The Importance of Sport (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Mick Harper]

So, Wiley, your man Jesse "On The" Marsch seems to have given Southampton the bum's rush. I'm not surprised. Any team that can only beat Chelsea at the Bridge by a single goal are going da-a-a-rn.

With Nottingham Forest. You've done your duty, chaps, now 'oppit.

[Wile E. Coyote]

According to the gossip, it was the players who didn't want Ralph, Nathan or Jesse. In fact they don't want anyone who is obssessed with pressing, so Klopp or Bielsa wouldn't be any good either. It's the beautiful game they are after, you know, where you have about 60% possession without working to get the ball back as the opposition is crap at passing, or more likely they have 60% possession but they are crap at finishing, and you have one player that is good at set pieces.

[Wile E. Coyote]

The problem with all these pressing guys, except Bielsa, is that when it goes Pete Tong, they decide to play an additional man at the back, normally three centre halves, which totally negates the pressing efforts of those poor bastards at the front.

Bielsa's genius was to see the futility in this, and just shoot the chap that had run the least in last week's game, and instruct his players to press still even further forward. If Leeds could have afforded a larger squad they would have won the premiership, instead they brought in Jesse who stopped the shootings. Sad really.

[Mick Harper]

You're a man after my own heart, Wiley, if not my manager. Pressing is a subtle (or do I mean, complex) art that is sufficiently new that not only have the wrinkles not been ironed out, people don't know there are wrinkles. Only true footballing intellectuals like you, me and Bielsa understand this.

However, I think you've got the extra centre half wrong. You need an extra man at the back when you are being pressed not when your own press is going wrong (and then preferably not a centre half but a midfielder dropping back). When your own press isn't working, you just stop pressing and then you don't need an extra man at the back, you've already got too many. The whole concept of 'an extra man' should be otiose anyway because any decent team should have three, four, five out-players who can turn their hands (feet) to jobs that need doing depending on the situation eg

being in possession/winning it back
chasing the game/defending a lead
being overrun/trying to nick a goal
fresh as daisies/totally tanked
man sent off/the other team is a man down
etc etc

Above all, an effective press cannot be done for ninety minutes. It is not physically possible. And, as you have implied, a half-hearted press is worse than no-press. The Stakhanovite approach you say Bielse adopted is very interesting. Players are said 'to have an engine', be 'box-to-box', 'plays his heart out for the badge' and so on but the truth is any professional athlete can 'press' if he wants to but any professional athlete knows how to go through the motions if he doesn't want to. [My own test is: will he fly at the keeper and then kick him in the cruds if he doesn't get there in time?]

[Mick Harper]

Dear Manchester United fans, I appreciate that St Jim ticks all the boxes and the towel-heads are worse than the Glazers but apply the MJH AE test:

[Mick Harper]

Is the Second Coming of Rashford for real? Looks like it and with it (at last) a realistic alternative to Kane. Not that I think he should go but, if Kane thinks it, he may play for the team more and himself less. For England that is, I can't see Richarlison providing a similar service for Spurs.

Is the Seventh(?) Coming of Manchester United for real? I am less convinced. They seemed a bit overwhelmed by Leicester which is hard to do. Speaking of the newly-descended, both Jarrod Bowen and Declan Rice may be available at the end of the season, a toothsome package for someone, and with Man City and Chelsea at the end of their Fair Play tethers, Spurs or Arsenal? One each?

I'm backing Liverpool for the fourth spot by the way. Though not, unfortunately, Chelsea for the fifth spot.

[Mick Harper]

This long-awaited and much trumpeted Report Into Football has dropped onto our consciousness doormats with all the force of a money-off coupon for house cleaning products. Its launch was badly mishandled -- the main points being 'speculated about' on Day One, confirmed as being the main points on Day Two, then forgotten about on Day Three because it just listed all the things wrong with English football and... er... said something should be done about them.

I hate to mix metaphors but the whole thing has already been kicked into the long grass. Probably a good thing too. As one wiseacre pointed out, "Why should football be the only sport subject to government control?" He was forgetting horse-racing but you knew what he meant.

"Questions for the Prime Minister."
"Does my right honourable friend agree with me that England should adopt a back three and will he instruct the Football Czar to that effect?"

[Mick Harper]

Shock Stats of the Week

1. Phil Foden has played two hundred times for Man City?
And there was me thinking the lad was still a teenager.

2. James Andersen is currently ranked No 1 in the world?
And there was me thinking he was only in the side for old time's sake.

3. Trossard was 'a new false number nine'?
And there was me thinking Nketiah has been playing that for months. Still, nice to see Arteta taking my advice (again) (at last). We could be in with a shout.

[Mick Harper]

Rum goings on at the cricket.

The commentators started screaming, "Only two to win!" Not really, chaps. When you are one-up in a two-match series, a tie is enough. It wasn't clear whether Jimmy Andersen knew this either.

But the England high-ups should have known that a draw was enough so why on earth were they declaring eight wickets down in the first innings? Fair enough if you're going for a win (though not really since time wasn't going to be a factor), but those extra few runs wouldn't half have come in handy in the second innings.

Which brings me to this new batting style England have adopted. Now I'm not against it -- it seems both effective and entertaining -- but it isn't appropriate when you are one-up in a two-match series. I'm not talking about the fast run-rate, that has its own logic. I'm talking about overhead scoops, reverse sweeps and the rest. There's a reason why they are not part of the cricketing canon and it's because you get out too often playing them. Fine in certain circumstances, not in these. And tell Broad to stop believing his own legend and start playing properly when the tail has to eke out runs.

And why is Stokes in the side? He doesn't bowl and he bats like Broad.

[Mick Harper]

Liverpool 2 Wolves 0

Adam Traore came on at halftime with his arms oiled. This is a variant of something I have been urging on all footballers: wear skintight shirts so the opposition can't grab hold of you. Oiled arms complete the 'greasy pig' situation. (Plus detachable jockstraps if you play on Hackney Marshes.)

Aufmerksamkeit, Jürgen Klopp! Trent Alexander-Arnold continues to demonstrate he is completely wasted (and possibly not very good) in the full-back role. He is the Johnny Haynes auf unsere Tage.

[Mick Harper]

Politics & Sport

1. What people don't realise is that owning Newcastle United (and other football clubs) is sufficiently important to Saudi bigwigs that they will start, however modestly, to temper their domestic policies in order to qualify as 'fit and proper persons'.

2. What people don't realise is that spending all day interrogating-- and a fair bit of Channel 4 News castigating -- Michael Vaughan for saying "You lot" twelve years ago to some Pakistani cricketers and eleven years ago complaining he couldn't understand (presumably) Indian people manning help lines, fuels racism. At least it does mine.

[Grant]

The first politician to echo Michael Vaughan’s alleged words will inherit the country. But as Dominic Cummings says, politicians are more concerned with what other politicians say than the views of the people. Until it’s too late…

[Mick Harper]

Quote of the Week

[Mick Harper]

Chelsea 2 Dortmund 0 (2-1)

The Potter experiment trundles on bafflingly. Dortmund are one of the form sides of Europe yet Chelsea outplayed them in both legs. They can't kick the skin off a sago pudding in the Premiership. Not only did Chelsea play rather thrillingly, both in attack and for the last half hour in defence, the players were clearly busting their arse 'for the boss'.

Some notes:
1. The winning penalty was a joke. The BTman said, "He had every chance to get his hand out of the way" except the Dortmunder was standing there with his arms correctly by his side and when the cross came in from a yard away he was turning his back with his arm going out entirely naturally because he did. The penalty was missed, then retaken for encroachment. I wonder whether, if Havertz had scored, it would have been disallowed because a Chelsea forward was encroaching even more.

2. Bellingham was at the heart of everything Dortmunderisch. When's he going to be made captain of England?

3. The yellow German flares made for a dense fog at the start. It reminded me that fog used to be quite common at football matches but you never see it nowadays. Why's that? I'm talking well after any smoggy considerations.

[Mick Harper]

Spurs 0 AC Milan 0 (0-1)

Despite Spurs being several places above Chelsea in the Premiership, the difference between them in Europe is remarkable. One looked like contenders, the other was just pushing the ball around. And, unlike Arsenal who also 'just push the ball around', Spurs weren't doing it with the kind of speed and accuracy that carries all before it. Nor did they look like a team that could make the transition. They got slower and slower as the crowd's derision got louder and louder. There didn't even seem to be a Plan A.

Fun fact one: Spurs actually pioneered the style, called 'push-and-run', in the early fifties under Arthur Rowe.
Fun fact two: Spurs were overhitting the long ball with such frequency it must have been down to playing with a different ball in Europe to the one they use in the Premiership. Something that can get overlooked if your manager is in hospital. Or just a bit dim.