Football

Fiorentina were assured of 4th position and a Europa League place after winning at Bologna, our 9th away win and a club record. Traditionally la Viola are indomitable at the Artemio Franchi in Florence but less reliable on our travels. It’s been  a successful season, given that for most of [...]

Although one view might be that sloppy defending cost us the points, I blame more Felix Magath for four reasons: 1) he set up the team wrongly in the first half. Riise, a slow left back, cannot play left midfield and Holtby was ineffective on the right; 2) to correct the position, Magath made two [...]

The decision to draw on the talents of the class of 92 at Manchester United seems flawed to me. Legends always go down well with fans, but history shows they are better suited at being ambassadors or hosting a lounge. The demands of building a successful outfit, being savvy in the market, working [...]

Given that we had four key absentees – Reither, Richardson, Diarra and Holtby – and that two superb saves were required by Lloris, the performance was not as disastrous as the result, or indeed the other results. It was a performance such as we have often seen, where we matched the [...]

Last night I was at the Emirates to assess Arsenal’s chances of obtaining a Champions League berth and a West Ham side that has comfortably survived but  whose manager  Sam Alladyce is derided by their fans. In a scrappy first half West Ham took the lead only for the Gunners to equalise [...]

Next year will be the 30th anniversary of Heysel where 39 fans lost their lives when Liverpool fans stampeded. It will be interesting to se how Liverpool and the the football world remembers this. Here is an excellent piece on the subject by Oliver Kay – THE ANFIELD WRAP   [...]

Once again Felix Magath baffled us when he switched to a new system of 3-5-1-1 with one of our best players, Lewis, withdrawn more into deeper midfield. It seems to baffle the boys too as, without two fine saves by Stockdale, we could have been trailing 2-0 at half time. Yet it was us that took [...]

After the sacking of Chris Hughton there is not one black manager in all four divisions. Another Chris, Chris Powell the popular manager of Charlton, was sacked a few months ago. Robin Scott-Elliot argued in yesterday’s Independent that there should be an affirmative discrimination [...]

For a natural pessimist I travelled up to Aston Villa on the Chiltern Line in hope. We did play well against Everton and, if we could replicate our form of the first hour, we would surely overcome an inconsistent Villa side who had beaten Chelsea at home and next home game lost to Stoke. They were [...]