Middle-east Arab News Opinion | Asharq Al-awsat

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Kasper Schmeichel is congratulated by team-mate Ben Chilwell after helping his team reach the Champions League quarter-finals. Photograph: Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images

Kasper Schmeichel’s Champions League Brilliance Confirms His Rise to the Elite

by Barney Ronay | Mar 20, 2017 | Sports

There was something a little eerie about Kasper Schmeichel’s penalty save towards the end of Leicester City’s uproarious Champions League defeat of Sevilla. Mainly it was the element of real-time deja vu about the whole thing. Not just because Schmeichel had also kept...

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Zlatan Ibrahimovic celebrates scoring Manchester United’s winner in the 3-2 victory over Southampton in the EFL Cup final at Wembley. Photograph: McNulty/JMP/Rex/Shutterstock

Zlatan Ibrahimovic Is not the New Cantona but Buys José Mourinho Time

by Barney Ronay | Mar 8, 2017 | Sports

Catching Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s fine, bloody-minded match-winning turn for Manchester United in the EFL Cup final it was hard not to reach back in time for comparisons. Rewind to the early 1990s and English football’s restless north-western superpower needed fresh...

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‘When Cazorla plays as he can it is hard to think of a Premier League midfielder who can control a game with such persuasive craft and urgency.’ Illustration: Gary Neill for the Guardian

Absence of Santi Cazorla, Arsenal’s Penfold-ish Skill-goblin, Adds to Sense of Loss

by Barney Ronay | Mar 3, 2017 | Sports

English football has always had a thing about leadership. What is it exactly? How loud should it be? How many layers of bandage should be entwined around its blood-caked temples? More to the point, without it who will keep the men in check, prevent them from fleeing...

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Claudio Ranieri pictured after the 2-1 first-leg defeat to Sevilla in the Champions League, his last game as Leicester City manager. Photograph: John Sibley/Reuters

Leicester City Getting Rid of Claudio Ranieri Now Is Hardly Madness

by Barney Ronay | Feb 27, 2017 | Sports

Like all the best fairytales Leicester City’s title story came to an end on Thursday night with a bracing little touch of cruelty. This is usually the way of these things: poisoned apples, hungry wolves, the doomed gingerbread house. Or, as in this case, someone...

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Wayne Rooney celebrates after scoring one of a hat-trick of goals on his Manchester United debut, against Fenerbahce in 2004. Photograph: Ian Hodgson/Reuters

Wayne Rooney: A Patched-Up Survivor with an Astonishing Goals Record

by Barney Ronay | Jan 25, 2017 | Sports

It is one of the slightly lost details of Wayne Rooney’s unveiling as a Manchester United player, but at the time Sir Alex Ferguson felt the need to defend blowing United’s entire transfer budget for the following year on a teenager. “The fact is he is 18 and he could...