Maguire dropped
After this weekend it might be worth reflecting on a couple of Premier League players whose World Cup selections may be under threat. Let's start with Harry Maguire, where the thought of him being under pressure would be unthinkable a year ago when his defending for England led the way as they reached the European Championships final. But at the end of the day Maguire has been under a lot of pressure at Manchester United in the past year. His performances simply haven't been good enough albeit in a team that has been low in confidence but now United manager Erik ten Hag has dropped the England international. Against Liverpool in a show piece game this week Maguire was dropped and United won the game. Of course Maguire will get another chance but if he keeps making mistakes then surely Ten Hag will have no other option but to slowly phase him out of the first team? It will also take a brave person to reinstall him for this weekend after such an assured performance from Lisandro Martinez and Raphael Varane in the middle of defence. If he does indeed get much less game time how can England manager Gareth Southgate justify picking Maguire as first choice at the back? The next four to six weeks could be the most important of Maguire's career.
Richarlison regrets?
Another player under pressure is Richarlison. The Brazilian has moved from Everton to join Tottenham and isn't getting much game time. In Tottenham's latest match, a 1-0 victory over Wolves Richarlison came off the bench and got 14 minutes play and it seems clear that he won't be getting anywhere near the amount of playing time he got with his former club. Against Wolves or any other team Richarlison would have been a dead cert starter for Everton and in the majority of those games had played the full 90 minutes.
One has to wonder if joining Tottenham in the summer was the right move for Richarlison given that there is a World Cup at the end of the year? True you can understand why he left Everton, to play for Tottenham who are in the Champions League and have better ambitions at this point in time than the Toffees, that's simply called career progression. However Richarlison is taking a risk if he wants to play in the World Cup and perhaps staying with Everton and leaving for Tottenham in January may have been the better option for him. True Richarlison has games under his belt for Brazil but the Brazilian team has vastly improved over the past two years and he is up against the likes of Vinicius Junior, Rodrygo, Gabriel Jesus, Raphinha and Neymar. It is very difficult to see how Richarlison gets past these players and starts games. But it is not becoming increasingly difficult to see how a coach can justify taking a player who is not getting regular game time.
5 Subs tactics
This season the Premier League has adopted the 5 substitutions rule. It did seem unfair that across Europe's top leagues you could replace up to 5 players from the normal 3 allowed and yet the Premier League stood firm that only three changes would be allowed. The new rule came in the light of Covid and how it was affecting teams who needed to have more leverage but after he first few weeks of the Premier League one has to wonder if the new ruling is a good one? From afar watching in Europe it seemed practical but are some teams also using the rule to benefit themselves? For example imagine team A are winning the game 1-0 and we get to the 90th minute where another five minutes have been added on. In that time team A could now make a few changes as the clock ticks down. Yes this was happening before but normally only once, now teams can use it a few times or make a double substitution and the whole change over just takes that more time. Sadly we have seen that referees keep getting it wrong in terms of adding on time in injury time, and sometimes it is very much justified. Skill is still what drives football but at the end of the day tactics from slowing down the game to these new substitutions if the score is close is another, and hopefully the authorities will monitor this especially during the last few moments of a game. Nobody really wants to see games petering out when there is so much at stake.
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