By Bulldog Drummond
According to Blick Pep Guardiola is running into more trouble than we might think this morning, not just in the results his team gets but because he is facing personal criticism which he isn’t used to dealing with. Fabio Capello, for example, is quoted as saying of him, “He always wants to be the main actor.”
It seems that in an interview with El Mundo, Capello is quoted as calling him arrogant, while always changing things around just so he could say “It’s not the players who win, it’s me.” But the playing style he uses is, he says, “boring” and according to the commentary, lacks intensity.
And, continues the report, the worse thing is that for the past ten years, lots of managers have copied the Gardiola possession-based style. “Passes and crosses for 90 minutes, without any fight, without any intensity.”
Capello does of course know a thing or two, as he won the Italian title without losing a game in 1991/92, something emulated in England by a certain Arsenal manager whom you might recall.
It is of course, just a little spat, but it makes for a change from reading how wonderful Liverpool are, which is what most media are now running daily.
Anway, onto today’s actual game… The Standard tells us what I think we already probably knew all that, “Arteta will almost certainly bring all of Jurrien Timber, William Saliba, Ethan Nwaneri, Martin Odegaard and Leandro Trossard back into the starting lineup after they started the PSV game on the bench. Raheem Sterling is ineligible against Chelsea due to the terms of his loan move from the Blues.”
Give me Sport gives us a list of those injured, which actually looks rather familiar now… Saka, they say, is due back on 2 April, so not long now, but Tomiyasu won’t be fit til the summer. Likewise, Havertz (although I think there is a misprint in what year he’ll be back), while Jesus will walk upon the green grass of Arsenal in November.
Their team appears to contain an extended name in defence, but as ever I dutifully reprint it as they write it.
Raya;
Timbert, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly;
Partey, Rice, Odegaard;
Nwaneri, Trossard, Martinelli..
90 min get the right person at full back and have a variation in the forward line
Raya;
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly;
Partey, Rice, Odegaard;
Nwaneri, Merino, Martinelli.
Sports Mole, who generally do rather well with this sort of prediction, perhaps because they put it in normal writing rather than with giant told headlines, offer us something rather interesting in the forward line…
Raya;
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly;
Odegaard, Partey, Rice;
Nwaneri, Martinelli, Trossard
And that’s it. We’ll shortly be making the journey from the East Midlands south, and all being well, will reappear tomorrow unless something utterly amazing makes us feel like something extra should be said tonight.
Have a great game.
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