6) Are Sturridge and Liverpool a perfect match?
Daniel Sturridge and Liverpool have had some beautiful moments together and should still be perfect for each other, yet too often they seem an uneasy match. Nearly all Liverpool players were substandard at Swansea but the worry regarding Sturridge is that this was not the first time recently that he has appeared to have assigned himself the role of luxury player, which is not a role for which Jürgen Klopp has regular use. Sturridge has magic in his feet and a fine scoring rate and can do things that none of the other strikers at the club can do but he doesn’t do them quite often enough to justify the lack of pressing or involvement when not in possession. Perhaps he is still not fully confident about his durability following his injury problems. Whatever the reason, he is not likely to be a constant starter for Klopp’s team, especially when Divock Origi and Danny Ings return, until he finds the constant dynamism demanded from forwards at all top clubs. Given how consistently good they could be together, it would be a pity if the club and the player continued to give the impression of drifting towards a separation.
7) Leko shines then Tony Pulis lets rip at academy system
Are academies these days too soft on young players? West Brom’s manager certainly thinks so. Before likening his 17-year-old starlet Jonathan Leko to Crystal Palace’s Yannick Bolasie after his scintillating full Premier League debut on Saturday, Tony Pulis let rip at a system he believes is not producing the best from talented prospects. “I keep saying, academy football is a system that is supposed to be there for excellence,” Pulis said. “In any other sport players would be driven and pushed. Playing in important games with seasoned professionals is important and for some reason a lot of academies want to keep their players playing under-21 football. It’s beyond me. I’ve watched under-21 football and it’s certainly not preparation for what is needed out there. “I thought he [Leko] was fantastic,” he added. “He’s a bit similar to Bolasie at Crystal Palace, he has raw pace and talent. He does things that are instinctive. The kid can be a good player, but he needs to learn the game with professionals.” Leko, who like Bolasie has his roots in the Democratic Republic of Congo, definitely looks like a star in the making. He moved to the UK as a child to escape civil war and has already represented England at youth level. Leko is also the eighth West Brom academy player to have featured in a matchday squad this season. Not a bad return. But, as is the nature of the Premier League these days, Pulis and new technical director Nicky Hammond will be under pressure to spend big again this summer.
8) Berghuis the enigma raises questions of Sánchez Flores
Watford have succeeded this season despite fielding on the flanks players who are enormously more comfortable when played infield. José Manuel Jurado has played the vast majority of his 1,762 Premier League minutes on the left wing, claiming a single assist. Valon Behrami, Étienne Capoue, Almen Abdi and Adlène Guedioura have all had a go at pretending to be wingers, offering little effective width, even less pace, few decent crosses, a collective unwillingness to take on their opponents and a combined tally of three assists and two goals. In January the Hornets attempted to address this weakness, bidding for Andros Townsend and signing, for an estimated £6m, the Moroccan winger Nordin Amrabat.
Meanwhile, Steven Berghuis sat on the sidelines. The Dutch winger, who arrived for £4.5m from AZ Alkmaar in July, appeared off the bench in five of the club’s first nine league games, for an average of 17 minutes each, and then disappeared. Between the middle of October, when he looked out of his depth when brought on with his side already 2-0 down against Arsenal, and the end of April he was on the bench six times, left out of the matchday squad 18 times – not featuring between 2 January and 2 April – and played not a single minute of league football.
At West Ham 10 days ago he actually came on off the bench, playing for 34 minutes and receiving favourable reviews. On Saturday he played another 33 minutes and transformed the game. He was named man of the match, and ifWatford had a cross of the season award he would have wrapped that up too, with the centre for Troy Deeney’s last-minute equaliser. Clearly desperate to impress, he cut inside at pace, skipped past defenders, took shots and passed successfully over long and short distance. He looked, in short, like the player – one of the players, at least – that his side has so badly needed, at least over the last four months.
Quique Sánchez Flores said after the game that Berghuis “wasn’t ready to play” earlier in the season, but has since “worked very hard”. From the sidelines it was hard to know if the winger’s excellence on Saturday represented evidence of the Spaniard’s questionable decision-making, or of his superlative coaching.
9) Martínez may leave Everton in better position than he found them
Look at the league table and Everton have regressed on Roberto Martínez’s watch. David Moyes’s long reign ended in sixth place and, while his successor initially took them up to fifth, back-to-back lower-half finishes now beckon for the first time since 2002. And yet, in some respects, the Spaniard’s legacy will be better than his inheritance. Admittedly, his successor will have to tighten up the defence and a reliance on thirty-somethings such as Leighton Baines, Phil Jagielka and Gareth Barry is an issue that requires addressing. Yet many of Moyes’s other ageing stalwarts have either left – in the cases of Sylvain Distin, Nikica Jelavic and Marouane Fellaini – or have been phased out, with Steven Pienaar, Leon Osman and Tim Howard fringe figures now. Martínez has switched the focus to a younger generation. Ross Barkley had started only four top-flight games before his appointment and John Stones none. Now the latter, along with Romelu Lukaku, could bring in more than £100m. Everton’s results have been underwhelming for the last two seasons but Martínez has recruited players whose careers are on the up, in James McCarthy, Muhamed Besic, Gerard Deulofeu and, perhaps, Ramiro Funes Mori. He also has a generation of young defenders, in Matthew Pennington, Brendan Galloway, Tyias Browning, Luke Garbutt and Mason Holgate, some of whom could break through. What he has not done, over the last two years, is to harness the considerable potential of his side. But, assuming he departs this summer, his replacement may find much to his liking at Goodison Park.
10) Van Gaal unwilling to risk defeat for chance of victory
A feature of Louis van Gaal’s time at Manchester United has been substitutions as ineffectual as they are unfathomable, and Sunday’s game was no different. With Manchester City facing a difficult game at Southampton, followed by a trip to Madrid, followed by a visit from Arsenal, United had the chance to apply some pressure by beating Leicester. No small task, but after the hour with the scores level, Van Gaal again took predictable, conservative options, unwilling to risk defeat for an essential victory. As such, his team finished the game with one man up front, the message of three like-for-like changes typical and clear: the players underperformed, but the system was unimprovable.
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