Here he is heaving into view from way out, belabouring George Best’s ankles with a proper old-school reducer. It’s a textbook piece of uberviolence – a vicious sliding tackle perfectly timed and executed, as graceful as brutality can ever get – but it was all for naught. Best ignored Chopper’s galoot-isms, somehow retained his balance – despite being kicked almost horizontal in mid-air – and continued his run.
Beauty and the beast. As the willowy, long-haired Best sashays round the keeper and calmly slots home, as androgynous as you like, Harris, bloated with testosterone, picks himself heavily off the turf.
Chelsea was like that too? Except I suspect that City wouldn’t mind having him in the squad now.”
I agree. Palmer is best with a blank canvas, and Pep doesn’t really do those. That said, Palmer could still have played from the right for City and scored 20+ goals a season.
Premier League a week ago.
Manchester United news cycle to bring you an association football match from Old Trafford: United v Chelsea in the Premier League. The focus will be on United, as it tends to be when they’ve just sacked another manager, but it’s probably a bigger game for Chelsea. A win would take them fourth in the table*, five points behind the leaders Liverpool, and set them up for an even bigger game at home to Arsenal next weekend.
All logic says Chelsea won’t be title contenders until next season at the earliest, although this isn’t a club that cares much for logic. And they have Cole Palmer, whose imagination and brilliance are making even the most level-headed neutral get carried away.
Even so, if you offered Enzo Maresca a fourth-place finish he’d surely take it. Ruben Amorim certainly would. United – spoiler alert! – have had a desperate start to the season, yet the imperfections of the other big teams provide a soupçon of hope. If United win today they’ll be only three points behind Chelsea and four behind Arsenal. Funny old game.
Kick off 4.30pm.
* Third if Aston Villa don’t win at Spurs in the 2pm game. You can follow that with John Brewin.
Source: theguardian.com
