Ken Early

Dublin

Host and Columnist at Irish Times

@secondcaptains and irish times

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Articles

Ken Early: Maresca hails return of Champions League football after Chelsea burn through €1.4bn to finish fourth

1 week ago | irishtimes.com | Ken Early

People have lately taken to calling it the season of the underdog, but in the end the top five of the 2024-25 Premier League had a reassuringly familiar composition: two American-owned sports-groups, two clubs owned by Gulf states, and whatever the hell Chelsea are. Coming up behind them a couple of maverick oligarchs, followed by the streamlined professional gamblers’ outfits of Brighton and Brentford, then a rabble of mostly American-owned “sports groups” making up the numbers.
Crystal Palace beating Manchester City in the FA Cup let us see the real purpose of football

2 weeks ago | irishtimes.com | Ken Early

The last few weeks of the Premier League season have felt like a drag. In the space where competition used to be, a proliferation of negative questions: is Trent a snake? is Arteta a loser? Was this the most boring league of all time? Then Crystal Palace beat Manchester City in the FA Cup final to show us the real purpose of football: in the end it’s all about people crying in each other’s arms.
Ken Early: Trent Alexander-Arnold could improve shambolic Real Madrid, but can Xabi Alonso?

3 weeks ago | irishtimes.com | Ken Early

As Real Madrid kicked off at Barcelona on Sunday afternoon their coach-in-waiting, Xabi Alonso, was having his name sung by an adoring crowd in Leverkusen. Alonso had just completed the last home game of his remarkable 2½ seasons in charge of the German club.
Declan Rice should concentrate on playing to his strengths

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | Ken Early

Declan Rice ran on to Martin Ødegaard’s through ball, rounded Kepa Arrizabalaga and clipped the ball over the lunging Illia Zabarnyi into the net. He ran to the crowd and bowed in delight, a picture of perfect happiness. The glorious double against Real Madrid has given him the bug − a confirmed case of goal fever. The only prescription? More goals.
Ken Early: Arne Slot’s remarkable debut season at Liverpool helped by no-shows from title rivals

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | Ken Early

Frustrated by your rival clubs’ apparent efforts to drain your victory of emotion and spectacle? No problem: just bring it yourself. Liverpool sealed their 20th Premier League title with a 5-1 demolition of Tottenham, crowning a triumphant campaign with the flourish a raucous Anfield had demanded. Seldom can a match have begun amid such riotous pre-celebrations, the Liverpool bus emerging through thick clouds of red smoke as though Hell had elected a new Pope.
Ken Early: the future of Real Madrid is suddenly uncertain

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | Ken Early

A few weeks ago Aurelién Tchouaméni gave an interview where he recalled the reaction of his Real Madrid team-mates to winning the 2024 Champions League final at Wembley. “You mentioned people at Madrid are used to winning. All of a sudden we’ve won the Champions League and I’m in the locker room, and I thought,” – and here Tchouaméni looked around with wide eyes and a bewildered shrug – “what’s happening? And that’s when you realise a lot of the guys had already won it three, four, five times.
Ken Early: Likes of Salah and Lewandowski show that football is increasingly a country for old men

1 month ago | irishtimes.com | Ken Early

Mohamed Salah’s first game after his new contract was confirmed was the season in miniature. It started exceptionally well. He bullied West Ham’s 19-year old wing back Oliver Scarles. He set up the opening goal for Luis Diaz with a beautifully-weighted outside-of-the-foot pass. In doing so he set a new record of 45 goal contributions in a 38-game Premier League season – with six matches still to play. After that: not so much. Salah had 43 touches in the first half, only five in the second.
Ken Early: Manchester United’s problem has been too much Milton Friedman

2 months ago | irishtimes.com | Ken Early

A recommendation for all the Manchester United fans out there. For an analysis of where it’s all gone wrong for your club over the last 20 years, you should check out The Unaccountability Machine by Dan Davies. The book addresses the question of why so many contemporary systems and institutions are generating bad outcomes that nobody wants. It does not mention football at all, yet the spectre of Manchester United haunts every page. The book introduced me to the ideas of management cybernetics.
Ken Early: Manchester City’s 2024-25 season is a textbook study in burnout

2 months ago | irishtimes.com | Ken Early

There were times earlier this season, as Bournemouth amassed a thrilling collection of victories against the likes of Arsenal, Manchester City, Manchester United, Nottingham Forest and Newcastle, when people were wondering if Andoni Iraola might be showing a possible way forward for the game in the post-Guardiola era. Now Iraola’s side are winless in six since mid-February. They’ve hit the familiar spring slump of all sides who spend the autumn and winter pressing like maniacs.
Ken Early: Evan Ferguson gives Ireland fans a glimpse of the player they dream he will become

2 months ago | irishtimes.com | Ken Early

Ten minutes into the second half it looked as though Evan Ferguson was about to be hooked. Played in by Troy Parrott, who had hustled the Bulgarian defenders into giving it away at the back, Ferguson decided to try and side-foot the ball into the corner from way outside the box, rather than run a few more metres to reach a more dangerous shooting position.