Stories By Graham Ruthven

• Sport

  The solution to Arsenal’s striking woes? Olivier Giroud.

  On paper, Arsenal boast one of the most potent attacking lines in the Premier League. Mikel Arteta has a number of proven options in the final third but the Spaniard seems unsure of how to set up his team, with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang played through the middle for the home defeat to Wolves on Sunday.

• Sport

  Pochettino should be cautious before taking PSG job

  While he remained coy on where he saw himself next, it was clear from what Mauricio Pochettino said, both through his words and his body language, as a guest on Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football a few weeks ago that he is ready to take on a new project.

• Sport

  Nicolas Pepe running out of chances at Arsenal

  Not since the defeat to Manchester City on the 17th October had Nicolas Pepe started a Premier League match for Arsenal. By the time the Gunners arrived at Elland Road Sunday to face Leeds United, Mikel Arteta’s preference of Willian over the Ivorian winger had been well established.

• Sport

  New Pep Guardiola contract won’t stop replacement talk

  The start of the 2020/21 season saw Pep Guardiola pass a significant milestone. Not in the Catalan’s career as a manager had he embarked on a fifth season at a club before. At Barcelona, he lasted four seasons in charge before departing due to exhaustion.

• Sport

  Ronaldo next club: where could he go after Juve?

  There had been a growing sense that Cristiano Ronaldo might force his way out of Real Madrid, so it wasn’t a great surprise when the Portuguese forward signed for Juventus in the summer of 2018. Two years later, there are similar noises coming out of the Ronaldo camp.

• Sport

  Leicester have put top four disappointment behind them

  Leicester City didn’t allow the disappointment of missing out on a top four finish to linger for long. Having been in the Champions League places for the majority of the season, Brendan Rodgers’ side missed out on qualification on the final day of the campaign, losing at home to Manchester United to finish fifth.

• Sport

  The Steven Gerrard / Rangers gamble has paid off for both

  No matter what was said at the time, Rangers took a gamble in hiring Steven Gerrard as their new manager in the summer of 2018. The former England and Liverpool captain only had coaching experience at youth level and so the Ibrox club largely based their decision on a hunch that he was the right man for the job Nearly two-and-a-half years later and that hunch looks to have been right.

• Sport

  Solskjaer’s management of van de Beek looks vindicated

  If Donny van de Beek wasn’t growing increasingly bemused at his omission from the Manchester United first team, his face did a good job of betraying him. More than once, the Dutch midfielder was shown sitting in the stands watching his new team with an expression that said he, along with many fans and pundits, couldn’t understand why Ole Gunnar Solskjaer kept overlooking him for a place in the lineup.

• Sport

  Harry Kane has become the ultimate forward

  Harry Kane is in the form of his life, which is saying something given the heights he has reached over the last seven seasons. The 27-year-old has started the 2020/21 campaign with five goals and seven assists in five games for Tottenham Hotspur, turning in particularly noteworthy displays against Southampton, Manchester United and West Ham.

• Sport

  Virgil van Dijk stuttering form a concern for Klopp

  There was more than an element of freakishness to Liverpool’s 7-2 defeat to Aston Villa before the international break. Indeed, everything that could have gone wrong for Jurgen Klopp’s side did go wrong and Virgil van Dijk found himself at the centre of it all.

• Sport

  Why didn’t Pochettino get the same Tottenham backing as Mourinho?

  Even before the 2019 Champions League final, the first in Tottenham Hotspur’s history, Mauricio Pochettino offered a hint of what his future at the North London club might be. Unprompted, the Argentine raised the prospect that the Madrid final against Liverpool could prove to be his last as Spurs manager.

More Posts