The 2018/19 Premier League season has passed the halfway point. With 20 games played, Liverpool are sitting pretty at the top, seven points clear of champions Manchester City ahead of their top-two showdown at the Etihad on Thursday night. As you would expect, some of Jürgen Klopp’s title-chasers feature high in a number of the major stats categories. After all, they have won the most matche...

The noise around Old Trafford during Manchester United’s 4-1 defeat of Bournemouth was as good an indication as any of the feel-good factor sweeping over the club. Cries of “attack, attack, attack” which were chanted in desperate hope under the tutelage of José Mourinho now come with an air of expectation with Ole Gunnar Solskjær at the helm. Arriving at his former club with plenty of credit in th...

It was most likely a pre-scheduled social media post. Paul Pogba, in shadows, pulling a face that could – maybe tenuously – be read as a smirk. Or maybe it was a frown. “Caption this,” the post read, before hashtags and @s of club and sponsors, and then “#heretocreate”. But timing is everything on social media and news had broken that José Mourinho had been sacked by Manchester United. Suddenly a...

“When the team is defensively stronger and doesn’t need people in midfield that are more worried about giving some balance to the team than being involved in creation and attacking dynamics, I think the horizons for Fred change completely,” José Mourinho said last week. With only 15 minutes on the pitch against Arsenal and none against Fulham, perhaps the same applies to Paul Pog...

Two goals in the final four minutes saw Manchester United come from behind to clinch a dramatic 2-1 win over Juventus after Cristiano Ronaldo had scored his first Champions League goal for the Bianconeri.  The result means United are second in Group H, two points ahead of Valencia, with games against the Spaniards and Young Boys to come. Juve dominated the match but lost momentum when José Mourinh...

From the moment the 2018 English summer transfer window closed on the eve of the Premier League season, José Mourinho has been taking every opportunity to let the world know he wanted more from his employers. Manchester United brought in three players ahead of the 2017/18 season: midfielder Fred, teenage full-back Diogo Dalot and back-up goalkeeper Lee Grant. But they did not sign a centre-back, a...

For the first time this season, Manchester United managed to marry consecutive halves of good performance when Everton visited Old Trafford on Sunday evening. The outcome: a routine, drama-free 2-1 victory; the kind of which José Mourinho will be hoping to see more often if the prediction he made in his pre-match programme notes is to come true – “I believe that at the end of December we wil...

The story is, understandably, all about Manchester United. But don’t overlook West Ham United, as it would be easy to do. For the Hammers were exceptional against the Red Devils. Tactically more astute. Defensively more organised. And offensively more threatening. The 3-1 victory was exactly what they deserved. Felipe Anderson opened the scoring after just five minutes and Andriy Yarmolenko&...

Manchester United got their 2018/19 Champions League campaign off to the perfect start with a professional, routine victory over Swiss champions Young Boys, winning 3-0 on their trip to Bern. Comfortable throughout, José Mourinho’s men made their qualitative advantage pay dividends, with man of the match Paul Pogba twice on the scoresheet in the first half, before then providing an assist fo...

Manchester United boss José Mourinho described Paul Pogba as a “monster” after his dominant performance in their opening Premier League victory over Leicester City. The France World Cup winner cast aside any fitness concerns to produce a superb display at Old Trafford but talk over his future just will not go away. Most of that is down to Pogba after he said: “If you’re not...

The World Cup is over and suddenly life seems a little gloomier. Fans are now stuck in the barren football wilderness known as ‘pre-season,’ where the transfer rumour mill kicks into overdrive and we count the hours until the Premier League returns. But before that, we need to look back on a World Cup that will live long in the memory. It was a tournament that exceeded expectations, de...

France, for the second time in their history, have won the World Cup, beating Croatia 4-2 in the Luzhniki Stadium on Sunday. Twenty years ago, Zinedine Zidane stepped up to become his country’s hero, scoring twice against Brazil in the Stade de France. Through the 90 minutes in Moscow, Les Bleus discovered new heroes all across the pitch. Antoine Griezmann’s free-kick was headed into his own...

There’s almost a foot in height difference between Paul Pogba and N’Golo Kanté. They look like they should be playing different sports, and yet have forged such a successful partnership at the heart of France’s midfield. Didier Deschamps has come in for some criticism about how his team has played at this World Cup, though. With the array of attacking talents that the country has at their d...

Twenty years ago, the names of Zinedine Zidane, Emmanuel Petit and Marcel Desailly became French heroes. After their 1-0 win over Belgium on Tuesday night, in four days time, a new breed of stars get to make history. A 51st-minute header from Samuel Umtiti gave Didier Deschamps’ side a 1-0 lead, rising higher and ahead of Marouane Fellaini to guide the ball beyond Thibaut Courtois. After the only...

The knockout stage of the World Cup is when the competition comes to life. Forget what came before and during France’s 4-3 victory over Argentina on Saturday, we waved goodbye to the group stage. It had everything; goals, a penalty, deflections, superb performances up and down the pitch and the emergence of a youngster on the world stage. Antoine Griezmann opened the scoring after 13 minutes...

Unbeaten, with just a Mile Jedinak penalty conceded and 18 outfield players used in the group stage, France appear to be in prime shape heading into Saturday’s last 16 glamour clash against Argentina. With full-backs Benjamin Mendy and Djibril Sidibé playing in the final match of Group C against Denmark, Didier Deschamps has a fully-fit group of players to choose from ahead of the meeting with La...

The signing of Nemanja Matić made a lot of sense in the summer for Manchester United. They needed another high-quality central midfielder and he was one that had just won the Premier League and who had previously worked with Jose Mourinho. However, despite a likely second place finish, the shine that United had at the start of the campaign with the arrivals of Matic and Romelu Lukaku has appeared...