The Warm-Up: Cech’s alpha phase goes awry, small-game player Ronaldo, Bobby's back

Published 13/08/2018 at 06:46 GMT

Petr Cech’s flirtation with alpha maleism (absolutely not a word) goes awry upon its first challenge, Ronaldo keeps performing and Robert Lewandowski is back. It is Monday’s Warm-up.

Arsenal's Mesut Ozil, Petr Cech and Granit Xhaka look dejected after Manchester City scored their second goal

Image credit: Reuters

MONDAY’S BIG STORIES

Petr Cech’s alpha male phase goes awry

Now the Warm-Up is no expert in ethnology. However, after a summer glued to Love Island, its alpha male-dar is in pretty decent shape. So, when pictures of Petr Cech's appearance during a pre-season friendly against Crawley Town began circulating on social media, The Warm-up took a double take. And then a triple take. Fear confirmed, Cech had gone alpha.

Transfers

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The 36-year-old returned from his summer holidays absolutely stacked. Bernd Leno had, The Warm-Up posits, encroached on Cech’s patch and the stopper got on the weights.

However, early signs suggested this new, more physically imposing Cech was perhaps onto something. In an International Champions Cup friendly against Chelsea, the Arsenal goalkeeper saved two penalties: one from Alvaro Morata in normal time and one from Ruben Loftus-Cheek in a shootout Arsenal would go on to win. Leno, for the uninitiated, is a penalty specialist.

The ultimate alpha move. Cech had taken Leno on at his own game. Adam Collard would be proud. Unai Emery seemed impressed, too, and Cech started Arsenal’s opening Premier League game against Manchester City.

One issue: Cech appears to have left his agility on the squat rack. The Arsenal keeper was leaden-footed for both of Manchester City’s goals. True, both Raheem Sterling and Bernardo Silva’s efforts were well-placed and well-struck but there was a worrying resignation to Cech’s languorous slumps to the ground as the ball hit the back of the net. He just seemed heavy.

Throw into the mix Cech’s continued inability to play with the ball at his feet – see his almost glorious own goal in the first half - and Emery’s insistence on his goalkeepers to do so and Cech could soon find himself with even more time to hone those bulging biceps.

***Disclaimer alert: Petr Cech is obviously not an alpha but a dedicated professional trying to eke out the absolute maximum from his career. The fear is, however, his dedication to his craft may have been to his own detriment***

Cristiano Ronaldo: the ultimate small-game player

Ronaldo - Bonucci - 2018

Image credit: Getty Images

As detailed here by James Horncastle, tradition dictates that Juventus take on their B side in an annual pre-season friendly in the town of Villar Perosa, some 60km outside of Turin.

This year, however, things were slightly different. A chap named Cristiano Ronaldo was making his debut for the Bianconeri, and that meant traffic jams, dogs dressed in Juve kits and general bedlam.

It was a far cry from Ronaldo’s last club outing as an association footballer: the Champions League final at the Olympic Stadium in Kiev. Could the ultimate big-game player rouse himself for this provincial business?

Absolutely.

Seven minutes in. Goal. That man always delivers.

On whatever stage. Not just a big-game player but also a small-game player. What a human.

Robert Lewandowski remembers where the goal is

Lewandowski (tout à droite), a signé un triplé en finale de la Supercoupe d'Allemagne.

Image credit: Getty Images

Robert Lewandowski had an utterly dreadful World Cup.

All the more surprising considering he set a European record of 16 goals in qualifying as Poland coasted to Russia 2018. The 29-year-old scored in nine of their 10 qualifiers; he hit an astonishing 57% of Poland's 28 goals en route to the 2018 World Cup.

Poland’s talisman then set about stinking out the World Cup; he, like the rest of his team-mates, was abject. The Warm-up worried what psychological scars the shambles might have imbued on the marksman. Once the yips take hold they are difficult to shake.

Well, those fears were unfounded. The Bundesliga's premier gunslinger was back slinging guns in the DFL-Supercup on Sunday, plundering a hat-trick in a five-goal trouncing of Eintracht Frankfurt.

Bundesliga beware, Bobby is back.

IN OTHER NEWS

West Ham evidence that Mo Money can in fact lead to Mo Problems...

.... particularly if you have no idea what to do with said money.

Both Liverpool and West Ham spent lavishly over the summer. However, the contrast in their business acumen was clear to see at Anfield on Sunday. Liverpool spent big on Alisson Becker and Fabinho in an attempt to address their glaring weakness: an inability to stop shipping goals; while West Ham spent big in an attempt to address their glaring weakness: they are bad at football.

The Reds identified players that addressed specific weaknesses in their team; the Hammers, it appears, only got as far as identifying players.

Manuel Pellegrini's men were awful. And proof, that mo money can indeed lead to mo problems - they spent a load, £99 million to be exact, but have compounded their issues. A team that looked sluggish and one-paced last season spent big and now appear to have more sluggish and one-paced players on more money.

West Ham United's English midfielder Jack Wilshere (L) and West Ham United's English midfielder Mark Noble are both struck painful blows by the ball during the English Premier League football match between Liverpool and West Ham United at Anfield in Liver

Image credit: Getty Images

Granted it is one game but their transfer dealings look slipshod.

IN THE CHANNELS

Georgia Stanway remains a wonderful footballer.

WATCH THE WOMEN'S U20 WORLD CUP LIVE ON EUROSPORT AND EUROSPORT PLAYER

HAT TIP

Chelsea's new manager Maurizio Sarri is an interesting chap - he was spotted eating a cigarette on Saturday.

Therefore, Rory Smith's deep dive on Sarri, the son of Tuscany, is definitely worth your time.

There are, by and large, three routes into elite management in soccer: as a former player (Pep Guardiola); rising through the ranks at an academy (Benítez); and serving an apprenticeship under an established, respected patron (Mourinho). Sarri took none of them. He is, by the standards of his peers, an outsider: he spent the majority of his career not only working away from fully professional soccer, in Tuscany’s regional leagues, but doing so part-time, while holding down a full-time job in wealth management for Banca Toscana and, later, Monte dei Paschi di Siena. That background has, at times, been held against him: he has said that he has been witheringly referred to as the employee by some critics, simply because he has done another job.

HEROES AND ZEROS

Hero: Wayne Mark Rooney

MLS is hardly the most testing of leagues. However, that is mightily impressive from Wazza - saved an almost certain goal before creating one.

ZERO: This Burundi U17 player

There are tackles; there are let-'em-know'you're-there reducers; then there is this assault.

RETRO CORNER

News broke on Sunday morning that Ronaldo, Il Fenomeno, was seriously ill in hospital with pneumonia; thankfully the great man took to social media later that day to reveal that he was on the mend and expected to be released from hospital on Monday. With that in mind, now seems an opportune moment to re-live his excellence via some of his former clubs.

PSV

INTER MILAN

REAL MADRID