manchester Page 9 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Perfection Is Now The Standard In Pep Guardiola's Premier League
The fundamental idea undergirding the pervading ideology of Premier League exceptionalism is that the English league is uniquely competitive. All the manifestations of this exceptionalism—from the holding of the Premier League title above all other domestic league trophies and nearly on par with the...

Manchester United Need A Complete Face Lift To Rise Again
At various points this season, Manchester United have been dying, dead, buried, on the way back, back again, and lost in the wilderness. It’s fitting, then, that on Easter Sunday, United finally reached its lowest point of the season: a 4-0 loss to Everton, United’s worst defeat to the Toffees in cl...

VAR Will Ruin Everything
Yesterday, millions around the world watched Raheem Sterling cap one of the wildest matches they will ever see with a stunning last-gasp winning goal, only to be told a minute or so later that it never happened....

VAR Got It Right, In The Most Confusing Way Possible
What the fuck was that? ...

Philippe Coutinho And Barcelona Might Yet Have A Happy Ending Together
When Barcelona purchased Philippe Coutinho from Liverpool back in the winter of 2018 for an eye-popping €160 million fee, Blaugrana fans thought they had found their next Andrés Iniesta. It made sense: Coutinho can dribble, create, and score all at elite levels, and though the Brazilian needed to wo...

Oh No, David de Gea, What Are You Doing?
Manchester United came into the Camp Nou on Tuesday knowing that two goals would likely get them to the semi-finals of the Champions League. Not an easy task at all, but a doable one. But then United gagged up two awful first-half goals, one from an inexplicable David de Gea boner, and that looks to...

Gerard Piqué Is Barcelona's Other Superman
It must be strange, being a defender of historic greatness for a solid decade, starring for arguably the greatest club and national teams of all time, and still winding up somehow underrated. And yet, that is the fate of Barcelona and Spain center back Gerard Piqué—though if he continues to put toge...

Tottenham Overcome Terrible Luck To Beat Manchester City
Tottenham fans could be forgiven for believing that their club is cursed. It seems like Spurs somehow give up that one goal or lose that one game or suffer that one injury that consigns them to failure at the least convenient possible times, even during this miraculously successful spell under manag...

Fulham Are Completely Useless
There’s no shame in losing to Manchester City, particularly if you’re a relegation side, but Fulham deserve to be heavily scrutinized for their performance on Saturday, losing 2-0 at home to the Premier League leaders. Honestly, it was so much worse than 2-0 implies; City got started with a fifth-mi...

Now Ole Gunnar Solskjær Has A Chance To Prove He's The Real Deal
I’d bet there isn’t a person with decision-making power at Manchester United who saw this coming, other than maybe Ole Gunnar Solskjær himself. But here we are, with United rewarding Solskjær for his complete turnaround of what looked like a lost season by officially making him the club’s permanent ...

The Premier League Top-Four Race Is Now Hotter Than Hell
If the past couple years have been the Premier League’s Golden Age, thanks to the league’s development of top-to-bottom quality and a powerful Big Six, making it the one domestic league all soccer fans practically must follow, then this season might just be this Golden Age’s Golden Year. All season ...

Mr. I Love This Game Patrice Evra Has Apparently Pissed Off The Weenies At PSG
It seemed that PSG had taken its final L for the season in its embarrassing collapse against Manchester United, but someone at the French club decided to add one last self-own to the tally....

VAR Is Making A Mess Of The Champions League
However we got here, we’re certainly here now. When the Champions League announced that it would introduce VAR—Video Assistant Referee, essentially soccer’s answer to the instant replay challenge—midway through this current campaign, the system brought years of baggage with it. Its deployment at las...

Manchester United Boot Fraudulent Clowns PSG From The Champions League
Paris Saint-Germain, the most inept great team in Champions League play over the past handful of years, saw their dreams dashed in the competition once again as Manchester United orchestrated a shock comeback by winning today’s round of 16 second leg by a score of 3-1....

Chelsea Goalie Invented A New Way To Disrespect Maurizio<em></em> Sarri In The League Cup Final<em></em>
As the final minutes of extra time in the Carabao Cup final ticked away, the action started to reach levels that had not been seen all game. No, it wasn’t because of a goal, it was just a rare act of defiance from a player towards an out-of-favor manager whose locker room troubles manifested themsel...

Who The Hell Is Going To Win The Champions League?
Barcelona. Real Madrid. Liverpool. Juventus. Manchester City. These are all European soccer teams, and more specifically the teams in the Champions League round of 16 that seemed most likely teams to take home the double-eared trophy on June 1. Barcelona and Real Madrid have won the last five Champi...

Chelsea Are Getting A Ride On The Paul Pogba Experience
Manchester United haven’t had much of the ball through the first half of today’s FA Cup match against Chelsea, and when they have gotten possession they haven’t managed to produce very many crisp passages of play. They lead 2-0 at half time, though, because they have Paul Pogba....

Nobody Enjoyed PSG's Beatdown Of Manchester United More Than Ángel Di María
Manchester United hosted Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League today. PSG winger Ángel Di María once enjoyed a brief and ignominious tenure at United. These two facts made for a predictably tetchy atmosphere at Old Trafford, with the United fans wanting to express their still simmering anger a...

Sergio Agüero Is The Greatest Premier League Goalscorer Ever
Sergio Agüero scored three goals in Manchester City’s 6-0 evisceration of Chelsea on Sunday. He was the team’s best player on the day, just as he has been all season long and indeed for the duration of his eight record-breaking seasons in the Premier League. For as routine as the Argentine hitman ha...

David De Gea Is Proof That Goalkeepers Should Embrace The Kick Save
You can not read the book on goalkeeping because the book does not exist, and that is for the better. A book might be helpful for outlining fundamentals and common techniques, but it might also be an anchor drowning effectiveness in a pool of orthodoxy, a dagger sacrificing creative problem-solving...