Category: Opinion

By Tung Nguyen, Online Editor

Ten years ago, no one would ever believe that Manchester City, the abandoned son of Manchester, is
dominating the English Premier League (EPL)
This season, they’re sixteen points ahead of the second-place team, Manchester United.
As a Manchester United fan, I must reluctantly admit that this is the beginning of an era, and for the
next ten years, Manchester will be blue.
To understand the sudden success of Manchester City in only five years, we have to pay attention to the
changes in the executive board and its result in the drastic shift of the team’s vision as well as playing
styles.
With star players such as Sergio Agüero, Raheem Sterling, and Kevin De Bruyne, anyone of them could
be considered the most influential. But that title belongs to director of football Txiki Berigistain, who is
considered the most influential individual. Being the former director of football for FC Barcelona (Spain),
his bringing in manager Pep Guardiola made his vision clear: to build a Barcelona 2.0 in the EPL.
Begiristain, as the new director of football, is responsible for keeping the consistency in Manchester
City’s transfer strategy. When Guardiola was still managing Bayern Munich (Germany), Begiristain
created a “magical spine” in Manchester City’s line-up with Vincent Kompany, Fernandinho, Kevin De
Bruyne, David Silva and Sergio Agüero. These players are responsible for shaping the playing styles of
Manchester City. Guardiola comes and only has to hone the chemistry of this spine as well as adds
wingers, the least important roles in building up the club’s playing styles, to the line-up with the
purchases of Leroy Sané and Bernando Silva.
With this line-up, Guardiola sets up a “high-frequency pressing” attacking style, which brought him
massive successes in Barcelona and Bayern Munich. Unlike Roberto Mancini and Manuel Pellegrini, the
two former managers, Guardiola prefers taking the game at a much slower pace rather than rushing the
ball to the front line and blindly searching for opportunities. Uncertain threats to the opponents’ goals
will result in the ball being delivered back to the midfield. This strategy, of course, strictly requires a
midfielder with good-vision and superhuman passing ability. While Xavi Hernandez, (Barcelona), and
Toni Kroos, (Bayern Munich), individually dictated the playing styles of their teams, Manchester City’s
David Silva works his spells in the midfield. With the physical support of Fernandinho and the flexibility
of De Bruyne, who can easily attract the opponents’ defenders to create spaces, Silva is much freer to
manipulate the plays.
In terms of specific tactics, Manchester City tends to keep possession by passing the ball continuously in
the midfield and waiting for off-the- ball movements from wingers to create threats. Sané, Sterling and
Agüero, with their sharp finishing and fabulous dribbling abilities, will likely to make these threats even
scarier. When the players lose possession, the whole team will exert a high-pressure attack to the
opponents in order to immediately retake possession. This is reminiscent of Barcelona at its peak during
the late 2000s and the beginning of 2010s.

With such tactics and philosophy, Manchester City can easily strangle the second-tier teams because of
their simple, strength-oriented plays. At some points during the season, building a bus in front of the
goal seems to be opponents’ only option when facing Manchester City. However, this overly defensive
play cannot fill the huge gap of the line-up’s qualities when Manchester City has more than one player
who can shine individually.
On the other hand, honor and prestige force the first-tier teams to join the game, to attack and to
accept any consequence afterwards. However, none of the first-tier teams’ midfielders can reach the
level and the chemistry of Manchester City’s trio (Silva, De Bruyne, and Fernandinho) in order to make
an equal play. Therefore, after a while, they cannot stand the countless attacks and pressures, which
eventually rip them apart.
With the first team’s average age 25 and the well-developed youth academy, Manchester City seems
likely to uphold its success in the next ten years. On contrary, Manchester United is having a much
tougher path with a conservative-minded manager, Jose Mourinho, who has turned his billion-dollar
club into a defensive second-tier team. If Mourinho will not take a different approach to catch up the
rise of Manchester City, Manchester, or even the whole Premier League, will be blue.

By Maddie Matos, A&E Editor

Part of the world was shocked, while others felt they knew it all along.

Kylie Jenner had her baby.

The announcement came on Saturday afternoon, with a tweet of a video, and following up with a second tweet with an image explaining why Jenner hid the pregnancy.

The video documented Jenner’s pregnancy journey, with footage of doctor appointments and the baby shower. The video also had clips of different friends and family members telling the baby many positive encouragements about themselves and their mother.

The video also announced that the baby is a girl, with rapper Travis Scott being the father. The name was not revealed, only the birthdate and gender.

The second tweet from Jenner explained the reasoning for keeping her pregnancy private.

“I knew for myself I needed to prepare for this role of a lifetime in the most positive, stress free, and healthy way I knew how,” Jenner said.

The decision to hide the pregnancy from the world was met with an outcry of support from many people. Millions of people tweeted the news and offered their congratulations and respect for the new mother.

There were people who did not respect the decision, leaving negative comments about the pregnancy, saying it is a poor decision for someone so young to have a child, or that she should have shared this with the world.

I find that Jenner did what any young mother would want. She kept her pregnancy to herself and allowed everyone in her life to enjoy the experience with her. Pregnancy is a personal and powerful experience, one that is also individualized for people as well. Every pregnant woman has the right to handle it how she wants, and Jenner is entitled to that treatment.

By keeping herself out of the spotlight, she gained the respect of mothers everywhere, who want to shield their children from the world for as long as possible, and to enjoy this time in their lives. This baby has every right to lead a private life with its parents until they decide what is best for the child. No one should impose on that or even question that right.

The birth of this child has brought to life the privacy and humanity that celebrities have, and it is something I respect and admire Jenner for.

By Gopika Nair, Editor-in-Chief 

On New Year’s Day, I was back home in Dubai, writing my first editorial as the editor-in-chief after serving as copy editor of The Transcript for two years.

I wrote and revised four drafts—I was elated, I was nervous and more than anything, I was unsettled by my own inadequacies and what I considered my overall ineptitude at being at the helm of this newspaper.

Being a part of The Transcript hasn’t been the most smooth-sailing experience.

On several occasions, OWU students I barely knew but had fleeting interactions with told me that The Transcript was littered with inaccuracies or embarrassing typos when they learned I was part of the staff.

Of course, their points were valid. A cursory glance at Paul Kostyu’s critiques of The Transcript’s print editions will tell you as much (and perhaps give you even more ammo).

The Transcript has certainly fallen short on many occasions. Single-source stories, inane typos, bland headlines, lackluster writing, erroneous facts; you name it, we’ve, certainly and disappointingly, got it.

As much as I and the rest of the staff have at some point or another felt personally beaten down by the criticisms and complaints we’ve received, I’m thankful for this experience.

The Transcript has dedicated mentors such as Kostyu, associate professor of journalism; Jo Ingles, The Transcript’s media adviser and TC Brown, instructor in journalism, all of whom take the time to provide guidance when we need it and criticisms when we deserve it.

Sure, The Transcript has prided itself on being an independent, student-run newspaper since 1867, but without the encouragement and criticisms we’ve received from our mentors, this paper would have undoubtedly floundered.

For the past year and a half, I’ve spent every other Tuesday night and much of Wednesday morning with my fellow editors, writing stories, designing pages and grappling for subject-verb headlines.

Sounds tedious, maybe even downright miserable, but being a part of The Transcript has been one of the most meaningful experiences of my college career, if only because it gave me the opportunity to hone my skills and work with several dedicated and talented people who I learned from along the way.

It was an honor to serve as editor-in-chief of The Transcript, particularly as it celebrated its 150th anniversary this year. I wish the incoming editor-in-chief and editorial staff the best as they prepare to maintain The Transcript’s legacy.

By Kienan O’Doherty, A&E Editor 

Targeting in football is a penalty given to someone who hits a defenseless player above the shoulders. But after last night’s game, it is more than just a yellow flag thrown on the field.

Monday night, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals, longtime conference and division rivals, battled to a 23-20 Steelers win. And while the score is important, it’s what happened during the game that caught people’s attention.

Now, the Steelers-Bengals rivalry spans decades. It always is a hard fought, very physical game. But this time around, it turned one of the National Football League’s most underrated rivalries into a war decided by who would get the biggest headshot. In an article written by Sean Wagner-McGough on cbssports.com, he said this isn’t what football is about.

“What matters is that a Steelers-Bengals game once again devolved into the kind of game that shouldn’t exist in today’s NFL,” Wagner-McGough wrote. “It was the kind of game that made loving football difficult.”

With the Steelers mounting a comeback in the fourth quarter, receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster hit Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict with a head shot that technically served as a block. While Burfict is usually the one that delivers dirty and controversial hits, on Monday night, he was the victim of a hit so dirty, it won’t be considered controversial. It was a hit that knocked Burfict out of the game

To make matters worse, Smith-Schuster was only flagged, but not ejected.

But the game went on. The drive continued and it ended with a Steelers touchdown, when Brown came down with a six-yard catch that tied the game. But it wasn’t a normal touchdown. Not just because of the catch that Brown made, but also because of the hit he suffered as he came down with the football when Bengals safety George Iloka hit Brown—a defenseless receiver—hard and high.

Sporting News writer Vinnie Iyer believes that the NFL has cracked down on these instances, but the Steelers and Bengals are two teams that haven’t adjusted well.

“At a time when the NFL needs to reduce dirty hits and headhunting for the sake of its perceived sputtering, harder-to-watch product, those teams continue to stand in defiance, which created an even worse look in one of the league’s prime-time television showcases,” Iyer wrote.

Safety should be the highest priority in any sport, and when the most physical American sport has this much bad-blood and teams try to handle it this way, this raises concern for both fans and future players alike.

By Kienan O’Doherty, A&E Editor 

Dear President Trump, it’s time for the United States to put more limitations on guns.

Yet another shooting happened recently, this time in the small county of Sutherland Springs, Texas. Twenty-six people were killed when Devin P. Kelley opened fire in the First Baptist Church of the small community.

And yes, it is, in fact, a situation about guns.

Kelley was able to buy a semi-automatic weapon despite a troubled history that included escaping a mental health facility back in 2012. Put simply, gun laws are not regulated enough, nor that strict.

In an opinion article written on Forbes by Larry Bell, he said he thinks that we have lost hope and it has become too serious.

“So would tougher gun laws make a big difference? Consider that some of the most restrictive bans in the country didn’t stop 52 public school students from being fatally shot during the 2009-11 school years in heavily gun-controlled Chicago,” Bell said.

“No, real solutions must be a great deal more complex, and a whole lot less politically correct to talk about, than adding simplistic, knee-jerk, ‘feel good’ gun regulations. Like addressing the sort of cultural expectations and ethical values we instill in our children and youth, for example.”

How many more shootings will it take? Another mass shooting? For this time, the editorial board at the New York Times reports that Congress hasn’t done anything about the most recent shooting.

“Republican leaders in Congress do nothing,”
according to the Times’ board. “Or really, so far they’ve done the same thing they have always done: offered thoughts and prayers. Soon, they will surely offer warnings not to ‘politicize’ a tragedy by debating gun controls that might prevent such mass killings from happening again.”

When Obama was in office, any time one of these shootings occurred, he was quick to comment and support the victims affected. Now, our president, who has a reputation on blaming national security risks on anything in sight, doesn’t comment on victims at all.

It’s a matter of restricting the purchasing of weapons or forbidding civilians from possessing them at all. Simple as that.