Last night I spent the evening in the company of a number of old friends who constitute football journalists and football-educated “civvies” and, as one would expect three days before the start of the season, the conversation was predictable. We gather about the same time every year to thrash out our hopes, dreams and, more [...]
The preception is that Germany have a hoodoo over England. And while that may be true in the latter stages of the competition (last eight) it is certainly not true in history. England and Germany have won 12 each overall (with two of Germany’s wins being draws in open play). The winner of this game [...]
No one could ever accuse the British media of understatement, particular when it come to the England national football team – and with the nation’s draw against USA the press have excelled themselves.
This World Cup is set to be a stage for an unprecedented number of superstars of the football world. Most fans know and love the likes of Ronaldo, Rooney, Messi, Torres, van Persie and Robinho. But every World Cup launches the careers of the next generation of talent – superstars in the making, and South Africa [...]
After the scourge of a brutal winter comes the gamblers scourge of unpredictable pitches. It looked like the usual rant of a madman when Sir Alex Ferguson suggested that the turgid pitch had “killed Wayne Rooney”, but he may have a point. The problems with the Wembley pitch are well documented, but elsewhere in England – as the permafrost threatened to lift across the country – an unprecedented number of managers claimed the pitch as a factor in iffy results. There were grumblings at Peterborough in The Championship as the poor surface did nothing to help a home side that prefers to play it on the deck, but the worst pitching – inevitably – further down the leagues.
So we have three teams within three points of each other at the top of the Premier League, and the bookies are undecided as to who is going in it. Chelsea (61 points) and Man Utd (60 points) are impossible to split at 6/4, while Arsenal (58 points) are a little bit bigger on 11/4. Exciting stuff, eh? And, here’s the thing: it’s going to get a lot more exciting because the outsider is going to rip right through the field and win.
