The football blog for fans of all clubs
Coming off the back of a successful 3-1 win over the United Arab Emirates, one thing that stood out with regards to the Team GB squad was the true lack of a potent up-and-coming marquee striker for England that is still young enough to play at U21 level (or below!) for their country. Wayne Rooney […]
There’s nothing wrong with the game itself. There’s no harm at all in spending a lazy afternoon getting Exeter City into the Champions League. There are far too many people, however, who seem to have lost sight of one of the most fundamentally important aspects of the top-selling management simulator, Football Manager… brace yourself… isn’t […]
Having pulled out of the Great Britain Olympic team with a back injury, Gareth Bale upset a few people when he showed up in a Tottenham Hotspur pre-season game before any Olympic football had even been played. He scored in Spurs’ 1-1 draw with LA Galaxy and played 75 minutes. Bale then started Spurs’ game […]
These days it would normally be a term of abuse to call a Manchester United footballer ‘an amateur’, but it wasn’t always so. Sometimes it’s simply been a statement of fact, albeit applying to less than a dozen players in United’s history from the 1880s to the 1960s. Thoughts about this select band who pulled […]
“I can’t believe that in England they don’t teach young players to be multi-functional. To them it’s just about knowing one position and playing that position. To them, a striker is a striker and that’s it. For me, he is somebody who has to move, who has to cross, and who has to do this […]
The MLS All Stars showed how much progress football in the USA has made by beating newly crowned European Champions Chelsea in a pre-season friendly. Chris Wondolowski, the 29-year-old American who plays for San Jose Earthquakes, look the lead after 20 minutes after a cross from Thierry Henry. Twelve minutes later Chelsea equalised with a […]
It seems an age ago since the Martin O’Neill era at Aston Villa. When we look at the position of the club last season it is a far cry to that of a club that not too long ago had become perpetual top six finishers in the Premier League under the Northern Irishman. Under O’Neill’s […]
Not since the days of Pierre van Hooijdonk have we seen the threat of industrial action loom over English football like it has in the last few days. That’s not entirely true; there have been strikers before and since. Who can forget Carlos Tevez’s golfing tour of Argentina (apart from Mancini of course)? But van […]
Same ol’, same ol’. Gareth Bale scores a goal for Tottenham Hotspur in a pre-season run out against LA Galaxy and celebrates with his beyond camp heart shaped fingers. No big deal, right? Wrong. As Bale outjumped Omar González to head home a Gylfi Sigurdsson’s cross, thoughts drifted to the back and hip injury that […]
The news has been filtering through over the past couple of weeks that there has been significant interest from Chelsea towards Internacional and Brazil’s midfield playmaker Oscar. What do we know about Oscar? To begin with, his full name Oscar dos Santos Emboaba Junior. The 20 year old has just begun to break into the […]
It’s been nearly two years since I profiled Ryan Tunnicliffe. He was about to embark on an important final season in the club’s Academy and was now a full-time professional. Off the back of an injury hit season in his first year as an U18, this was to be an important year for him as […]
Name: Santiago Cazorla González Age: 27 (turns 28 in December) Height: 5 foot 6 inches. Skills: Two-footed, versatile, set pieces. Early career: He joined his local team, Real Oviedo, when he was a teenager and was signed by Villarreal CF when he was 17. He spent his first two seasons playing for the B team. […]
Assists – 2011/2012 1. David Silva – 15 2. Antonio Valencia/Juan Mata – 13 4. Alexandre Song/Emmanuel Adebayor – 11 6. Nani/Gareth Bale – 10 8. Robin van Persie/Samir Nasri/Stéphane Sessegnon – 9 11. Ryan Giggs/Sergio Agüero/Theo Walcott – 8 Assists – 2010/2011 1. Nani – 14 2. Didier Drogba – 13 3. Wayne Rooney/Andrey […]
Lucas Moura is a 19-year old player who is currently at São Paulo. He usually wears shirt number 7 at both his club and also at Brazil’s national team. He started his career at Marcelinho Carioca’s youth academy, and quickly got nicknamed Marcelinho due to supposedly looking like the former Corinthians player. He spent the […]
Daniel Levy could negotiate his way out of hell. At the conclusion he’ll be standing behind the desk once frequented by St Peter at Heaven’s Gate with the devil smiling to himself in the flame infested pits holding a Spurs ‘Champions League 2013’ mug proclaiming victory. You don’t mess with the chairman of the board. […]
With half a dozen players resting up after their exertions at Euro 2012, a further four set to participate in the football tournament at the London Olympic Games and a trio of centre-backs nursing injuries, Sir Alex Ferguson’s squad has been deprived of thirteen first-teamers as they embark on the first leg of their pre-season […]
Football had a bad week last week. In Scotland, football seemed to implode. This sorry saga will run and run and there will be few winners and many losers. In England, regardless of the fact that Terry was found not guilty of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand, neither of the players came out of the debacle […]
In the first chapter of Genesis, God tells mankind (yes, I know) to go out and conquer the world, and ever since (yes, I know), we’ve been gripped by a paranoid, neurotic desire to understand everything. But however hard we try, it’s simply not possible: whether its spontaneous combustion, kicks in snooker, or red trousers, […]
Whilst it is probably unlikely that the FA will act against John Terry after the verdict today, it is certainly possible. To be convicted of a criminal offence, you have to appear guilty “beyond reasonable doubt”. As it cannot be proven that Terry didn’t think he heard Anton accuse him of calling him a “black […]
Why Terry won’t be found guilty – The defence argue John Terry was merely repeating back what Anton Ferdinand said to him. Terry argues he heard Ferdinand accusing him of calling Ferdinand a “black cunt”. Defence also suggest that Terry could have misheard “Bridge” as “black”. – The defence painted Ferdinand as an unreliable witness. […]