All Football Articles

In 1995, just prior to the release of (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, life-long Manchester City fan and Oasis fulcrum, Noel Gallagher, wrote a song called The Masterplan.  He was riding the crest of a creative wave at the time, and it remains one of the best songs he has ever written.

I am loath to criticise the writers of the entertainment programme The Premier League - I would very much like to have their job one day.  But there are a few things I would've done differently had I been in charge of the script-writing process as we approach the final instalment of this season.

Sam Allardyce’s status as a Premier League football manager of clout was established during his time at Bolton Wanderers.

Wednesday’s Champions League semi-final feels like Pep Guardiola’s most important City game. Following last weeks 1-1 draw at the Bernabeu, where two moments of brilliance from De Bruyne and Vinicus Jr settled a somewhat cagey affair, City go into the game as clear favourites. Their last loss at home in the champions league came back in 2018, a 2-1 loss to Lyon, and they will again be relying on their home form to get them over the line.

There are just three rounds of fixtures remaining in the 2022/23 Premier League season, and yet, still, nothing has been concluded.

There have been several high-profile Premier League teams who have flirted with collapse this season too. 

Yes, it’s very much squeaky bum time, folks.  We’re at the business end of proceedings; we’ve made it to the Gold Run; we’ve stepped inside the Crystal Dome, and the fans are about to start.

At least, according to TS Eliot and his sprawling poem The Waste Land it is.  But was he referring solely to the capricious, unfeeling weather that is synonymous with this month of year?  The kind we have all experienced this week?

Tonight, brings part 3 of the Madrid vs Chelsea trilogy and, if facing the reigning European champions wasn’t hard enough, goal-shy Chelsea are already on their third manager of the season…

The Night Manager was an inexplicably successful BBC TV programme.  Sure, for the most part it was glossy, Sunday evening, escapist fare; but it also committed some far-fetched, egregious sins - such as expecting viewers to believe that Tom Hiddleston could convincingly beat somebody up in a pub.

Litres of sweat; chemically spheroidised muscles; tight, bright, lycra outfits; and convoluted feuds that no-one really understands or cares about - save for a few basement-dwelling bloggers and nerds.

As we round the top bend in advance of the home straight, the race for the Premier League title remains intriguingly poised. 

With just 12 rounds of fixtures left to play in the Premier League season, there is still a surprising amount for clubs to contest.  All the key plates continue to spin. 

There is an old meteorological idiom which asserts that March ‘comes in like a lion, and goes out like a lamb’.  A statement reportedly based on the season-straddling nature of the month - the often tumultuous transition from cruel winter into tranquil spring takes place within its 31 days.

The Carabao Cup will also be associated with revitalising aquatic qualities this year. Because, when the trophy is lifted by the victorious captain on Sunday evening, it will signal the end of a lengthy drought for either Manchester or Newcastle United.

Another fixture-list quirk has meant, however, that the Gunners haven’t played a league game against their closest challengers, Manchester City. An anomaly that will be rectified at 7:30pm on Wednesday when the defending champions head down to the Emirates for the first of their weighty six-pointers.

This Monday - on the eve of St. Valentine’s Day - an epic, passion-fuelled battle for the affections of Merseyside is set to take place.

SPURS vs MAN CITY Sunday February 5th, 4:30pm Spurs @10/3 Man City @3/4 Draw @3/1 view odds The January transfer window has just slammed shut, with the glass somehow still intact. For most clubs the activity during this period was a delicate process of scion grafting and light pruning with Bonsai shears.  Like a footballing...

Fulham FC are flying high, building on a fabulous promotion season – and behind it lies a true sense of family at the club. — by Rory Fairfax

‘A little less conversation, a little more action, please…’ Over the weekend some people were proclaiming that Manchester United were suddenly 'in the conversation' for the Premier League title.

England’s two biggest football clubs are conveniently hitting the market just as the World Cup in Qatar stimulates Middle East interest in the game, says Mark Pougatch.

There is the Manchester City that is free-scoring. That can plan, create, and execute every possible kind of goal. That managed to score 20 of them in the first 6 Premier League games of the season. That can maintain possession better than any other English team in history.

It has been a slightly confusing few weeks to be a football fan.  Indeed, many will have awoken from a deep sleep on New Year’s Day - delirious, drooling, encased in a sticky, translucent cocoon formed of port and Bailey’s - wondering if they actually imagined the whole of the last month.

In David Lean’s 1962 epic Lawrence of Arabia the titular enigma is asked what attracts him to the desert, and he replies: ‘it’s clean’.  Well, T.E Lawrence would have adored the pristine plains of the Qatar Peninsula, then; because, after four weeks of expensive, vigorous sports-washing, it must possess the cleanest sands in all the world…

The preamble to the box office World Cup quarter-final between England and France has been dominated by talk of one player: Kylian Mbappé.

The action in Qatar has escalated, the tension has been cranked right up, the shocks have been electrified. And two major contenders have successfully put the ‘D’oh!’ into Doha.

There was a chance it wouldn’t happen.  And it did look a bit shaky there for a while.  But finally, in the midst of a global symposium of debates and lectures on vast, complex subjects such as history, the environment, and international ethics…a football tournament has broken out.

I think everyone just assumed it would never actually happen.  That something would come up and the plug would have to be pulled.  So everyone just went back to sleep.  And when they finally woke-up…it was too late to do anything about it.

There is a strange, end-of-term feel about this weekend’s Premier League fixtures.  Some teams will be grateful for the imminent, unprecedented World Cup hiatus.  Other teams would rather just carry on playing to see how far their current momentum might take them.

It’s bonfire night this Saturday.  The occasion where everyone gathers together to celebrate someone not blowing something up…by blowing lots of things up.

It’s preposterous.  It’s overly commercialised.  It has lost sight of its founding principles.  It now mostly consists of camp theatrics, money-grabbing, high-pitched shrieking, and immature participants sporting garish body art.  Yes, ladies and gentleman, it’s…the Premier League!

‘And like that…he’s gone.’ In the 87th minute the substitution board foolishly failed to display a luminous green 7 and the transformation inevitably began - Cristiano Ronaldo turned into The Strop Gun Maverick, The Tantrum Menace, The Incredible Sulk.

After last weekend’s defeat at Arsenal it looked like Liverpool were sailing towards a perfect storm. 

An oft-cited example of a ‘difficult third album’ is Waiting For The Sun by The Doors.  The Los Angeles band achieved early success; the hits - Light My Fire, Break On Though (To The Other Side) - were enormous, and their frontman was photogenic.

As the General Secretary of the Couch Sitting, Football Watching & Wine Drinking Union it is my solemn duty to announce that there will be an awful lot of striking going on in the Premier League this weekend.

City arrive in form having swatted Sevilla aside 4-0 in their opening Group game. Again, they find themselves as favourites for the one trophy that has eluded them since their mega-money takeover, almost 15 years ago.

Souness was jaded.  The game he loved had turned soft.  Long gone were the things that brought him warmth: the Achilles scrapes, the two-footed lunges, the moustaches as thick and impenetrable as Cornish hedges - why, he’d even had to sacrifice his own fulsome privet out of fear of appearing ‘dated’.

Can you feel it?  Can you hear it?  There’s something a bit strange going on in the world of football right now.  Something a little disturbing.  Something that is making people feel slightly queasy inside.  And I’m not just talking about Ryan Giggs’ poetry…

We are two weeks into the new Premier League season and unusual, nascent patterns and trends are already beginning to form; fresh, unfamiliar rules are quietly being established.  

The 2022/23 Premier League season is now under way.  And, despite trying valiantly to resist the urge, a lot has been said and done in response to the first round of fixtures.