Ok, so Landry was talking about the ‘other’ type of football, however the sentiment remains true for ‘real’ football.  One of the most beautiful things about the beautiful game is the potential for a freak, unexpected result.  An incredible, unbelievable result. There’s nothing that neutral football fans enjoy more than seeing an underdog grabbing a [...]

How has Gareth McAuley managed to take over Jonas Olsson as West Bromwich Albion’s outstanding defender? Olsson is in his fifth year at The Baggies and in his first four seasons at the club he  has been West Brom’s rock, he has been the one player that they could not afford to lose. However this [...]

The Belgians are coming, you have been warned. If we didn’t already know about the remarkable number of talented players coming out of Belgium in recent years we do now. Many people have already earmarked them as dark horses for next year’s World Cup with a view to them becoming genuine contenders for the European [...]

“We are Premier League, we are Premier League” Being a Hull City fan, I heard this a lot over the weekend.  A lot!  And I loved every single chant of it. The incredible roller coaster ride that was the final day of the Championship season has been very well covered (Amber Nectar and From Boothferry to [...]

Teams that can hit you on the counter attack at any moment are incredibly hard to defend against, especially when speed merchants such as Gareth Bale and Theo Walcott are running at your defence. So which teams have impressed in the counter attack and how have they been so successful? We can start to answer [...]

It is a sight no football fan wants to see.  The dreaded ‘R’ next to your club in the league table. It is incredibly difficult for fans to prepare themselves for the emotions that they go through when relegation from the Premier League is sealed.  Anger, frustration and even relief are just some of the [...]

Welcome to our monthly edition of the Premier League’s top players. With Manchester United wrapping up the title against Aston Villa on Monday night the attention now turns to the battle for the Champions League places, the race for survival and which player will be crowned as the player of the year and young player [...]

We’ve all been there.  Your team is a goal down, with 20 minutes to go and you know the only way to get a result is to make substitutions.  But how many?  And who?  Once the changes have been made you can sit back and wait for the sub to score the goal that may salvage a [...]

As I get older I am finding that I am becoming less interested in the players at clubs and much more interested in the managers.  What do they do?  Are they worth the money?  Are they actually needed at all? Once the team is picked and the tactics discussed, is there anything that a manager [...]

Not quite a game of two halfs, more like a game of two-thirds and one-third. Arsenal took control of a game before it began slipping away in the final third aided by the dismissal of Mertesacker and a resurgent West Brom side. Somehow, the Gunners held on for a valuable three points. Just how valuable [...]

Jose Mourinho is now the bookies favourite to become the next Chelsea manager and it seems to be emerging that Mourinho wants to return to ‘his Chelsea’ too. Mourinho is a master of building teams to be tactically robust and relies on the solidity of the team as a way of defending. When Mourinho first [...]

Both West Brom and Southampton possess teams that are full of underrated or unheralded players. I have identified both as teams with criminally underrated players in the central midfield areas: Yacob and Mulumbu for West Brom; Cork and defensive stalwart Morgan Schneiderlin for Southampton. Within football circles all four players have impressed and we could well [...]