Something was missing amongst the happy faces at Upton Park on Saturday evening. Given that Diafra Sakho’s 88th minute strike had given the home side their first league win since January 18th – a whole nine fixtures ago – the smile on the West Ham supporters’ faces may have been borne out of relief more than […]
Read more "Stick or twist? West Ham’s dangerous managerial gamble"Carlos faces his first training session, and reality.
Read more "Tracción, Chapter Five: Missing cones"Carlos is introduced to the boss….
Read more "Tracción, Chapter Two: The Interview"Prologue: Some would call it intuition, an assumption based on past experiences; others would credit neurons calculating trajectories at the speed of light. Whatever it was I knew, I just knew – as soon as the ball was struck – that ball was going to not only nestle in the net, but also consign Longford Town […]
Read more "Mirror men: 7 years with Longford Town"This week Arsenal and England midfielder and all around English bulldog Jack Wilshere deftly deflected the furore of him being snapped outside a London nightclub with a fag on by creating furore #2 (The Reckoning). He did so by opening Pandora’s box, slipping one of his comprehensively tattoo’d arms within, pulling out a can labelled […]
Read more "England/Half English"“I am delighted that the FA has secured this new wide-ranging and comprehensive partnership with Nike” Those the words of Alex Horne, the General Secretary of The F.A, on Monday where he was in-front of the cameras with Nike executives at the St.Georges park centre of excellence. “I would also like to place on record […]
Read more "England’s deal with Nike and McFootball"Many a furrowed brow has been beaten in the run up to the London games. Some of which could be considered resultant of legitimate concerns – costs spiralling out of control, masses of steel & concrete left abandoned at the end of the ceremonies etc and a lot that could be put down to chin […]
Read more "The Olympics are coming, the least you can do is enjoy them"My granddad played for Hendon F.C before, during and after the second world war and, by all accounts, was a pretty handy striker. So much so that he was offered a profession contract with Aston Villa – which he promptly turned down. The main reason being that he would actually earn less than what he […]
Read more "An open stable door, a horse on the horizon"The January transfer window is, for the most part, a complete waste of time. In fact, it seems the only ones in favour of it are the editors at sky sports news. Managers hate it because it creates a highly elastic market – a little increase in demand results in a huge increase in price […]
Read more "Paul Scholes: the best January transfer ever?"Is the defender dying? The four quarter finalist in this season’s Champions League all share one thing – suspect defences. And, to me, this speaks to a wider trend in football which is undervaluing the defender. Think of a great defender – either a world wide star of repelling opposition attacks or one who turned […]
Read more "A case for the defence"
Charles Pulling 