'Purgatory' continues at Old Trafford | |
| Another back-and-forth for Manchester United, like a weighty boulder being pushed up a hill and back down again. The Sisyphean imagery is all the more fitting given the word that is now regularly used about the squad dressing room. That is "purgatory". One figure at a rival club immediately recognised a dynamic he knew well from previous struggles, which is of a squad just waiting for what next. That will of course be unintentional for many players, but it's also undeniable. A core of the group expected Erik ten Hag to go in the summer. The same players are wondering whether he will go soon. It doesn't exactly do much for a manager's command of a dressing room, to further erode Ten Hag's authority after the commotion of the summer. Now we're in this situation where, after the chaos of the 3-3 draw with Porto, it feels like so much comes down to what happens at Aston Villa on Sunday. |
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| | Written by Miguel Delaney |
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| Nwaneri adds to Arteta pride, amid Liverpool threat |
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| The wonder around Arsenal this weekend is whether 17-year-old Ethan Nwaneri will get more minutes this Saturday against Southampton, as there is real buzz from his introduction against Leicester City. The feeling is that this was a showcase of why everyone is so excited about him. At a moment when Arsenal needed a goal, Nwaneri came on and immediately beat two players before forcing a save from distance. It just increased impetus in the team, although some of the staff were more impressed with his general game intelligence and the way he adapted. The 17-year-old is viewed as the future of the team's attack. More generally, Mikel Arteta was especially impressed with how his team handled the "emotion" of the Leicester match, which was just as important as their tactical application. The Arsenal manager knows how galling it can be when a team thinks they have a game won only to squander a 2-0 lead and be pegged back to 2-2, which was why he was so enthused by the response. The team didn't allow the "emotion" to get to them in the way they might have done in the past. It sets up another weekend where it feels like this title race is getting going much earlier than usual. It is as if there is an awareness that anything dropped now could be costly, particularly with the Manchester City hearing weighing over everything. There is of course another angle to this for the moment, coming from Anfield. Liverpool are top of the league, having enjoyed an extremely smooth transition from Jurgen Klopp to Arne Slot so far. That is also why some rival clubs are a bit more cautious about expecting too much from Liverpool as yet, mind. There is a belief in the Premier League that they Slot has benefited from a forgiving run of early fixtures, with that complemented by a lack of injuries. Some were also quick to point out how easily Bologna got at them in a hard-fought 2-0 home win at Anfield in midweek. A game away to Crystal Palace on Saturday afternoon is nevertheless an awkward test. |
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| Carsley seeking to change mood around England selection |
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| Although players are rightly talking of an overloaded calendar right now, Lee Carsley enjoyed a rare situation in selecting his England squad this week. His physical staff told him the potential pool of players was "fully loaded". That has in turn meant some players will get rests they didn't necessarily expect. Although Carsley admitted he could have picked a squad of 30-plus with so many on form, he wants to trim it down for the players to make it feel like it's an achievement to be called up for England again. Such a decision also comes after Carsley attended a Uefa conference for international coaches, where a persistent theme was how much strength in depth he enjoys. This was almost presented as a problem to solve, however, rather than something to be maximised. Carsley doesn't see it that way, but he did admit that the conference gave him a new perspective that he hadn't yet grasped in the job. That was the authority that recent trophy wins gave rival nations. "It's interesting because you're in a room with so many countries that have been so successful — what sank in for me, it was like cold water hitting you, [is that] we're definitely chasing. We're not leading." One of the advantages of Carsley taking the job has been that he's a coach who's come through England's hugely successful underage set-up, right up to winning the under-21 European Championship for the first time since 1984. That had left him unburdened by many of the fixations around the senior game, although he is starting to see some of the issues. Others close to the set-up have a different perspective on this. They see this as Carsley very much getting his feet under the table. |
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| Intrigue around Alexander-Arnold increases |
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| Liverpool are meanwhile going through a familiar feeling, and it isn't just the excitement of a potential title race. It's something much less enjoyable. It's when one of the big Spanish two essentially start a campaign to get one of your stars. This week saw more leaks in Spain that Real Madrid have a contract ready to go for Trent Alexander-Arnold, who hasn't yet shown any willingness to agree a new deal with Liverpool. It has been stated in this newsletter before that he increasingly fancies time at Europe's major clubs while he is in his prime, and some close to the player believe he should go for precisely that reason. There will similarly be expectations at the Bernabeu that Jude Bellingham, Alexander-Arnold's close friend, continues to press upon him the greatness of Madrid in this international break. An element of strategic diplomacy is still required there, though. Figures close to the Bernabeu hierarchy maintain that they can't yet be too overt, as they don't want to put out a club legend like Dani Carvajal. |
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| The international break has come around again so quickly that even Lee Carsley noticed it. Journalists certainly do, too. Unless something like World Cup qualification is on the line, it's always something that's especially jarring at this stage of the season. Club narratives are just starting to build. They're then disrupted with international matches that don't mean all that much, and don't have much of a chance to build a narrative of their own. It does feel as if the actual timing of international breaks is anachronistic. Given there is so much debate about the calendar, maybe it's time to return to one of Arsene Wenger's better ideas in his Fifa role. That was to have more defined splits, so international breaks are more like rugby, and go on longer but without so many disruptions to the club season. It would probably work better for the managers, too. | |
| "I don't want to put too much pressure on us but I do think that this is the year." | Bukayo Saka in surprisingly strident mood about Arsenal's Premier League challenge after the win over Paris Saint-Germain | |
| Seven clubs have qualified for the Champions League final since 1992 without ever winning it: Atletico Madrid, Valencia, Bayer Leverkusen, Monaco, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Paris Saint-Germain. There are three players who have played for three of those clubs, without ever winning the Champions League themselves. Name the three. | |
| | The new Oura ring 4 has the updates we've been waiting for. |
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