Culture
Andy Roddick, the U.S. Open’s last American male champion, sees himself a tennis schlub
The basic arc of Andy Roddick’s life goes something like this:
One day you’re a chirpy, hot-shot teenager with a thunderclap serve, who wears a baseball cap on a tennis court before that becomes a thing, and then one day you’re not good enough anymore, because inevitably nobody is. In between, you go to the top of a sport that doesn’t love chirpy teenagers in baseball caps all that much.
Then one day you wake up and you’re a soon-to-be middle aged guy at the end of his career, wondering what the rest of your life is supposed to look like. There has to be something else besides 27 holes a day to occupy the brain.
Coach? Commentator? The guy who gets paid to show up and shake hands with some company’s sales force, to tell stories about what it was like to face Roger Federer and all your worst fears, in the forbearance of overtime in the fifth set of a Wimbledon final, shadows slanting across the grass?
Roddick didn’t have an answer. So what did he do? What came after everything the itinerant life of pro tennis had taught him, after 15 years of lonely hotel rooms, of too-long layovers in places he might never have chosen to be? “Wasn’t really motivated to work much,” he said.
He disappeared for a while, from the experience that made him vow to never “punt control of my geography to someone else again.”
Then he decided to wing it, thoughtfully.
“I’ve always been curious,” he said.
Andy Roddick and Roger Federer’s 2009 Wimbledon final required 30 games in its deciding set. (David Ashdown / Getty Images)
Roddick is talking from his garage in North Carolina. It doubles as the set for “Served with Andy Roddick,” the weekly (and sometimes more frequent) podcast that the Tennis Channel shows on its T2 network. It’s also where he sometimes beams in from for post-match analysis. There are plenty of moments when he still sounds like that chirpy teenager in the baseball cap, like when he recounts a guy questioning one of his calls during a recent set at a local club.
“Really pal? I played three Wimbledon finals, won the U.S. Open and spent three months as the world No. 1, and you think I’m hooking you on Court 11 in the Carolina ‘burbs?”
Listen a little more closely, and something else becomes pretty clear. Somewhere along the way during the dozen years since he called it quits, Andy Roddick morphed into a fully fledged grown-up, whether he likes it or not.
How did that happen? How did that chirpy teenager suddenly get to this middle-age existence, wife and kids and in-law dinners, wearing the status of millennial tennis wise man?
Where does life, his and ours, go?
When Roddick became a spunky 21-year-old, he went to the cathedral of American tennis in 2003 and came out with the trophy in his hands and the cap on his head. 21 years on, Roddick, 42, is a dozen years into retirement yet younger than Roger Federer.
No American man has cradled that U.S. Open trophy since, with No. 12, No. 14, and No. 20 seeds, Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul, and Frances Tiafoe all vying to match Roddick’s achievement in 2024.
Roddick was still in his 20s when he married Sports Illustrated model Brooklyn Decker. Roddick and Decker, who is now a successful actor, have two children: Hank, their 8-year-old son, and Stevie, their 6-year-old daughter. Given what they could be doing, they live what is, by all accounts, a pretty normal life close to her parents. They gather for dinners on many Sunday evenings.
He has also amassed a small fortune built around what he described as “the most boring business you’ll ever hear about.” It’s a commercial real estate company that owns more than 100 properties. He and a partner began to scoop them up on the cheap after the financial meltdown in 2008. Their tenants are companies like Starbucks, Lowe’s, and Home Depot.
One thing he doesn’t do is coach. One thing he does do is stay in regular contact with roughly a dozen tour players who come to him for advice. Sometimes, it’s just texts or a phone call. Sometimes, they appear in North Carolina for a day or two of serving help from one of the masters of the most important shot in tennis. Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula are in this group.
“I’ve never been paid for coaching and I never will be paid for coaching,” he said.
Roddick is a tennis nerd who likes talking through shots and strategy and the psychological challenges of the game. Don’t even think about asking him to consider heading out on the road to focus on one player.
During the final years of his career, there were some hints that life might go this way for Roddick. Pretty much everyone missed them.
Maybe it was the ball cap. Maybe it was that chin-first approach to the game, or the increasingly visible frustration of having the three best players of the modern era come along and hijack his career. The raw pain of those three final Sunday losses in five years to Federer at Wimbledon, plus another in a U.S. Open final, may have dulled. But it’s always there, a thematic reference point that can become jovial material for a podcast episode, a callback for the audience to go: “Hey, I know that bit!”
He won the U.S. Open in 2003, the last American man to do so. (Nick Laham / Getty Images)
To be a master of delusion and magical thinking is practically a requirement for world-class athletes. They have to convince themselves that they can win any match or game against anyone in the world on any day. Roddick could do that — and then he couldn’t.
A drubbing from Novak Djokovic was what broke him. Djokovic deigned to spend just 54 minutes on beating him 6-2, 6-1 at the All England Club during the 2012 Olympics, on Roddick’s best surface. These guys at the top of the game had a level he no longer possessed, if he ever even did.
Cursed with self-awareness, he woke up in a New York hotel room a month later, in the middle of the U.S. Open. He was feeling a little strange. He called Decker, who was out for a walk, and asked her to come back to the hotel. He needed to talk to her about something.
When she got there, he told her he would be done playing when the tournament spat him out. It didn’t matter that he’d won two of his last four tournaments. Didn’t matter that he could have likely survived with a ranking somewhere between No. 5 and No. 40 for another four or five years. Other statesmen of his era either retired just recently or are still out there, toiling in the three-figure ranks. Roddick wasn’t going to do that.
A few days later, he lost in the fourth round to Juan Martin Del Potro. The tournament honored him with a ceremony at its conclusion. And that was that.
“I know who I am, and I know who I’m not,” he said.
It’s a quality that has come in handy for Roddick, and in a meandering way, it helped bring him back to New York for this year’s U.S. Open, to accept an award for his work with hundreds of less-advantaged children in his hometown of Austin.
They participate in after-school and summer enrichment programs created by his foundation. The programs involve a bit of sport, but are more focused on making up the learning gap with wealthier children, who have access to all manner of extracurricular activities and summer camps when they are not in school.
Roddick started the foundation when he was still a teenager and without much thought. Raise some money. Give some tennis clinics to kids who probably would not be exposed to the sport otherwise. Pat yourself on the back.
For a decade, the foundation was what he described as a “typical athlete nonprofit.” Use your celebrity to raise a bunch of money and get your friends involved, and turn the money over to organizations that you like.
“Elton John would come play,” he said. “That’s not a hard thing to sell.”
Then during one of his final U.S. Opens, he was having dinner with one of his oldest friends, Jeff Lau. Lau is a buddy from their earliest years in junior tennis in Austin, when Roddick was 8 and Lau was 10. Roddick’s tennis got him to No. 1 in the world. Lau’s tennis helped him gain entry into West Point. After graduating, he served overseas, including in Iraq.
Andy Roddick serves to Juan Martin del Potro in his last U.S. Open. (Chris Trotman / Getty Images for USTA)
Lau eventually left the military and began working as an investment banker in New York. He and Roddick would have dinner whenever he came through the city, especially during the U.S. Open.
At one of those dinners, Lau started quizzing Roddick about the foundation, its mission, its structure, and its plan for survival. He wasn’t impressed.
“You’re on your way to irrelevance,” Lau told him. “How long do you think Elton John is going to come play for you?”
At the time, Roddick figured he had about three more years on the tour. He actually had about one. He left the dinner seriously irritated at Lau — because he knew Lau was right.
Roddick’s next thought was to start a charter school, like his hero, Andre Agassi, had done in Las Vegas. Then the smart people in and out of the government of Austin, as well as lots of parents, told him that the city didn’t need another charter school.
During their research, they stumbled on a piece of information that floored them. Texas sometimes used its fifth-grade literacy rates to project how many new prison beds it would need in the future. Could they lift those rates up?
“The biggest gap was actually out of school time,” Lau said.
That meant after school, when kids whose parents are working a second or third job are home alone, while more advantaged children are receiving private lessons or other extracurricular enrichment. Then come summers, when it’s all too easy for kids to give back the progress they have made in the previous 10 months.
When Roddick and Lau launched their programs, they wanted proof that they were making a difference. After five years, they saw what they hoped they would see.
More than 200 Austin kids took part in this summer’s Learn All the Time program. According to Roddick’s foundation they miss fewer days of school, have fewer disciplinary problems and perform better on state tests than their peers.
The seriousness that brought about that initiative carries through on “Served.” The energy is all jocular, sitting around naming tennis players, reviewing results, and making predictions sure to be wrong, but as with Roddick the player, there’s brain inside the baseball cap. These are the two sides to Roddick, who is serious about his work but not too serious about himself.
The Roddick that Roddick presents during the show might easily be confused with some random, pretty decent middle-aged club player, who maybe rose to No. 700 in the world and took home a couple of Challenger titles. Rather than a guy who was world No. 1, and won a few Challenger Tour events and a U.S. Open.
There’s almost always some moment in every episode where he puts the Big Three in one category and then lumps himself with everyone else, and that includes you, with a reference to his own game that is something along the likes of, “schlubs like us.”
Andy Roddick’s on-court demeanour belied the seriousness of his thoughts about tennis. (Ian Walton / Getty Images)
He’s also not afraid to be on the receiving end of just about anything. Lindsay Davenport, a longtime friend who is a former world No. 1 and the current Billie Jean King Cup coach for the U.S., called him out for mocking U.S. Open quarterfinalist Emma Navarro. Navarro had had to perform something, ahead of her inaugural appearance on the national team. She chose to rap.
It wasn’t a great performance. Then again, Navarro is a tennis player, not a hip-hop artist, and Davenport didn’t like the way Roddick had been, in her view, demeaning to a good-hearted young woman who was playing along with a joke. It wasn’t so much his words but his tone.
“You didn’t have to be such a…” she said. You can finish the sentence. The word rhymes with “stick.”
Lulled by all the irreverence, the pretty important tennis nuggets can rattle past at Roddick’s excited clip, especially when it comes to serving, his greatest skill.
He was one of the first to notice that Alexander Zverev had lowered his toss by about a foot, letting him crack the ball as never before. The adjustment has taken him to No. 2 in the world.
Gauff’s second-serve issues? She probably wants to move her toss back a bit, he explained in pretty simple terms. She’s trying to go too far forward into the court, and the further forward you go, the harder it is to control the serve.
Gauff followed his advice. After her struggles at this year’s U.S. Open with her serve, she may well seek more of it.
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Carlos Alcaraz’s serve, having been good but kind of unthreatening compared to just about everything else he does, became borderline deadly at Wimbledon. Novak Djokovic couldn’t believe what was skidding and jumping off the grass in the final. Roddick saw why. Instead of raising his arms in a classic straight V-shape, Alcaraz was rotating his back shoulder more and coming around the ball. It was hitting the court and taking off in a more dramatic way. It probably felt a lot heavier when it hit Djokovic’s strings.
Drop any of those nuggets at your next tennis barbecue. Your buddies will be impressed.
He also took time to reveal his recent brush with skin cancer (he’s OK, but wear sunscreen, please) and he was one of the more sober voices after news broke that Jannik Sinner had tested positive for a banned anabolic steroid. No, he said, it wasn’t likely a signal that sustained doping, outside of those two failed tests, was a part of Sinner’s success. He explained the randomness of testing, the knocks on the door. He even explained it to Nick Kyrgios, who has his own “Good Trouble” media vehicle and no fear of having an opinion.
Lots of people in tennis have these thoughts. Players, fans, social media creators, tennis journalists. Roddick’s versions of these thoughts cut through, and it isn’t all to do with the cachet of being a former world No. 1, or taking Federer to an edge over which he would not be pushed.
“It’s one thing to be able to see the game and have clever thoughts,” said Bob Wiley, a top programmer at The Tennis Channel. “It’s another to be able to express yourself succinctly so people can understand it.”
Where all of this leads, not even Roddick knows, as if any of us ever do. At the moment, though, it’s a pretty beautifully boring grown-up existence.
“I just really like being home,” he said.
(Top photos: Cynthia Lum, WireImage; Tim Clayton, Corbis / Getty Images; Design: Eamonn Dalton for The Athletic)
By going chalk, United States captain Jim Furyk has created intrigue ahead of this month’s Presidents Cup.
Furyk selected Nos. 7-12 on the team standings for his six captain’s picks, announced on Tuesday. The move means Ryder Cup captain Keegan Bradley will be playing for Team USA for the first time in a decade, but longtime American stalwart Justin Thomas will be left at home.
The other American picks were Sam Burns, Russell Henley, Max Homa, Brian Harman and Tony Finau. Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, Collin Morikawa, Wyndham Clark, Patrick Cantlay and Sahith Theegala were the six automatic selections to the team.
The Presidents Cup is at Royal Montreal Golf Club from Sept. 26-29.
“Just trying to put the puzzle pieces together,” Furyk said in explaining his pick, calling it a “tough omission” but otherwise not offering an explanation to Golf Channel for leaving out Thomas. The 31-year-old was No. 19 on the points standings.
Bradley was initially slated to be a captain’s assistant for Furyk, his only chance to get team leadership experience ahead of the 2025 Ryder Cup at Bethpage Black in New York. Instead, he’ll be relieved of those duties, Furyk said, and will instead be allowed to focus on playing.
International team captain Mike Weir selected Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Corey Conners, Mackenzie Hughes, Si Woo Kim, Min Woo Lee and Taylor Pendrith. Conners, Hughes and Pendrith are all Canadians, giving the team a true maple flavor with a Canadian captain and three players. They’ll join Hideki Matsuyama, Sungjae Im, Adam Scott, Tom Kim, Jason Day and Byeong Hun An.
What to think about the United States team
This is simultaneously unsurprising and incredibly disappointing. Furyrk going chalk with the players ranked No. 7-12 saves himself from criticism because he can say “It’s fair,” but it means the U.S. has a team that fails at both current form and ushering in young talent. Max Homa has dropped to No. 86 on DataGolf amid a mess of a season, and Brian Harman has just one top-10 finish since March. Meanwhile, Justin Thomas is a U.S. Cup legend and is having a much better season than both of them. Thomas is 9-3-2 at Presidents Cups and finished T14 at the Tour Championship, and Akshay Bhatia won the Texas Open this year. It could have been invaluable to get the 22-year-old rising star in the team room for the future. It all feels like a missed opportunity that neither brings the best team nor helps the team going forward. — Brody Miller
Furyk might have gone straight down the list and picked the next six players on the U.S. Presidents Cup standings list, but a few of these selections are still baffling. Harman and Homa have been outplayed by several players who would have been excellent fits for the squad — including Thomas, who is widely known as one of the best American match-play players of this generation. Harman was likely picked for his driving accuracy in preparation for a tight and narrow Royal Montreal, and Homa will provide the fire and spirit that comes naturally to him in team environments. But think about Bhatia or even someone like 20-year-old Nick Dunlap. This year’s Cup could have been the perfect opportunity to prepare young blood for future team events, and instead, Furyk went with an older set of picks who aren’t even necessarily playing that well right now. Statistics most likely played a huge role in these decisions, in addition to partner fit. But you can’t ignore recent form, and it appears that Furyk did exactly that. — Gabby Herzig
What to think about the International team
Weir gives his native Canadians love, but maybe not the ones we thought. It would have been impossible for Weir to leave out Lee or Kim — two of his top talents — or Bezuidenhout, who is having a great year, so it essentially left three decisions to make. You could argue Conners is one of the five best international players, so that’s a no-brainer. Same with Pendrith, who has jumped to No. 25 in the world in DataGolf with a career year. It’s the choice of Hughes over potentially better talents in Adam Hadwin and Nick Taylor that’s so tough to make. Both Hadwin and Taylor have struggled mightily the last few months, so I get it, but Taylor is a killer with two big boy wins in the 2024 WM Phoenix Open and the 2023 Canadian Open, until an absolute mess of a summer. That stings. (Leaving off Australian Cam Davis is the right move. His nice win in Detroit was more of an outlier.) — Miller
Weir considered a variety of factors in his captain’s picks. Still, the Canadian home game element and an emphasis on recent form seem to have dominated his decision-making process. Of Weir’s captain’s picks, the three Canadians will relish playing on familiar turf in front of a supportive crowd. Hughes — who came in ranked No. 15 in the International Team standings — was notably left off the squad in 2022. He’s also known to welcome leadership roles, and should be an excellent fit for the team room. Pendrith and Conners got the nod, seemingly over Hadwin and Taylor, who are perhaps the more recognizable and fiery Canadians. The choice indicated that Weir prioritized consistency and recent tournament results. Then you have Kim: He brought some memorable heat to the 2022 matches and was undoubtedly a no-brainer pick for the locker room energy. Plus, Weir specifically mentioned Kim’s putting, which has been shaky as of late, but seems to be improving with a putter switch. Bezuidenhout sneaked into the FedEx top 30 and put together an underrated season, and Lee has emerged as one of the best drivers on the PGA Tour and has cemented himself as an easy fan favorite. Overall, not too many surprises here, besides the Hughes curveball and Davis being skipped over at No. 8 in the standings. Weir’s picks are strong and represent a deliberate, versatile strategy. — Herzig
Required reading
(Top photo: Keyur Khamar / PGA Tour via Getty Images)
Although the Premier League’s summer transfer window has closed, many big-name players still have their futures unresolved.
Other transfer windows remain open, including in Turkey, whose clubs can do business until September 13, so moves could still happen. But with four months until the start of the January window in the major European leagues, The Athletic has picked a starting XI of players who currently find themselves out of favour at their top-flight side.
Though not all have been ostracised completely from first-team action, their futures look uncertain.
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GK: Odysseas Vlachodimos
Vlachodimos, who made just seven appearances in his sole season at Nottingham Forest before joining Newcastle United on July 1, was signed as a makeweight to assist both clubs in complying with profit and sustainability rules (PSR), with midfielder Elliot Anderson going the other way.
While Anderson, a highly-rated 21-year-old Newcastle academy graduate, has played in each of Forest’s opening three matches of the season, Vlachodimos is not expected to play an on-pitch role under Eddie Howe.
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The 30-year-old Greece international was free to leave on loan, but Newcastle failed to find a suitable deal before Friday’s deadline. As it stands, he ranks behind Nick Pope and Martin Dubravka and is yet to make a Newcastle matchday squad — though Vlachodimos could become Howe’s No 2 should Dubravka, who is looking for first-team football, find a move in January.
With Raheem Sterling securing a deadline-day season-long loan to Arsenal, Chilwell holds the unwanted tag as the face of Enzo Maresca’s Chelsea ‘Bomb squad’.
It’s only a year since Chilwell looked set to play an important role under Mauricio Pochettino, with the newly-appointed Argentinian handing him the vice-captaincy in pre-season. Now, Chilwell is firmly out of favour at Stamford Bridge and appears set to struggle on the fringes.
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Maresca prefers inverted full-backs, which does not fit with Chilwell’s overlapping game. Marc Cucurella is the Italian coach’s first choice at left-back, and he has also trialled Malo Gusto, a natural right-back, in that position in pre-season. Levi Colwill, who has started in central defence in each of Chelsea’s three opening matches of the league season, is another option at left-back, though his future appears to be set at the heart of the defence.
Chilwell, 27, is one of Chelsea’s highest earners, so it may be challenging to engineer a move away in January unless one of the elite sides in the Premier League or continental Europe are willing to take on his salary. Arsenal are paying less than 50 per cent of Sterling’s wages, so Chelsea may be willing to cut their losses for Chilwell to engineer a move away.
Tierney was expected to leave Arsenal this summer, having spent last season on loan at Real Sociedad in La Liga, but a hamstring injury suffered while playing for Scotland at the European Championship ruled him out of a move.
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The 27-year-old played an important role at the Emirates Stadium after leaving Celtic in summer 2019 but was a casualty of Mikel Arteta’s desire to elevate the team into title contenders when he was appointed at the end of that calendar year.
While he may not be a good fit under the Spaniard and may never play for Arsenal again with so much competition in his position, Tierney has the quality and experience to find himself another Premier League club in January — should he not suffer any setbacks on his return from injury.
Tierney assisted twice in 20 league appearances last season as Real Sociedad finished sixth in La Liga.
Tierney spent last season on loan at Real Sociedad (Aitor Alcalde/Getty Images)
Unlike team-mate Chilwell, Disasi is still around the first team under Maresca, but he is set to play a significantly reduced role this season.
Signed for £38.5million (€45m) last summer from Monaco of France’s Ligue 1, Disasi made an immediate impression, scoring on his debut in a 1-1 draw against Liverpool. His best performance of the season came against Manchester City in another 1-1 in February, where he made 16 clearances, the most by a Chelsea player in the league in eight seasons.
But after suffering an injury which sidelined him for the 6-0 defeat of Everton in April, Disasi struggled to get back into the side as Chelsea’s results improved. Disasi started just once in the final eight league matches, and that was the humiliating 6-0 defeat to London rivals Arsenal.
Despite him featuring regularly under previous manager Pochettino, Maresca does not favour the 26-year-old. Disasi did play in both legs of the Conference League qualifier against Swiss side Servette as Chelsea confirmed their place in the league phase with a 3-2 aggregate victory and made the matchday squad for the 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace on Sunday, but he is yet to register a minute in the league this season.
Kiwior proved a valuable and versatile squad player for Arsenal in 2023-24, filling in at left-back on 13 occasions in the league, including during a seven-match winning streak. On that run, Kiwior scored once and provided three assists.
However, due to Jurrien Timber’s return to fitness after missing the majority of last season with a cruciate ligament tear and the £42million signing of Riccardo Calafiori, Kiwior does not appear to have a role under Arteta. After missing out on the matchday squad in the opening-weekend 2-0 win over Wolves, Kiwior has been included in Arteta’s two most recent squads, but he is yet to get onto the pitch.
The 24-year-old is a Poland international and undoubtedly has the quality to start in the Premier League. If his situation does not change before January’s transfer window, he could push to move elsewhere for the second half of the season.
(Andrew Kearns – CameraSport via Getty Images)
Lamptey has been around at the Premier League level for a long time, so it is easy to forget he is still just 23.
He has a breakout season in 2022-23, but injuries and Brighton team-mate Joel Veltman’s consistency have meant Lamptey has struggled to re-establish himself as a starter.
A first appearance of the season came in last week’s Carabao Cup win over League One neighbours Crawley but he is yet to register his first minutes in the Premier League. There could now be a window for Lamptey to impress under new head coach Fabian Hurzeler, as Veltman went off with an injury in the 1-1 draw against Arsenal on the weekend.
Still, as it stands, he remains on the fringes of Brighton’s squad.
It has been a difficult few years for Guedes, who once looked set for a career at the top of the game.
Guedes has failed to establish himself in the starting XI at Wolves since moving from Spanish club Valencia in 2022-23 and has spent portions of the last two seasons on loan at Benfica in Portugal and back in La Liga with Villarreal. The 27-year-old was linked with a transfer all this summer, but after one failed to materialise, he finds himself on the fringes of Gary O’Neil’s starting XI.
He has yet to start in the league this season, but he impressed in the Carabao Cup last week, scoring twice as Wolves beat recently-relegated Championship side Burnley 2-0. Due to his impressive performance midweek, O’Neil gave him an opportunity in the league on the weekend from the bench, replacing the goalscorer Jean-Ricner Bellegarde in the 75th minute in a 1-1 draw away to Nottingham Forest.
Given Wolves’ long-term struggles in front of goal, O’Neil could be tempted to give Guedes another shot — even if he looked set to depart in this window.
After spending a season out on loan at Watford in the 2022-23 Championship, Choudhury broke back into the Leicester City side for their title-winning campaign in that division last season but now finds himself out of favour again at the King Power Stadium.
Choudhury was an unused substitute in Leicester’s opening two Premier League fixtures, then came off the bench to assist a goal in their 4-0 Carabao Cup win over Tranmere Rovers of League Two last Tuesday. However, Choudhury did not make the squad for the league game at home against Aston Villa on Saturday, where Leicester lost 2-1, and he appears firmly out of manager Steve Cooper’s plans.
While Eriksen continues to retain an important role for Denmark’s national team, he is now little more than a fringe player at Manchester United.
The now 32-year-old was an important part of the United side in his 2022-23 debut season, making 28 league appearances, but saw his role diminish in the following on as teenager Kobbie Mainoo emerged from the academy ranks to take his place in the team.
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Despite fellow central midfielder Scott McTominay recently departing for Italy’s Napoli, Eriksen was an unused substitute in United’s first two league matches of the season and was only brought on with five minutes remaining in the 3-0 defeat to rivals Liverpool on Sunday.
Eriksen could still be a backup to Mainoo under Erik ten Hag, but it appears his days as a starter at the club are over.
Almiron, who had a significant impact for Newcastle in the 2022-23 season as they qualified for the Champions League, was linked with a move away from St James’ Park for much of the summer’s transfer window.
Earlier in the window, a move back to MLS with Charlotte FC fell through. Almiron knows the North American league well after spending three years at Atlanta United from 2016 to 2019, helping them win the title in his final season.
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As Friday’s deadline drew nearer, the now 30-year-old was involved in discussions for a swap deal involving Anthony Elanga, but Nottingham Forest declined Newcastle’s proposal. Almiron made his second league appearance of the season on Sunday, coming on as a 90th-minute substitute as they beat Tottenham Hotspur 2-1, but he does not appear close to Eddie Howe’s starting XI despite a lack of natural right-sided wingers in the squad.
(Paul Ellis ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images)
West Ham United made Ings available for transfer back at the beginning of the window, but he did not secure a move.
The former England international played five minutes off the bench in the 2-1 opening-weekend loss to Aston Villa, one of his former clubs, but was an unused substitute in the 2-0 win over Crystal Palace the following Saturday.
Ings was then left out of the matchday squad by new head coach Julen Lopetegui for both the 1-0 win against Bournemouth, his first pro club, in the Carabao Cup last Wednesday and on Saturday, as Manchester City beat them 3-1 in the league. Now aged 32, his future at the east London club remains uncertain.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
Culture
The inevitability of Haaland, Everton’s new weakness, Fulham’s Arsenal connections – Data column
Three down, 35 to go.
An international break is upon us just as the Premier League was clicking into gear. On Saturday, Arsenal dropped points at home for the first time since mid-April, Manchester City continued a 12-game winning streak and we were treated to the latest comeback from two goals down in Premier League history at Goodison Park.
Sunday did not disappoint, either. Newcastle United edged a fiercely contested clash with Tottenham Hotspur before Liverpool made light work of Manchester United in a comprehensive 3-0 victory, with Arne Slot becoming the first Liverpool manager to win his first game at Old Trafford since George Kay in 1936.
A trio of Premier League weekends is barely enough time for any statistical trends to emerge but there have been plenty of tactical tales to get our teeth into in the opening stages. Allow The Athletic to walk you through some of the quirks we have spotted from the weekend’s fixtures…
Haaland is inevitable
It feels too obvious to start with Erling Haaland scoring goals, but there is an obligation when the Norwegian scores successive hat-tricks.
That takes him to seven goals (including one penalty) in the first three Premier League games of 2024-25, more than any player has managed in a team’s opening three games of a season.
To wrap some context around that, those seven strikes are already more than Michail Antonio, Evan Ferguson, Gabriel Jesus, Danny Welbeck, and Taiwo Awoniyi managed in 2023-24 — and more than 17 Premier League teams this season.
Saturday’s hat-trick at West Ham was his first away from the Etihad, taking him to eight hat-tricks in his Premier League career — the joint-fourth highest in the division’s all-time records alongside Thierry Henry, Harry Kane and Michael Owen — and his 11th in a Manchester City shirt. He signed in the summer of 2022, this is not normal.
Breaking down those hat-tricks per game shows how lucrative his opportunities have been. Of the 24 goals in this sample, only two have been outside the box — both coming this season.
We know it by now, but Haaland does not need to be involved in City’s build-up play to impact the game. Among all players with 900-plus minutes played since he joined the league in 2022-23, Haaland has just 6.2 touches per shot — the fewest of any other player, edging ahead of Fulham’s Rodrigo Muniz (7.1) and Liverpool’s Darwnin Nunez (8.1).
He looks well-rested and more clinical than ever. A deadly combination for opposition defences.
(Charlotte Wilson/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)
A defensive weakness is emerging for Everton
Everton’s capitulation was a story in itself on Saturday afternoon, but more worrying was the theme that ran through the goals they conceded — not just against Bournemouth, but across all three of their games.
Of the 10 goals they have conceded, five have been from failing to deal with crosses.
Their three goals conceded against Bournemouth saw two situations of poor defending at the back post, with Vitalii Mykolenko out of position or unable to defend the cross.
A similar pattern can be seen on the opposite flank in the opening-day loss to Brighton. This time, Ashley Young is too far advanced as Kaoru Mitoma gets free at the back post for a simple tap-in from Yankuba Minteh’s cross.
Set-piece crosses were the weakness against Tottenham, with James Tarkowski uncharacteristically dominated in the air by Christian Romero, who rose to head home a corner.
A glance under the bonnet does not provide much positivity for Everton fans. Sean Dyche’s side have conceded the most successful crosses (21) of any team in the opening three weeks of the season.
For a side whose defensive numbers stood up among the best in the league last season — with 1.3 goals conceded per 90 being the fourth-strongest rate — there are clear problems to address.
The good news is the issues are obvious. Deal with crosses at source and ensure that nothing gets past you at the back post.
Can Newcastle keep injuries at bay?
Newcastle overcame Tottenham in a scrappy contest at St James’ Park on Sunday — so scrappy that each of the seven midfielders from both sides picked up a yellow card for their troubles.
That is not a statistic to be proud of, but it showed that Eddie Howe’s team have regained their bite after last season’s campaign was ravaged by injury.
Not including Sandro Tonali’s suspension for betting offences, Newcastle players lost a combined total of 2,154 days to injuries last season — a huge uptick from previous campaigns and comfortably the most under Howe.
Howe’s squads have been littered with injury problems across his managerial career and there are still some important players on Newcastle’s treatment table but this season, his side look recharged.
A campaign without European football might see a cleaner bill of health, with Sunday’s victory over Spurs keeping Newcastle undefeated at the start of the season.
Will Southampton learn their lesson quickly?
When playing against Southampton, the pre-match tactics talk writes itself — pressure them high as they build out from the back.
A high press is a staple of the modern game, but Russell Martin’s side are providing some gift-wrapped opportunities with their deep build-up that is not quite sharpened to the elite level of the Premier League.
We knew this would be a key part of Martin’s play, who is uncompromising in his approach — aside from some subtle tweaks during Southampton’s play-off success. Only Tottenham have averaged a higher rate of possession than Southampton’s 68 per cent in the opening weeks.
They have already lost the ball in their defensive third on 18 occasions this season, which is the second-highest in the league. Crucially, six of them have led to an opposition shot or goal — as it did for Bryan Mbeumo’s second on Saturday.
Debutant goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale was indecisive in possession, going long with 17 passes in the game — more than Southampton’s previous two matches combined.
Parallels with last season’s Burnley spring to mind, with Southampton seemingly unable to exert their Championship superiority at the highest level.
Should Martin double down or inject a dose of pragmatism into his side after the international break?
Fulham’s left side is cooking
Their 1-1 draw with Ipswich Town may not have stood out among the weekend’s fixtures, but a flowing move for Fulham’s goal uncovered a spark that looks to be igniting in Marco Silva’s side.
The combination of Antonee Robinson, Alex Iwobi and Emile Smith Rowe is prospering in the early weeks of the season and the trio linked up for Fulham’s equaliser against Ipswich. A flowing move saw Robinson’s cross finished by Adama Traore.
Iwobi and Smith Rowe, former team-mates at Arsenal, scored a goal each in the previous gameweek as Fulham overcame Leicester.
With Adama Traore, Kenny Tete and Andreas Pereira finding their own triangles on the right side, there looks to be a nice balance in Fulham’s attack on both flanks.
The arrival of Sander Berge will strengthen Fulham’s midfield further, but playing Smith Rowe and Pereira as attacking central midfielders is an exciting prospect for Silva.
The Arsenal connections also continue to grow as Reiss Nelson completed a loan move before the window shut last week. If Smith Rowe can continue to get consistent minutes and strengthen those connections with Iwobi and Robinson, Fulham might surprise a few people this season.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
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