Boss Man: October 2018

Saturday, October 13, 2018

Premier League's most hated club revealed - and it's probably not who you think

Our exclusive survey of thousands of fans has revealed the most loved and hated teams in the Premier League - and there are one or two surprises

City and United fans face off at the Etihad

The most hated team in the Premier League has been revealed - and it's not Manchester United.

A survey run by the Manchester Evening News and its sister titles asked thousands of fans whether they love, hate or are indifferent to each current top flight side apart from their own.

The view of fans of each Premier League club were given equal weighting in drawing up the results, no matter how many voted, to keep the overall table fair.

Chelsea came out as the most hated team in the top flight, but only just. A fraction of a percent separated the west London club from the next most hated team, United.

On average, 68.7% of fans said they hated Chelsea compared to 68.1% for United.

Liverpool are the third most hated team (52.8%), while West Ham (47.6%) and Arsenal (46.2%) complete the top five.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, United are hated most by their nearest rivals, City.

A total of 97% of City fans surveyed said that they hated United. That puts the Old Trafford club ahead of Liverpool (83.2%), Chelsea (64%) and Arsenal (49.5%).

Interestingly, 0.8% of City fans said they actually loved United.

The feelings of hatred are mutual, with 93.6% of United fans saying that they hated City.

United fans appear to hate Liverpool more though with 94.6% of those surveyed saying that they hate Liverpool.

Just under 96% of Liverpool fans said they hated United, as did 91% of Arsenal fans.

As far as United fans are concerned though, Liverpool are their biggest rivals. Just under 95% of United fans said that they hate the Merseyside club. That’s just ahead of the 93.6% of fans who said they hate City.

Not all the emotions being thrust at Liverpool and City are ones of hatred though. A total of 2.3% and 2.1% of fans said they love Liverpool and City respectively.

Burnley are the league’s most loved side with an average of 35.8% of fans saying they loved the Clarets.

Bournemouth come next with 32.9%, Huddersfield are third with 30.2% and City are fourth with 28.3%.

Most hated teams in the Premier League

(Club - Average of hate percentages)

Chelsea - 68.7
Man Utd - 68.1
Liverpool - 52.8
West Ham - 47.6
Arsenal - 46.2
Tottenham - 43.5
Man City - 38.7
Cardiff - 36.5
Crystal Palace - 29.7
Everton - 27.0
Watford - 24.0
Newcastle - 23.5
Wolves - 20.1
Leicester - 18.9
Southampton - 16.3
Brighton - 16.2
Fulham - 15.0
Burnley - 13.3
Bournemouth - 10.2
Huddersfield - 9.7
Who United fans hate (%):

Liverpool - 94.6
Man City - 93.6
Chelsea - 86.8
Arsenal - 66.5
West Ham - 45.6
Tottenham - 32.4
Newcastle - 30.7
Everton - 24.4
Cardiff - 16.9
Crystal Palace - 14.2
Southampton - 9.6
Burnley - 9.2
Huddersfield - 8.8
Wolves - 8.6
Watford - 8.4
Leicester - 8.2
Fulham - 6.7
Brighton - 5.4
Bournemouth - 4.7
Who hates United (%):

Man City - 97.1
Liverpool - 96.0
Arsenal - 91.0
Brighton - 85.7
Chelsea - 84.7
Newcastle - 77.3
Tottenham - 69.4
West Ham - 68.4
Everton - 67.7
Watford - 64.3
Bournemouth - 63.2
Crystal Palace - 60.9
Southampton - 57.1
Huddersfield - 54.8
Fulham - 54.2
Leicester - 53.9
Cardiff - 52.9
Wolves - 51.9
Burnley - 44.1
Who City fans hate (%):

Man Utd - 97.1
Liverpool - 83.2
Chelsea - 64.0
Arsenal - 49.5
Tottenham - 48.0
Everton - 41.8
Cardiff - 36.0
West Ham - 13.1
Leicester - 12.1
Newcastle - 10.5
Burnley - 10.4
Crystal Palace - 8.8
Wolves - 7.5
Southampton - 5.9
Watford - 5.6
Huddersfield - 5.2
Fulham - 5.0
Brighton - 2.7
Bournemouth - 2.6
Who hates City (%):

Man Utd - 93.6
Chelsea - 57.4
Arsenal - 56.1
Liverpool - 49.1
Crystal Palace - 47.8
Tottenham - 45.6
Bournemouth - 42.1
Everton - 37.8
Newcastle - 36.5
Watford - 35.7
Leicester - 34.6
Huddersfield - 33.8
Burnley - 32.4
Cardiff - 29.4
Brighton - 28.6
West Ham - 23.7
Fulham - 22.0
Wolves - 18.5
Southampton - 10.7

Friday, October 12, 2018

The Premier League's 20 quickest players this season have been revealed

Speed is everything in football.

How many Premier League footballers would be playing in England’s top-flight if it wasn’t for their searing pace?

And every position needs a bit of speed - whether it’s with or without the ball.

But it can sometimes be hard to determine exactly how fast footballers are.

During matches, sprints only occur over a short distance - something 10 or 20 metres.

Unless the Premier League are going to organise an end-of-season sports day, it’s almost impossible to say who the fastest player is.

Is it Hector Bellerin?

Is it Leroy Sane?

Is it Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang?

Well, according to Opta, it’s none of the above - not this season anyway.

They produced a list of the top 20 speeds players have hit this season and there’s a surprise winner.

THE 20 FASTEST PLAYERS IN THE PL THIS SEASON

Take a look:

20. Callum Paterson | Cardiff | 34.347 km/h vs Newcastle
19. Ricardo Pereira | Leicester | 34.353 vs Southampton
18. Mason Holgate | Everton | 34.361 vs Bournemouth
17. Ben Chilwell | Leicester | 34.380 vs Wolves

Last season, Sane was crowned as the fastest player in the Premier League, reaching a top speed of 35.48 km/h against Chelsea.

With the German barely being given much chance to stretch his legs this season, he could well be eyeing that number one spot when he’s properly up and running.

Monday, October 8, 2018

How Arsene Wenger Made Arsenal Lose Matches - Petr Cech

Arsène Wenger

Petr Cech has issued a withering assessment of Arsène Wenger’s final years with Arsenal, claiming that following “the Arsenal way” became more important than winning.
Cech, who played for three seasons under Wenger, said the French manager effectively gave up any prospect of winning the Premier League by dogmatically adhering to his principles at the expense of positive results.
The goalkeeper’s comments are more overtly critical of Wenger than any other current Arsenal player has been.
Speaking after he had helped Arsenal to a fourth successive victory in the league, Cech said: “In the past, I would say the ‘Arsenal way’ was more important than getting the points sometimes and this is not how you win the league.”
Cech said Arsenal’s failure to sustain a title challenge under Wenger showed the club had lost the understanding of what it takes to succeed.
Speaking after Arsenal’s win over Everton on Sunday, Cech said Unai Emery, the new head coach, is working gradually to release Arsenal from their cycle of underachievement.
He said: “This club have not won the league for over ten years. So, obviously, you need to get back into knowing how to do it. We started with the new manager from scratch, basically, and we try to get this mentality of winning every game, progressing every game, working every day and, hopefully, we can build this up and win the title sooner rather than later. That will make the big difference.”
“For any club who wins titles in the recent years, you have a team with the know-how how to finish it off, and you can see it in any sport. I take Tiger Woods: [it was] ten years since he won a major tournament. The longer it goes on, the harder it becomes.
“Sometimes you need to make sure you win an ugly game, when you are not playing well but you just dig deep, close the back door and win 1-0 no matter how. This is what we lacked. [Against Everton], we went through difficult moments but got the win with the clean sheet, so this is very positive.”
In a further criticism of Wenger’s methods, Cech said Emery’s regime was far more challenging of the players than his predecessor’s.
He said: “I think the place became much more demanding in every way. So this is great to see because this is what initially drives everybody forward and gives you the kind of kick, that ‘I’m not doing enough to start the game’ or ‘I’m not doing enough to keep my spot in the game’ because the manager asked for precision and hard work. This is how it should be. We have very healthy competition and we are actually taking the benefit of it. It comes from the everyday work and the manager’s way of playing the game as well.”

Why Elephants Have Cracks In Their Skin

Elephants' wrinkles aren't just about age. In fact, the observation that baby elephants don't have wrinkles in their skin led researchers to wonder why and how these form.

What they discovered is that the skin "cracks" to improve their quality of life, according to a study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications.

Researchers at the University of Geneva and the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics studied the skin surface of African bush elephants and realized that those wrinkles form an intricate network of tiny crevices.

This lattice pattern fractures and bends as the elephants grow, creating millions of channels across their skin. The result looks rather like the cracks that form in dried mud, in damaged asphalt, across the polar landscape of the Earth and Mars or even within natural formations like Northern Ireland's Giant's Causeway or eastern California's Devils Postpile, the researchers said.

If that were true, it would imply that the cracks form because of skin shrinkage. The researchers used samples of elephant skin and ran simulations to figure out how the cracks formed, and they realized that new layers at the base layer of their skin allowed for bending at the surface. That bending created "microvalleys" on the top layer.

But how would micrometer cracks in their skin help elephants?

"It is very counterintuitive that cracking the skin could be beneficial," study author Michel Milinkovitch, professor at the University of Geneva's department of genetics and evolution, wrote in an email.

African elephants don't have sweat and sebum glands to keep their skin moist in their warm, dry environment. To cope with overheating, especially due to their size, elephants are known to bathe, spray water and wallow in mud. The mud helps them regulate their body temperature, avoid parasites and protect from solar radiation.

The mud, combined with the cracks in their skin, allows the elephants to retain five to 10 times more water than if their skin were a flat surface.

"This beautiful fine pattern of millions of channels is adaptive," Milinkovitch said. And as opposed to the scales of a crocodile's head, which the researchers have previously studied, the skin truly cracks rather than merely creating a folded pattern.

This realization also led the researchers to establish a connection to humans.

"This study potentially establishes a link between a human pathological condition and the skin of African elephants," Milinkovitch said. "Strikingly, we show strong similarities between the normal skin morphology of African elephants and that of humans affected by 'ichthyosis vulgaris,' a common genetic disorder affecting about 1 in 250 people that is known to impact shedding of the skin and cause dry, scaly skin."

If future studies confirm this link, it would be evidence of how an unfavorable mutation in humans is a helpful adaptation in elephants.

Going forward, Milinkovitch would like to have the chance to study another newborn elephant and follow its progress.

"We would like to follow the cracking on the skin of a baby African elephant to understand the dynamic of the process," he said. "Are the cracks appearing everywhere or do they appear in a specific place and then propagate? Does it take ... weeks or does it take six months? It's a new, beautiful example of how physical processes are involved in the development of animal forms and shapes."

Thursday, October 4, 2018

Why I wanted to leave Chelsea – Morata

Alvaro Morata admits he considered leaving Chelsea after a “disastrous” year that culminated in him missing the World Cup.

Morata was dropped from the Spain squad after scoring only three times in 23 games for Chelsea in the second half of last season.

“Yes I considered returning to Spain or Italy, but you cannot always escape reality,” Morata said.

“I left Spain to be at the World Cup and I did not go.”

Since then, Luis Enrique has taken the Spanish reins from Julen Lopetegui’s short-term replacement, Fernando Hierro, while Maurizio Sarri has arrived at Chelsea after Antonio Conte departed in July.

Enrique’s first squad included a recall for Morata, who has also started Chelsea’s four Premier League games so far under Sarri.

“Last year I started well but in the end it was a disaster,” Morata said. “I did not even know where I was when I went out to play.”

Asked how he felt after being left out of the World Cup squad, the 25-year-old said: “I thought ‘how am I going to get through the summer without going to the World Cup?’

“It was a hard moment but I’m going to do everything I can to go to the next one. It was a difficult time because I expected to go.”

Morata had lost the confidence of Conte, who experimented with Eden Hazard as a lone striker and then preferred Olivier Giroud towards the end of the campaign.

Sarri, however, appears to be offering Morata a fresh start.

“At my club, the way of playing has changed and it’s more similar to what is played here with Spain, many passes, a lot of possession and freedom to attack,” Morata said.

Enrique, meanwhile, is tasked with reinvigorating a Spanish side still smarting after their shock last-16 defeat to Russia at the World Cup. They face England at Wembley in the League of Nations before hosting Croatia on Tuesday in Elche.

“Luis Enrique tells us that he wants Spain to win again and wants everyone to know who Spain is,” Morata said.

“He asks for a lot of intensity, a lot of concentration and he seems to me a very sincere person, who wants to win.”

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

CONGRATS!! Arsenal Legend Thierry Henry Set To Become Manager Of This English Club

Arsenal legend, Thierry Henry has agreed to become Aston Villa manager.

Henry left his punditry role at Sky Sports earlier this month as he wants to focus on his managerial career.

The former Barcelona striker was also part of Roberto Martinez’s coaching staff for Belgium’s World Cup campaign in Russia.

Henry, who also has coaching experience with Arsenal’s academy side, is now ready to land his first job as a manager.

The Daily Star reports that Henry has “verbally agreed” to take over from Steve Bruce at Villa

According to the newspaper, the Frenchman has been in talks with Villa’s new majority shareholders Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens.

NSWE, the company co-owned by Sawiris and Edens, has injected a “significant investment” into Villa following the club’s financial difficulties under Dr Tony Xia.