The FC’s crew agree that an off-the-pace midfield was a bigger worry for Tottenham than missing key players in their loss to Ajax.

Gab Marcotti was more impressed with Ajax’s maturity and ability to manage a 1-0 result away from home than with their attacking prowess.

LONDON — For 25 minutes Tuesday, Ajax appeared to be playing a different sport to Tottenham Hotspur.

Their superiority was such, their passing so quick, their thoughts so clear, that if you’d offered most Spurs fans a 3-0 defeat after the first quarter of the game, plenty would have taken it. Spurs played as if they had been spun round a dozen times before they emerged onto the pitch, dazed and unsteady. Ajax made 132 accurate passes in the first 15 minutes. Spurs had 43.

“For the first 20…

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The FC’s crew agree that an off-the-pace midfield was a bigger worry for Tottenham than missing key players in their loss to Ajax.
Tottenham manager Mauricio Pochettino has defended his medical staff for controversially allowing Jan Vertonghen to play on despite suffering a head injury in his side’s 1-0 Champions League semifinal first-leg loss to Ajax on Tuesday.
Pochettino said the Dutch defender had passed initial concussion tests administered by doctors, but moments after re-entering the field of play he walked to the touchline and seemed to pass out before being helped away down the tunnel.
After the…

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Norwich City booked their place in the top flight for next season when they beat Blackburn Rovers 2-1 on Saturday. Here we take a look at Canaries and what they will bring to the Premier League.
Last time Norwich were in the Premier League
Norwich’s last season in the top division was 2015-16, and in truth it wasn’t a huge surprise that they went down. They were promoted thanks to a late season run in the Championship after Alex Neil took over, and almost certainly weren’t ready to go up. They made…

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The Premier League title fight between Liverpool and Man City has felt like a case of Goliath vs. Goliath. But has it actually been entertaining? Nick Miller recaps another wild weekend.
Question of the weekend
“I was trembling,” said Pep Guardiola, about the closing stages of Manchester City’s narrow 1-0 win over Burnley.
In some respects, it’s a relief to hear that the manager of this relentless winning machine gets nervous: This was City’s 12th consecutive victory, meaning that since they last…

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Alejandro Moreno and Alexis Nunes predict the results of the most important matches of week 36 of the English Premier League.

The ESPN FC panel predict who will finish 4th in the Premier League, with no one believing Manchester United can get it done.

ESPN FC’s Shaka Hislop says that Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s recent comments and Manchester United’s poor run of form proves he’s unfit to be manager.

Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling joked that nobody wants to see Liverpool win the Premier League as he won an award for his stance against racism at the BT Sports Industry Awards.

ESPN FC’s Alejandro Moreno is incredulous as to why Man United midfielder Paul Pogba was voted into the PFA Team of the Year.

It’s been a miserable campaign for Manchester United, but despite all their suffering, they could still qualify for next season’s Champions League. Nick Miller previews the weekend’s Premier League action by highlighting its most compelling storylines …

Manchester United can salvage their season

Roy Keane’s assertion that this current crop of Manchester United players are “bluffers” is a subjective call you can agree with or not, but there’s one problem that you can’t get around:…

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Romelu Lukaku has struggled at times with Man United, enduring two droughts this season of at least six weeks.

Fernando Torres was struggling. Having scored 72 goals in his first three seasons at Liverpool, he had found the net just once in the first 10 games of what would turn out to be his final half-season at Anfield, in 2010-11.

With Torres’ confidence through the floor, his Liverpool manager at the time, Roy Hodgson, tried something unusual to get the goals flowing again for the Spaniard. In training games, according to an interview with former Liverpool defender Daniel Agger a couple of years…

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An inch perfect finish from Christian Eriksen helped Tottenham fortify their hold on third place and denied 17th place Brighton a much needed point.

Frank Leboeuf explains how Christian Eriksen’s qualities have put Tottenham in a comfortable position in the top four race.
Things were getting so desperate for Tottenham against Brighton that, as the minutes ticked by with the score 0-0, Vincent Janssen was brought on for his first appearance since August 2017. Still no breakthrough came, though, and it looked like Mauricio Pochettino’s side would drop points in their quest for Champions League qualification.
But then Christian Eriksen took charge.
Tottenham’s most valuable player — not their best, but their most irreplaceable — collected the ball with 88 minutes…

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W2W4 previews the weekend’s Premier League action by highlighting its most compelling storylines …

Liverpool’s task at Cardiff becomes much harder

After Liverpool’s rather less dramatic European progression, Jurgen Klopp insisted that his selection of Divock Origi ahead of Roberto Firmino in the starting XI had nothing to do with Sunday’s Premier League fixture against Cardiff. But it wasn’t a significant stretch to wonder if Cardiff’s crucial win over Brighton on Tuesday impacted his choices:…

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