Football journalism

too much time on .ie

Sherwood's suggestion that a midfield shield is "overrated"

He was shit at it for most of his career, so I can see why he thinks that.

Maybe in Timmy's mind he was actually Glenn Hoddle for his entire career but seriously, cretin.

JAMIE REDKNAPP

Who will win the midfield battle?

Chelsea and Manchester City have two of the best midfields in the Premier League, so expect fireworks. It’s a crucial area of the pitch and whoever dominates the middle could win the game.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record (dear younger generation, those were massive black CDs we old folk used to scratch with needles), there was something strange but oddly typical about Liverpool being linked with wingers during the transfer window. It showed that, far from wanting to attempt any dilution of this riveting and entertaining style, Brendan Rodgers sought instead to embellish it.

from espn. EURGH HOW DO PEOPLE STILL GET PAID TO WRITE THIS GUNK?

Managing in Changing Times: A Guide for the Perplexed Manager (Response Books) :
Author(s): Sid Lowe

thought this looked like it could perhaps be interesting but.......

This topical book challenges the hegemony of neoclassical scientific management approach, exploring new potentials for the development of the understanding of management and organization in the post-scientific era of globalization.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/brazil/10964103/Dear-Neymar-an-open-letter-from-Henry-Winter-to-Brazils-biggest-star-of-its-bittersweet-World-Cup.html

Neil Ashton's latest column about Jack Wilshere is amazing.

"Howls of anguish roll across your mighty land ever since Tuesday. "

Has Chris Bascombe been mentioned here before? Just risible LFC lackey shit.

Daniel Harris

Sunday 19 October 2014 15.18 BST

That was remarkable, incredible, wonderful, outrageous, stupid, shocking and majestic. That was why we’re reduced to gibbering, quivering, servile amoeba by the unparalleled wonder of football. Wow.

Ronaldo vs Raheem: How does
England's rising star measure up with
the No 1 player on the planet?

Away from Suárez, Lionel Messi is on the verge of making La Liga history as he sits just one goal behind Telmo Zarra’s record of 251. The Bernabéu would be the perfect place for the 27-year-old to break the record and Iniesta would be delighted to see him do it, if only because a Messi double would mean things were going well in the game.

'We went to the Lowry, we had a screen so I could watch the second half and 17 players of 18 were there,' Van Gaal explained. 'I have never experienced that before. We have a lot of Spaniards!

'I won’t tell you which one wasn’t there.'

However, Sportsmail understands Danish goalkeeper Lindegaard was the player who chose not to join his team-mates.

Attendance was not considered compulsory but his absence was noted, particularly when all the other squad members chose to come down from their hotel rooms and watch Real Madrid run out 3-1 winners against arch rivals Barcelona.

United declined to comment when contacted by Sportsmail on Tuesday morning.

Actually, it's about ethics in football journalism

#lindegaate

First Fabio Borini crossed in front of the Kop for Mario Balotelli to score from six yards and then a free-kick struck deep to the far post in injury time was headed in by central defender Dejan Lovren.

Undoubtedly, Lambert would have fancied his chances with both. As he lies awake at night, that is what the 32-year-old must wish for. A cross right on to his instep, a mistake from a goalkeeper. Something he can’t miss. Something to get him going.

Deep in his footballer’s soul, though, Lambert will know that his troubles at Anfield are not down to misfortune.

It was great to have a long catch up chat with former Manchester City, West Ham and QPR winger Trevor Sinclair last week.

Sinclair is back in England after a stint in the Middle East as a TV pundit and while he is still doing some media work he is also working as a coach at non-League Lancaster City, managed by former QPR and Newcastle centre back Darren Peacock.

Given what he had to say on various football issues Sinclair could go a long way in coaching. He has some sound and non-nonsense views.

The former England winger certainly has no doubt that the FA should be strong and pick the best possible Under 21 side for next summer’s European Championship. I totally agree. The experience of tournament football will be of huge benefit to England’s young players, even those who have been regular members of the senior squad for some time.

The following day the draw was made for the finals in the Czech Republic next summer and England were put into a tough group of five-time winners Italy, Portugal and Sweden.

That seemed to make the argument even stronger. Those teams could all offer tougher tests than some of the countries like San Marino and even Slovenia the senior side have in their qualifying group for Euro 2016.

Certainly players like Jack Wilshere - who still qualifies - Raheem Sterling, Luke Shaw, Ross Barkley, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, all of who have been on the senior scene for some time, should not see it as a step down. Instead they should see it as chance for glory and senior success down the line.

After the draw I texted Sinclair this team to see what he thought:

Butland; Clyne, Stones, Moore, Shaw; Oxlade-Chamberlain, Wilshere, Barkle,y Sterling; Berahino, Kane.

I got a swift response from Sinclair: 'That wouldn’t make a bad first team. Let’s hope England go for it with the Under 21 finals next summer… with that side they have a chance of winning. Despite what people say there is young talent in this country. Let’s prove it.'

https://twitter.com/BestJournoTweet/status/531543979050151937

One view of this analysis is that for nearly £60m a footballer should know when to pass and when to dribble every time he receives possession. It could be posited that Di María’s fee was arguably bloated by around £20m.

A counter-argument, however, could run that the 26-year-old shone during his opening games for United, looking about the best of the club’s summer acquisitions so he is merely suffering a loss of form. Time, as usual, will tell.

Van Gaal seems to have broken something in Jamie Jackson

https://twitter.com/BestJournoTweet/status/532933567404580864

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Wayne-Rooney-does-not-rank-alongside-world-s-greatest-players-Lionel-Messi-Cristiano-Ronaldo-claims-Glenn-Hoddle.html

MARTIN SAMUEL: Liverpool's mistake was not thinking like a big club when Suarez left, they should've gone for Costa or Benzema

Paul Wilson
The Observer, Saturday 16 August 2014 22.30 BST

City’s keynote signing of the summer is not the most physically imposing of stoppers either. Centre halves have slimmed down quite a bit since Bill Shankly invited local journalists into the Liverpool dressing room to be shown round Ron Yeats, but even so Mangala is willowy.

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Malky Mackay and his defenders show football remains in the dark ages

All the bright lights and vibrant colours of the new Premier League season are a misleading cover for an industry that doesn’t understand the modern world

Paul Wilson
The Observer, Saturday 23 August 2014 15.51 BST

Malky Mackay given fair hearing and a chance to redeem himself at Wigan

Former Cardiff manager has paid for his mistakes and has now been given a chance to resurrect his career by Dave Whelan

Paul Wilson
Follow @paulwilsongnm Follow @guardian Wednesday 19 November 2014 13.07 GMT

Van Gaal wants to add a midfielder, a right-back, one or two central defenders, a wide player and potentially a striker. The Dutchman is targeting Roma’s Kevin Strootman, who would cost around £30m, Borussia Dortmund’s Mats Hummels who may be priced up to £35m, Atlético Madrid’s Diego Godín – in the region of £25m – Barcelona’s Dani Alves, for around £15m

Dani Alves
Contract until: 30.06.2015

transfer talk is the most vapid shit. so glad pro cycling's broken business model means there's only very occasionally this kind of kite-flying.

this is ed woodward we're talking about tbf

pointless filler questions are nothing new of course but the craven, pusillanimous deference to van gaal from the brit media rly is especially beyond the pale somehow and so deeply aggravating

every week he talks about instilling his philosophy, every week he says it was a crap performance, WHY CAN'T YOU JUST ASK HIM THE GLARINGLY OBVIOUS QUESTION THEN FFS

you know he wants to be asked as well, you can see how bored and restless he is, every press conference a cunty lil goading comment to some scurrying hack but never a total shutdown always an open challenge to step to him that is never taken up

it's like, barely conceivable how much of an oxygen thief you have to be as a journalist to see this bloke forced to appear before you and not be licking your lips at the fun you can have

Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones was born some 40 miles from Caerphilly where Ramsey grew up, but the pair are top Welsh produce according to Jan Aage Fjortoft

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/30406982

JAMIE CARRAGHER: Allardyce and Pardew have shown why it's time to ban chairmen from firing managers during the season

are sky going to sideline that cunt now they have henry

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someone voted for paul pogba as the best player in the world

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/dec/24/cristiano-ronaldo-overtakes-lionel-messi-as-the-best-footballer-in-the-world

Could fill this entire thread with witless Chris Bascombe columns but instead let's go with his Telegraph colleague Luke Edwards

Sunderland's capture of Jermain Defoe could just be the best piece of transfer business done in the January transfer window, ever.

EVER!!!
A 3 1/2 year deal for a 31 yr old who wasn't exactly prolific when playing in a decent team for the last 3 years of his Prem career.

32, so he will be being paid £70k a week (about the same as pogba's recently signed contract) until shortly before his 36th birthday

at least if he helps keep sunderland afloat for a year or two it might just about be worth the inevitable payoff (or swp/wayne bridge sitting out of contract period) but that says a lot about the financial motivation for lower epl teams and very little about the merits of jermain defoe

oh god now i see his byline picture, this is par for the course for that idiot

In other words, they have swapped a player with Toronto who, with the best will in the world, had become a joke on Wearside – albeit a fondly thought of one – for the closest thing you can get to guaranteeing goals in English football.

To make that deal happen, they will pay Defoe around £20k-a-week more than they were paying Altidore.

this would presumably mean that since ron vlaar is marginally better than christopher samba who was being paid a mere £100k a week at qpr, he deserves 40% more than that guaranteed until he is 35 yrs old

jermain defoe has only scored more than 11 goals in an epl season on two occasions

He was better than that stat suggests given he was mostly used as a sub and even then fairly late on in a lot of games - he was probably the archetypal 'give him a run of games' striker but he was either second fiddle to Robbie Keane or not deemed physically imposing enough when we were playing one up top. Ironically probably his best run of form was as the lone striker in the early days of the AVB era.

Probably not much use at Sunderland at the age of 35 though.

I mean the statement in the article is still manifestly nonsense so hey.

Robben, who turned 31 last month, rubs his bald head ruefully in a small room on a sunlit yet freezing February afternoon in Munich

It was good to be in the company of many former Spurs stars during the week at Planet Hollywood for the launch the new football social media site Hinch.as – listening to Ossie Ardiles and Garth Crooks in a heated debate about politics and religion was absorbing.

That is among the worst conversations I can possibly imagine. Not to mention one of the longest and least comprehensible.

It was a wonderful opening salvo by Jordan Henderson when he scored against Manchester City. Here is another player who seems to relish the freedom and extra responsibility afforded him in the absence of Steven Gerrard. I don't think I've seen Liverpool play with the same intensity or tempo as they did against City. If Philippe Coutinho is the new playmaker at Anfield, perhaps Brendan Rodgers might think about making Henderson the new captain.

garth crooks. presumably sub-edited. henderson is liverpool's vice captain. this decision has already been made. bbc sport in general has always been shit but it is just full of hot air morons who drag down the reputation of sporty itself.

spoken as a sporty fan and not an autocorrect fan.

Alzheimer’s was one of the ailments which afflicted his last years and in that sad sense we have been missing this great footballer and nice man for some time already.

Over in Marca, Roberto Palomar called it “a bad day to stop sniffing glue.”

Tickled by the idea that Marca journalists look to Airplane for inspiration.