After a winter of discontent, the Premier League champions return from Seville with something to cling to in their Champions League last-16 tie

Maybe there is another chapter left in the Leicester City fairytale after all. On a balmy evening in Seville, where Leicester welcomed the opportunity to dance to a different tune, the English champions rediscovered some of that courageous spirit from last season and also rode their luck.

The Champions League anthem provided the soundtrack to a night that had threatened to turn into an exercise in damage limitation for Leicester yet somehow ended with the 3,000 or so travelling fans singing loudly and proudly in a stadium that had long since emptied. Rarely has losing a game felt so good and a scoreline made so little sense.

Comprehensively outplayed for so much of the match and indebted to the outstanding Kasper Schmeichel for some superb goalkeeping, Leicester somehow escaped with a 2-1 defeat and a precious away goal that totally changed the complexion of this contest and the mood among those bouncing up and down in blue-and-white shirts high up in one corner of the vertiginous stands in this enthralling stadium.

For a brief moment it seemed like we were travelling back in time as Jamie Vardy and Danny Drinkwater, who had an almost telepathic understanding last season, combined to score the precious away goal that suggests there may be some life left in this Leicester team yet.

It was Vardy’s first in the Champions League at the sixth attempt, only the second game he has scored in for Leicester since September and with that in mind, it is tempting to wonder what the goal will do for the striker’s confidence.

Afterwards Ranieri talked about a possible “turning point” for everyone, yet that sort of talk has been heard before, so much so that Leicester have been going round in circles this season. Only time will tell whether the way that his players clawed their way back into this game will have an impact on their wretched form in the Premier League, starting with back-to-back home matches against Liverpool and Hull City on Monday and Saturday week.

There is no escaping the fact that Leicester were desperately poor for long periods, in particular the opening 45 minutes, when Ranieri suggested that his players were afraid to get on the ball, and the bottom line is that this was a seventh defeat in nine matches. Yet despite all of that the mood after the final whistle was positive and upbeat and supporters could be forgiven for daring to dream that Seville may not be the last stop on their European tour.

Earlier in the day they had descended on the warmest city in western Europe en masse. The temperature gauge outside one of the shops on the cobbled streets showed 25C and as fans walked around wearing sunglasses and shorts, enjoying a beer under blue skies while flamenco dancers strutted their stuff, it was easy to forget that it was February.

Leicester’s domestic trials and tribulations seemed a long way from anyone’s mind, which was part of the attraction of this trip for the players as well as the supporters, given the opportunity it presented to escape a winter of discontent and leave behind all that depressing talk about becoming the first English champions to be relegated since Manchester City in 1938.

They had travelled in hope rather than expectation, and it was impossible not to fear the worst for Leicester as Sevilla, playing with pace, precision and adventure, tore into them in the opening 45 minutes. Leicester’s calamitous defending did not exactly help their cause and there were times, in particular in the lead-up to the first-half penalty and with Sevilla’s second goal, when Wes Morgan and Robert Huth were tied in knots.

Schmeichel, in truth, was merely delaying the inevitable when he saved Joaquín Correa’s early penalty, with the visitors conceding an awful goal little more than 10 minutes later that had the Leicester goalkeeper bellowing at his team-mates as he marched out of the area after picking the ball out of the back of his net.

Ahmed Musa, who did nothing to justify his surprise inclusion wide on the right, allowed his pocket to be picked far too easily deep inside the Leicester half and then Christian Fuchs, in a moment that seemed symptomatic of his troubled season, was caught ball-watching as Pablo Sarabia ghosted in behind the full-back to direct a superb header into the far corner of the net.

Sevilla, a city famous for its bullfighting and in which Ranieri said that he would play the role of the matador, sensed blood at that point and when Correa, beautifully set up by Stevan Jovetic, doubled their lead, Leicester’s Champions League journey seemed over. Vardy, however, was not finished for the night and he scored the goal that leaves the door ajar to an improbable place in the last eight.

From Ronaldinho’s exocet against Sevilla to Darren Anderton’s both-posts rattler, via Zinedine Zidane versus Gianluigi Buffon

Zinedine Zidane watches the ball bounce off the crossbar before dropping into the goal after his penalty against Italy in the World Cup final in 2006. Photograph: Nick Potts/PA Archive/PA Images

 1) Ronaldinho, Barcelona v Sevilla (2003)

The beauty of a goal that crashes in off the crossbar is that anyone can score one, but there are some players you would expect to do it more than others. Demba Ba’s nominative determinism aside, the outer reaches of the goal frame appeal to the game’s more expansive talents, seeking to paint every inch of their chosen canvas.

The 1990s were salad days for such players, whether it was Gheorghe Hagi apparently doing this on purpose, Eric Cantona using the far post as a yardstick or Roberto Carlos being Roberto Carlos. Ronaldinho was a 21st-century addition to this golden era of individuals; Pep Guardiola’s decision to boot the declining Brazilian out of Barcelona in 2008 signalled a new era. Ronaldinho’s irresistible, all-too-fleeting peak was over before he left Catalonia, having begun after an hour of his home league debut against Sevilla. The game kicked-off at 12.05am, the result of a scheduling squabble between the two clubs; given what Ronaldinho was about to do, perhaps it was best that it was played post-watershed.

Picking up the ball in midfield, he embarked on a long, lolloping run in from the left flank, appearing only half in control of the ball, his goofy gait belying a singular purpose. As the Sevilla back four began to think about closing him down, still some 25 yards out, he found the right moment to announce himself, deploying a missile bound for the underside of the bar. It ricocheted off its target, down into the turf and back up into the roof of the net to a split-second of stunned silence, before the crowd, the poleaxed Sevilla keeper and Barcelona manager Frank Rijkaard were united in amazement.

It is an unwritten rule that shots cannoning in off the crossbar are just better, an aesthetic truth that doesn’t apply to, say, the net cord in tennis. Perhaps it is because of that moment of impact that the back of the net cannot always offer. Ronaldinho’s exocet makes three distinct sounds on its way in. Play it back; I’ll wait … Ronaldinho could have scored from 10 yards closer, or scaled back the power to pick his spot more carefully; Barcelona, after all, were behind at the time. Instead he hit maximum overdrive to score a goal you can enjoy watching, and hearing, over and over again. NM

2) Brian Bason, Chelsea v Carlisle (1975)

In case you missed it earlier this month in the Eredivisie, there was a moment of notable “initiative” from Ajax’s Joël Veltman. With his team-mate (and Chelsea loanee) Bertrand Traoré rolling around the turf injured, Veltman appeared to halt play, gesturing to his marker, Sparta Rotterdam’s Ivan Calero, that the ball in his possession should go dead. When Calero turned around to see what was what, Veltman sprinted on, delivering a dangerous cross into the box. “I was just being clever,” Veltman cheered afterwards. “I know that it was perhaps not the most beautiful thing to do but I can have a good laugh about it.”

The chances are, Brian Bason never intended to profit from an injury he sustained in Chelsea’s Second Division match against Carlisle. The chances are, with Ron “Chopper” Harris still on the Chelsea bench, Bason wasn’t faking it when he came off second best in a challenge with Dennis Harris, which left him limping and hobbling around the Stamford Bridge pitch. He did, however – just like Veltman – make the most of the situation, with Carlisle’s defenders appearing to write him off as a non-threat. Yet when Chelsea’s No4 received the ball from the late Ian Britton a few seconds later, something happened: Bason was healed and wasted no time (or any of the considerable space around him) in dispatching the heavy leather ball towards the underside of Carlisle’s crossbar, the ball then hurtling towards the ground, bouncing, and back up into the roof of Martin Burleigh’s net.

Some might say the greatest goal of Bason’s career probably wasn’t even the best goal of that match. Not two minutes later, Carlisle’s substitute, Mick Barry, latched on to a loose ball and first-time volleyed it into the top corner from 30 yards, again, in-off the bar . But for all its style and technique, it lacked the thwack, the contempt, the oomph that Bason’s right boot provided. Football is a game of simple pleasures. Graham Taylor admitted in the 1970s “that the sound of hitting a football thrills me … the sound of a football being struck.” And fortunately in 2017 – even through the medium of grainy YouTube videos – the sound of boot on ball, of ball on bar, is still enough to make your heart skip a beat. MB

It is fascinating logic from Zinedine Zidane, but does not make the fact that he had the stones to score a panenka against Gianluigi Buffon – then the world’s best goalkeeper – in a World Cup final any more believable. It is said that the greatest players don’t feel pressure like others do and that was certainly the case here – man-of-the-match Andrea Pirlo would later write in his autobiography that “I don’t feel pressure ... I don’t give a toss about it. I spent the afternoon of Sunday 9 July 2006 in Berlin sleeping and playing the PlayStation. In the evening, I went out and won the World Cup.”

Eventually the pressure did tell on the rest of the France squad in the penalty-shootout, and just like Zidane, David Trezeguet found the underside of the bar, although in a slightly different manner and with very different consequences: Trezeguet’s effort cannoned off the bar and landed a few inches in front of the line, just as Zidane’s sand wedge had landed a few inches behind it. But France’s defeat – indeed Zidane’s sending-off for his head-butt on Marco Materazzi – is another story for another Joy of Six and should not detract from the audaciousness of his seventh-minute penalty. There were some inside the stadium who were unsure of whether or not it counted, but a close-up of Zidane’s face shows that his conviction never wavered. For circumstance, cheek, personnel and execution, this is one of the best penalties ever taken. MB

4) Darren Anderton, England v Sweden (1995)

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In 1995, England were on a vertical learning curve, halfway between a dismal World Cup qualifying campaign and hosting the next European Championship. The Umbro Cup, a friendly tournament designed to road-test Euro 96’s regional venues, did not appear the ideal tonic – but stepping away from Wembley did the trick. Since the 1966 World Cup, England had played every home game in London, hoping that the magic of the most famous off-the-bar goal of them all would return. Instead, it was a notoriously luckless player who rediscovered the spirit of Wembleytor, at a ground 190 miles away.

England were 3-2 down to Sweden at Elland Road when Alan Shearer nodded a long ball into the path of Darren Anderton. His half-volley landed on target by a hair’s breadth, and fate took care of the rest. Anderton’s shot hit Thomas Ravelli’s right-hand post, flew across the goal-line, and dropped kindly in off the left post. In real time, the effect is uncanny, the ball vanishing from the net before reappearing in the other corner, moving at the same trajectory. Ravelli’s stuttering double take is the icing on the cake.

Anderton’s freak equaliser – one he couldn’t repeat if he tried – proved a turning point for England, who brought a long unbeaten run back to Wembley. It all ended in tears, of course, but that summer England produced some of their best ever attacking football, with Anderton, a player who sadly became defined by his injuries, playing an integral part. NM

5) Juan Sebastián Véron, Lazio v Verona (1999)

Lazio already had an outrageously talented squad by the time Juan Sebastián Verón arrived from Parma for £18m in the summer of 1999. Stars including Alessandro Nesta, Pavel Nedved, Marcelo Salas, Diego Simeone, Sinisa Mihajlovic, Fabrizio Ravanelli, Dejan Stankovic, Roberto Mancini, Fernando Couto, Sérgio Conceição and Alen Boksic, managed by Sven-Goran Eriksson, had won both the Supercoppa and the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1998-99 but lost out on the Scudetto by a single point to Milan. Now, with Verón in 1999-00, Lazio would go on to have the greatest season in their history, in their centennial year, doing the league and cup double.

For all the existing flair and ability, Verón was the jewel in their crown and immediately assigned to free-kicks, corners and penalties. He slotted in seamlessly: a man-of-the-match performance in his first competitive appearance – the Uefa Super Cup victory over Manchester United – would convince Sir Alex Ferguson to spend £28m and bring him to Old Trafford, and it took all of four minutes for Verón to score in his first league match. But his best goal came in November against Verona, curling a corner straight into Sébastien Frey’s net. Verón had sent a couple of warning shots, two earlier corners causing havoc in the six-yard box, before a third evaded everything but the inside of the back post. Frey was no mug, a France international, but, dumbfounded by pace and whip, could not be faulted in watching the ball arch a full three yards out from the byline before boomeranging back under his crossbar.

Verona would have their vengeance, defeating Lazio 1-0 in March to leave Sven’s men nine points behind Carlo Ancelotti’s Juventus in the title race with just eight games remaining. But Lazio, led by Verón, would recover their poise and those points to secure a second Scudetto, 26 years after their first. MB

6) Claus Jensen, Arsenal v Charlton (2001)

Claus Jensen scored only one league goal in the 2001-02 season, but he made it count. His brilliant finish at Highbury came out of nowhere, putting Charlton 3-1 up in a game they might have lost by a cricket score, the highlight of an 18-minute, four-goal counter-attacking clinic that the away fans christened Black Sabbath.

The build-up was entirely their opponents’ fault, as Patrick Vieira lumbered in possession from an Arsenal throw-in, allowing Jonatan Johansson to jimmy the ball loose. It bobbled into Jensen’s path, the Danish midfielder deftly dribbling into a crossing position. So far, so unremarkable – but Jensen must have sensed this was Charlton’s day. The visitors were already in front thanks to Richard Wright palming a free-kick into his own net, and Jensen saw the chance to crank up the pressure. He took it with aplomb, steering a chip over Vieira’s outstretched leg, and far beyond the unfortunate Wright.

The Clock End, packed with bewildered home fans and disbelieving away fans, awaited the outcome. The ball dropped right on cue, clipping the bar before pinging off the far post and into the net. The upright served as a signal: Wright abandoned his forlorn pursuit, and the crowd got busy either celebrating or remonstrating, depending on their allegiance. The Guardian match report tells a grimly familiar story of “defensive errors at one end, wastefulness at the other” for Arsenal, but this time they learned their lesson. Arsène Wenger’s side lost just once more all season and went on to win the Double. As for Charlton fans, they are entitled to wonder if things will ever be this good again. NM

Wayne Rooney looks certain to leave Manchester United, either in the next few days or in the summer, but wherever he ends up, it will only be retirement deferred and won’t change how he is remembered

Wayne Rooney has been linked with a lucrative move away from Manchester United to a Chinese club. Photograph: Jason Cairnduff/Reuters

 What seems remarkable now is how uncontroversial the issue of Wayne Rooney’s departure from Manchester United has come to feel. This is, after all, a player who started United’s first five league games of the season, a run of games that suggested he was a first-choice. Perhaps José Mourinho really did see him as such, or maybe he was playing a clever political game, but either way Rooney has faded to the extent that the suggestion he will start Sunday’s EFL Cup final on the bench provokes little comment.

There is always a tendency to portray Mourinho as a great Machiavellian spider, forever spinning his webs of intrigue, never doing anything without some ulterior motive, but if his aim this season was to prove that Rooney is not good enough for a place in the first team and to shuffle him without fuss out of the door, then he has succeeded magnificently.

Or at least he has if you look only at the issue of Rooney’s probable exit. There is also an argument that if Mourinho had managed to integrate Henrikh Mkhitaryan into the team earlier, United might have been able to mount more of a Premier League title challenge. But then perhaps it is also true that Mkhitaryan needed time to settle and that the two processes happen to have dovetailed.

What is clear is that the Rooney issue is no longer an issue. Rooney has started only three of United’s past 20 league games; the noteworthy thing now is if he plays. Although Rooney has gone past Sir Bobby Charlton’s club goalscoring record – removing a sentimental reason for him to stay – he has scored just two Premier League goals all season.

With Mkhitaryan, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial, Juan Mata and Jesse Lingard all apparently ahead of him in the pecking order, Paul Pogba able to take on a more advanced position, and the probability of another forward – Antoine Griezmann? – arriving in the summer, it is hard to see where he has a role, other than as a back-up if the combination of FA Cup and Europa League makes United’s fixture list particularly congested. One of Mourinho’s first significant acts on taking over as manager was to head off any possibility of him having a place in midfield.

So where now for the 31 year old? He could, of course, stay at Old Trafford, and keep picking up his £300,000 a week until his contract expires in the summer of 2019 but the sense is that he wants to play – and if he is to retain his place in the England team, of which, it’s easy to forget, he remains captain, he needs to play. It would be nonsense to say that money is of no concern to him but the impression during his occasionally fraught negotiations with United was always that it was more about status than about the cash itself.

There are no top Premier League club going to be interested, not for the wages Rooney would presumably still expect. He may favour a sentimental return to Everton, but there is no evidence of that being reciprocated. Perhaps he could reawaken ideas of becoming some sort of deep-lying playmaker at a lesser club, but realistically out of those that could afford him, who would want him? More than ever, Premier League football these days is about dynamism; Rooney is not. As Sir Alex Ferguson observed recently, he is not a Ryan Giggs: at 31, his body has begun to fail him.

So then you begin to look further afield, which immediately brings its own issues. Home for Rooney is very clearly the north-west of England: he has never lived anywhere else and has never suggested he had much interest in doing so. How willing, really, is he going to be to uproot himself and his family?

And who would sign him? Not Real Madrid, Barcelona or Atlético. Not Bayern or Paris Saint-Germain. An Italian club, perhaps, may see some boost in status in having him but realistically that diminished pace is going to be an issue wherever he goes in Europe. Which leaves the United States, the Middle East or China. The US at least offers a more familiar culture but as Steven Gerrard could tell him, the MLS can be a slog. China, anyway, has come to seem the most probable option.

Perhaps Rooney could become a legend in Jiangsu or Tianjin and enjoy a late-career flourish. Perhaps he could thrive in unfamiliar conditions, freed from the constraints of routine and expectation. But more likely a move to China would simply be retirement deferred, a means of extending his earning power. That’s a matter for him and his financial advisors; in terms of legacy and how we will remember him, Rooney is essentially done.

All-time top scorer for club and country, winner of five league titles and a Champions League, his career will perhaps be judged more kindly by history than at the present. But for anybody who witnessed the thrill of seeing him burst through defences at Euro 2004, there will always be a sense that he has not quite lived up to his extraordinary early promise.

And all the trophies in China aren’t going to change that.

“What is the biggest fee a lower-league club has bagged from a sell-on clause?” wonders Jonathan Brown.

Due to the usually confidential and always complicated nature of transfer deals, it’s hard to be precise with a question like this, but the battle of the beneficiaries seems to be between QPR and Barnsley.

When Rangers sold Raheem Sterling to Liverpool in 2010, they made sure to include a 20% sell-on clause in addition to the initial fee of £600,000. The forward’s subsequent £49m move (£44m up front, with £5m in potential add-ons) from Anfield to Manchester City in 2015 guaranteed QPR a minimum £7.8m.

Barnsley, meanwhile, inserted a 15% sell-on clause into the deal that took John Stones to Everton in 2013. His £47.5m move to Manchester City ast summer therefore bagged them around £7.1m, though there were some suggestions that the payment could rise as high as £9m.

Elsewhere, Bournemouth, who were not a top-flight club at the time, received £6.25m from Adam Lallana’s £25m move from Southampton to Liverpool in 2014, having inserted a 25% sell-on clause when he moved along the south coast at the age of 12.

Saints, on the other hand, missed out on the jackpot when Gareth Bale moved from Tottenham to Real Madrid in 2013. They had negotiated a clause – reported to be anywhere from 15% to 25% – when they sold Bale in 2007, but financial difficulties a year later forced them to waive it in exchange for around £1.5m and Spurs goalkeeper Tommy Forecast. So, when Bale headed to Spain for £86m, Southampton missed out on something approaching £20m.

Much further down the food chain, Hayes FC pocketed £600,000 when Les Ferdinand moved from QPR to Newcastle for £6m in 1995 thanks to a 10% sell-on clause. Hayes, who had sold the striker for £30,000 in 1987, used the money to fund the Les Ferdinand Suite at their ground.

The amazing Ljubomir Fejsa

Last week’s column asked if any footballers had won three consecutive titles with different clubs? You dug out a number of examples, but there are more …

“I believe that Kingsley Coman won Ligue 1, Serie A, and the Bundesliga, with Paris Saint-Germain, Juventus, and Bayern Munich, three seasons in a row – and all that before his 20th birthday,” writes Antoine Jourdan. “Probably hard to beat in terms of precocity.” Several of you pointed to Brazil and the case of Emerson Sheik …

And then there’s another player, well worthy of a mention: “Ljubomir Fejsa!” yells Daniel Thornton. “He has won a league title every year since 2009. First off, with Partizan he won the Serbian league title in 2008-09, 2009-10 and 2010-11, including two Serbian cups in 2009 and 2011. Then he moved to Olympiakos where he won the Greek Superleague in 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14. Also in that time he won two Greek cups in 2012 and 2013. And, since then, he has moved to Benfica, where he won the Portuguese Primeira Liga in 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16. In his time at Benfica he also won the Taça de Portugal in 2014, the Taça da Liga in 2014, 2015 and 2016, two Supercups in 2014 and 2016, and a Europa League runners-up medal in 2014. Note: he transferred from Olympiakos to Benfica in January 2014, thus winning two league winners medals in two different countries that season.”

Rovers and back

“There must be some reason players keep returning to Motherwell,” writes Alan Paterson. “In the fairly recent past Brian McClair, John Sutton, Henrik Ojamaa and the late Phil O’Donnell all returned to play at Fir Park after time playing for other clubs on a permanent basis. Last week Stephen Pearson returned to Motherwell to begin his third spell with the club. As of January 2016, though, Motherwell had six players in their squad (Stephen Pearson, Scott McDonald, Steven Hammell, Keith Lasley, James McFadden and David Clarkson) all in, at least, their second spell with the club. Has any club ever had more returning players in their squad at the same time? Particularly, with none of the spells at or away from the club being on loan.”

Sean DeLoughry was all over this one. “This type of revolving door transfer activity is nothing new in the League of Ireland, where one-year contracts are the norm, and most clubs turn over at least half a squad a season,” he writes. “When Trevor Croly took over at Shamrock Rovers before the 2013 season he seemed determined to literally return the club to former glories. He brought back Barry Murphy (after spells at Bohemians and St Pats), Jason McGuiness (Bohs, Sligo), James Chambers (Hamilton, Sligo), Sean O’Connor (Limerick, St Pats), Shane Robinson (Stirling Lions, FC Haka), Richard Brush (Sligo) and Mark Quigley (Millwall, St Pats, Bohs, Dundalk, Sligo) who had previously had a load spell at Rovers while at Millwall. Pat Sullivan (Southern Star), Tommy Stewart (Partick) and Ciaran Kilduff (UCD) were already in their second stints at Tallaght Stadium after spells away. During the season Karl Sheppard returned to Rovers on loan from Reading, making it a total of 11 returning players in the squad.” They finished fifth.

Knowledge archive

“Has a streaker ever scored? And would it count if they did?” Jimmy Lloyd asked in July 2005.

Well Jimmy, the self-proclaimed World’s No1 Streaker, Mark Roberts, from Liverpool, has scored at least two goals while baring all. Roberts, who has also streaked at the Super Bowl and Royal Ascot, scored in the Liverpool v Chelsea Carling Cup game at Anfield in 2000 and the 2002 Champions League final, between Real Madrid and Bayer Leverkusen. At Anfield, Roberts hurdled the perimeter fence, took a pass from Gianfranco Zola, and beat the entire Chelsea defence, before firing past a half-hearted Ed de Goey. His goal bonus: a magistrates court appearance and £100 fine. In the Champions League final at Hampden Park, he ripped off his velcro suit before stealing the ball, running past two defenders and finding the aptly-named Leverkusen keeper Hans-Jorg Butt no match for his finishing prowess.

Roberts is not the only streaker to find the back of the net. In December 1998, during an interruption in Reading’s 1-0 win over Notts County, a fan ran on to the field, kissed the ground and scored past the County keeper before evading a steward and disappearing into the crowd.

These goals didn’t count because they occurred during breaks in play (both of Roberts’ efforts came during the half-time interval), but even if a streaker were to find the net during a game, it wouldn’t count. Law 10, The Method of Scoring, says that a goal can only be given if no infringement has been made by the team scoring the goal. A streaker would be an ineligible player; a team cannot field more than 11, so there would be no goal. And that’s even before considering improper kit! The referee also has the power to stop the game if “an unauthorised person enters the field of play”.
 

For thousands more questions and answers take a trip through the Knowledge archive.

Can you help?

“Has the wrong trophy ever been presented to a team at the end of a competition?” asks Derek McHugh. “For example, the FA Vase instead of the FA Trophy. I know it’s as good as impossible to ever happen in a major competition, but perhaps at a regional level, or in a country where football is very badly organised, there’s a better chance of it happening?”

“Does anyone know of any teams that have scored an own goal direct from their kick-off without the opposition touching the ball?” says Mark Jones.

Manchester City are moving in the right direction but Chelsea run counter to the assumption that Champions League arrivistes can’t quickly break into the cartel

Chelsea players celebrate as Didier Drogba scores the crucial penalty in the Champions League final. Photograph: Tom Jenkins for the Guardian

They say history is written by the winners, but what they don’t always tell you is that records and statistics can also come to the rescue of the less successful.

Both Arsène Wenger and Pep Guardiola have been on the defensive over the past few days, pointing out that their clubs are relative ingenues in Europe and not to be compared with the likes of Liverpool and Manchester United. “It is not like Arsenal won the European Cup five times before I arrived,” Wenger said, appealing for a measure of perspective after the disappointing 5-1 defeat at Bayern Munich.

Guardiola, who has never been knocked out of the Champions League as manager at a stage earlier than the semi-finals, appeared to be getting his excuses in early when making a similar point ahead of the Monaco game. “Our recent history is quite good, but over the long history Manchester City have not been here for a long time,” the City manager said. Kevin De Bruyne backed him up. “You cannot compare us to Liverpool or Manchester United and the history they have,” the midfielder said. “They have been there for multiple years and we have only had five or six.”

All true, but so what? Liverpool are not even in Europe this season and have not enjoyed a vintage Champions League campaign for almost a decade. Manchester City reached the semi-final as recently as last year. Arsenal have famously qualified for the Champions League every single year since they first won the double under Wenger in 1998, and though they have still never won it, consistency of that sort makes Liverpool and Manchester United’s recent record of reaching the top four look spotty.

Both Arsenal and Manchester City are ideally placed for European success, the first by virtue of their experience, regularity of qualification and the knowledge and acumen of their manager, the second because of their untold wealth and consequent ability to buy top players and bring in a manager of unquestioned Champions League pedigree. In one sense the two can be seen as opposites: Arsenal’s upward mobility was self-funded, as was their new stadium, and Wenger surely deserves a share of the credit for both. City’s elevation has been less organic, the money was already in place when designs on European domination were hatched, and one sometimes feels that should Guardiola fail – and the manager has mentioned this possibility a few times – the club would simply replace him with someone else deemed capable of winning the Champions League.

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What both clubs have in common is a perceived lack of growth on the pitch. City are still recognisably City, stubbornly incapable of turning into fearsome European hotshots. Likeable and urbane as Wenger is, it does not take a great deal of imagination to understand the frustration of supporters fed up at exiting Europe at the same stage each season, often to the same opponents. Wenger can say what he likes about the past, but he is much too smart not to know that the important thing is the future, and how he uses the challenge of Europe to develop his team into something bigger and better. That is what happened at Liverpool in the 70s and 80s and at Manchester United – eventually – in the 90s, and that is precisely what is not happening at Arsenal. It is easy to forget now how perplexed Sir Alex Ferguson used to be at how his side could win the English title four seasons out of five in the mid-90s yet still be dumped out of Europe by comparatively unsung sides such as Borussia Dortmund (even if they did go on to win the Champions League that year) and Monaco. Yet persistence finally paid off in 1999, and when United in the knockout stage were faced with distinctly daunting opponents in Internazionale, Juventus and Bayern Munich en route to the European leg of their treble, they found they had the resources and mental toughness to cope. They had grown, become stronger, and that is the necessary progression that Wenger is struggling to deliver.

City have more time, in that they are in only their sixth Champions League campaign, and before anyone points out that United won it in five, Ferguson’s side had established a beachhead in Europe – they beat Barcelona to win the Cup Winners Cup in 1991 – before the Champions League came into being. City are doing it from scratch, but with the big money comes greater pressure and a demand for instant success. Reaching last year’s semi-final did not secure Manuel Pellegrini a contract extension, and nor did he expect it to. City played like nervous debutants against Barcelona anyway. They have improved in that regard this season, and now look bold enough to give anyone a game, though Guardiola still fretted about being “killed’” by the critics if his side failed against Monaco. In the event they did not fail, they gave the Etihad a night to remember and left themselves a fighting chance of surviving the second leg. There are definitely more streetwise teams around, but a side that can score eight goals in two matches against Barcelona and Monaco is probably making progress.

If City are not quite the finished article, they are moving in the right direction. The last team to be generously sponsored to rise from mediocrity and head towards European success was Chelsea, and they only won the Champions League at their 10th attempt, so there is time for City yet.

Yet that does not tell the whole story. Chelsea are in fact the elephant in the room in this discussion, since they run counter to the general assumption that Champions League arrivistes cannot quickly break into the big club cartel. The side that José Mourinho built with Roman Abramovich’s money almost reached their first final in 2005, when only Luis García’s phantom goal separated the sides in the semi-final at Anfield. The side that Guus Hiddink inherited via Avram Grant and Luiz Felipe Scolari would almost certainly have reached the final in 2009 but for the antics of the Norwegian referee Tom Henning Ovrebo, and not only that they would have stood a more than decent chance of beating Manchester United in Rome. The team that finally won the Champions League in 2012 were on their sixth manager in five years since Mourinho, yet still playing in a recognisable and highly effective way, rather giving the lie to the theory that you need an experienced and steady hand at the tiller to have any chance in Europe.

In all, Chelsea have competed in 14 Champions League campaigns, during which time they have become the first London club to win the trophy, lost a final on penalties, and reached the semi-finals on no fewer than seven occasions. What that means is that in the Champions League era they have been almost as good as Manchester United, and the possibility exists that but for John Terry’s slip in the penalty shootout in Moscow in 2008 their record might be even better.

Compared with Liverpool, in the Champions League era as opposed to the old European Cup, their consistency is greatly superior. And when Chelsea went to the Europa League final four years ago, they won it.

So how come they never get a mention when people want to make a point about history? They have one all right, and they have shown what can be achieved in a relatively short time if the financial backing is in place. Maybe that is not as romantic as some people would like, but they still deserve credit. Even Liverpool supporters have retired that song about Chelsea having no history, and for very good reason. In the Champions League, in the new millennium, Chelsea have set new standards.

Blackburn Rovers have appointed Tony Mowbray as the club’s new head coach, after Owen Coyle was sacked on Tuesday.

Coyle, who joined the club in June 2016, left Rovers second-bottom of the Championship, three points away from safety after losing 16 league games this season and winning only seven.

Mowbray, who has managed at the highest level in England and Scotland, has agreed an 18-month contract at Ewood Park.

The 53-year-old former Middlesbrough, West Bromwich Albion and Celtic manager was most recently in charge of League One side Coventry City, before resigning in September.

Mowbray will take training for the first time on Wednesday afternoon, and his first game in charge will be Friday’s Championship match away at Burton Albion.

Mowbray’s management team will see the club’s head of academy coaching, David Lowe, become assistant manager while the former Blackburn midfielder David Dunn has been named first-team coach.

Wayne Rooney is highly unlikely to leave Manchester United next week and has been left surprised by José Mourinho’s claim he could do so, though the striker is set to depart the club in the summer.

Rooney is determined to try and see the season out, so unless United actively tell him he can depart or there is lucrative offer last-minute offer from China’s Super League before their window closes on Tuesday, the striker will remain at Old Trafford.

Mourinho’s comments he could not guarantee Rooney would still be a United player beyond 28 February caught him and his camp unawares as he has no wish to do so. On Tuesday, when asked about Rooney’s future, the manager said: “You have to ask him. Of course I can’t guarantee he will still be here next season. I cannot guarantee that I’m here next week, how can I guarantee that a player is here next season? What I can guarantee is that, if one day Wayne leaves the club, it is not because I want him to leave the club.

“I would never push a legend of this club to another destiny. You have to ask him if he sees himself staying in the club for the rest of his career or sees himself moving. It is not a question for me because I am happy to have him. You have to ask him, not me. I was very open with you in the answer. I don’t want him to leave.”

While this bemused the captain, he is unhappy at his lack of regular starts under the manager and unless this situation vastly improves before the season ends he will depart in the close season. There have been explanatory discussions between Paul Stretford, Rooney’s agent, and Tianjin Quanjian, who are coached by Fabio Cannavaro, but these have amounted to no material offer.

“We did make an approach for Rooney,” Cannavaro told Tianjin TV. “It was just a chat because he simply doesn’t suit our style of play. No further discussion was necessary.”

It is thought that SIPG and Shenhua, the two Shanghai-based clubs, do not currently have an interest in Rooney and so his options in China are limited.

Antonio Conte has been praised for his bold use of Victor Moses and Marcos Alonso but history suggests it is part of a wider trend dating back to the 1960s

Clockwise, from top left: Nilton Santos, Giacinto Facchetti, Ruud Krol, Danny Rose, James Milner and Victor Moses. Photograph: Colorsport/Rex and Getty Images

 Barring an extraordinary collapse, this season’s Premier League title will have been decided at half-time at the Emirates Stadium on 24 September when Antonio Conte moved from a back four to a back three. The game was already lost but Chelsea, adapting remarkably swiftly to the new shape, then embarked on their record 13-match winning run.

It was a change that, rightly, has earned Conte great praise for his decisiveness and his capacity, albeit unhindered by the demands of European football, to instil a new formation. But its radicalness has passed largely unremarked.

Given Conte’s history with a back three with Italy and Juventus, perhaps it was half-expected – certainly it couldn’t be said to have been a shock – but it is nonetheless hugely significant in terms of English football history. If Chelsea take the title, they will be the first side to win the league while predominantly using a back three for more than 50 years.

The last team to do so using a back three was Harry Catterick’s Everton in 1962‑63, when Brian Labone, operating as a deep-lying centre-half, was flanked by the full-backs Mick Meagan and either Alex Parker or George Thomson, the final hurrah in England of the W-M formation.

Thereafter, Bill Shankly and Don Revie, more cautious, defensively-minded coaches, dropped a midfielder back alongside their centre-back, playing the “method” football that created such a furore for its supposed negativity when they faced each other in the 1965 FA Cup final. If this was modern football, the columnist Peter Wilson declared in the Mirror, he wanted no part of it. “I am told if we are to survive the rigours of the World Cup,” he wrote glumly, “we must forget individualism, the brilliant flashes of inspiration which transform a treadmill into a flying machine, the genius which transmutes a muddied oaf into a booted genius.”

But this was modern football, and the shift to a back four was central to it. Catterick was edging towards the back four and by 1966-67, even the notably conservative Matt Busby had adopted a 4-2-4 at Manchester United, dropping Nobby Stiles in alongside Bill Foulkes. Pressing has set the tone of the modern game but it was those shifts that defined the shape, and that meant a radical change in role for the full-back.

When Jack Charlton noted after the 1994 World Cup that the full-back was the most important player on the field from a tactical point of view, it was widely regarded as an example of typical counter-intuitive Big Jackery, but it increasingly seems the history of tactics over the past half century is the history of the full-back, from Gerry Byrne to Danny Rose, from Paul Reaney to Victor Moses.

The liberation of the lateral

From the late 1870s to 1925, almost all teams played 2-3-5. Then the offside law was changed so only two defenders rather than three were required to play a forward onside. Bereft of the simple offside trap, teams needed a different defensive strategy and so pulled back the centre-half. That placed enormous pressure on the two midfielders and so enhanced the tendency for the two inside-forwards to play deeper than the rest of the forward line. Herbert Chapman was the most successful exponent of the new shape, the 3‑2‑2‑3 – or W-M – he pioneered at Arsenal, leading them to dominate the 30s. The W-M remained the dominant formation in English football for another 30 years.

Despite the reservations of those who preferred their centre-halves to be creators, the formation spread across the world, first to Europe and then to South America. The Hungarian Dori Kurschner, escaping antisemitism at home, took it to Brazil, where he was appointed the coach of Flamengo in 1937.

The man he replaced, Flavio Costa, remained as his assistant, took advantage of his lack of Portuguese to undermine him and then succeeded him the following year. He had been scornful of Kurschner’s efforts to implant the W-M but saw the potential and developed what he termed the “diagonal”, tipping the central square of the W-M so the inside-left became a more attacking presence and the right-half became much deeper-lying.

Ruud Krol of Holland, right, battles with France’s Didier Six during a World Cup qualifier in 1981. Krol was an attacking full-back who also played as a sweeper. Photograph: VI-Images/VI-Images via Getty Images

By the mid-50s, the skewing had gone so far that 3-2-2-3 had become 4-2-4. A similar process had occurred in Hungary, where the preference for a withdrawn centre-forward (Peter Palotas, Nandor Hidegkuti), led to the inside-forwards pushing up and one of the wing-halves having to drop back until he eventually became a central defender. The strands of evolution crossed during Bela Guttmann’s brief but successful tenure at São Paulo in 1955.

In Brazil, the shift of shape went hand-in-hand with the development of zonal marking. This was hugely significant. Whereas previously players had simply marked their opposite number – the left-back picked up the right-winger, the right-half picked up the inside-left – they began to mark space, to pick up whoever came into their zone. The new idea, usually credited to Zeze Moreira, gave players freedom to leave their designated areas of the pitch, safe in the knowledge a team-mate would cover for them by dropping into their zone.

By 1958, Brazil were playing a zonal-marking 4-2-4. As they won the World Cup, most of the headlines were taken by the performances of the 17-year-old Pelé, but just as significant was the new way of playing. With two central defenders as cover, the full-backs could push forward, adding a new angle and depth to attacks. The left-back, Nilton Santos, was described as the first attacking full-back. Perhaps significantly, the oxymoronic nature of that term does not exist in Portuguese or Spanish, in which the word for full-back is “lateral” – side player.

Consequences of the back four

The 1958 World Cup had a far greater impact on English football than any that had gone before. In part that was simply a matter of geography and timing: far more coaches and journalists travelled to Sweden than any previous tournament. But it was also a consequence of England’s heavy defeats to Hungary in 1953 and 1954: there could be no belief any more that English football had nothing to learn from the wider world.

The widespread adoption of the back four had a major effect on English notions of attacking. English football – with a handful of exceptions, notably Chapman at Arsenal – had always revered the winger, perhaps because English pitches tended to become bogs between November and March, meaning the firmest ground, the area where skill was most possible, was near the touchlines.

Teams playing a W-M against a W-M would operate on a pivot: attack down the left, say, drawing out the opposing right-back. The centre-back would mark the centre-forward, with the left-back tucking in as cover. That left the attacking team’s right-winger in space. If the ball could be switched from left flank to right and the defence turned, the winger would have acceleration room, moving at speed when he encountered the left-back. Beating a player at pace is much easier than doing so from a standing start, but the addition of a second central defender meant the full-back did not have to cover. He could stay wide and the acceleration room that had been granted the winger if the play was switched was lost.

The winger began to evolve away from the Stanley Matthews archetype. Alf Ramsey had great success at Ipswich by withdrawing Jimmy Leadbetter on the left into a midfield role. With England, he would have even greater success by withdrawing the wingers on both sides.

That in turn accelerated the change in the role of the full-back. With no winger up tight against him, he could advance. The result, in the 1960s, was the great age of the attacking left-back: not just Nilton Santos but also the Argentinian Silvio Marzolini and the Italian Giacinto Facchetti. For England, Ray Wilson advanced as no other full-back ever had before.

The taste for attack

Once the winger had retreated into midfield and the full-back begun his advance, there was an obvious question to be asked: Why bother playing a defender in the full-back position if there was little defending to be done? Why not instead play a midfielder there and let him go toe-to-toe with his opposite number, ideally driving him back on to his own full-back?

That was precisely what happened in the early 1980s with the birth of the wing-back. Ciro Blazevic, Sepp Piontek and Carlos Bilardo all have claims to have come up with the idea. Turning the full-back into a midfielder had advantages beyond enhanced attacking threat on the flanks: if one player was doing the job of both full-back and wide midfielder in a 4-4-2, then it effectively gave managers two spare players. The overwhelming tendency was to deploy one at the back and one in midfield, a 3-5-2 that allowed a side to overman in the centre of its defensive and midfield thirds. That was the shape that provided the platform for Diego Maradona to win Argentina the 1986 World Cup.

 Brazil’s Nilton Santos, right, tackles Sweden’s Kurt Hamrin during the 1958 World Cup final in Sweden. Santos was described at the World Cup as the first attacking full-back. Photograph: DPA/PA Images

When England, belatedly, adopted the notion of a formation with three central defenders at the 1990 World Cup, they still clung to the idea that a full-back, as the name suggested, should be a defender. Their interpretation of a 5-3-2 featured not midfielders in the wide positions but Paul Parker and Stuart Pearce as full-backs who could get forward.

By the late 1990s, the back three was retreating in the face of single-striker systems. Once the full-back had tasted freedom, though, there was no going back. The advent of 4‑2‑3‑1 and the return to popularity of 4‑3‑3 pushed wide creators higher up the pitch, but full-backs remained an attacking presence.

That has become increasingly the case with the growing trend for inverted wingers over the past decade or so. If a left-footed forward plays on the right, his effectiveness is significantly enhanced if he has a full-back overlapping outside him, presenting the full-back with the dilemma of defending on the inside, anticipating the forward coming on to his stronger, left foot, or remaining in a neutral position in case the ball is pushed right to a full-back coming on the outside. The relationship between Lionel Messi and Dani Alves at Barcelona is perhaps the best example of that, but it is also apparent in, say, the way Sadio Mané and Nathaniel Clyne link up for Liverpool.

The picture today

Tony Pulis at West Bromwich Albion is so concerned to ensure his full-backs defend he often picks four centre-backs across his defensive line. Danny Simpson and Christian Fuchs rarely ventured forward for Leicester last season. When Manchester United went to Anfield this season, Antonio Valencia and Daley Blind tucked in and rarely left their own half. But in the modern game the vast majority of full-backs are attacking.

There were times during Euro 2016, notably against Spain in the last 16, when Conte had his Italy wing-backs, Mattia De Sciglio and Alessandro Florenzi, pushed so high the shape was almost 3-3-4 rather than 3-5-2. When Pep Guardiola has used a back three with Manchester City this season he has often used Raheem Sterling and Leroy Sané or Nolito as his wide men in what is effectively a 3-2-4-1.

Modern full-backs are so attacking we are living through another variant of the paradox that existed in 1990, when, to English eyes at least, a back five tended to be more attacking than a back four. These days, a back four is often more attacking than a back three.

Clyne and James Milner at Liverpool, Danny Rose and Kyle Walker at Tottenham Hotspur, whichever of his many options Guardiola throws at the problem, all essentially play as midfielders. That may be one of the reasons why this is on course to be the highest-scoring season in Premier League history.

The most effective full-backs have been Chelsea’s Victor Moses and Marcos Alonso. With the additional central defender, they have been emboldened to push forward to such effect Alonso has four goals and two assists this season, as does Moses. Moreover, their forward surges have freed up Eden Hazard and Pedro to drift into those awkward three-quarter spaces in what are in effect inside-forward roles; there is no expectation for them to provide attacking width. While it is true Moses has, occasionally, looked defensively suspect – particularly when his lack of aerial ability was isolated against Tottenham – that is a gamble Conte seems happy to take.

Even if they are wing-backs rather than full-backs, the terminology, the use of the suffix “back”, seems unhelpfully old-fashioned. The position has changed to the extent that today’s Kyle Walker and Marcos Alonso are almost unrecognisably different players to Everton’s 1960s stalwarts Meagan or Parker. Those who protested after the 1965 FA Cup final would hardly have believed it but that was the necessary first step in the evolution of the full-back. At the highest level they’re all laterals now.

Tottenham Hotspur’s Kyle Walker, left, and Danny Rose are part of the new breed of attacking full-backs. Photograph: Tony Marshall/Getty Images

Five pioneering attacking full-backs

Nilton Santos (Brazil; Botafogo): A World Cup winner in 1958 and 1962, he was the first attacking full-back to gain worldwide renown. Nicknamed “the Encyclopaedia” for his knowledge of the game.

Silvio Marzolini (Argentina; Ferro Carril Oeste, Boca Juniors): Five times a champion with Boca, he was a vital outlet in an often defensive side. A pin-up, he was the first Argentinian to sign an advertising contract, promoting espadrilles.

Giacinto Facchetti (Italy; Internazionale): Won two European Cups, four scudetti and a European Championship and scored 75 goals in 629 games from left-back, an instant riposte to those who dismissed catenaccio as a purely defensive system.

Tommy Gemmell (Scotland; Celtic, Nottingham Forest, Dundee): A right-footed left-back, Gemmell scored in two European Cup finals, grabbing the equaliser as Celtic beat Internazionale in 1967 and converting a penalty in a losing cause against Feyenoord in 1970.

Ruud Krol (Holland; Ajax, Vancouver Whitecaps, Napoli, Cannes): The great left-back in the Total Football sides of Ajax and Holland, he won six Dutch titles, two European Cups (missing the 1971 final with a broken leg) and lost in two World Cup finals.

• Wayne Shaw admitted he knew betting company was offering odds of 8-1

•  FA and Gambling Commission confirm they are investigating

Wayne Shaw faces an FA investigation after eating a pie on the touchline during Sutton’s defeat to Arsenal. Photograph: Andrew Couldridge/Reuters

Sutton United have accepted Wayne Shaw’s resignation after the Football Association and Gambling Commission confirmed they are investigating the reserve goalkeeper for admitting that he knew a betting company was offering odds of 8-1 against him eating a pie on the bench during the club’s 2-0 defeat by Arsenal in the FA Cup.

The FA is considering taking action after Shaw was captured eating a pie towards the end of Monday night’s fifth round tie at Gander Green Lane, with the manager, Paul Doswell, confirming on Tuesday that the 45-year-old had agreed to offer his resignation as a result.

“It’s been very disappointing,” said Doswell. “I woke up this morning to this storm of criticism and it’s something that we have dealt with quickly as a club. Wayne himself has offered his resignation to the chairman and it’s been accepted. There were tears down the phone this afternoon. It’s a very sad end to what was a very good story.”

A spokesman for the FA had earlier confirmed it is looking into whether any of its rules had been breached, while the regulatory body for Britain’s multi-billion pound gambling industry also revealed it is already looking into the incident to ensure Sun Bets had conducted its business “with integrity”.

The Gambling Commission enforcement and intelligence director, Richard Watson, said: “Integrity in sport is not a joke and we have opened an investigation to establish exactly what happened. As part of that we’ll be looking into any irregularity in the betting market and establishing whether the operator has met its licence requirement to conduct its business with integrity.”

After the match, Shaw made no secret of the fact that he had been aware of the bet, telling reporters he had pulled off the stunt to give fans “a bit of banter”.

“A few of the lads said to me earlier on: ‘What is going on with the 8-1 about eating a pie?’ I said: ‘I don’t know, I’ve eaten nothing all day, so I might give it a go later on,’” he said. “Sun Bets had us at 8-1 to eat a pie. I thought I would give them a bit of banter and let’s do it. All the subs were on and we were 2-0 down.

“I went and got it at half time from the kitchen, I had it all prepared and ready to go. It was meat and potato,” added Shaw.

Asked if he knew anyone had backed the bet, he replied: “I think there were a few people. Obviously we are not allowed to bet. I think a few of the mates and a few of the fans. It was just a bit of banter for them. It is something to make the occasion as well and you can look back and say it was part of it and we got our ticket money back.”

The FA’s rules on betting state: “A participant shall not bet, either directly or indirectly, or instruct, permit, cause or enable any person to bet on (i) the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect of, or occurrence in, a football match or competition.”

Some of the gloss had already been taken off the buildup to the National League side’s fifth round tie with Arsenal when the club denied accusations that they had censored a group of supporters from a club forum after they voiced their opposition to the Sun’s sponsorship of the club for Monday’s match in place of their usual sponsor, Green Go Waste.

Sutton had earlier promised that Shaw will be brought “back down to earth” after his publicity stunt failed to impress the club’s hierarchy. Speaking on BBC 5 Live, Sutton’s chairman, Bruce Elliott, said: “If you knew the roly poly goalkeeper you probably wouldn’t be very surprised. But Wayne is a top man. I didn’t know anything about it. He has got himself in the papers again and the fame obviously has gone to his head a little bit, but we will soon bring him back down to earth, don’t worry about that.”

Doswell, who also employs Shaw as part of his coaching team, said: “Wayne has become a global superstar on the back of being 20st. He’s made that a chance to get more media coverage off the back of it. It wouldn’t surprise me. I don’t think it shows us in the best light.”

Goals from Lucas Pérez and Theo Walcott secured the Gunners’ passage to a quarter-final at home to Lincoln City, and Doswell was clearly emotional after a whirlwind few weeks. “We have done the non-league proud,” he said. “They are 105 places above us in the pyramid. Those lads won’t walk properly tomorrow. The problem in sport is when you have lost you feel disappointed but they put this club on a worldwide map.

“It is a different world,” he added. “My lot will go to work tomorrow. They are movie stars with James Bond security. You can’t get near them.” It was more of an observation than a direct criticism. “I totally get it. Unfortunately that’s the world we live in. I saw a few idiots shouting and screaming at Wenger and Arsenal players. They’ve got to be protected from those type of people.”

Doswell was also touched by the fact Arsenal have offered to donate £50,000 towards Sutton’s charitable work.

French league leaders have grown in stature at home and in Europe and can cause Manchester City problems in their Champions League round of 16 tie

Pep Guardiola looks pensive during training at the City Football Academy in preparation for his team’s match against Monaco on Tuesday. Photograph: Matt West/BPI/REX/Shutterstock

 As a measure of why Pep Guardiola spoke so effusively about Manchester City’s latest opponents in the Champions League, it is worth bearing in mind Monaco’s achievements this season eclipse those of the Paris Saint-Germain side who just had the temerity to win 4-0 against Barcelona and knock the throne off football royalty.

Monaco are not only looking down on PSG from the top of the French league but, to put it into context, they have scored 76 goals from 26 games compared with 50 for the Qatari-funded team who gave Barça one of their worst chasings for many years.

Monaco have scored four or more on 10 different occasions in their domestic league this season, including one five-week period where they won 7-0 at Metz then put six past both Montpellier and Nancy, and their previous assignments against English opposition provide a neat riposte to anyone who argues Ligue 1 should not be an accurate barometer of a team’s ability.

Leonardo Jardim’s side have already beaten Tottenham Hotspur home and away in the Champions League’s group stages this season, winning 2-1 on both occasions, and the last time they reached the knockout stages of this competition two years ago they won 3-1 at Arsenal, a victory acclaimed by L’Équipe as “one of the great Champions League performances by a French club”.

The worry for City must be that Les Monégasques are a far more formidable team now. No other side in Europe has been so prolific this season or played with such a sense of attacking adventure. “Their first goal against Tottenham was a cross from a full-back and a header from another full-back,” Guardiola noted, “that is not easy” – and it was difficult to think of another time, other than when Barcelona visited Manchester in November and he described Lionel Messi and Neymar as “almost unstoppable”, that City’s manager has sounded so praiseworthy about an opponent.

“As a spectator, it is so nice to see them,” Guardiola said. “I am really impressed how good they are. The full-backs play like wingers, the wingers play like attacking midfielders. The two strikers are fighters – Falcao and Germain, they are killers in the box. Both holding midfielders – Silva and Bakoyoko – are intelligent, physically strong. A complete team. It is the most successful team in Europe in terms of scoring goals and a tough draw.

“I’m looking forward to playing against them and seeing what our level is and I just have compliments because they are a really good team. I know how tough PSG can be in the French league. Yet this season Monaco are top, four or five points ahead, and that shows how good a job Jardim has done.”

Three points actually but it is easy to understand the gist when Monaco are averaging almost three goals a game in Ligue 1, historically a defence-minded league, and needed only eight home matches, with 31 goals, to go past their total of 30 for the whole of last season.

Two years ago, Monaco won their Champions League group with four goals in six games, whereas this season they scored nine times. Rudi García, the Marseille manager, summed it up rather neatly after his side were beaten 4-0 at Stade Louis II in November. Monaco, he said, would “score even if asked to play blindfolded”. The sides played again in Marseille last month – and Monaco won 4-1.

For City, it is another occasion when they need to show they should no longer be classed as Champions League novices. Guardiola was still keen to make the point that the club were on a learning curve, pinching his finger and thumb together to sum up what he meant by their “short history” at the top end of European football, but this is their 47th Champions League tie since September 2011, and last year they reached the semi-finals. By this stage, they should have the hang of it.

What they will need is the kind of balance between attack and defence that has not always been apparent this season. Sergio Agüero, back in the team because of Gabriel Jesus’s broken metatarsal, needs to rediscover some of his old stardust – “We are going to talk with him, like with all his team-mates, to convince him in these two games,” Guardiola said – and Yaya Touré’s role as the deepest-lying midfielder could be crucial to negate Monaco’s counterattacking threat.

Touré was rested from the FA Cup tie at Huddersfield with this game in mind, while Willy Caballero is probably entitled to think he deserves to start in goal ahead of Claudio Bravo.

Guardiola, hired with the specific job of bringing the European Cup to Manchester, sounded like he wanted City to embrace this competition in a way that was seldom the case under Manuel Pellegrini or Roberto Mancini.

“The passion, how beautiful it is, how amazing it is to be here again,” he said. “We are lucky guys. Always I play these games and think: ‘Wow, I’m lucky’ because I know how difficult it is as a manager, like a player, to be here.

“I want to convince the players to enjoy the moment because it is beautiful. All of Europe will watch us. They will kill us if we don’t win, or say how good we are if we do. That is a huge experience and it’s beautiful to live it.”

The 28-year-old, often miscast as a midfield destroyer, is the creative key in Sevilla’s push for glory in La Liga and the Champions League. Leicester beware

Steven N’Zonzi has blossomed in Seville. ‘We enjoy having the ball, passing,’ he says. ‘Life here is good, the people are really chilled.’ Photograph: Seville Football Club

 “I’m just me,” Steven N’Zonzi says. It is a simple enough statement, delivered softly; obvious too, unremarkable. And yet there is something in it, something in the way he says it and how long it takes him to say it. Ask a silly question, get a sensible answer – one that, unpacked, is more eloquent than it first appears. Not long ago, one of Spain’s sports newspapers compared him to Patrick Vieira and it was not the first: it is a line that goes all the way back to his arrival at Blackburn Rovers eight years ago. So, Steven, are you like the former Arsenal midfielder?

The pause is prolonged, it also feels a little awkward. “I don’t know,” he eventually says, which feels like a way of saying no. “It’s the same position. Physically we are quite similar because we are tall players. But he was more physical than me in his style. He was stronger than me. He was good technically as well, but I like to pass the ball.” There’s another pause before he adds: “Vieira is a legend; I’m just me.”

And there it is. In a way, much of the conversation has been about this: about who or what N’Zonzi is and who people think he is, about perception and adaptation, evolution, environment and education, finding his place and himself. In Seville it feels like he has done just that, at 28. Who, then, is Steven N’Kemboanza Mike Christopher N’Zonzi?

How about the best player in Spain, for a start? It is no huge exaggeration: Lionel Messi aside, there is certainly a case to be made. January’s player of the month ambles across the carpark at the José Ramón Cisneros Palacios training ground, out by the motorway where builders are constructing a B-team stadium and old shopping trolleys are loaded with laundry. It is warm, as it is most mornings, Barcelona have just been destroyed by Paris Saint-Germain and as N’Zonzi approaches a coach sees him. “Matuidi? Boo! N’Zonzi? Yay!” he cheers, thumbs down, thumbs up. He means it, too.
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There is a reason Sevilla recently extended N’Zonzi’s contract, increasing his buyout clause – although they did not disclose by how much. It had stood at €30m, but that came to seem cheap and clubs had come to enquire. Barcelona saw an alternative to Sergio Busquets, while Juventus, Arsenal and Manchester City were reportedly interested. The question is inevitable, especially as he has been talking about how much he likes it here with the sunshine, the football and the laidback lifestyle: would he really go back?

“The most important thing is the challenge. You are not on holiday: if not, I would play in Miami,” N’Zonzi says laughing. “Well, there is no team in Miami but you know what I’m saying. It’s a really short career so if there’s a good challenge you compromise. But I prefer to focus on what I’m doing. Newspapers say a lot of things about a lot of players and you never know if it’s true. If I start thinking too much I’m going to lose my focus and won’t play as well.”

He is playing well now, admitting that this may be the best season of his career; certainly one of them. After Sevilla defeated Real Madrid, Jorge Sampaoli, his manager, called him an “octopus”, tentacles everywhere. “Long legs, big legs,” N’Zonzi laughs.

Yet while it is true that he covers the whole pitch, striding through Freddie Kanouté-style to score, as he did against Atlético Madrid, or dropping deep to protect the defence, that is not it; that is not why they want him. When you see N’Zonzi between the centre-backs it is usually the start of a move, not the end of one; his game is construction, not destruction. His body deceives, insists Sevilla’s sporting director Ramón “Monchi” Rodríguez. Now at last everyone sees it.

“Steven’s a player who has to continually fight against his appearance,” Monchi says. “His profile’s that of an eminently physical player, fight and strength, when although it’s true he has those qualities his principle characteristic is his use of the ball and technical quality. That’s why we signed him and where he makes the difference.” No one in Spain has completed more passes; in Europe only Marco Verratti, Thiago Alcantara, Julian Weigl, and David Alaba have.

 Steven N’Zonzi has had to fight against the perception that he is a physical, defensive player due to his height. Photograph: Seville Football Club

It is some leap from the Britannia. Or is it? N’Zonzi does not think so. If it can be hard to look beyond his 6ft 3in frame, loping style, and a list that reads Blackburn Rovers, Stoke City, Sam Allardyce, Tony Pulis; if it is hard to trace a line from there to the Camp Nou, say, it should not be. This was always the way he saw himself, even if others saw him differently. He talks like he now plays: calm, considered, controlled. There is no hurry, long, slim fingers gesturing as he takes his time, carefully explaining his evolution, his sense of place.

“I know myself better than anyone and it was harder to adapt to a team coached by Allardyce or Pulis, because my game when I grew up in France was not a physical game. I was skinny, I was not a player who would tackle and stuff like this, so I had to improve and work a lot. Everyone has always seen me in that type of team and they think because I’m tall it was more my kind of play. But I think I was always more of a passing player,” he says.

Evidence comes from his final year at Stoke, 2014-15, where Mark Hughes brought a shift in style and N’Zonzi was their player of the season. There had even been a suggestion that he could play for England and he admits that he looked into it – “It would have been an opportunity for someone that never played internationally [but] nothing happened because it was impossible” – although there is a sense that his role is one that is underappreciated in England.

“I enjoyed it at Stoke, especially the last season. With Pulis we had a good team but we were more about being strong and physical; with Hughes it was more of a passing game. That is what I like most, so I felt really good. My last season at Stoke I finished really well but I didn’t really see any English team that wanted me. And Sevilla wanted me a lot so this is why I came, naturally.

“Monchi had been watching me a long time, even at Blackburn. He said: ‘We play in the Champions League, you can improve your game, it’s a different league.’” Sevilla had it all, except oatcakes. N’Zonzi laughs. He still speaks to Steven Ireland, Mame Diouf and Marco Arnautovic, and talks fondly of Peter Crouch, the only player he had to look up to, “a nice person who doesn’t take himself too seriously”. “I loved living in England; I was happy. But I love it here too; it’s amazing to wake to clear blue skies most days.”

Not that adaptation was easy. At first, he wondered what he had done. Seville is the hottest city in western Europe and he struggled to cope in that first pre-season, barely able to breathe; he was hospitalised with salmonella; and he was sent off in his first game, receiving a “bizarre” red card. Supporters were not sure, nor were critics. There were doubts, a momentary inclination to depart again. Instead, he adapted.

“It’s very different: technically, tactically – and the referees here …” N’Zonzi laughs. “They don’t let you play as much or as physically as in England. One foul is a yellow card. If you talk in a [certain] way, it’s a yellow card or red. In England they let you play, get annoyed, be physical.”

In Spain, being tall is often a foul and N’Zonzi is tall. “It happened a lot and I didn’t understand why. I would just go and head the ball, use my arms a little bit, and they’d give a foul. You need to adapt; it’s the only way. You adapt to the referees: you’re not going to change the way they are.”

Ultimately the shift suited him. And if six years in the Premier League appeared to be an impediment it was actually an advantage, he says. “I improved tactically in Spain. In England, you are asked to go with the game and stop the opposition playing. Tactically, it was not really high demand. I had to be strong physically, run a lot. In Spain in they ask you to stay in position: ‘When you don’t have the ball, go there, be here.’ But England helped me. It’s about experience, learning. I was lucky to play under different managers with different styles.

“In England, I improved physically as well. I’m not N’Golo Kanté, I’m not a top player, I don’t have that pace, but I did improve because the pace was really intense.” How? You can’t just become quick. N’Zonzi points to his head. “It’s in your mind,” he replies. “You think quicker, make decisions quicker. You can also work in the gym so you have a little bit more muscle: you are not going to be fast, you can’t change your physical possibilities but you can improve a little.”

Few clubs “rescue” and rehabilitate players as Sevilla do. In that first season in Spain, Unai Emery guided him; now Jorge Sampaoli has freed him. There are parallels there between the shift from Pulis to Hughes, he admits. Under Emery, N’Zonzi eventually became a key player, defensive and disciplined; now, under Sampaoli, he is the key player, with Samir Nasri, distributing.

“Sampaoli likes to have the ball and defend really high, pressing to recover it as soon as possible. He wants us to play, to be the protagonists. He does not want us to defend deep and just be strong and compact. He doesn’t like that. He wants to score goals and win.”

N’Zonzi likes it too. “We enjoy having the ball, passing. Pressing for 90 minutes is not easy and you cannot do it, sometimes you have to wait, but it’s fun. When the manager recognises the qualities in players and gives them confidence, you’ve done 60, 70, 80% of the job. Life here is good, the people are really chilled, and you don’t have as much pressure. With that, you can do something great.”

Steven N’Zonzi in action for Sevilla against Eibar, challenged by Gonzalo Escalante. Photograph: Aitor Alcalde Colomer/Getty Images

That’s the hope. Sevilla are third in La Liga – the only team to have beaten Real Madrid this season – and now the question is being asked: can they really win the league? “You never know in life,” N’Zonzi says. “You never know.”

The gap is a long one, the name he fills it with telling: “Leicester” he adds, as if that says it all. Which it kind of does. If ever there was a team whose name says hope, it is Sevilla’s opponents on Wednesday night. If N’Zonzi looks different to those who have not seen him in Spain, what of Leicester City? When he left, they were relegation candidates and, yes, they may be again, but they arrive in Spain as champions. “It was unbelievable what Leicester achieved, incredible,” he says. “They deserved it.”

Could that have happened in Spain? “I have played against teams in England and they are all very good with great, great players but here against Barcelona and Madrid it is very hard. Also, with Leicester’s type of play, I think it would have been harder in Spain. It’s different here.”

It is hard for Sevilla, too. “Over 38 games it is really hard to keep pace [with Madrid and Barcelona]. You have to believe you can win; if not, you don’t play. We have had a very good first half of the season, the most points in Sevilla’s history, but to do that again will be really tough – and for them to drop points too. It’s very complicated.”

“I don’t know if [the Champions League] suits us better, maybe,” N’Zonzi adds. “You can focus on two games and you qualify, then two games, then two games. There are great teams there too but it’s true that we have seen more lower teams reach the final there than in leagues, so ...”

So, first Leicester. “Dangerous,” he says. “It’s only two games and we can’t say: ‘Oh, it’s Leicester; it is going to be easier than if it was a bigger team.’ This is the wrong way to see things, because if they are here then it’s because they deserve to be; they qualified just like us. We are going to have to play hard to beat them. Of course they miss Kanté: he has a lot of energy, he was unbelievable, but they are have very fast players in attack so it’s a different way of playing, dangerous. But the manager will show us how we can change a little bit. We can adapt.”

There was something about the win over Leganés, the performance, the whole night, that was deeper than a single game. Barça need something to believe in

 Lionel Messi after scoring Barcelona’s late winner. Photograph: Xinhua/Barcroft Images 

It was the 89th minute and it could have been the end; 63,378 people watched, minus those who’d already departed depressed – and there were plenty of them – as he stood alone before them. Standing before him, meanwhile, was Iago Herrerín; Iago Herrerín and disaster. But there were no nerves, just annoyance, and there would be no joy, not even much sign of relief. Leo Messi took the penalty that might just have rescued Barcelona’s season, pulling them from an even darker place and keeping them alive for another week at least, as if all he really wanted was to get rid of the ball. Kick the bloody thing away. So he did: dismissively, angrily … and into the net.

And then he stood there. Messi didn’t smile, didn’t raise his fingers to the sky, another goal dedicated to his late grandmother Celia, and didn’t say anything. Team-mates ran over and embraced him but there was barely a flicker. He had just scored the winner in the last minute – although there was still time for Nabil El Zhar’s shot to fly wide at the other end – yet he didn’t feel like celebrating, didn’t feel he had anything to celebrate. He just stood, eyes lost, as if he was embarrassed or angry or both, ashamed by it all, black thoughts going round his mind. At the full-time whistle he walked off, occasionally responding to an opponent’s outstretched hand, but not stopping, like he just wanted to get out of there. 

Marc-André ter Stegen eventually followed him, stopping briefly for the pitchside interview. “It’s been a very difficult week for everyone and the most important thing was to win,” he said.

The most important thing, perhaps, but not the only thing. That much had been laid bare. A win like this did little for them, emotionally. It came in the last minute, Barcelona playing their Get Out Of Jail Free card – another one. They had scored after just three minutes, Messi putting away Luis Suárez’s assist, but Unai López had equalised for Leganés to make it 1-1 with 20 minutes to go. A draw would have left Barcelona three points behind Real Madrid, having played two games more and and hurting. In the week in which they were hammered 4-0 in Paris, their Champions League campaign virtually over, their league campaign might have been virtually over as well. But then came Messi.

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Actually, then came Neymar. For all the talk of Messi – “once again, Messi,” the headline in Sport read; “The saviour: Messi saved Barcelona again,” El Mundo Deportivo echoed – it was the Brazilian who really made it happen, just as he was the only player really making anything happen in Paris or trying to anyway. He ran into the area and was brought down by Martín Mantovani to win the penalty. Messi hit it hard, almost irritably, into the corner – a sensation that was reinforced by the way he reacted, or didn’t react.

Compare it with the day he scored a last-minute penalty winner against Valencia in October. There had been relief then, vindication, anger, screams; this time there was silence, a lost stare. Recognition perhaps that this was just a temporary stay of execution, a portrait of deeper problems. There’s a phrase here that refers to a bullfighter’s pride, and maybe Messi felt that on Sunday night: you don’t celebrate a victory without honour, without glory.

Before the game, the Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu had said: “It seemed as if [everything] was a debacle [with Tuesday’s loss] and it’s not.” Had they failed to beat Leganés it really would have been – and they had been mighty close to not winning. Rightly so, too: it is not even as if the penalty was the logical consequence of a late siege, still less a game-long one. “Barcelona border on the ridiculous,” Marca said; “Leganés had Barcelona on the ropes,” AS agreed. The front page of El Mundo Deportivo on Monday morning simply said: “Ufff!”, while Sport’s front page leads on: “Where there’s life, there’s hope.”

But is there? Messi’s reaction suggested otherwise. Barcelona needed to win, they also needed to win well – not least to convince themselves that there’s still a chance in the Champions League. But if they can only scrape past Leganés thanks to a late penalty, how are they going to stick four past Paris Saint-Germain? If football is, as Jorge Valdano famously put it, a state of mind, Barcelona’s is depressed.

Maybe this was always likely. “We know football: we all knew that tonight would be hard, strange, [because of] our emotional state and those imperceptible things, but thankfully we sorted it out,” Andrés Iniesta said. Luis Enrique claimed that the “inevitable ghosts appeared”, insisting: “It’s difficult given where we came from. The Champions League game is a weight upon you.” Writing in AS, Santi Giménez likened it to a hangover, harder to handle with age, where “routine tasks are torture”; where you might wake up and think you’re OK – Barcelona led after three minutes – but “you need to lie down on the sofa as soon as you reach the living room”. “Barcelona,” he says, “were promised a big win but it was all they could do to reach the toilet on time.”

And all this against Leganés, playing their first ever season in primera, without a win in 11, without a goal in three, and just two points off the drop zone: a game most thought would have been little more than a short, a Talking Point. (Yeah, sorry about that). Instead it was agonisingly close for Barcelona, almost a collapse that would have felt definitive. The end was nigh, until that penalty. It may still be, even with it. 

 Barcelona’s coach Luis Enrique at Sunday’s game. Photograph: Albert Gea/Reuters

There was something about the match, the performance, the whole night, that was deeper than a single game, a reflection of that whole debate about Barça’s identity and the way they’re playing. And nothing more so than the image at the end, a picture painting a thousand dark words: so much has been said, but it’s tempting to conclude that none of it said as much, or as eloquently, as Messi did without saying a word. He scored twice but didn’t smile once. Didn’t play well, either. And nor did anyone else.

On a night when for the first time ever Barcelona started with just one Spaniard (one Catalan if you prefer, and some do), a night when they had only two players from La Masia; when some supporters chanted Luis Enrique’s name and others whistled their disapproval, a Camp Nou plebiscite opening up a divide; when André Gomes was withdrawn to whistles in a stadium; and where one banner asked: “What has happened to Barcelona? I feel ashamed”, they needed a late penalty to win. On the night when they most needed something to believe in, unity and support five days after that defeat, they didn’t get it. 

On Sunday morning Sport and El Mundo Deportivo had done it again. Great minds or fools you decide, but for the umpteenth time they’d gone for the same headline: “It’s down to you … the hour has come,” they agreed. The hour, when it came, only just made it in time. It was almost 11 o’clock when Messi scored and frankly unexpected, too. Barcelona had 74% of the ball, it is true, but Samuel Umtiti to Jérémy Mathieu to Umtiti to Mathieu and back again isn’t going to worry anyone. The front three were largely absent, creating little, lacking sharpness or vision; Neymar apart, there not much sign of a rebellion. And the midfield three, changed for the 20th game in a row, were even more anonymous. They didn’t control or dominate. And here’s a stat: there isn’t a Barcelona player in the top 10 passers in the league this season and there isn’t a Barcelona midfielder in the top 25. Sergio Busquets is not in the top 80. 

Here’s another stat: 11 times La Liga teams have kept clean sheets against Leganés this season, the side who had scored just 15 times. Barcelona could not make it 12. They let in one, they could have let in more. The visitors have been drawn into a battle against relegation which was always likely but which they had resisted for so long until Sporting won last week, and which now looks all the more real with Granada winning this. So Asier Garitano admitted that Leganés came to the Camp Nou seeking a performance that would “strengthen” them. That did not actually mean getting a result, he explained, yet as it turned out they almost did. They had 11 shots, only two fewer than Barcelona and as many on target, while Ter Stegen was the game’s outstanding player, making five saves.

When Leganés’s goal came, it was a mistake from Sergi Roberto but it was no fluke, no isolated moment. No, they deserved the draw, everyone knew. And as Messi stood there waiting to take it from them, he knew best of all.

Talking points

• Antoine Griezmann took the kick-off, playing the ball back to Gabi Fernández, who carried it a couple of yards forward and then hit it long. Fernando Torres nodded it on, Yannick Carrasco ran to reach it and scored. The second half was seconds old and Atlético had the lead at Sporting Gijón, whose first-half performance lay in tatters. But if you think that was quick, Kevin Gameiro was quicker. He came on as a sub, the score by then 1-1, and grabbed the second fastest La Liga hat-trick in (recorded) history, after Bebeto against Albacete in 1995, and one second quicker than David Villa against Athletic in 2006. In total, four minutes and 45 seconds passed between his first and his third.

When you consider that there are also two celebrations, a double substitution and two free-kicks between the first and the third crossing the line, it’s even more impressive. TV were still showing the first as the second started to happen, thanks to more comedy defending from Jorge Meré and Fernando Amorebieta, making an entirely accurate time calculation difficult. But as a rough estimate: from crossing the line to start the hat-trick to crossing the line to finish it, the ball was only actually in play for around 81 seconds. “I dedicate it to my grandmother who passed away this week,” Gameiro said afterwards. His team-mates, meanwhile, dedicated him the ball. “The Flash,” Filipe Luis called him.

Speaking of fast. Gareth Bale is back. He had been away for 88 days but took just 13 minutes to score – despite admitting that he wasn’t actually planning on sprinting, just easing his way through the game. His strike was the 100th Real Madrid goal scored by a British footballer in the Spanish league, along with David Beckham, Michael Owen and Laurie Cunningham, all on 13, and Steve McManaman, who got eight. It finished 2-0 and it was not just about Bale. Isco provided two assists and Ronaldo not only produced a brilliantly bamboozling bit of skill but, for the second game in a row, a superb performance.

Sevilla: they’re still there, you know. It wasn’t their best performance – in fact, Jorge Sampaoli admitted that Eibar deserved more – but they won again at the weekend thanks largely to the hugely impressive Stefan Jovetic. Another superb signing.

• “Welcome to Los Cármenes, here’s the line-up for tonight’s game. For Granada Club de Fútbol: in goal, wearing No13, Memo Ochoa, Mexico. No22, Foulquier, France; No29 Hongla, Cameroon; No25 Ingason, Iceland; No3 Gastón Silva, Uruguay; No23 Héctor, Spain; No5 Uche, Nigeria; No18 Andreas Pereira, Brasil; No16 Carcela, Morocco; No8 Wakaso, Ghana; and wearing No7 Adrián Ramos, Colombia.”

For the first time in La Liga history, a team lined up with 11 players from 11 different countries when Granada played Betis on Friday. Even with the changes, the balance was almost maintained: a Spaniard, Moroccan and a Ghanaian came off, two Spaniards (Catalans) and a Greek went on. This, after all, is the squad that has 17 different nationalities in it, but even they had never done this before. They might do it again after they hammered Betis 4-1. “We’ve got hope back,” said coach Lucas Alcaraz, the most Granada man there is: former player, three-times manager, a gate at the stadium with his name on. As for Betis, their manager Víctor took the players over to the corner to apologise to the fans, standing there with their heads bowed, post-game.

• “This is a hard time,” Deportivo coach Gaizka Garitano said. His team are another that could well be dragged into the relegation fight – if they’re even his team for much longer.

• Knocked out the cup, defeated 3-2 with two late goals at the Calderón, beaten in the Europa League all in the space of eight days, Celta desperately needed a win. They got it against Osasuna, Iago Aspas dinking in the best of the three goals. As for Villarreal, they needed a result too, after their 4-0 hammering by Roma in midweek. Surprisingly, they got it in San Sebastian, with Samu Castillejo’s 94th-minute winner. Real Sociedad had16 shots, none of them on target.

• “I’ve got an English friend who says that tomorrow I’ll be a fucking legend,” so said Athletic Bilbao manager Ernesto Valverde on the eve of his team’s trip to Valencia, a game that was set to take him beyond Javier Clemente as the coach with the most games at the club. To which the only legitimate response was surely: Ernesto, you already are. Not that it helped much: with Inaki Williams and Aritz Aduriz left out (both came on later although Aduriz had to go off again), Athletic could not end their five-month run without an away win. Valencia, for whom Fabián Orellana looks like a superb signing, won 2-0. “It’s still not a matter of life and death,” Voro had said before the game; after it he said, “this is the path we have to follow to get out of there.” He has changed things, that’s for sure. “Voro is their best asset,” Valverde said afterwards. “He’s just saying that because he’s a mate of mine,” Voro replied.
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• The Spanish government has passed a law that brings anti-doping practice in line with the rest of the world … two years later. And, yes, that does mean what you think it means – yet little has been said. Tests this season were running at 0.003%, according to Marca.

• Finally, investigating judges have decided that there is sufficient evidence to go ahead with the case against 18 of the 19 people originally investigated in relation to match fixing by Osasuna between 2012 and 2014, including three then-Betis players Jordi Figueras, Antonio Amaya and Xavi Torres, and the former Osasuna president Miguel Archanco and his board. Betis’s players are accused of having accepted €650,000 in cash to beat Valladolid on the penultimate week and then to lose to Osasuna on the final week of the 2013-14 season.

Results: Barcelona 2–1 Leganés, Celta Vigo 3–0 Osasuna, Deportivo La Coruña 0–1 Alavés, Granada 4–1 Real Betis, Real Madrid 2–0 Espanyol, Real Sociedad 0-1 Villarreal, Sevilla 2–0 Eibar, Sporting Gijón 1-4 Atlético Madrid, Valencia 2–0 Athletic.

Monday: Málaga v Las Palmas