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Player Analysis: Silas Wamangituka
When looking for destinations to visit in south-western France, you would be forgiven for overlooking Alès. With the greatest respect to this town of 40,000, nothing much happens here. Biologist Louis Pasteur performed research on silkworm diseases in the town in the 1860s. World Cup-winning defender Laurent Blanc was born here in 1965. It is…
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Finding a Paul Pogba Replacement
Assuming that Manchester United persist with the 4-2-3-1 formation that has become part and parcel of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s time at the club, which is looking likely due to Bruno Fernandes’s immense form in the #10 position, replacements for Paul Pogba, who has shown no signs of extending his contract past its current expiry of…
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Tactical Analysis: Christophe Galtier’s Lille
Three years ago, Lille Olympique Sporting Club were entrenched in a crisis. The appointment of Marcelo Bielsa as manager had not had the desired effect, with ‘El Loco’ freezing out experienced veterans such as Vincent Enyeama, Rio Mavuba, and Marko Baša and coming to blows with sporting director Luís Campos in a power struggle over…
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Romelu Lukaku: The One-Man Press Resistance Mechanism
Since arriving from Manchester United for a club-record fee of €80 million, Romelu Lukaku has enjoyed a new lease of life at Antonio Conte’s Inter Milan, scoring 47 goals and 8 assists in 67 appearances. More than his goals, Lukaku himself provides a direct route of ball progression, allowing Inter to escape pressure and launch…
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Conceptualising Superiorities in Football
One of the crucial concepts to understanding positional play is that of superiorities as they dictate in practical terms how to be decisive in the respective phases of possession. These superiorities are numerical, positional, and qualitative. In this article, I will investigate the process of how these superiorities are achieved. Numerical Superiorities This…
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Using the Touchline: A Deep Dive Into Rangers’s Pressing Scheme
After a decade of mediocrity that saw them languish in the shadows whilst their eternal rivals established an unprecedented hegemony in Scottish football, things are looking up for Rangers. Steven Gerrard’s side currently sit 13 points above Celtic (who have two games in hand), and after finishing atop a group of Benfica, Standard Liège and…
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Premier League Predictions: Matchday Fourteen
This past week was a busy one with a midweek fixture list in the Premier League. Here’s what to watch out for on Matchday 14. Crystal Palace vs Liverpool Crystal Palace come into this game on the back of a 1-1 draw at West Ham. Yet facing the champions might not prove as…
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Oscar: The Brazilian Superstar Who Swapped Chelsea for China
“He isn’t here to just stroll around; he wants to win and I think the fans see that he’s not here just for the money but to make a positive impact,” explains a member of the coaching staff at Shanghai SIPG. For many, when Oscar suddenly swapped the Premier League for the Chinese Super…
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How Do You Solve a Problem Like Kai Havertz?
When Kai Havertz made the move from Bayer Leverkusen to Chelsea for a fee of £72 million, it seemed Chelsea had bagged themselves a superstar in the making. Having recorded more goals and assists than Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi had at a similar age, Havertz looked set to take the Premier League by storm…
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Roberto De Zerbi’s High-Flying Sassuolo Side
Serie A is still often depicted as a defensive league, the home of Catenaccio. Fabio Capello’s 1993/94 AC Milan side did win the Scudetto whilst only scoring 36 goals, so this claim isn’t entirely unjustified, but Italian football has progressed since then. Take Atalanta for example. They managed 98 goals last season and provided some…
