The world feels like a different place after a 9-nil victory on Saturday. Yes, the opposition helped. Bournemouth are a promoted side that had already been smacked down hard by both Manchester City and Arsenal. Despite their opening day victory against Aston Villa, Bournemouth don’t look ready for the Premier League. And, this morning I learned that Bournemouth management apparently …
Monthly Archives: August 2022
I don’t believe the players are trying less hard or playing with less passion, although it certainly looks that way at times. I believe, instead, that they are having to think about what they’re doing far more often than usual. And that thinking is creating hesitancy, lack of tempo, and lots of problems.
The stench of desperation wafting from the changing rooms at Old Trafford, two days before Manchester United hosts arch-rival Liverpool, is so strong that I can smell it from my house in Dallas, 4,600 miles away from Old Trafford.
This is the Golden Era. And we are in the middle of it, not at its end. More miraculous moments await us. Our job is to savor them. Treasure them. Plant them in our memory garden, where we can harvest, enjoy, and replant them over the coming years. This is the Golden Era. The time is still now, and we have the privilege of experiencing it.
I wanted to spend a bit of time talking about football tactics, including formations, positional roles, and styles of play. Hopefully this Part will give you newbies some new vocabulary and – to some extent – a new mindset that may make watching the game more interesting. Finally, because I often refer in my football writing to a few advanced statistics – most notably expected goals (xG) – here in Part III I will give you a brief overview of what those stats mean.
Fair warning: I’m an unabashed Jürgen Klopp fanboy. But there are still enough facts woven into the gushing below to permit you to make your own judgments. All of us celebrated the day that Liverpool announced the signing of German Jürgen Klopp as the new manager. We were very, very excited. One of the top managers in all of world …