The Athletic's Michael Cox, Tom Worville and Ali Maxwell take an almighty leap into the stats to work out what sort of player Cristiano Ronaldo is right now in 2020 as a 35-year-old at Juventus.

We know his game has changed dramatically since his early days coming through as a brilliant dribbler and speed merchant at Manchester United, and the assumption is that he's even changed quite a bit since his days as a ruthless goal machine at Real Madrid, but if you look at the numbers it seems that there may well be a bit more variety to Ronaldo's game since he's gone to Serie A than you think.

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The Athletic's Michael Cox, Tom Worville and Ali Maxwell are back with another tactical masterclass, this week casting their eye on some of the more unconventional roles and positions we've seen a host of players taking up this season in the Premier League and beyond.

Has Nuno turned Wily Boly and Max Kilman into the first ever pair of inverted-centre backs? Pep Guardiola loves to conjure up interesting roles for his players and Joao Cancelo has gone from conventional right-back to what we're calling half-back over on the left.

There's also a look at the roles Moussa Sissoko and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg are playing at Spurs dropping into the defence and doubling up out wide, and at Arsenal there's the ever versatile Bukayo Saka who's been playing almost everywhere.

Michael and Tom give you their considered verdict on all of the above while Ali witters on about funky full-backs and Stuart Dallas.

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The Athletic's Michael Cox and Ali Maxwell are joined by Argentinean football expert Rupert Fryer to celebrate the career of Javier Mascherano as he announced his retirement this week after an outstanding 17-year career.

We chart his career starting with the early days coming through at River Plate, his move to Corinthians in Brazil, that bizarre spell at West Ham before establishing himself alongside Gerrard and Alonso at Liverpool under Rafa Benitez.

Our focus then turns to his time at Barcelona where things really got interesting as Pep Guardiola, either by luck or design, converted him into a centre-back with surprisingly effective results.

There's also discussion of his storied exploits for Argentina, serial runners-up during his time with the national side but not without some memorable highlights along the way, chief among them that tackle on Arjen Robben in the World Cup 2014 semi-final, if you know, you know.

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The Athletic's Michael Cox and Tom Worville join Ali Maxwell for a whistle-stop tour across Europe to look at five unheralded teams who have found themselves in unexpectedly lofty positions in the league table so far. Starting on home soil with high-pressing Southampton.

We also head over to Italy to look at a swashbuckling Sassuolo side who find themselves second in Serie A, before crossing to Spain to look at the surprising top two of Real Sociedad, who we think could be the real deal, and Villareal who are of course managed by Unai Emery.

There's also a trip north of the border for some detail on Rangers, currently nine points ahead of Celtic, with The Athletic's Rangers correspondent Jordan Campbell

Will any of these sides go the distance and deliver on their early promise? We look at the numbers and the eye test to give you our verdict

You can subscribe to The Athletic for just £1-a-week at the moment - head to theathletic.com/zonalmarking for access to Michael & Tom's unrivalled tactical & statistical analysis plus all the other brilliant content from our world class team of football writers

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The Athletic's Michael Cox and Tom Worville join Ali Maxwell for the second part of our series looking at the challenges of staying up after being promoted to the Premier League. This week we look at the various ways teams have gone about trying to establish themselves in their second season.

Looking at how Leicester famously managed to win the league in 2015/16, back-to-back 7th placed finishes for Wolves, to Burnley's less heralded Europa League clincher in 2018, we examine what you need to do to thrive after you've survived.

There's also plenty of cautionary tales too from the likes of Ipswich in 2001/02 to the Huddersfield side of 2018/19 plus teams like Bournemouth and Stoke who eventually went out with a whimper after appearing to have cracked it - what is it that these sides got wrong?

Subscribe to The Athletic for access to Michael and Tom's unrivalled tactical and statistical analysis of the Premier League, Champions League and beyond - you can sign up for just £1-a-week by heading to theathletic.com/zonalmarking

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The Athletic's Michael Cox and Tom Worville join Ali Maxwell to debate the various 'do's and dont's' for a maiden season in the top flight of English football... 

Is it better to sack or stick with the manager who brought you up? Discard the playing style and sure things up at the back? Splash the cash in the market or trust in the players who won so many games last year? The Zonal Marking team delve into the Premier League archives to find out...

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The Athletic's Michael Cox and Tom Worville join Ali Maxwell to get a few things off their chests about the use of statistics in the general conversation around football.

Do assists really tell us anything about creativity? Why do we harp on about manager win percentages? Does it really matter that Team A haven't won at Team B's ground for 27 years? And don't get us started on pass completion percentage.

All these and loads more sloppy statistics are picked apart, but it's not just one big moan-fest as the guys also provide some suggestions as to how we can be smarter with the data in the future.

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The Athletic's Michael Cox and Sam Lee join Ali Maxwell to look at Manchester City's start to the season and assess the ways Pep Guardiola's side have changed their tactical approach since they last won the title.

Why did they come up so short so often last season? What went wrong in the Champions League? Are there early signs of the same problems being an issue this season? Have we underestimated the loss of Leroy Sane and David Silva? Are we too quick to pounce on Pep at the first sign of anything going wrong?

Sign up to The Athletic for access to Michael Cox's brilliant tactics pieces and Sam Lee's unrivalled Man City coverage - head to theathletic.com/zonalmarking to subscribe for just £1-a-month

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The Athletic's Michael Cox joins Ali Maxwell to assess what has been a goal-tastic start to the season in the Premier League as we head into the international break.

They look at the numbers and the tactics to try and understand why there have been so many goals, high-scoring games and a distinct lack of 0-0 draws in the opening weeks of the season.

Sign up to The Athletic now for just £1-a-month and get access to Michael Cox's unrivalled tactical analysis of the Premier League, Champions League and beyond. Just head to theathletic.com/zonalmarking

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The Athletic's Michael Cox and James Horncastle join Ali Maxwell for an in-depth look at one of the most iconic clubs in world football: AC Milan.

Taking the lead from James recent behind-the-scenes piece on the club we cast our eye back through the history books to examine the great sides and coaches that built the legend, before examining the past decade of disappointment, and finally looking at whether the present day set-up is poised to bring restore the Rossoneri to its former glory as they prepare to move away from the famous San Siro.

Subscribe to The Athletic to read James Horncastle's deep dive into AC Milan and his unrivalled coverage of Serie A just head to theathletic.com/zonalmarking to sign up for just £1-a-month

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