewhat of a focus, as it was over the summer.   

Godfrey’s former Norwich team-mate Max Aarons has recently been linked and would provide the energy and thrust that Brands and his recruitment team like in their right-backs. While left-back Lucas Digne tends to cross the ball from slightly deeper, the demand on the other side is to penetrate into the box wherever possible. 

Aarons does this expertly, but he would come at a premium and Everton are unlikely to risk stockpiling players in an already-bloated squad. Unless Kenny leaves, a right-back will not be a priority.

Instead, the overarching focus should be on forward options.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin has been in scintillating form this season, but with his 11 league goals accounting for nearly half of the team’s overall total, Everton’s reliance on the 23-year-old is clear. No other player has more than three goals.

Everton, meanwhile, have lost all three of the league games Richarlison has missed this season. At present, injury to either Calvert-Lewin or the Brazilian risks derailing the side’s progress under Ancelotti.

If there is room for improvement, it is arguably here.

Ancelotti lacks options on the bench who can change the course of games and currently is forced to rely upon Cenk Tosun, a player deemed surplus to requirements by Everton in previous windows, as his backup striking option. 

So far this season, no Everton substitute has scored a league goal, while on only one occasion has someone from the bench even provided an assist. Only three of the other 19 clubs — Burnley, Crystal Palace and West Bromwich Albion — have had fewer direct goal involvements from substitutes. It is characteristic of an overall lack of depth of quality in forward positions, which would only be exacerbated if Bernard does leave.  

The irony that two players out on loan, Moise Kean and Theo Walcott, would serve as decent cover options for the two forward positions should not be lost. But Walcott is out of contract at the end of the season and Kean is not currently expected back at Goodison until the end of his season’s loan at Paris Saint-Germain. 

Everton must either target a versatile forward capable of covering for both Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison or two specialists — one for the wing and another up front. 

They have explored the possibility of doing the former before, monitoring Bournemouth’s Josh King over the summer only to be put off, like many other clubs, by a prohibitive price tag for a player who, at that stage, had just a year to run on his deal. 

King appeals due to his versatility, contract situation and physicality. The Norwegian is quick and powerful when sprinting, something Everton’s recruitment team value highly. He is able to sign a pre-contract agreement with European clubs from January and has a long list of admirers. Soon-to-be 29, he would be an option for the short-term above all else. Nor is he likely to massively improve the quality of Everton’s starting line-up. 

Brands has long courted a pacy, left-footed option on the flanks who can cut in and provide a goal threat, scouting Nicolas Pepe extensively during the Ivorian’s spell at Lille before he joined Arsenal. 

The Athletic used data provider smarterscout’s player comparison tool to find forwards statistically similar to Calvert-Lewin who could come in and do the same job as him in Ancelotti’s set-up. Options were filtered using only Europe’s top five leagues, given Brands’ and Ancelotti’s preference for signings to be able to get quickly up to speed amid the demands of the Premier League. 

Wout Weghorst of Wolfsburg and Mainz’s Jean-Philippe Mateta were two options.

Weghorst, a towering 6ft 6in striker, has nine goals in 13 Bundesliga games this season and would profit from Everton’s tendency to flood the box with crosses. Mateta, 23, is five years younger, more mobile and has 10 goals in 14 games across all competitions. 

Ancelotti has fluctuated between a number of different systems. He is not wedded to one, preferring his side to remain flexible, but it is understood his current preference is for a variation of 4-3-3 when everyone is fit. The aim is to build from the back, play quickly through the lines and press high. Forwards must be physically robust, capable of winning back possession and offer a goal threat.

For the right-wing role, The Athletic used smarterscout’s player search tool, placing emphasis on players with metrics in the following categories: dribbling, finishing, passing towards goal and the ability to disrupt and recover possession. The search was widened slightly to include the Championship. 

Sevilla’s Lucas Ocampos (main image), a player linked to Everton by The Athletic earlier this year, was listed as one potential option. Others included Villarreal’s Samuel Chukwueze, Ismaila Sarr of Watford and Norwich’s Emi Buendia. 

All four have the potential to be astute purchases but Chukwueze, a left-footed Nigeria international known for his dribbling and Sarr, who has already shone at Premier League level, perhaps stand out most given the lack of pace in certain areas of this Everton team. 

Whichever route they go down, reducing the reliance on Calvert-Lewin and Richarlison has to be the long-term aim. 

Whether that happens in January, though, very much remains to be seen.

[Vesper 28,772]

David Moli: Artist to the stars who was Raheem Sterling’s Liverpool housemate

https://theathletic.com/2267363/2020/12/24/david-moli-liverpool-sterling/

David Moli was always tipped for stardom.

A charm offensive from Sir Kenny Dalglish helped ensure Liverpool saw off competition from a host of other top clubs to sign the gifted young striker, who went on to play for England Under-16s. He shared a house with, and the same dreams as, fellow academy hopeful and friend Raheem Sterling.

A decade on, Moli is indeed rubbing shoulders with the Premier League’s elite but it’s his talent with a paintbrush and a spray can rather than his eye for goal which are making people sit up and take notice.

The 25-year-old hung up his boots last year after a nomadic and injury-plagued playing career which involved spells in the Maldives, France, Poland and Estonia.

The void has been filled by throwing himself into his blossoming art business.

His pieces sell for thousands of pounds and he is a man in demand. Manchester City’s Sterling, Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold, Chelsea’s Fikayo Tomori, Everton duo Mason Holgate and Moise Kean (who is on loan at Paris Saint-Germain), and Manchester United quartet Marcus Rashford, Luke Shaw, Jesse Lingard and Fred are among those who proudly showcase his work on the walls of their plush homes.

“I feel very lucky,” Moli tells The Athletic.

“I get the same buzz from my art that I used to get from scoring goals. I didn’t know I’d love doing this as much as I do. I didn’t think anything could replace the thrill of playing football.

“But I don’t miss playing. Even if I did, I’d get myself back in shape and try to play again because I’m still young enough. A lot of people miss it so much they try to go back.

“I don’t think about what might have been but for the injuries. I can’t complain. Football is a short career but this is something I can keep doing until I’m 90. With football and then art, I’ve managed to find two passions that I love to do. Some people don’t find that in a lifetime.”

Moli has put down roots in Manchester, where his studio attracts some famous visitors.

“Quite a few footballers have bought stuff,” he says. “I’ve just done one for Jesse Lingard. Fred’s wife messaged me and commissioned me to do a piece for him for their anniversary. Luke Shaw’s missus ordered a piece for his birthday. She was surprised when I showed her a picture of Luke and I playing for England Under-16s together!

“Raheem and I were close when we were at Liverpool. After that, with me moving around everywhere and him doing his thing, we didn’t speak for a few years until I came back to Manchester. I don’t like to bombard him as he’s a busy guy.

“But before the pandemic, we’d bump into each other now and again around Manchester. He bought some of my early work. One was a Bob Marley piece. Every time I see Raheem, he always reminds me how much I charged him! I think he was expecting a discount with us having known each other for so long.

“Trent has got three pieces. One was commissioned by a clothing brand and then he messaged me to say, ‘Thanks very much, can I have another two please?’ So I ended up doing one of Biggie (Smalls) and one of The Joker for him. (Watford’s) Andre Gray and (former Cardiff City winger) Nathaniel Mendez-Laing have bought stuff too. All that support means a lot. Instagram has been massive in terms of helping to get my work out there a lot more.”

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Born in the Congo in central Africa, David Moli was a toddler when his family moved to France in search of a better life. Paris was home until the age of 10, when they relocated to the UK and spent time in Middlesbrough, Birmingham and London before finally settling in Luton.

“I’ve got three younger brothers and a sister and my parents felt there would be more opportunities for us in England,” he explains.

“In Paris, I just played football for fun. I didn’t really take it seriously and I didn’t really think I was any good. But I joined a junior club in Luton and suddenly I was scoring eight goals a game. Luton Town signed me when I was 12.

“I was a Chelsea fan, because of Didier Drogba. He was my idol and I tried to base my game on him.”

His eye-catching progress was such that, at age 14, Liverpool, Arsenal, Fulham, Crystal Palace and Stoke City were all battling to secure his services.

“I’d been to look around Arsenal’s training ground before Liverpool invited me up for a week’s trial. I got in the car and went up with my coach Jon De Souza, who is now at Colchester,” he recalls.

“I got there Sunday, trained Monday, played a game against Man United on the Tuesday and scored the equaliser in a 1-1 draw. I trained for the rest of the week and then got the winner for the under-16s against Bolton. Afterwards they said, ‘We want to sign you’.

“They showed me around Melwood and I met some of the first-team players. Kenny Dalglish really convinced me to sign. I’d see him every day and he would speak to me a lot. He would even join in our training sessions. He was still so good! We just couldn’t tackle him. I was scared about injuring a legend like him. Being able to see someone like that around, it was like, ‘Yeah, this is the place I want to be’.

“I moved up on my own — my family stayed in Luton. It wasn’t easy. When I wasn’t training or playing, I suffered from homesickness. If I had a son, I don’t think I’d let him move away from home at 14, but it did make me grow up a bit faster.”

Moli joined Liverpool in November 2009 and two months later Sterling arrived from Queens Park Rangers for an initial fee of £450,000. They lived with the same house parents, Pete and Sandra Reeves, in Rainhill, a short drive from the academy.

“With us both being so young and coming from down south, Liverpool decided to put us together,” Moli says.

“Raheem is a month older than me. I’d played against him when he was at QPR and I was at Luton. We were both captains, so it was nice to see a familiar face. When you live with someone every day, you get close.

“We went to Rainhill High School together and we’d socialise together away from training with lads likes Michael Ngoo and Henoc Mukendi. When we were still in school, we’d get an allowance of about £70 per week. When we became scholars that went up to around £180 per week. We didn’t need much.

“Pete and Sandra were amazing to us. I still keep in touch with them. They were a big part of my life. Sandra always says it was easy sorting out the washing because I was sponsored by Adidas and Raheem was Nike.

“I never had doubts that Raheem would go on to become the incredible player we see today. Everyone knew it. He was just different compared to the rest of us. So gifted. That’s why he was playing a year or two years above.

“Whenever I see Raheem these days I always tell him, ‘I don’t think you realise the impact you have on so many people who look up to you’. He’s achieved so much, both on and off the pitch. He’s received some unfair treatment from sections of the media but not once has he cried about it. His voice is a powerful one. Not many people have his mental toughness. He’s definitely one of a kind.”

Moli’s development at Liverpool was guided by coaches Steve Cooper and Mike Marsh. His earned international recognition and scored for England Under-16s in a 2-1 win over their Scottish counterparts, which retained the Victory Shield in 2011.

“My first call-up I got was actually for the under-17s, with Nathan Redmond and Nathaniel Chalobah, but it clashed with a tournament Liverpool had in Spain, so I couldn’t play,” he says.

“When I played for the under-16s we had guys like Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Luke Shaw, Callum Robinson, Devante Cole and Chuba Akpom. It’s amazing to look at it now and see my name on the teamsheet alongside theirs.”

A flying start to the 2011-12 season saw Moli score two hat-tricks for Liverpool Under-18s in warm-up games against Preston and Shrewsbury. But then injuries set in and the following January he walked away from the club after being tempted by the offer of a professional contract at Wolverhampton Wanderers.

“It was a mistake leaving Liverpool,” he admits. “I should definitely have stayed longer. Who knows what would have happened? My agent played a big part in it. I put my trust in him. If I had stayed until the end of that season, Liverpool would have definitely offered me a pro contract too.

“But the feeling was that there were quite a few players ahead of me, like Adam Morgan, and I wasn’t really getting the game time I wanted.

“Going to Wolves just after I turned 17, I rushed into that decision. Liverpool said they had received an offer but they wanted me to stay. My agent said, ‘Let’s go’, so I was like, ‘OK, let’s go’.

“I finished that season well for Wolves but in the first game of the following season, away at Stamford Bridge, I suffered the weirdest injury. The doctors said they hadn’t seen it before.

“I had split the muscle in between my shin bone and they couldn’t operate on it. I was out for the whole season and when I came back it was tough. The manager kept changing and every time the new guy would bring in his own players, so the challenge got even harder.”

Moli found himself playing non-League football for Hayes & Yeading after his Wolves contract expired in 2014. Going from training every day on grass to just twice a week on an artificial surface led to more injury issues.

Salvation came in the form of a phone call from an agent offering him a short-term deal with New Radiant in the Maldives, the paradise holiday destination in the Indian Ocean.

“It was a great experience,” he says. “I played in the AFC Cup in front of 50,000 in Indonesia. The fans are crazy over there. I had four months in the Maldives and met some brilliant people. It was ridiculously hot as the games kicked off at 4pm, but I definitely came back fit.”

On his return to Europe, he signed for SAS Epinal in France’s third tier. Then there was a stint in Poland with Stomil Olsztyn, where a sense of isolation was compounded by the sickening racism he experienced.

“I was just trying to keep the dream alive, going wherever I was wanted,” he says.

“I spent 10 days in Iceland and I was going to sign for a club there, then my agent called to say, ‘Can you be in France tomorrow morning? A team who are struggling in the third division are going to pay you X amount of money; no trial, just a contract until the end of the season’.

“Having grown up in France, I could speak the language. I thought if I did well I’d be able to move up to the second division and then into Ligue 1. But it was hard to progress there. In one game I played against Nicolas Pepe, who was on loan at Orleans.

“Poland was a weird one. Where do you start? I’d always get calls from agents, ‘Would you go here or here?’ I’m a curious person. My initial reaction was always, ‘OK, let’s check it out’.

“I trained well but then they didn’t play me. The manager and the chairman had some issues and it was the chairman who signed me. There was a lot of racism. It wasn’t an easy place to be black. I spent a lot of time in my room.”

Moli returned to non-League football in England before moving to Estonia in the summer of 2018 to play for Parnu JK Vaprus. However, after playing just one game for them, he landed awkwardly after jumping for a header in training and felt a shooting pain in his knee.

“I did my ACL and my MCL. It was a complete tear that needed surgery,” he says.

“It was a shame, because things were going well and I was really happy again. I liked the culture and my team-mates. It was a really friendly place to be. The training ground was across the road from the beach.”

After doing his rehab in Manchester, Moli decided to call it a day at the age of 24.

“I did initially think about continuing. I went on trial to a club in Ireland and they wanted me to stick around longer. But while I was thinking about whether to say yes or no, the phone rang and a friend said to me, ‘I need you to be in Manchester tomorrow because the owner of the Couture Club has seen your Instagram page and wants to do a collaboration with you’.

“It was perfect timing. I was like, ‘Let’s do it!’ I did something with my art on leather jackets and they sold out in 15 minutes.

“Playing football for a living sounds glamorous but all the constant moving around was hard. I always travelled everywhere on my own. You are never stable. It was exhausting, always chasing the next contract. That was one of the key factors why I quit.”

Inspired by the work of the late American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, Moli’s business really took off after his opening exhibition at the National Football Museum last year.

“I sold my first canvas to my good friend Nouha Dicko (the former Wolverhampton Wanderers attacker) in 2017. It was only £300 but it felt big at the time. He plays in Turkey for Gaziantep now. He’s still got it and I’ll be forever grateful to him,” Moli says.

“I’ve always been creative. I just had to channel that in the right way and I started doing bits for family and friends after I came back from Poland. It’s gone to the next level since I had the exhibition and met some great people on the back of it.

“I use a technique called wheat paste to stick the paper on. It’s flour and sugar mixed with hot water. I spray paint the background.

“As well as Basquiat, I look up to artists like Retna and George Condo. I’m constantly changing in terms of my artwork. ‘What can I do better?’ ‘What can I do next?’”

On the wall behind Moli as we talk over Zoom, sits a stunning canvas depicting Michael Jordan and Jay-Z.

A conversation with a businessman he met at Selfridges in Manchester led to his biggest sale to date. The piece that was subsequently commissioned after paying a visit to his house cost in excess of £6,000.

Moli is excited about the future as his profile continues to rise. There is no hint of bitterness or regret when he reflects on the football career that slipped from his grasp.

“There is just one thing I miss,” he confesses. “Being around the training ground, the camaraderie with your team-mates, being in that environment. You don’t get that elsewhere.

“But what I really don’t miss is the stress and the heartache that comes with playing football. I am at peace with it now. If I get stressed now, it’s not anything I can’t manage or anything out of my control.

“I still love watching football and I love seeing players on TV who I played with. It puts a smile on my face. I want to see them do well.

“Now I’ve got to know a lot of players through my artwork, so it’s a win-win for me. I just want it to get bigger and bigger. I want to keep creating. The possibilities are endless.

“I want to keep progressing and keep elevating. Who knows where it will take me?”

To find out more about David Moli’s work go to: https://boogiemoli.com/ or check out his Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/boogiemoli/?hl=en

[Vesper 28,772]

Sensible Transfers: Palace must agree deals with own players and plan for future

https://theathletic.com/2246961/2020/12/23/palace-transfers-contracts/

Crystal Palace have relied on bargain acquisitions or loans over recent mid-winter transfer windows to bolster their threadbare squad. But the summer signings of Eberechi Eze and Michy Batshuayi, combined with a tweak in formation implemented by Roy Hodgson, have provided a larger pool of players with a buffer in the event of injuries or poor form.

That should ensure Palace — even in the aftermath of that humbling record home loss to Liverpool — can take a more selective, even opportunist, approach to the January market.

There are funds available, as evidenced by the late pursuit of Watford’s Ismaila Sarr in the summer, while the unanticipated sale of Alexander Sorloth to RB Leipzig brought in around £10 million. Yet even taking that into account, the impact of COVID-19 on all clubs’ finances will prove dramatic. In that context, it will be a relief there have been very few complaints about the make-up of the squad from Hodgson.

Whereas previously he has made comments which appear to suggest a yearning for additions to increase his options, a less-than-subtle nod to the club’s owners to make funds available to improve the squad, more recently the manager has spoken of the tough choices he faces because he has so many players from whom to choose. There is no huge urgency to add even more bodies to the equation.

That is not to say, however, that there are not areas in which he would welcome investment if the right deals can be struck.

Palace would benefit from an upgrade to their forward line, even if they have found goals easier to come by this term.

It is frustrating that neither Jordan Ayew or Batshuayi have taken up the mantle of easing the pressure on Wilfried Zaha, with Ayew registering just once and Chelsea loanee Batshuayi yet to score this season. Indifferent form is not solely to blame for their toils — the formation and slight style change just do not suit Ayew, and the chances being created are of inadequate quality. Batshuayi had three goals ruled out in as many games on marginal, if correct, offside calls.

Even Jeffrey Schlupp was given a chance leading the line against Newcastle, but that experiment was far from a roaring success.

There was much relief at the sight of Christian Benteke matching his entire goals tally for last season in 25 second-half minutes during the recent rout of West Bromwich Albion, and following it up with another at West Ham. If his revival can be maintained, mid-season business for another forward could be shelved.

On the flank, Andros Townsend started 2020-21 with little competition for his place in the team. But Ayew and Schlupp — excellent in the role in that 5-1 win at The Hawthorns — could end up challenging him. The former England international has had his moments but, like so many in the squad, he is set to be out of contract next summer. The pursuit of Sarr in the last window suggested an underlying desire to strengthen in this area, if only to offer proper competition for places.

There is a possibility Palace might try again on Sarr and another of their summer targets, Celtic striker Odsonne Edouard. Sarr would appear to fit the criteria as someone capable of playing out wide on the right and of contributing as a central striker. But Watford’s asking price proved prohibitive back then and relations between the clubs may have strained somewhat after Palace’s £25 million offer on deadline day was dismissed as “laughable”. Regardless, the likelihood is that clubs with substantially more financial and reputational clout than Palace can muster would be the front-runners for his signature.

A more realistic, but still difficult, target would be Edouard. The 22-year-old Frenchman, who scored 28 goals in 45 appearances across all competitions last season, has 10 in 21 so far this term. With Celtic already out of the Europa League and labouring behind Rangers in pursuit of a 10th successive domestic title, their stance could yet shift on a player who is entering the last 18 months of his contract and is apparently reluctant to extend his stay in Glasgow. Even so, it would take a significant fee — most likely topping the £27 million club record — to lure him to Selhurst Park.

Palace’s problem is they are having to negotiate on two fronts. While they scour the market for new recruits, half of their current squad — plus Hodgson and the management staff — are scheduled to become free agents at the end of June. Among these, the likes of Max Meyer and the under-used Mamadou Sakho, as well as Benteke over recent seasons for all that flurry of recent form, are hardly justifying their salaries. The suspicion is Meyer, who was effectively available on a free transfer in the summer, and Sakho would be permitted to leave next month if interest surfaces, though neither has attracted any serious suitors as yet. Whether future employers could match their current wages is also open to question.

At present, Palace boast a full 25-man senior squad list filed with the Premier League.

Connor Wickham and Wayne Hennessey, two more whose contracts expire at the end of the season, will return to fitness in the new year. At present, neither could be included in the group. The same would apply to any January additions. Players would have to be moved out, on loan or sold, to accommodate new arrivals. With that in mind, and with Palace eight points clear of relegation trouble after 14 games, a quiet winter window would appear to be on the cards.

Instead, Palace can start planning for next season and beyond.

They need to address the make-up of the squad, with so many players going into the last seven months of their deals. Can they agree one or two-year extensions with key members of the current crop?

Patrick van Aanholt, for example, has yet to agree a new contract and, like the others, will be free to speak to foreign clubs once we get into January. At present, Van Aanholt (above, with Sarr) and the club are at odds over both the length of the deal on the table, and the proposed wages. If Palace sense the 30-year-old Holland international is likely to leave on a summer Bosman, they must line up another left-back to replace him in the summer.

Fellow full-back Nathaniel Clyne has impressed after rejoining the club following eight years away with Southampton and Liverpool and will surely be offered an extension beyond the January expiration of his current short-term contract. What of Gary Cahill, a mainstay of Hodgson’s side when fit, and James McCarthy? Then there’s club stalwart Joel Ward, Townsend and Scott Dann, who has captained the team on occasion this season?

Similarly, and in the likelihood not all those soon out of contract will be kept on, are there shrewd incoming transfers waiting to be negotiated? In January 2018, for example, Palace secured Getafe’s Vicente Guaita on a pre-contract agreement for the following summer, and the goalkeeper has thrived in England.

The onus will be on the recruitment department to scour Europe for similar imminent Bosman free-agents who can be secured next month then join for 2021-22. After all, January is unlikely to be the time to force through potentially expensive moves for the likes of Ipswich Town midfielder Flynn Downes, 21, or 19-year-old German defender Armel Bella-Kotchap at Bochum, players Palace have long tracked and who could be the future of the club.

The 7-0 thrashing at home to Liverpool will hurt, but there is still a sizeable gap between Palace at the relegation places and no real need for knee jerk reactions. Even so, the club will be anxious not to thin the squad too dramatically mid-season if offers do emerge for those on its fringes. Unless, of course, replacements can be sourced. A balance must be struck.

The next few transfer windows will tell a story of gradual regeneration at Palace, but this January is far more likely to prove one to plan for the future rather than rush through any immediate business.

[Vesper 28,772]

Salah’s flirting with Barca and what it means for his contract negotiations

https://theathletic.com/2259715/2020/12/20/mo-salah-liverpool-contract-barcelona/

Mohamed Salah is a reluctant talker, but that does not mean he is introverted. The last time he agreed to an interview with anyone in the British media, outside his club’s in-house operation, I was there.

He was only persuaded because he’d just broken the 40-goal barrier for Liverpool in his first season at Anfield. He was friendly enough and I liked that bit of spirit and spike about him, the sort of qualities you see in his play. Yet I quickly formed the impression that he was holding himself back, that he’d rather be elsewhere. After three minutes and 58 slightly awkward seconds, he was gone.

It cannot be easy being the most famous footballer to come from a country where there is totalitarian rule, as there is in Egypt. Your words matter. You have to be careful what you say. Especially when your hero and friend Mohamed Aboutrika lives in exile having been placed on a terrorist watchlist for what he has said (and supposedly done) in the past. Doubly when voters spoil ballots by using your name in elections where all of the forecasts are predictably in favour of the controlling party.

Salah expressed gratitude to his team-mates at the Football Writers’ Awards ceremony in May 2018 when he collected his winners’ trophy. In April 2019, he spoke to Time Magazine about women’s rights. That aside, he has told the world very little about himself since returning to England in 2017.

It was unusual for him, then, to grant Spanish sports paper AS a sit down in person and in front of a camera at a COVID-19-secure location on Merseyside in the middle of a pandemic, with the contents published yesterday. It was also unusual for him to be as candid as he was, posing later with an AS microphone in front of a Christmas tree.

There were two revelations, the first being that he was “very disappointed” to be overlooked for a captaincy role in this month’s Champions League dead rubber at Midtjylland, the second relating to a new contract being in Liverpool’s hands. Not so revealing was the description of Barcelona and Real Madrid as “top clubs”, though perhaps telling neither were described as “top teams”.

In journalism, securing an interview is the archetypal scoop. Salah appears to have gone off grid at a club where most things go to plan. Yet there tends to be an ulterior motive when a player talks so openly, particularly if he is usually so cautious.

The landscape and the surroundings of Salah’s future currently looks like this: the 28-year-old has two and a half years to run on his current deal, which is worth around £200,000 a week. His next contract might be the most lucrative of his career, but everything agreed after that will be on reduced terms. Barcelona, meanwhile, have presidential elections next month and there are men who will make big promises to ensure that soon they will be able to walk the corridors of power at the Camp Nou. Elsewhere, Real are desperate to sign Kylian Mbappe from Paris Saint-Germain but financial restrictions might make that pursuit more challenging than it would have been in the past.

The Athletic understands that Jurgen Klopp and other key figures at Liverpool do not view Salah’s comments as a matter of frustration. It would have been understandable if Klopp’s decision to leave Salah on the bench against Crystal Palace on Saturday was his way of reminding him who is in charge, yet sources close to the manager suggest he’d decided before Liverpool’s victory over Tottenham Hotspur on Wednesday night that he’d give his leading scorer an hour’s rest at Selhurst Park before introducing him for Sadio Mane.

Salah also emphatically suggested to AS that he was determined to break records at Anfield — “I repeat, every record”. The victory over Palace held historical significance, with Liverpool winning by a seven-goal margin away from home in the league for the first time in 106 top-flight years, with seven different players assisting the goals, the first time that’s happened in the Premier League. The result means Klopp has guided Liverpool to more wins than any other manager in the Premier League era, too.

Facts such as these reflect the variety of the threat posed by one of the most exciting Liverpool teams ever. This is a team that could allow Salah to realise his collective sporting ambitions as well as his personal ones. There is a temptation to think this might be the start of an exit strategy, but it is just as plausible that Salah wants to stay for a long time. Perhaps all he needs is an assurance that the club feel the same way, especially in the climate of COVID-19, which is expected to have caused north of £100 million in lost revenues.

Salah will be 31 at the end of his current contract, so sporting director Michael Edwards knows that he and Klopp have tough decisions ahead. Georginio Wijnaldum is likely to depart on a free transfer next summer and, at 30, he is one of the most influential players in Klopp’s starting XI. Perhaps it shows there is a willingness at Anfield to be bold when navigating such rocky waters.

[Vesper 28,772]

Rhythm-setting Firmino back among goals – now to sort out away form

https://theathletic.com/2258311/2020/12/17/liverpool-tottenham-firmino-klopp/

When Roberto Firmino finally reached the touchline after accepting the acclaim of Anfield after the final whistle, a close friend was waiting to greet him.

Alisson wrapped his arms about his fellow Brazil international and lifted him clean off the ground. Firmino’s megawatt smile could have lit the place up.

All late winners spark wild scenes of celebration but the identity of the goalscorer who propelled Liverpool back to the top of the Premier League at the expense of Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham Hotspur added an extra layer of emotion.

Having powered home a thumping header from Andy Robertson’s corner, Firmino turned and raced towards the opposite end of the stadium with his arms outstretched. He wanted to share the moment with the jubilant 1,500 fans spread around the Kop.

It’s been a lean year for the former Hoffenheim attacker who has been so integral to Liverpool’s sustained resurgence under Jurgen Klopp. This was only his seventh goal for the club in 2020 and at times this season, his place in the team has looked under serious threat.

Diogo Jota’s flying start to his Liverpool career cranked up the pressure but with the Portugal international now sidelined until February by a knee injury, Firmino’s importance to Klopp is suddenly as great as ever. Talk of him being yesterday’s man proved premature.

With Jota out, Divock Origi largely ineffective and Takumi Minamino still trying to carve out a niche for himself, Liverpool are heavily reliant on Firmino to lead the line heading into 2021. That’s why the timing of his goal against Tottenham could prove so beneficial. Confidence should be coursing through his veins as the leaders enter a crucial period in their defence of the Premier League crown.

“I just hope that Bobby never doubts himself,” says Klopp. “In training, it doesn’t look like it but there’s always so much talk and it always feels like people are surprised, ‘Oh, Bobby scored’. He scores goals, important ones for us. Making the runs to open the gaps, people don’t see that and I understand that.”

It was typical Klopp. Publicly, he has always dismissed any scrutiny of Firmino’s output and talked up the all-round contribution of the man he regards as Liverpool’s “engine”.

Earlier this season he described Firmino as “a complete footballer” and in likening his team to an orchestra, he added: “Bobby plays like 12 instruments and is very important for our rhythm.”

But no matter how good your No 9 is at pressing to force mistakes and dropping off into space to link play and create openings for others, you also expect goals.

Wednesday was the first time since the league victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux in January that Firmino had bagged the winner. That was also the last occasion when he scored in an away fixture. He has graced 21 matches on Liverpool’s travels since.

How Klopp needs him to put that right, with three of their four matches over the festive period taking place away from Anfield against Crystal Palace, Newcastle United and Southampton. Those games should spark happy memories for Firmino. He rammed home the decisive goal at Selhurst Park on Liverpool’s previous visit 13 months ago. He also scored the killer second against Southampton at St Mary’s last season.

Firmino is not going to be a golden boot contender for Liverpool. Since bagging 27 goals in all competitions in the 2017-18 season, his return dropped to 16 in 2018-19 and then 12 in 2019-20. His role has evolved. He’s a selfless team man, a vital cog in Klopp’s wheel. However, given the openings with which he’s regularly presented, he should be contributing more in the final third. Last season, he chipped in with nine league goals and eight assists with a “big chance” conversion rate of 23 per cent, as defined by Opta. This time around, he’s got three goals, two assists and a big chance conversion rate of just 17 per cent.

It’s telling that only Andy Robertson and Georginio Wijnaldum have played more Premier League minutes for Liverpool this season. Klopp’s faith in Firmino is unwavering.

The Brazilian striker isn’t the only one who has struggled to hit the heights away from home of late. Remarkably, given the fact that they are three points clear at the top, Liverpool have won just one of their six away league games this season. In fact, include the six trips at the back end of last season either side of the lockdown and Liverpool have won just three from 12.

The away form hasn’t been a serious talking point so far because Liverpool have been immaculate at Anfield and their rivals have all been dropping points. However, it’s an area Klopp is desperate to address in the knowledge that it’s not sustainable over the course of the entire season if they are going to retain the title. It’s been nearly three months since the champions last collected three points on their travels.

There have been mitigating circumstances. The 7-2 debacle at Aston Villa was followed by the contentious draw at Goodison when Liverpool lost both Virgil van Dijk and Thiago Alcantara to injury and had a late winner ruled out. A hard-fought point away to Manchester City was then followed by draws at Brighton and Fulham when fatigue undoubtedly took its toll.

At Anfield on Wednesday night, Liverpool looked energised. There was an intensity to their work that was lacking at Craven Cottage.

Curtis Jones enhanced his blossoming reputation with a classy display in midfield and fellow teenager Rhys Williams rose to the challenge on his Premier League debut.

Tottenham had their chances after Son Heung-min’s equaliser cancelled out Mohamed Salah’s opener before the break but they didn’t take them.

For the most part, Liverpool were in the ascendancy and just when it looked like it would finish even Firmino’s perseverance ultimately paid off. Having twice been denied by Hugo Lloris in the first half, he made no mistake when Robertson’s delivery was inch-perfect.

Firmino spends a lot of his spare time reading the Bible and playing the piano at home. He doesn’t get easily agitated or concerned. But a weight will have been lifted off his shoulders by that late show. He was the most popular of heroes. Now he needs to kick on and spearhead the charge to sort out Liverpool’s away form — starting at Selhurst Park in the Saturday lunchtime kick-off that Klopp dreads.

[Vesper 28,772]

Foden and Jesus at their best can reignite City’s season

https://theathletic.com/2274004/2020/12/23/city-foden-jesus-guardiola/

All season at Manchester City the question has been the same: how do you inject spark back into a team that has lost it all?

They thought about signing Lionel Messi, and may try again. They eventually gave Pep Guardiola a contract, deciding against a managerial change. There is already talk of a move for Erling Braut Haaland next summer. The club is scrambling for ways to get this old team back to the level of its two Premier League titles, back to the level they used to share with Liverpool but have now almost willingly abandoned.

But watching City dismantle Arsenal last night in the quarter-finals of the Carabao Cup, you wondered whether the answers for City’s lost spark might be slightly closer to home.

This has not been the best season so far for Phil Foden or Gabriel Jesus, with both men finding themselves in and out of Guardiola’s plans and struggling for rhythm. It has been that sort of mood at City, a year of inconsistency and uncertainty. Players who looked integral to Guardiola’s plans in the past, like Bernardo Silva or Aymeric Laporte, have found themselves relegated to second choice or worse. John Stones, after barely playing a big match in two years, is suddenly now back in the picture.

That has been apparent from watching City play this season. A sense of staleness has descended over this team and the players look unable to produce the same intensity that they did during the two title-winning seasons in 2017-18 and 2018-19. This is Guardiola’s fifth season, the longest he has done at any club, and at times the manager and the players look slightly fed up with one another.

That might explain why the heart has gone out of some of the performances, such as the limp draws with Liverpool, Manchester United, West Brom, West Ham and Leeds, or those striking defeats to Leicester City and Tottenham. Some of the performances — especially the Manchester United and West Brom games — have looked totally unlike the style of football Guardiola has tried to deliver in the last four and a half years.

City have been fairly accused of being fragile or brittle or soft in the past, or however you want to put it. But this autumn is the first time in years that they could be accused of being dull.

Taken together, this is why last night’s big win at the Emirates was so impressive. Yes, they were playing against arguably the worst Arsenal team since they left Woolwich, but the City players did their jobs immaculately. Guardiola chose to play some of those with the most to prove — not the teenagers, but the guys who are good enough to be regulars but not consistent enough. There are plenty of empty spaces in City’s best XI for the second half of this season. This was the moment to stake a claim.

First there was Jesus. It is almost four years since he came to City and he does not always look like a convincingly better player than he was back then. He is capable of great moments in big games — like in both legs against Real Madrid in the Champions League last-16 last season — but has not developed the penalty box instincts that make Sergio Aguero, even now at 32 years old, by far the more reliable goalscorer. When City were knocked out by Lyon in the quarter-finals, Jesus looked lost.

This season it has felt as if Jesus was back to square one, even with Aguero’s own age starting to catch up with him. He has only scored two Premier League goals. But this was a much better performance. His movement was lively and dangerous, pulling off to the left and attacking that fragile channel between Cedric Soares and Shkodran Mustafi. It only took two minutes for Jesus to find a goal; starting a move, running inside Mustafi and heading Oleksandr Zinchenko’s cross into the net.

From there Jesus’ confidence was up, whether pressing from the run or cutting in from the left. When he dropped deep, picked up the ball and ran forwards, Arsenal could not stop him. Both Mohamed Elneny and Mustafi were booked for fouling him, giving two free-kicks that City wasted. It was not a perfect Jesus performance, and he should have scored from a good position in the box at the end of the first half, only to hit his shot straight at Runar Runarsson. Maybe Aguero would have taken that chance. But overall this felt like a good night for Jesus, a reminder of what he can do, and the pressing football he can help City to play up front.

Even more impressive than Jesus was Foden, the 20-year-old in whom so much faith is invested this year. That Jesus chance at the end of the first half was set up by Foden’s clever flick, and from that point on he ran the game. Playing close to a No 10 role in City’s flexible system, Foden was electric. When he ran onto Fernandinho’s pass from the left, he produced the game’s finest moment of quality, deftly lifting the ball over Runarsson on the run, and into the net. And when he crossed the ball for Laporte to head in from close range, it was a piece of technical quality and ball manipulation as good as anything you would see from Kevin De Bruyne.

Almost a complete performance, then, from a young attacking midfielder who can do everything he needs to in the game. His season so far has been quite good — 12 starts in all competitions — without becoming City’s most important player. He is clearly in that second band of players, along with Bernardo Silva and Riyad Mahrez, whose trust from the manager is more contingent.

But if City are looking to turn their season around, start playing some of their old football again and maybe even win a trophy, it does not automatically follow that they need to spend hundreds of millions of pounds next month or in the summer. Jesus and Foden (to say nothing of Silva) are still two of the best young players in the game. If Guardiola can get them playing as well as they can — as well as this — then the second half of City’s season can be more exciting than the first. The fuel to reignite Manchester City is already in place, if only Guardiola can find a way to light it.

[Vesper 28,772]

Sensible Transfers: United scouting Caicedo, striker like Haaland a priority

https://theathletic.com/2278519/2020/12/23/sensible-transfers-united-scouting-caicedo-striker-like-haaland-a-priority/

Manchester United will look at the January window as a chance to augment Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s squad but the prospect of another signing in the transformative mould of Bruno Fernandes is remote.

Ed Woodward believes winter is a difficult time to do business and United are set to take a cautious approach to spending as the pandemic continues to grip. It may be a month of outgoings rather than incomings.

But if United are genuinely in the title race at the time trading opens, there is certain to be internal pressure to enhance Solskjaer’s options ready for a push on the second half of the season and beyond.

Amad Diallo is due to arrive once his visa process is finalised, with the indications all will go through smoothly. Although he could go straight into the first-team picture, the 18-year-old will first be assessed at Carrington.

“We’ll see how the squad looks and how he settles as soon as possible,” said Solskjaer, who added that United expect Diallo to have “a long career” at Old Trafford so “it’s important we find the right time” to introduce him.

Having an eye on the future is the reason for United scouting Moises Caicedo, a 19-year-old midfielder for Ecuadorian team Independiente del Valle. Nemanja Matic this year signed a new contract running to June 2023, but United are looking for long-term recruits in that position, as shown by their pursuit of Jude Bellingham. Caicedo could be that player.

First-hand reports have been filed by United staff in South America, and Caicedo’s profile fits with that of Diallo and Facundo Pellistri as a global teenage prospect. Talks have taken place and sources say a bid is expected, possibly as soon as next month.

Caicedo has enjoyed a breakthrough year for the Ecuador national team, featuring in four World Cup qualifying matches where he has registered three assists and a goal across three victories. He scored against a Uruguay side featuring Diego Godin and Rodrigo Bentancur by timing his run and applying a glancing header to Angel Mena’s cross.

For his club, Caicedo has made 25 appearances since debuting in October 2019 and claimed four goals, including a strike from 25 yards against Colombia’s Atletico Junior in the Copa Libertadores.

Antonio Valencia, United’s former captain, has been asked his opinion. He told the club he felt Caicedo had real potential and had been impressed watching his international appearances.

Going further, smarterscout’s data helps project how Caicedo might fare in the Premier League. Smarterscout is a site which gives detailed analytics on players all over the world, producing a score between 0-99, a bit like the player ratings in the FIFA video games but powered by real data and advanced analytics, to tell us the probability that a new player in the same position in the same league provides the same output.

The higher the number, the smaller the chance someone could do better. Some metrics can also be adjusted to Premier League standard, which is why Caicedo stands out in the below diagram.

His ball retention ability is very high even when filtered to relate to England’s top division. In his fledgling senior career, Caicedo has shown good appreciation of team-mates and an impressive ability to complete passes, even when attempting difficult balls through opponent lines.

His defending intensity catches the eye for the opposite reason; it is low considering his position on the pitch. The smarterscout model defines this as “the number of times a player is the most relevant defender out of possession”. By way of some explanation, Caicedo is often starting the play, rather than stopping it; he drops back into defence — like Matic — and plays forward. But an apparent absence of tackling is something to consider.

As for the here and now, a genuine right winger ready immediately for Solskjaer’s team is still being sought. Jadon Sancho remains the No 1 target, but a player of his standing will not be moving halfway through a season. The manner of last summer’s negotiations with Borussia Dortmund leaves some doubt about the prospect of a resolution at any stage, but United will speculate that as Sancho enters the final two years of his contract the €120 million (£110 million) asking price could come down.

United did have alternatives to Sancho during the last window, but Bayern Munich refused to part with Kingsley Coman and the cost associated with Barcelona’s Ousmane Dembele was judged too great. United held talks over Ismaila Sarr and the Watford winger could come under consideration again. The 22-year-old has three goals and two assists in 16 Championship matches this campaign.

With the help of smarterscout, further options can be found for a suitable right winger for United. Napoli’s Hirving Lozano has been in good form since moving from PSV Eindhoven for €42 (£38) million in 2019, scoring 10 goals in 38 Serie A games. Although a little older than United might like at 25, he does come with lots of experience of international football with Mexico (41 caps, 11 goals) and European club competition.

He plays either left or right, and also through the middle, and his work ethic is shown on the diagram above through his numbers for carry and dribble volume and disrupting opposition moves. His expected goals (xG) from shot creation (how much the player’s actions contribute to creating scoring chances) and ball progression (how much the player’s actions increase the likelihood of his side scoring when in possession, compared to others in his position) are a little more moderate, especially considering comparison with Sancho, who is ruthlessly efficient around the opposition area. Coman’s diagram also shows a supreme contributor to ball progression.

Another priority position is centre-forward.

Edinson Cavani has shown he will provide an elite alternative to Anthony Martial of the “break your nose to score” type that Solskjaer wants. But Cavani will be 35 by the time his contract expires in 2022. Odion Ighalo, last winter’s emergency signing, will go back to Shanghai Shenhua when his loan expires on January 31. There are no plans to extend his stay.

As previously reported, Erling Haaland tops Solskjaer’s list — indeed he has been trying to get United to sign his Norwegian compatriot since they were at Molde together — but the involvement of agent Mino Raiola complicates matters. The friction from previous negotiations on Haaland still lingers.

As a different option, Dominic Calvert-Lewin has admirers at Old Trafford. Based on measures such as attacking output, aerial duels in open play, receiving in the box and shooting, Calvert-Lewin comes out as comparable to Haaland when put into smarterscouts’s database and his actual scoring record is becoming very impressive. Alongside Son Heung-min, Calvert-Lewin has the most non-penalty goals in the Premier League this season with 11.

Further to that, his all-round game is improving in ways that Solskjaer would find appealing. He has the 10th most touches in the box of any Premier League player this season (70), is third for aerials won (65), second for shots on target (24) and third for headed shots on target (7) — all numbers higher than anyone at United.

But while Calvert-Lewin may fit United’s requirements, the chances of doing a deal appear slim to none. Carlo Ancelotti has placed huge faith in the 23-year-old and sources say a sale would do irreparable damage to the relationship between manager and board.

So it is not that Calvert-Lewin, having this year signed a new contract until 2025, would challenge the £75 million fee Everton got from United for Romelu Lukaku, it is that Goodison Park executives would not countenance any offers at all at this stage.

So alternatives may be needed. When using smarterscout’s search for similar players, the only other player from Europe’s top five leagues from 2019-20 to this campaign is Eintracht Frankfurt’s Andre Silva. The 25-year-old has scored 24 goals in 48 games in his past two seasons at the club and, as the diagram below illustrates, has very good ratings for the crucial aspects in the box.

His xG from shot creation is excellent, and his shot volume very good. Link-up play and ball retention ability — crucial for hold-up play — come out favourably, although his aerial duels quantity is perhaps low considering his 6ft 1in height. Haaland’s graphic makes for an interesting comparison.

Silva has 16 goals in 37 games for Portugal and, although he signed permanently for Frankfurt from AC Milan this year, his contract only runs to 2023 so the cost could be manageable. He cost Milan €38 million (£35 million) from Porto in 2017.

Centre-back is another area under discussion at United but, as reported by David Ornstein, the club have very recently cooled interest in Dayot Upamecano. United have long scouted the 22-year-old but reports have not been universal in guiding them to the point of bidding, leaving the path clear for Bayern Munich.

United highly rate Axel Tuanzebe, 23, and Teden Mengi, 18, and Solskjaer has shown his appreciation for the partnership of Harry Maguire and Victor Lindelof in his selections.

Searches for signings in that position should, however, include Ibrahima Konate, who is Upamecano’s team-mate at RB Leipzig. The 21-year-old is physically imposing — and his defending impact is suitably high — and he matches that with an ability to drive forwards with the ball. He ranks well for receptions in the box compared to others in his position too; essentially, he finds a way to win the ball at set pieces. (The numbers relate to 2018-19 when Konate last played significant minutes.)

Going the other way, United are working on exits for Sergio Romero and Marcos Rojo, most likely on loan, and will listen to offers for Jesse Lingard and Phil Jones. Lingard has interest from Roma, while Newcastle have looked at Jones.

[Vesper 28,772]

Two years of Solskjaer survey results: Fans still split, tactics a concern

https://theathletic.com/2268355/2020/12/22/solskjaer-manchester-united-survey/

On December 22, 2018 Ole Gunnar Solskjaer took charge of his first match as Manchester United’s caretaker manager.

While initially appointed on an interim contract, a record of 14 wins, two draws and three losses (along with a certain victory over Paris Saint-Germain) turned Solskjaer from the short-term solution into the commander of the club’s future.

Two years on, how do United fans feel about Solskjaer? And does the perception match the numbers behind the manager’s tenure?

The Athletic asked for your thoughts in a fan survey, and now, two years on from that 5-1 victory over Cardiff City, these are your thoughts on Ole’s work at the wheel…

Supporters were split on whether Solskjaer has done an average or good job as United manager. But then United have become a strange entity under the Norwegian, equally capable of long winning runs and moments of high farce.

Solskjaer’s all-time record makes him arguably the best United manager of the post-Sir Alex Ferguson era.

Arguably is the keyword though, as there are some quibbles to his record: the third-placed finish Solskjaer achieved last season was attained with 66 points, only two more than David Moyes and Ryan Giggs achieved in 2013-14. United have only won more than three games in a row twice since Solskjaer took over as interim manager in December 2018. Yet, while United have played so many Europa League games under the Norwegian, his United side are victorious more times than they are not.

Solskjaer oversaw 14 wins, two draws and three losses in his 19 games as interim manager and the dreaded “Brexit ratio” appears when fans were asked if it was the right decision to give him the job permanently.

At the time of the appointment, this writer attempted to weigh up the pros and cons of sticking by Solskjaer. In the end, we decided a three-year contract meant that even if he couldn’t turn United into title challengers, he would have a good chance of creating the foundations for his successor.

A year and a bit later, and Solskjaer has indeed created good foundations for United to again become Premier League and Champions League contenders. His challenge still remains whether he himself is the person to carry out the next stage of the transformation, or whether someone else should be brought in.

Interesting.

United never scored more than four goals in a game during Jose Mourinho’s 144 matches in charge. Solskjaer did it with his first game and has just repeated the trick before his second anniversary. And yet the overwhelming answer as to whether they play good or bad football in our survey was a shrug.

At the time of writing, United are:

David Silva dazzling in Real Sociedad team flying high at the top of La Liga 

https://theathletic.co.uk/2170561/2020/11/03/david-silva-real-sociedad/

 

As such, United fans are torn as to whether Solskjaer will win a trophy this season. The League Cup presents a good opportunity if his team can get past Everton, although there is a chance United will (most likely) have to defeat either Manchester City or Tottenham Hotspur to secure the trophy. Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho have both won the League Cup on three occasions but Solskjaer has masterminded victories over both men in the past two years. If United do make it through to the League Cup semi-finals, pay attention to the starting XI Solskjaer names for United’s FA Cup game shortly after to see how he wishes to approach that competition.

Solskjaer’s approach to the Europa League will be of interest in 2021. Real Sociedad are one of the hardest teams for United to face at this point in the competition, and with a packed fixture list and a top-four place still to play for, the United manager may prefer to use the competition to give some of his fringe players more playing time and a chance to impress rather than try to win the whole thing.

United fans said they would prefer it if Solskjaer took the Europa League seriously and tried to win the competition. It is a sentiment frequently carried by Andy Mitten on The Athletic’s Talk of the Devils podcast.

David Moyes remains the only other post-Ferguson United manager not to win a major trophy for United (we’re not counting the Community Shield — sorry, Pep), and the club have not won a trophy since the 2017 Europa League final. While Solskjaer reached three semi-finals in 2019-20, securing silverware would help further convince a sometimes divided fanbase that he is the right man for the team to make the jump to the next level necessary for a title charge.

The majority of United fans give “slim to good” odds of Solskjaer being triumphant as United manager.

United’s level of wealth puts them among Europe’s superpowers and they have created a squad that, while possessing obvious flaws, has enough cumulative talent within to be around the top 30 in Europe. Possibly top 20 if you squint hard enough. Trophies are more likely to come than they are not if Solskjaer can tighten the tactical and logistical plan to go along with his strategic one.

Daniel James, Harry Maguire, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Bruno Fernandes, Odion Ighalo, Donny van de Beek, Alex Telles, Edinson Cavani and Facundo Pellistri are not a bad selection of players for any football manager to have brought in.

A bad taste may still linger following the failed pursuit of Jadon Sancho, and United still need to strengthen in defensive midfield, at right wing and possibly centre-back, but the players Solskjaer has brought to the club have improved the squad and brought the team to a more cohesive whole. A lot of that is down to the superhuman levels of Fernandes in attacking midfield, but the performances of Maguire and Wan Bissaka did improve a noticeably shaky defence last season to create something a little baffling but often effective.

One can quibble over the amount of money spent (Solskjaer has spent around £16 million more than Frank Lampard at Chelsea on transfers, for example), but the Norwegian has shown he has an eye for a player. So much so, in fact, that there is a school of thought suggesting he “move upstairs” and become a director of football rather than leave the club outright.

Is it churlish to be impressed with the improvement of a Brazilian midfielder purchased for £52 million who once garnered the attention of Guardiola? Perhaps, but Solskjaer’s work with Fred has been of particular interest in the last two years.

At one point decried as an expensive bust, Fred’s play saw improved markedly from January 2020 when he was paired with Scott McTominay to create Solskjaer’s now preferred “McFred” midfield pivot for big games. The Brazilian is said to stay behind after training sessions to work on his passing and finishing skills with Michael Carrick and, while he may not be the player to “unlock Pogba” as many believed he would be at the start of the 2018-19 season, he might very well outlast the Frenchman at the club.

Elsewhere, let’s have a look at players with the most goals and assists in Solskjaer’s two years.

The 43 goals Marcus Rashford has scored under Solskjaer is the most of any United player under a single manager since Ferguson. Prior to Solskjaer’s arrival, a few commentators stated Rashford would perhaps need to seek a loan to further his career. Now the striker is approaching the cusp of “world-class”.

When a replacement was sought for Mourinho, United were said to be looking for someone “steeped in the traditions of the club”.

While your mileage may vary on Solskjaer’s constant references to the past, you cannot dispute he “gets it”.

That United fans also brought up his personality as his second-most likeable trait speaks to the special place the manager holds in the esteem of many around the club. Here is a man who helped secure a Treble for United as a player and as a manager often looks to the past in an effort to inspire the future.

Fans often speak of how he is a “nice guy” and someone “they want to see do well”. Solskjaer can be an engaging presence during press conferences, unafraid to crack jokes, sometimes at his own expense. He will always have a certain cache to fall back on, even when times are hard.

That fans rank Solskjaer’s tactics as his lowest trait, behind “Don’t Know” and “I do not like Solskjaer” also speaks to the sometimes confusing two years and fractured fanbase within the club. Doubters remain concerning Solskjaer’s tactical nous and he still has work to do to bring them onside.

It is Solskjaer’s tactics that are the main area of concern for United fans. They can be a baffling team, often decried as being light on tactics or naive, yet they are currently sitting in a Champions League place. The Athletic would like to call them consistent in their approach, if not in result, and Solskjaer’s Plan A of scoring quick on the transition suits his squad well.

That United fans are next concerned by Solskjaer’s support in the transfer market also suggests a certain fear. United are well placed in the league and in cup competitions (albeit the Europa rather than Champions League) when the January transfer window opens. Whether the club will be aggressive in player trading to help Solskjaer secure a top-four finish and/or silverware remains to be seen.

We’d like to start by looking at the nearly one in five who asked for Solskjaer to step aside. That is unlikely to occur, and unless there is a sustained run of poor form, Solskjaer is also unlikely to be removed before the season’s end.

Solskjaer is two years into his United tenure and, at this point, looks more likely to reach the end of his three-year contract in 2022 than he is not. More than anything, United fans want their club to be a success again, and Solskjaer has done a lot of good work over the past two years to get close to that point.

Every so often under his guidance, United “click” in a way not seen since the days of Ferguson. Sometimes the aura and the mystique is back; sometimes United concede in the first 10 minutes of a match and you wonder what the point is.

On balance, Solskjaer has just about had a good two years as United manager. His next challenge is removing that “just about” and proving he’s been the right man for the club to make the next great leap with all along.

*Please note, we closed this reader survey on December 18, before the 6-2 victory over Leeds United. All stats presented in this piece include that result, however.

[Vesper 28,772]

Sensible Transfers: Southampton want Williams and will let Obafemi and Valery go

https://theathletic.com/2263974/2020/12/24/southampton-january-transfers/

Southampton’s transfer priorities are straightforward: bring in another full back to support Kyle Walker-Peters and Ryan Bertrand.

As extensively reported by The Athletic, they targeted Manchester United’s Brandon Williams during the summer window and he remains their top target for this position.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer blocked the move in September, even though Williams asked the Old Trafford manager to let him move to St Mary’s on loan. After being promised more game time, the 20-year-old stayed put.

Ironically, the defender made his first Premier League appearance of the season when he came on in the 84th minute against Southampton at St Mary’s. Other than that, Williams has been limited to Carabao Cup ties, under-23s appearances and just over an hour’s worth of action in United’s failed Champions League conquest.

Despite the lack of game time, Southampton remain interested in signing the talented youngster on loan to provide cover for Walker-Peters and Bertrand.

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How would Williams fit in?

Many will be questioning why the defender would want to leave the comfort of Old Trafford’s bench to become a squad player at Southampton.

For starters, there are currently three players — Luke Shaw, Aaron Wan-Bissaka and Alex Telles — ahead of him in the pecking order. At St Mary’s, he would be next in line behind Bertrand and Walker-Peters.

Hasenhuttl often says how he prefers working with younger, “open-minded” players who show the desire to commit themselves to his system. Having done extensive research on Williams, the club’s hierarchy think he is capable of doing a job on the south coast.

Although Walker-Peters and Bertrand are fundamental to the club’s success this year, having someone else come in and challenge the duo will only benefit Southampton.

And Williams will know that — should a loan deal be completed — he’ll be given a fair shot to come and dislodge either player.

The full-back’s ability to play on both the right and left side of the defence is also a key factor in Southampton’s pursuit.

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Are Southampton looking to strengthen elsewhere on the pitch?

At this moment in time, the answer is no. Of course, it only takes an injury or two for this approach to be tested. But, at the moment, Hasenhuttl is happy with what he has at his disposal.

The addition of Theo Walcott added strength to an already well-stocked department. If you look at the four attacking positions as a whole, it is clear there is enough support.

Danny Ings, Che Adams, Shane Long, Dan N’Lundulu, Nathan Tella, Moussa Djenepo, Nathan Redmond, Stuart Armstrong and Walcott are all competing for just four positions.

Central midfielder Ibrahima Diallo joined in October to compete with James Ward-Prowse and Oriol Romeu for a spot in the starting XI. The 21-year-old has been limited to appearances off the bench but is said to have Hasenhuttl’s trust if called upon to play from the start.

Will Smallbone is also another option for Southampton’s manager in midfield, although his season has so far been hampered by an injury.

Full-backs aside, Hasenhuttl is confident with the alternatives at his disposal in central defence. Jannik Vestergaard has been a revelation this season, and Jan Bednarek recently signed a new four-and-a-half-year deal.

Beyond those two, Mohammed Salisu, who is yet to make his debut for the club, and Jack Stephens are waiting in the wings.

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Will there be any departures?

The Athletic can reveal that Southampton are open to offers for striker Michael Obafemi and defender Yan Valery.

Neither player has been able to make any kind of impact in the first team this season. Obafemi came on as a substitute in the games against Brentford and Burnley but hasn’t featured since.

Valery, on the other hand, is yet to make a single appearance for the senior side. His action has been limited to playing for Dave Horseman’s B team.

As it stands, The Athletic is led to believe that either player could be allowed to leave permanently — but only if it’s a deal that suits all parties.

Should Obafemi head out on loan, the view behind the scenes is that it will help boost N’Lundulu’s and Tella’s development. Hasenhuttl has been vocal in his criticism of the young striker, often citing a “lack of professionalism” as a factor in his apparent struggles to hold down a place in the matchday squad.

The 20-year-old Ireland international only signed a new three-year contract in 2019 and clearly has a lot of potential. Because of this, a loan move would appear to be a sensible resolution.

If he isn’t going to be part of Hasenhuttl’s plans for the 2020-21 campaign, then it’s important for his development that he can get valuable minutes at another club.

Valery’s situation is more nuanced than Obafemi’s. The young Frenchman was once held up as the academy’s poster boy. He was a regular starter when Hasenhuttl took charge of the club in December 2018.

A bout of glandular fever at the end of 2019 put a halt to his progress, and he has struggled to regain his position in the starting XI ever since.

The fact Southampton are looking at Williams probably highlights best what Hasenhuttl thinks of the 21-year-old’s future at the club. He still has two and a half-years to run on the four-year deal he signed in 2019.

[Vesper 28,772]

Mourinho won’t comment on individuals – unless it’s Dele Alli

https://theathletic.com/2279851/2020/12/24/dele-alli-mourinho-tottenham/

Sometimes Jose Mourinho speaks in riddles, sometimes he tells it straight. There was no doubting what he thought of Dele Alli’s role in Stoke City’s equaliser in Wednesday evening’s League Cup quarter-final.

Mourinho was furious with Dele’s attempted flick inside the Stoke half when Spurs were 1-0 up. That lost Spurs the ball, Stoke sent it forward, setting up the counter-attack which saw Jordan Thompson convert Jacob Brown’s cross to draw it level. He told Dele what he thought at the time and hooked him soon after. And then in the post-match press conference, Mourinho told the world how he really felt.

“For me, a player that plays in that position is a player that has to link, and has to create,” Mourinho said. “And not to create problems for his own team.

“In that situation there, an objective counter-attack would probably end with a goal or with an action. It ended with a counter-attack, behind our defenders, of course we were imbalanced because when you are in possession you have the full-backs wide, you have one midfielder in a different line. They caught us in the counter-attack and they transformed the result of the game, that was totally in our hands. So yes, I was upset.“

Mourinho has generally been gentle with his players in public recently, even after the defeats by Liverpool and Leicester City last week. He defended Steven Bergwijn after his miss at Anfield by saying, “In here, we lose, we win, we draw all together”. Nor did Mourinho go too hard on Serge Aurier after he gifted that needless penalty away last Sunday, a bad mistake, but not one that earned him the full Mourinho treatment in public.

To find an example where Mourinho was this critical, you have to go back to October, when he was not happy with the Europa League performance when they lost badly at Antwerp. He said that his “future choices are going to be very easy” given how the fringe players did. But that night, Mourinho was given the chance to criticise Dele in particular and he turned it down, insisting he did “not want to analyse individually”. But this time he was happy enough to try his hand at some individual analysis.

The frustrating thing for Dele is that up until that point he had played well. This was only his fifth start of the season, and since the opening-day defeat by Everton, the other three have all been in the Europa League. But he buzzed around well, providing more dangerous movement around and beyond Harry Kane than Gareth Bale or Lucas Moura did. He could have scored late in the first half, running onto Kane’s through ball but shooting straight at Andy Lonergan, and soon after had a good 20-yard effort fly just wide.

But all those good moments will now be weighed against this one bad one when it comes to Dele’s future chances of getting into the team. When asked afterwards which of his players took their chance against Stoke City, Mourinho said “some yes, some no”, without going into more details. “The most important thing for me is not the individual performance, it is the collective performance and the result. We always say the team above individualities and the team won.”

Obviously the win was important in itself, setting up a cup semi-final with Brentford next month and a chance for the first trophy since Juande Ramos was Tottenham manager. But the fact is that the individual performance of these fringe players on nights like this is important, whether Mourinho wants to talk about it or not. Tottenham have plenty of games coming up. Wolves, Fulham and Leeds United in the league within seven days, an FA Cup trip to Marine, league games with Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea not too far away, before the Europa League resumes when Spurs face Wolfsberger of Austria in the last 32.

And one thing that has been very clear from watching Spurs in the last week or so is that they cannot rely on Kane and Son Heung-min to do everything for them. (Even though here they needed Kane to play all 90 minutes, he put in another big shift, slamming in the goal that ended the game at 3-1 and still running the channels and chasing down opponents in the final minute.)

But for the sake of Kane and Son’s legs, Spurs need more from the support cast. Mourinho was not happy with Dele afterwards, and Bale’s evening did not end well either. He was the man who put Spurs ahead, meeting Harry Winks’ cross with a clever header to make it 1-0 but he did not convince away from that, still looking rusty at times, and at half-time he told Mourinho that he felt a problem in his calf and could not continue. More than two months after Bale’s second debut he has not managed a strong run of games and it may be a while until we see that.

Moura did not have his best game either but it feels as if he has more credit in the bank with Mourinho right now than Bale or Dele do, having already started 11 games for Spurs this season and contributed five goals. He came off at the same time Dele did, but you would expect to see Lucas again in a Spurs shirt before you see Dele.

Then there was Winks, frustrated by his lack of chances so far this season, but diligent and effective again here. His incisive cross from deep made Bale’s opening goal, and he gave Spurs stability and control in midfield throughout. So much so that Sky Sports named him man of the match, and Mourinho afterwards commented on Instagram that the award was “deserved”. Sometimes it is about the individual performance, it just depends on the individual.