The Sunday Times - UK (2021-12-19)

The Sunday Times December 19, 2021 13

N FOR THE AGES

Klopp’s side are in imperious form

with Mohamed Salah unplayable at

times.

Star man Salah

Must improve Naby Keita

Predicted finish 1st

MANCHESTER CITY

Entering the season without

a recognised No 9 has hardly

been a major impediment for City,

who have enjoyed assured displays

from Bernardo Silva plus the sight of

Raheem Sterling and Kevin De

Bruyne hitting peak form as

Christmas approaches. The form of

Grealish, the £100 million summer

signing, has been the only concern.

Star man Bernardo Silva

Must improve Grealish

Predicted finish 2nd

MANCHESTER UNITED

The Ole Gunnar Solskjaer era

ended with increasingly

desultory performances while Ralf

Rangnick’s started promisingly only

to be derailed by Covid. His three

games have posed more questions

than answers. Rangnick badly needs

to see improvements from his

defence and playmakers like Bruno

Fernandes and Marcus Rashford.

Star man Cristiano Ronaldo

Must improve Harry Maguire

Predicted finish 5th

NEWCASTLE UNITED

Four different voices from

the technical area already

this season, a change in ownership

and players who should have been

moved on have all contributed to

leave Newcastle fighting for their

Premier League lives. They have a

porous defence and Eddie Howe has

not improved that. Newcastle need a

magical January window.

Star man Callum Wilson

Must improve Joe Willock

Predicted finished 18th

NORWICH CITY

A team that look doomed for

relegation. Early-season

performances cost Daniel Farke his

job and while results have marginally

improved under the new manager

Dean Smith, the teams above them

look more likely to improve.

Star man Teemu Pukki

Must improve Todd Cantwell

Predicted finish 20th

SOUTHAMPTON

In 15th before this weekend,

the same position as last

season. They can look to the future

with two promising young talents in

Tino Livramento and Armando Broja,

but have missed the experience of

Danny Ings and Jannik Vestergaard

at both ends of the pitch.

Star man Mohammed Salisu

Must improve Adam Armstrong

Predicted finish 16th

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR

The turbulence has hardly

eased. After the disastrous,

scattergun, summer search for a

manager landed at Nuno Espírito

Santo, who lasted four months after

early false promise, his successor

Antonio Conte is already realising

the mammoth task on his hands.

Harry Kane’s future — and form —

continues to hang over the club but

recent results offer encouragement

that a smoother journey lies ahead.

Star man Oliver Skipp

Must improve Kane

Predicted finish 7th

WAT FO R D

Another chaotic start to the

season after Xisco was

sacked on October 3, despite the

club being clear of the relegation

zone in 14th. Claudio Ranieri’s arrival

has had mixed results, but

regardless of the manager, the

quality of the forwards Emmanuel

Dennis and Ismaila Sarr is likely to be

enough to ensure survival.

Star man Emmanuel Dennis

Must improve Danny Rose

Predicted finish 19th

WEST HAM UNITED

That David Moyes’s team are

in a realistic battle for fourth

place speaks volumes for how he has

allied a solid work ethic to massively

improved self-confidence. They fear

nobody, as proven by their

entertaining victories over Liverpool

and Chelsea, but their application

and energy levels can dip and this

needs addressing

if they are to

achieve a

Champions

League place.

Star man Declan Rice

Must improve

Andriy Yarmolenko

Predicted finish 4th

WOLVERHAMPTON

WANDERERS

The future of Adama Traoré,

and whether Wolves try to sell him, is

key and will determine how much

business the manager Bruno Lage is

allowed to conduct in the window.

He wants to do plenty, with Willy Boly

and Romain Saiss set to miss time in

January due to the Africa Cup of

Nations.

Star man Max Kilman

Must improve Traoré

Predicted finish 10th

Finally, Bath have hired

no-nonsense coach who

can rescue a club lost

in corporate twaddle

A light is shining at the end of an

extremely dark and long tunnel for

long-suffering Bath supporters. The

West Country club have fallen far

from their heights. The only aspect of

the club remaining anywhere near

the cliché the club love to use —

“world class” — are the fans. An aura

has survived through an era of utter

inadequacy on and, perhaps more

significantly, off the field. Supporters

have gone above and beyond the call

of duty.

The latest episode of inadequacy is

the worst. Bath are without a win this

season, and losing 71-17 at home to

Saracens was the nadir. Stuart

Hooper, the director of rugby, has

been fairly criticised. I have thought

and written that Bath should dismiss

him. The former club captain was

seen as a man capable of delivering in

the long term. This short-term slump

has stunned the club. Yet Hooper

survives, despite his responsibility

for the collapse.

Johann van Graan, the former

South Africa forwards coach, in

charge of Munster for the past five

seasons, will take over as head coach

from Neal Hatley next summer.

Tarquin McDonald, the Bath chief

executive, has stated Van Graan “will

hold full responsibility for our game,

focused on delivering winning

performances”. Brent Janse van

Rensburg’s joining immediately as

defence coach only reminds Bath

fans of the many things that have

gone wrong — on Hooper’s watch.

Few believe that Hatley has had

anything remotely like “full

responsibility” during his tenure.

And maybe that is not the greatest of

shocks. After all, as head coach he

was a rookie. His expert focus on the

scrums gave way to concentration on

game plan and preparation. In

addition, he was appointed defence

coach despite little background in

this crucial aspect of the game.

Attack coaches have to understand

the foundations of defensive thinking

and vice versa. But scrum coaching is

a specialism. Hatley was asked to

make a quantum leap. Not

surprisingly, he fell well short.

Bath took a gamble. Or rather

Hooper did. He, as director of rugby,

takes charge of such appointments.

New as a director of rugby, the logical

option would have been to buttress

the man the management saw as the

club’s long-term future with

someone... like Van Graan.

The South African was doing a

solid job at the helm in Munster at the

time, but there were other options.

Bath have more money than most,

and an aura. Hooper backed himself;

his backers are backed into a corner

as Bath stagger backwards.

Here is what Hooper says of the

South African coach. “He has

experienced winning rugby

environments at the very highest

level of the game and knows exactly

what it takes.” Exactly what Hooper

lacks. By the later stages of the week,

Hooper was explaining the difference

between his role (a questioning one

on the training field as well as all the

unseen stuff that builds the future)

and that of the head coach.

Few believe he did not have

complete control of the first XV and,

if Hatley was the overall boss, it is

difficult not to condemn the director

of rugby for allowing the coaching

side of the club to have such an

inexperienced leading edge to it.

This is what Hooper said on the

appointment of Hatley as head coach:

“Bringing Neal back into our

environment was about

reconnecting, finding out how I can

complement him, how he can

complement me and how we can

deliver the best programme here at

the club.” God knows what this

typical management speak was

supposed to mean.

Where another former Bath lock,

Steve Borthwick, is all clarity in his

role at Leicester Tigers, Hooper offers

confusion. Watching the way their

respective clubs perform, the

discrepancy is no great surprise.

Intriguingly, the next Bath head

coach comes from a corporate

culture. Van Graan’s father was chief

executive at the Blue Bulls. The son

was a ballboy before becoming an

important coaching cog in one of the

great teams of this century, winning

Super Rugby titles in 2007, 2009 and

2010. He speaks the business of
      rugby. Bath will soon be speaking Bull
      as opposed to bullshit. Hooper will be
      stepping away from the high-profile
      rugby operations. Having left his role
      as Springboks forwards coach for
      overall command as head coach at
      Munster, it is inconceivable Van
      Graan would take a regressive step
      into a role with fewer responsibilities.
      He will have complete tactical
      control of the team, from selection to
      recruitment within the confines of
      the Bath budget and the shrinking
      salary cap. The Hooper days of
      micromanagement are coming to an
      end, even if he remains director of
      rugby. A common-sense policy of
      broad rugby thinking has been Van
      Graan’s hallmark at Munster.
      Expect a hard-carrying inside
      centre (he brought Damian de
      Allende to Munster) and a return to
      the basic truisms of rugby vocabulary
      of which players, as well as
      supporters and media, can make
      both heads and tails.

Stuart Barnes

Where another

ex-Bath lock, Steve

Borthwick, is all

clarity at Leicester,

place speaks volumes Hooper is confusion

allied a solid work eth

improved self-confide

nobody, as proven by

entertaining victories

and Chelsea, but their

and energy levels can

ne

if t

ach

Ch

Leag

Star m

Must im

Andriy Yarm

Predicted fin

WOLVERHAMP

WANDERERS

The future of A

and whether Wolves t

key and will determine

business the manage

allowed to conduct in

He wants to doplenty

and Romain Saiss set

January due to the Afr

Nations.

Star man Max Kilma

Must improveTra

Predicted finish

RUGBY UNION