The Warm-Up: Do Manchester City have to win to save their season?
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Published 10/04/2018 at 07:44 GMT
Plus: a thunderstorm, Torres to leave Atletico and Spurs let Kane have the ice cream...
Pep Guardiola is determined to put up a strong fight in the Champions League (Richard Sellers/PA)
Image credit: PA Sport
TUESDAY’S BIG STORIES
Will City’s season be a disappointment if they don’t win?
Manchester City already have one trophy in the bag, they’ll win the Premier League in the next couple of weeks and they’ve played some of the most scintillating football we will ever see. But such has been the hype and expectation around their season – from the media, and from Pep Guardiola himself – will it actually turn out to be a disappointment if they “only” win two trophies at a canter?
Certainly, overturning a three-goal deficit in the Champions League against Liverpool tonight, then going on to win the whole thing, would help rather.
“Of course to go through you have to make the perfect game, create chances, be clinical and concede few chances,” Guardiola said. “All the conditions have to be perfect. The aim is tough but we have 90 minutes and in football everything can happen.”
Sounds easy enough. Should be an absolutely belting game, this. Tune in.
Klopp warns of City 'thunderstorm'
And what of Liverpool? How do they approach this game? Odd as it might sound, it may actually be tough for them to formulate a gameplan. They beat City the first time by going all-out and blitzing their opponents, but it would take a pretty decent set of stones to try that again, away from home, knowing that Guardiola’s side will probably be doing exactly the same.
“I saw the game of City v United at the weekend,” said Jurgen Klopp. “It was one of the best first halves I ever saw. It was like a thunderstorm. Then, in the second half, they change the game. After the first [United] goal, one team gains rhythm, another team loses rhythm.
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Jurgen Klopp insists the plan does not change for the second leg of Liverpool’s Champions League quarter-final (Richard Sellers/PA)
Image credit: PA Sport
“We can go through all scenarios – they score early, we score early, all that stuff – but it is not to plan like this. I can tell the boys ‘Score early!’ but I’m not sure that really helps. We have to think about football – what we have to do, where we have to do it.
“This is half-time. It was the same at half-time in Anfield: the game is not over. We were in the lead, nothing else. Being in the lead is not winning. We are still in the lead but we didn’t win so far. We need a little bit more from this game.”
Torres to leave Atletico
And so, one of the most genuine footballing sentimental stories comes to an end. Fernando Torres will leave Atletico Madrid at the end of the season, for a destination currently unknown, but presumably with the gratitude of many Atleti fans to help him on his way.
Torres said:
This is going to be my last season at the club. It hasn’t been an easy decision and it has been tough to make, but I feel obliged to tell the fans. You can see that my role has been very limited. I believe it’s the right time to announce it. My conscience is clear and I believe I’ve given everything I could. My idea had been to hang up my boots here. “I want to continue playing for two, three or five years. I haven’t chosen another team or taken any decision. Now I will listen to offers, evaluate them and choose one. Before now, I didn’t want to do that.”
Word is he’ll be off to China or America to make one last big slice of cash before it’s time to retire. People will remember Torres in many different ways, but
?
IN OTHER NEWS
Hats off to Udinese for making like a Monday night five-a-side team and have their starting XI at the weekend wear 11 different shirts against Lazio. The shirts have been auctioned for charity.
HEROES AND ZEROS
Hero: Harry Kane
It’s quite encouraging to see a striker have such a single-minded, obsessive to the point of distraction, pointlessly obsessed attitude to scoring goals. If he’s in the vicinity of the ball and it goes in, he wants the goal. Strikers are different, they think like this, and it’s quite impressive that Kane has managed to persuade Tottenham to indulge him to the point of appealing to the powers that be to award him the goal against Stoke on Saturday, initially credited to Christian Eriksen.
Zeros: Tottenham Hotspur
Still, just because your boy wants the ice cream, doesn’t mean you should give him the ice cream.
HAT TIP
He made an instant impression, with La Repubblica claiming he’d left his captain Franco Baresi on the floor with a piece of skill in one of his first training sessions, earning a round of applause from his new teammates. Despite being one of six stellar foreign imports in Capello’s squad – of which only three could play at any time – Savicevic was relaxed about his prospects of regular football: “I am convinced we will all have the space to find satisfaction.”
If you’ll excuse a little patronage, here’s the Warm-Up’s own Adam Hurrey with a piece about 90’s hero Dejan Savicevic.
RETRO CORNER
And hey, let’s make it a theme. Apologies if your working day is now ruined and you’re late and you get sacked because you’ve watched this a billion times. Trust us, it’s worth it.
COMING UP
If the country’s elite footballers competing in a tension-filled Champions League tie for the highest stakes in the game doesn’t flick your switch, we do have a full Championship programme for you. Or, if you prefer, Roma v Barcelona, if dead rubbers are your bag.
Tomorrow’s Warm-Up will be brought to you by Jack Lang, a late call off the bench as he rapidly removes his tracksuit only to realise he’s left his shirt in the dressing room and gets a thorough coating from the Warm-Up gaffer.
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