Derby defeat exposes old weaknesses in Guardiola's Manchester City
It is one defeat. It does not change the fundamental fact that Manchester City will win the league and look probably as well-positioned to win a quadruple as any side has at this stage of a season. There comes a point at which the precise number of wins in a row is irrelevant – the run ended at 21, but whether it had been 18 or 24, it would be a lot, far too many for most sides even to begin to contemplate. They remain a formidable team but they no longer appear invincible.
That happens. All teams have games when the breaks don’t quite go their way – although United were deserved winners on Sunday. All sides have bad days. After three months of good days, perhaps City were simply due one. But still, the manner of United’s victory at the Etihad will cause concern. We’ve seen this before: City rattled by a concession, vulnerable to balls in behind them, looking at a wall that opposes them with no real concept of where the door may be. When Pep Guardiola teams lose games, this is how they lose them.
When Real Madrid appointed José Mourinho in 2010, it was with a specific brief to stop Guardiola, to do whatever it took to end his reign of glory at Barcelona. The Portuguese achieved it, after two grimly attritional seasons of eye-gouging and press-conference warfare, winning the league and forcing an exhausted Guardiola into resignation. Yet it turns out that had they merely wanted to challenge him on the pitch, the ideal candidate was the man who succeeded Mourinho at Old Trafford:
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. There have been 68 managers who have faced Guardiola on four or more occasions; since City won at Anfield last month to level the score against Jürgen Klopp, Solskjaer is the only one to have a positive record
Thomas Tuchel praised Kai Havertz after the German forward helped Chelsea take a major step towards qualifying for the Champions League by beating Everton 2-0.
Havertz has struggled to adjust to the Premier League since his £62m move from Bayer Leverkusen last summer and fitness issues meant that he had not started since Tuchel’s first game as Chelsea’s manager in January.
Playing as a false nine against Everton, though, the 21-year-old was excellent, forcing Ben Godfrey to score an own goal before winning the secondhalf penalty converted by Jorginho.
“I’m very happy with his performance,” Tuchel said. “There is no doubt about his talent. He needs to adapt to the Premier League. He needs to adapt where we play to win every game.
“We have the highest standards. This is a normal process. Today he was excellent. He showed up between the lines and used his potential to accelerate. He took responsibility to finish.”
Chelsea, who remain in fourth place, are unbeaten in 11 games since appointing Tuchel and they are now four points above Everton.
“I truly believe this is a team squad and I can feel the strong bond between the players,” Tuchel said. “They live it in every day of training. I feel it on the sidelines. I feel the support. We need this to have a run and to have results like this.”
Carlo Ancelotti said that Everton, who dropped into sixth after West Ham’s win over Leeds, were well beaten. “They played with more quality,” Everton’s manager said. “We are disappointed. It was really difficult.
“We have to get the result in the next games. Our target is to be in Europe. If we are in the top four it is fantastic. Our target is to be in the top six, top seven. This defeat doesn’t affect us.”
The British & Irish Lions have taken a first step towards setting up a women’s team after it was announced a feasibility study will be conducted to determine whether it is viable.
The Lions have given backing to a women’s tour in principle in recent years, with the managing director, Ben Calveley, having previously described the prospect as a matter of “when not if”. The England head coach, Simon Middleton, and his captain, Sarah Hunter, have also previously spoken out in support of a potential women’s Lions team.
The study – funded by Royal London, announced as a principal partner of the Lions women’s programme on Monday – will explore potential opponents and dates and is expected to present a “strong positive case”. Obstacles still remain, however, including proving that a women’s tour is financially and commercially viable given the Women’s Six Nations does not have a title sponsor.
In addition, England are the only professional team of the Lions’ four constituent nations and, on merit, would make up the vast majority of a touring squad.
England’s victory over New Zealand in 2017 in Rotorua was a curtainraiser to the Lions’ match against the Maori All Blacks but it is unlikely a women’s tour would take place in the same year as the men’s, given that is due to be Women’s World Cup year.
With significant crossover with sevens programmes, there is no obvious place in the schedule but there is a growing appetite to overhaul the women’s calendar in an effort to increase exposure.
Of the three southern-hemisphere sides the Lions traditionally face, New Zealand and Australia would be possible destinations but tours of France or North America – the USA and Canada finished fourth and fifth, respectively, at the last World Cup – could prove more commercially appealing. There is also some precedent following the creation of a women’s Barbarians team four years ago.
“The feasibility study is an important first step in determining whether a women’s Lions team could be established, and we are very grateful to have Royal London’s support and investment,” said Calveley. Royal London has also been unveiled as a sponsor of the men’s series against South Africa this summer.
There is a brazen directness to Angeliño that is equally evident when he speaks as when he plays. On the field, he tears up the left flank with pace and precision, the full-back who also happens to be RB Leipzig’s second highest scorer this season. Off it, he speaks with a blunt and often brutal honesty: no punches pulled, no hidden agendas, just calling it as he sees it. Both feel equally refreshing.
Perhaps time alone has allowed him to focus his thoughts. Holed up on his own in his Leipzig home, cut adrift from his family back home in Galicia, the 24-year-old has spent much of his pandemic-enforced downtime watching box sets and pacing the floors. His partner returned to Spain with his young son, whom he misses terribly. “When you live abroad, this is the worst side,” he says. “Not seeing the family. Not being able to go home or have people coming over when you want. The only good thing is playing games.”
And so for much of the last year, football has been not simply Angeliño’s job, but his release. Uncaged and allowed to run riot on the wing, Angeliño’s boundless, restless energy has been one of the major factors why Leipzig are giving Bayern Munich an almighty fight in this season’s Bundesliga. And why, even with a 2-0 deficit to claw back against Liverpool, they still cannot be counted out in Wednesday night’s Champions League last-16 tie.
It was the promise of freedom – tactical and literal – that convinced Angeliño to trade Manchester City for Leipzig, first on loan and then in a permanent deal signed last month. The player was characteristically unsparing in his criticism of Pep Guardiola for not having the “courage” to give him more of a chance after re-signing him from PSV Eindhoven in the summer of 2019. But he is far happier now under the tutelage of Leipzig’s prodigious 33-yearold coach Julian Nagelsmann, where he has a regular first-team berth and the licence to get forward and finish off attacks.
“It’s the approach he has to the players,” Angeliño replies when asked to explain Nagelsmann’s strengths. “He gave me his trust and confidence since the first day and it was something that gave me a massive push in my career. When someone believes that much in you, and he keeps playing you week in week out, you have to pay back.”
Nagelsmann has said he has already turned down the Real Madrid job and yet it feels inevitable that one of Europe’s super-clubs will manage to prise him away before long. “He’s a great coach,” says Angeliño. “He can coach anywhere he wants. He’s managing a really good team, but imagine what he can do if he has even a better team. He’s so young as a coach.”
When Nagelsmann’s Leipzig are on song, there are few teams on the continent you would rather watch: the intelligent movement, the relentless forward momentum, the speed in transition. “Everything we practise is to reach the box as quickly as possible,” he adds. “We want to play offensive football and kill teams with runs in behind. My position is to be as high as possible, and if my position is good I’ll get a chance, or at least put the final ball in.”
Historically, there has perhaps never been a more exciting time to be an elite full-back, a position evolving and mutating before our eyes. Perhaps the most gripping element of Liverpool’s first-leg victory last month was the duel on the flanks between Tyler Adams and Andy Robertson, Angeliño and Trent Alexander-Arnold. “We got behind their full-backs a few times,” says Angeliño. “Their technique is really good. Alexander-Arnold with the ball is unbelievable, but sometimes he’s too attacking. So we have to explore the weakness, get a few more chances like we did in the first game. That was our mistake: we didn’t put them away.”
Angeliño has some sympathy for Liverpool’s travails this season and is wary of the danger they pose. “They didn’t win the Champions League and the league for nothing,” he says. “You can’t be perfect all the time. [Virgil] Van Dijk was very important for them at the back. But every team has their ups and downs. They can beat anyone when they have a good day, and everyone is fit. So we just have to be very focused.”
And yet despite losing the “home” leg 2-0 – although both games have been moved to Budapest for quarantine reasons – Angeliño feels Leipzig are by no means out of the tie. “We gave them two mistakes and a team like Liverpool with their quality up top, they kill you. But we are positive because we played a strong match. There are still 90 minutes to go, and the pressure I would say is more on them than us. We’re still alive.”
After missing two games with injury, Angeliño is fit and ready to be thrust into the fray. At Leipzig, where he has played the most minutes of any outfield player this season, they have long since accustomed themselves to the Spaniard’s determination to take the field. Before last month’s game against Borussia Mönchengladbach, the club Twitter account announced that Angeliño had been omitted from the squad because of a “minor muscle issue”, only to receive a rebuke from the player himself: “No muscle issue, I’m fit.” (“We’ll discuss it with him, it wasn’t the most clever move,” Nagelsmann wryly observed afterwards.)
But then, when you are in his sort of form, you can scarcely blame him. For a man of just 24, Angeliño is unusually well-travelled: from the Deportivo La Coruña academy to Manchester City, spells in New York, Mallorca and the Netherlands, and now eastern Germany. “It was something that I was looking forward to: being stable in a place,” he says with the contentment of a man who, after a decade on the move, has finally found a place to call home.