FourFourTwo's Inside Track

Little England need to think big and get the best man for the job

2012-02-10T14:54:00Z

FourFourTwo.com editor Gary Parkinson on the farce and fiasco that has surrounded the English national football team in recent days...

The departure of Fabio Capello was a domino-topple of wrongness.

John Terry’s heinous (alleged) crime was bad enough; the legal system’s preposterous tardiness turned a problem into a half-year soap opera. The FA’s decision over his captaincy was difficult enough, but reaching it without consulting the manager was tantamount to constructive dismissal of their most well-remunerated employee.

Capello's decision to vent his spleen on Italian TV seemed either unprofessionally immature or a calculated move to render his position untenable by pandering to the prejudices of the xenophobic.

Fittingly for a chain of events started by alleged racism, it's that xenophobia which is the ugliest of all. Whenever the second most important job in the country is vacant, every village's idiot feels the need to proclaim – and when the incumbent wasn't from these parts, the cry is "an Englishman, any Englishman".

There's no problem with the first part. There are strong reasons for a nation to promote its own coaches, but there are stronger reasons to hire the best, even if it means swallowing national pride before it becomes bigotry. You won't have heard many Welsh rugby fans at the 2011 World Cup semi-finals complaining that Warren Gatland was born in New Zealand, not Neath.

Capello led England to two tournaments out of two with extreme efficiency and the highest win percentage since World War II, that psyche-defining epoch by which many on these shores still think the planet is defined. Sven-Göran Eriksson qualified for three successive quarter-finals, a feat unmatched by any England manager (Alf Ramsey's England didn't have to qualify in 1966 and lost their only game at Euro 68).

Contrast that to the last two managers born under the flag. Steve McClaren resigned in shame after failing to reach Euro 2008, while Kevin Keegan – having scraped to Euro 2000 on goal difference and crashed out of the finals at the group stage – resigned with the lowest win percentage of any England manager in history.

And yet to many here and abroad, it seems these little Englanders would rather the country ignore those clever foreign types and get a good old heart-of-oak in charge. These would be the types who still believe Johnny Foreigner learnt a lesson in the 1950s, when those fancy Magyars lost at Wolves because Stan Cullis had the pitch watered so much that the mud seeped over the top of Ferenc Puskas’s boots.

"Wait, you're replacing me with HIM!?"

They'd rather lose with a lionheart – although lions have never been native to England, and while we're at it St George was apparently a Roman soldier also venerated in Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Egypt, Georgia, Germany, India, Italy, Lebanon, Malta, Ossetia, Palestine, Portugal, Serbia, Spain and the USA.

But in the wider picture, it’s all part of the usual English yo-yoing between managers. Robson’s too old, get a young manager! Taylor’s too introverted, get a people’s champion! Venables is too East End, get an apparently polite chap! Hoddle’s too introverted, get a people’s champion! Keegan’s too passionate, get an ice-man! Eriksson’s too foreign, get an Englishman! McClaren’s too player-ruled, get a disciplinarian!

No one is pretending Capello didn't have his faults: the 2010 World Cup was a fiasco, but he seemed to have learnt from it and led a rejuvenated squad to unbeaten qualification. (Mind you, the only game his England had previously lost was after they had qualified with two games to spare, along the way to racking up Europe’s largest goals-for tally.)

It's also evident that Capello has left most teams, even if successful, feeling somewhat brutalised by his efficiency and crying out for more fun, whatever that means. Real Madrid was the most extreme example: brought in to win the title, he did so and was sacked – twice. There seems something distant, dislikable even, about him – but again, he was brought in as a reaction to the very approachable English failure Steve McClaren.

It has been noted that there seems a certain disconnect between the FA's anti-racist stance and their seemingly populist preference for an English manager. Laudably, even if as window-dressing, they have refused to rule out a foreign manager. And so they should. Even compared to six years ago, in the death by committee that led to McClaren's cocked-up coronation, there seems a scarcity of correctly-passported coaches.

Harry Redknapp is the obvious front-runner, heralded by his mates in the chip papers; but unlike Capello, he's simply not a winner: one FA Cup triumph at Portsmouth, later rendered very hollow indeed by the financial mess the club was getting itself into. An affable also-ran, best known for his keen work in the import and export trade, Redknapp is a self-professed tactical agnostic. Are we really seeing England return to the age of "Get out there and run about a bit"?

Despite the worry over the imminence of the Euros, and the undoubted inconvenience of the sudden succession crisis, the FA have time to shop around. Stuart Pearce is in temporary charge for the imminent friendly against the Netherlands – a game which may just help to show that these continentals can play a bit – there's three clear months until the pre-tournament friendlies.

It should, but doesn't, go without saying that England should get the best man available for the job – or rather jobs: avoiding embarrassment in summer, then building for the future. The FA are commendably open to the idea of a short-term manager being replaced after the Euros, when there would be a considerably wider talent pool to choose from and club managers far easier to coax away.

There’ll be more options in summer, when managers are more freely available. For a start, it seems likely that Jose Mourinho will ride into the Madrid sunset, possibly after his usual second-season title triumph. For now, despite his sabre-rattling threats to leave, there's no way he'll walk away and pass up the chance to usurp Barcelona.

In the meantime, England should hire the man most likely to hit the ground running with the tactical fluidity necessary to get the best out of someone else's team. At the moment, that’s probably Guus Hiddink, who has made winners out of Australia, South Korea and even Phil Scolari's Chelsea.

That said, there’s a deep, sour part of me, one I'm not proud of, that’s tempted to see the FA appoint a hapless English fall-guy caretaker, who’ll sink without trace. Then we can bounce back in the opposite direction – for the good of English football.

RE-RE-WIND: The Crown says 'No, acquit him!'

2012-02-09T16:01:00Z

Wembley, Soccer Aid 2008: It's The Artful Dodger feat. Craig David. Old Knappsy subs on Southampton's finest export (yes, Theo, really)

Get more from the March 2012 issue

2012-02-07T10:30:00Z

It seems like only last week we were singing the praises of the February issue of FourFourTwo, but already the next magazine has hit the shelves – and the March edition is another cracker.

But for those of you who want more than 156 glossy pages of access, insight and fun, here is our monthly 'Further Reading' blog. Once you put down that magazine, see what else we have to offer in relation to the March issue...

ENTER MADRID, EXIT BARÇA
The March issue brings the story of Mourinho's Madrid being poised to topple Pep and pals, but at FourFourTwo.com we have insight from Spain several times a week. Head on over to our La Liga Loca blog section for regular missives from Tim Stannard on the world's biggest league. Predictions? Reactions? Banners encouraging testicular fortitude? It's all here.

RONALDO v MESSI
Comparing the globe's two best players is a tricky job: Barney Ronay's piece in the magazine was as comprehensive as it was analytical, but sometimes you just need to see the evidence for yourself. Maybe these videos will make you change your mind as to who is better of "the likeable floppy-haired Ewok" and "the balletic machine". Or maybe they'll just reinforce what you already think. Take a look and find out.

RAMIRES & SZCZESNY EXCLUSIVES
We got personal one-on-one time with the big hopes of the two remaining English clubs in the Champions League: Ramires of Chelsea and Wojciech Szczesny of Arsenal. Unfortunately we have no video of the Polish stopper's dad decking Roberto Mancini, but you can see why he and 'The Blue Kenyan' (or 'Rambo', depending where you're based) are so crucial to the pair of Londoners' hopes in these videos:

EUROPEAN BATTLE PLANS
We've got the tactical lowdown on how English teams can ensure they fare well in the Champions League and Europa League knockouts, but where are you going to get analysis on their opposition? In our extensive Blogs section, that's where! We have local experts spread right across Europe – and beyond – so if you want nous on Napoli or musings on Milan, views on Valencia or dirt on the Dutch champions, see what the men in the know have to say.

Elsewhere, Professor Champions League himself will be watching every game, quill in hand, ready to scribble off another fascinating blog on the world's premier club competition.

And that's not all: the FourFourTwo Stats Zone app is now just 69p for the Champions League, so if you want to be an armchair analyst, you know what to do (erm, buy the app).

EURO 2012 ENGLAND SQUAD PREDICTOR
We're going to take a punt here and guess that you disagreed with our predicted 23-man England squad in the magazine. Hey, it's fine: after all, there are so many contenders. Read who they are, as well as the updated list, in our latest Euro 2012 England Squad Predictor blog – and tell us what you think in the comments section, on Facebook or on Twitter.

CLUB FOCUS: PARIS SAINT-GERMAIN
We take a look in the March issue at wannabe superclub Paris Saint-Germain, in the first of our new series going inside the world's most fascinating teams. Back in December on FourFourTwo.com, editor of The Football Diaries Stuart Coleman explained why PSG's revival is good for the whole of French football. Vive la révolution!

ONE-ON-ONE: DENIS LAW
In this issue's One-on-One, where footballing legends answer your questions, Denis Law 'struggles to remember' his worst defeat with Scotland, losing 9-3 to the old enemy. Here's a video that might jog his memory...

Of course, it's a myth that Law's backheel relegated his beloved Manchester United in 1973, but it was still a massive moment in his life. Here it is, for any young whippersnappers reading:

Here are some much happier moments for the Lawman, becoming a hero in Manchester apparently to music by a bunch of Liverpudlians. Well, you can't have everything.

GREAT GOALS RETOLD: JURGEN KLINSMANN
As you might expect, it's another cracker in our Great Goals Retold series: legendary striker Jurgen Klinsmann showing why he was all the rage with a scintillating strike for Stuttgart against Bayern Munich in 1987. Check out the video to go with his words, for as sublime a move ending with an overhead kick as you're ever likely to see.

MESSI'S COUSIN
It's never easy living in somebody's shadow, so feel for Maxi Biancucchi, footballer for Olimpia in Paraguay – and Lionel Messi's cousin. But for one moment Maxi was king of the world, and here's why. Leo would be proud.

NON-LEAGUE TO PREMIER LEAGUE
We also talk to four top-flight players who have lived the modern-day football fairy tale: coming up from the non-leagues to play in the Premier League. So non-league, in fact, that the internet has no videos of their lesser-known exploits. Enjoy instead these tasters of Chris Smalling, Steve Morison, Carl Jenkinson and Michael Kightly playing for their Premier League clubs – Kightly in a pre-season friendly between the selling club and his buyers, Gray's Athletic and Wolverhampton Wanderers...

FFT TRAVEL: NAPLES
Like the look of our footballing guide to Naples in the new issue? Get more from our FourFourTwo travel site, including more reasons why Naples is "Italy turned up to 11". Then fly! Go on, what's stopping you?

PERFECT XI: ROBERT PIRES
If you enjoyed Bobby P's line-up of the best players he ever shared a pitch with, you'll probably like our archive of Perfect XIs online. For all you Gooners, here's Ian Wright waxing lyrical about Paolo Maldini's good looks; for all you Frenchmen, here's Eric Cantona on Rene Higuita being "a great keeper"; and for all you Arsenal-loving Frenchies, we also have Emmanuel Petit on his brave decision to appoint joint-managers.

We're constantly updating our archive too, so keep your homepage locked on our Interviews section for more access from FourFourTwo's 17 and a bit years.

ACTION REPLAY: HEREFORD v NEWCASTLE, 1972
It wouldn't be the March 2012 edition of FourFourTwo without recognition of the all-time most famous upset's 40-year anniversary. To go with your nostalgia and magazine feature, have some highlights of the Bulls' incredible victory, including a fan in a tree:

FFT'S NEW POSTER BOY
We're big fans of Steve Welsh, creator of football art website miniboro.com, around here: his posters are all over our office. Hopefully, if the Upfront article didn't already, this should explain why.

REFFIN' HELL!
In Planet Football this month you can read about some of the most extraordinary things ever happen to a match official. Now you can see them too! Here is evidence we didn't just make up a bunch of incredible tales; these videos make you wonder who would ever want to be a ref...

Ref does runner from drunk Dane

Wheely annoyed Dutchman lets rip

When players get a bit too friendly

Solution: get on the booze yourself

ONE CARDBOARD CAT & 2,000 PHANTOM FANS
Intrigued by our story from Germany, about Hansa Rostock fans reacting to a stadium ban against Dynamo Dresden by smuggling in cardboard cut-outs? Then have your curiosity piqued by these extra snaps. Not only did the nearly empty arena feature a two-dimensional cat, but these fake fans as well. Bizarre...

PERFORMANCE
Let's not forget we have a really rather wonderful Performance website as well as the monthly magazine section. For more on what you've learnt from the March issue, check out the following.

Want more tips on being a striker after Michael Owen's tips on positioning? Read Jermain Defoe's six-step guide to striking and Darren Bent's tips on being a maestro of movement.

Want more on structuring a training session? We have a whole Performance section dedicated to training, so get your guidance from us.

Want more on how to defend like an icon after Franco Baresi's masterclass? Try these tasty tips from modern pros and Manchester United team-mates Nemanja Vidic and Rio Ferdinand.

Want more on recovery on top of the benefits of chocolate milk for post-match recovery? We have plenty of recovery guides in our section dedicated to just that.

Want more on how music can help your all-round football game having read Judge Jules' soundtrack to your season? Put on your giant headphones and immerse yourself in music to improve your performance.

Happy reading.

Like what you see? Subscribe now and nab yourself a special offer!

The Euro 2012 England squad predictor - 06/02/12

2012-02-06T15:30:00Z

Wondering who'll be in the England squad for the summer's inevitably successful jaunt to Poland and Ukraine? So is Fabio Capello, if this morning's papers are to be believed.

Fortunately, we've had a sit down in a quiet room and have come up with a list of how things stand at present - most likely to travel at the top, those at risk of missing out towards the bottom...

Key:
▲ = moving up
▼ = moving down
■ = non mover
● = new entry

1 Joe Hart ■
Unrivaled No.1 and the key to defensive stability (hopefully)

2 Wayne Rooney ■
Still the most dangerous player, though less so when banned

3 Ashley Cole ■
A cert: Capello’s Mr Reliable, even if club form has been patchy

4 Scott Parker ▲
Never-say-die attitude rubs off on everyone around him

5 Steven Gerrard ●
Fit and firing: Rooney’s stand-in for France and Sweden?

6 John Terry ▼
Stripped of the captaincy, but still certain to be in Fabio's plans

7 James Milner ■
Work-rate and versatility make him the ideal utility player for any 23

8 Gary Cahill ▲
Will look to build an understanding with new club-mate Terry

9 Gareth Barry ▼
Efficient if unspectacular, a staple of Fabio's squads since day one

10 Leighton Baines ■
Unproven but solid understudy in a position with few options

11 Theo Walcott ▲
Capello favourite. Form a worry, but explosive pace still a weapon

12 Daniel Sturridge ▲
Has forced his way in at Chelsea and is aiming for the same with England

13 Danny Welbeck ▲
Form with Manchester United has seen him overtake Darren Bent

14 Joleon Lescott ▲
Consistent Man City form makes him a reliable alternative

15 Stewart Downing ▼
Must do more to secure place (and that's just with Liverpool...)

16 Jack Wilshere ▼
Should still make it despite suffering an injury setback

17 Ashley Young ▼
Injury sees him slip down the international pecking order

18 Frank Lampard ■
Invaluable source of goals when it matters in the big games

19 Glen Johnson ▼
Capello’s go-to right-back, but under threat from Kyle Walker

20 Scott Carson ■
A long way behind Joe Hart, but there aren't too many options left

21 Darren Bent ▼
On the bench for now, but form in qualifying stands him in good stead

22 Phil Jones ▼
Standing has slipped after a few shaky defensive performances

23 Ben Foster ●
Could he be tempted out of his self-imposed exile?

Close contenders

David Stockdale has enjoyed an extended run in the Fulham goal, and Capello would be buoyed to see his the keeper playing, especially given the effect regular football has had for the confidence and development of Kyle Walker, as he continues to play a part in Tottenham's tentative title push. Adam Johnson finds himself on the other end of the spectrum as Roberto Mancini has persisted with an improved Samir Nasri, when it looked like Johnson could jump ahead of the former Arsenal man. Chris Smalling is still out with glandular fever, but it's no secret that Capello admires his composure and comfort at right-back. So much so, that he has refrained from picking Micah Richards in previous squads, despite the Manchester City defender's barn-storming displays from that very position. Jermain Defoe led the line well against Manchester City – grabbing himself a goal – but his late miss would have tipped the balance further towards Bent and the more versatile Welbeck and Sturridge.

Bubbling under

Everton's Phil Jagielka and Jack Rodwell are a couple of weeks away from fitness. Given the size of David Moyes' squad, both will be find themselves back in action as soon as Everton look to push on into the top half of the table, and turn Capello's head. Aaron Lennon has continued to display his aptitude on both flanks but never seems far from an injury, while Tom Cleverley will be a welcome boost to both club and country as he is set to return next week and assist Manchester United teammate Michael Carrick, who has been in inspired form over the last two months. Bobby Zamora’s shift to (a bit more) West London has started well with a goal on his QPR debut against Wolves, but one wonders whether Capello really thinks he is capable of leading the line for England in a major tournament.

Outside bets

Andy Carroll hardly grabbed his chance to nail down a starting place with club or country during Suarez’s eight-game absence, but he has at least resembled a footballer in the last few games (he even scored a goal, y'know...). Gabriel Agbonlahor's form has curtailed after an impressive start, but Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain seems to be going from strength to strength, after exciting outings against Manchester United and Blackburn – his technical ability and decision-making a particular treat. Leon Britton anyone? The key cog in Swansea’s engine room (do engines have cogs?) who looks unperturbed by the ever so frantic Premier League. The Wandsworth Xavi – possibly England’s?

The Euro 2012 England squad predictor: January

Heroes & Villains: A silky Cisse, a silly Cisse and an honourable exit

2012-02-06T12:44:00Z

RESULTS (click team name for web-wide club news feed) Sat 4 Feb Arsenal 7-1 Blackburn Rovers; Norwich City 2-0 Bolton Wanderers; Queens Park Rangers 1-2 Wolverhampton Wanderers; Stoke City 0-1 Sunderland; West Bromwich Albion 1-2 Swansea City; Wigan Athletic 1-1 Everton; Manchester City 3-0 Fulham Sun 5 Feb Newcastle United 2-1 Aston Villa; Chelsea 3-3 Manchester United (Mon 6 Feb 8pm Liverpool v Tottenham Hotspur)

HEROES

Arsenal
This was exactly the statement Arsene Wenger wanted from his players, who served Blackburn with a Baltic blast of revenge in the Saturday lunchtime game. Blackburn were a shambles but Arsenal were every bit as good as their opponents were awful in this brutal seven-shade kicking.

We may not have seen too much of the football that made the Gunners so popular in Wenger’s tenure so far this season but this was vintage Arsenal with heroes all over the pitch. Theo Walcott played like a man who knows Gervinho is soon back from the Africa Cup of Nations and Alex Song continued to advance his reputation as so much more than a defensive linchpin with his assist for Van Persie’s first goal particularly impressive.

In a tournament year there’s usually an exciting young player who makes a late charge to the England squad, and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain might just be the latest. It was a performance of the highest quality from Oxlade-Chamberlain, who looks to have settled straight in to life at the Emirates.

But it wasn’t all about AOC as Arsenal’s fellow triple-initialled frontman yet again proved to be Arsenal’s hero with another hat-trick. What, just the three this time, RVP?

Martin O'Neill
Five wins in their last six games for Sunderland – and more importantly, three successive Heroes nominations. It’s the stuff of modern folklore that the Britannia Stadium is a place from which even title-chasers are grateful to escape with a point and their ambitions intact. For Sunderland to go there and take maximum points says so much about the spirit and desire their manager has instilled in his short time there.

The conditions at Stoke were as inhospitable as the atmosphere, making this smash-and-grab win – they had one shot on target – all the more satisfying for the Black Cats’ faithful. Top of the form league over the 10-game period since O'Neill took over, Sunderland have gone from 16th to eighth place under the Ulsterman. Having gained 22 points from a possible 30, they sit just seven points off fifth-placed Arsenal; with 14 games to go, perhaps it’s not even too giddy for Sunderland fans to start dreaming of Europe.

Sir Alex Ferguson
Three goals down at Chelsea, there was a real danger that Manchester United would lose more than just points. After their September humiliation by Manchester City it took the champions some time to recover their fluency, and it was looking like another period of reflection for Sir Alex Ferguson… until Wayne Rooney’s penalty pulled them back from the brink.

Under the circumstances this wasn't two points lost but one gained. United have their manager to thank for their incredible powers of rejuvenation – these players know phoned-in performances are unacceptable – but also their tactical fluidity: each of his three substitutions subtly but winningly changed their ever-attacking formation.

Although they may have ridden their luck, once the champions had a goal back the comeback always looked a possibility. Ferguson will be delighted to end the week a point closer to the noisy neighbours and with one of his hardest remaining assignments fulfilled in inspiring fashion (no, not the polo-neck).

Manchester City
Normal service resumed for Mancini’s men. Only the wintry conditions separated this performance from one of City’s autumnal annihilations but they were helped on their way by an early penalty which understandably enraged Fulham. Adam Johnson is a better professional than his 10th-minute Bambi act suggested: while Chris Baird did make contact with the winger, he was already on his way to ground before Mike Dean pointed to the spot.

Roberto Mancini will be most pleased with Sergio Aguero, back to his scintillating best after a couple of quiet weeks, and most especially a clean sheet in the captain’s absence. After a shaky spell during Vincent Kompany’s four-game ban, Stefan Savic couldn’t have asked for a more comfortable reintroduction to the City defence: he won all five of his aerial duels, although Clint Dempsey’s aerial prowess is hardly the stuff of legends. Clear again at the top, City need to rack up the points in this, their final gentle run of fixtures before the all-important run-in.

Papiss Demba Cisse
The perfect debut for Newcastle's new No.9. It was perhaps not the cleanest of contacts on the volley – a fraction later and it would have seemed a wild slash – but Alan Pardew won’t mind as the competition for places at St James' Park really hots up.

Mick McCarthy
The midweek villain secured three vital points at QPR as Wolves ended a poor run of form. Knives were being sharpened at Molineux after Tuesday's disappointing defeat to Liverpool, giving the Yorkshire Irishman a sleepless night with “McCarthy out” ringing in his ears.

There’s no doubt Wanderers were granted a slice of luck at Loftus Road with Djibril Cisse's 34th-minute dismissal (McCarthy: "You know my sentiments towards football now: that wouldn't have been a sending-off when I played") but Wolves reacted more smartly to the situation. At half-time McCarthy swapped defender Richard Stearman for striker Kevin Doyle, whose winner sets Wolves up nicely for Sunday's derby with West Brom.

QPR have now dropped a league-high 15 points from winning positions while Wolves have recovered 13 points from losing positions – more than any other team. McCarthy out?

Norwich City
Even the most deluded Norwich fans must have been ready to write off Saturday's game against Bolton after losing both centre-halves to first-half injuries. Daniel Ayala and Zak Whitbread have already proved to be canny acquisitions for Paul Lambert, who described this 2-0 win as the best of his three seasons in charge. "That was as good as I've ever seen us play," a delighted Lambert said at full-time. "The effort and the desire the players showed was absolutely brilliant”.

Brendan Rodgers
It’s difficult to praise Swansea without patronising, but the side no-one gave a prayer in August – unless of course they abandoned their footballing principles – are now within 10 points of the 40-point safety mark, making a Blackpool-style collapse less likely by the week. Moreover, that's now two wins in three league trips for a team already pretty impregnable at home.

For Swansea’s manager, the Mourinho-protégé tag is also starting to come loose as Rodgers continues to cement a reputation for being his own man with his own footballing philosophy, which is becoming as effective as it is attractive.

Gael Givet
If only every player could react as professionally as the Blackburn Rovers defender when he was given his marching orders. In a time when players and managers are finding it increasingly difficult to take responsibility for their actions, Givet’s lack of protest and resigned apology to Arsene Wenger as he departed was so refreshing, even if it was an ugly challenge that preceded it. Perhaps he just sensed the thrashing coming toward his team like a bank of snow-bearing cloud.

VILLAINS

Andre Villas-Boas
When Chelsea went 3-0 up against Manchester United it looked like Andre Villas-Boas was giving a lesson to a visiting manager twice his age. Sir Alex Ferguson had brought on Javier Hernandez and was readying Paul Scholes when Wayne Rooney made it 3-1 in the 58th minute.

This was no time for Villas-Boas to panic but a United onslaught was inevitable and it was the perfect opportunity to bring on Oriel Romeu to shore up Chelsea’s midfield. AVB dithered and only made the substitution when Rooney struck again, by which point Chelsea had sacrificed their momentum and were made to pay for their manager’s indecisiveness.

Villas-Boas is still very much trying to step out of the ample shadow of Jose Mourinho, whose decisive substitutions are remembered fondly at Stamford Bridge. It’s easy to forget that Villas-Boas has only been a manager for three years; perhaps that inexperience showed on Sunday.

Perhaps the 34-year-old can't be judged fairly until he has completed a very necessary overhaul of an ageing squad. The question is whether he will be given time to complete that job, given Mourinho's PR machine had used the back page of Friday's Sun to offer his special services again next season.

Chris Baird
The Fulham full-back can count himself extremely lucky to miss out on a nightmare hat-trick at the Etihad. As if his concession of a penalty and an own goal weren’t enough, Baird’s scissor tackle on Edin Dzeko was the perfect demonstration of how to beat your buddies to the bathtub. Late, high and from behind, it was generously deemed only cautionable by Mike Dean – just about the only generosity Fulham received on an otherwise miserable evening in Manchester.

Roy Hodgson
It speaks volumes about the division's stragglers that West Brom are still six points clear of the drop zone; it says everything about the Baggies' own form that they might not keep that cushion for long. Having won one and lost four of their seven games since Christmas, Hodgson's side are sliding down the table; down to 15th, they're now the nearest targets for the bottom five.

QPR's heavy investment and new manager could well mean they overhaul the five-point difference between the clubs, while West Brom's local rivals Wolves could cut the gap to two with a home win in Sunday's derby; after that, the Baggies face in-form Sunderland, Chelsea and Manchester United.

After Swansea left The Hawthorns with all three points and West Brom with the joint worst home record, Hodgson spoke worriedly about losing the support of the home fans. Perhaps he'd better worry about losing the support of chairman Jeremy Peace, who pulled the trigger on Roberto di Matteo a year ago this week.

Roger Johnson, Djibril Cisse & Mark Clattenburg
It was probably harsh of Clattenburg to send off Cisse, who has suffered two nasty leg-breaks. However, there’s no doubt that the French striker’s reaction to Roger Johnson’s challenge gave the referee an excuse to dismiss the Lord of the Manor of Frodsham: when you raise your hands and place them on an opponent’s neck there’s always a risk of seeing red.

With the debate on dangerous tackles continuing to rage, Johnson can count himself extremely lucky to escape dismissal himself for what was an ugly two-footed tackle. It was a match-defining red card and the Rs will have every reason to feel aggrieved that Clattenburg may have got the wrong guy.

That white polo-neck
Sir Alex Ferguson is hardly a fashionista, but the polo-neck shirt he graced upon arriving at the King's Road set Twitter ablaze. Fashionistas up and down the land pondered if Sir Alex was making a late run to be the first James Bond from Govan, or perhaps driving to Dundee in a Vauxhall Vectra loaded with Toblerone. Whatever it was, stick with the grey overcoat in future, Alex.

DE-FENCE! DE-FENCE! DE-FENCE! City players love that there Superbowl

2012-02-03T15:39:00Z

Manchester City’s players took time away from their preparations for Saturdays match with Fulham to indulge in what the Americans call ‘football.’

Ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots, two members of City’s de-fence – NFL fans Joleon Lescott and Micah Richards - kitted themselves out at the club’s Carrington training ground, to show their support for the teams who will do battle this weekend in Indianapolis.

Lescott is a Patriots supporter while Richards favours the Giants, so to make sure things didn’t get too heated between the City team-mates, the ever-disciplined Nigel De Jong stepped in as referee.

England defender Lescott will be a keen viewer on Sunday night; "I got into NFL from a really young age, a good friend of mine was into it in a big way because his dad was from America and a Miami Dolphins fan."

Richards said "I got into it through a mate because I was more into basketball," before adding "It’s a lot more physical than our game and a genuine contact sport, but it looks like quite a cool sport and it’s something I can see myself really getting into in the future."

Tough-tackling midfielder De Jong is no doubt a fan of the robust nature of the game; "I’ve been into NFL for about five years now. We have mutual friends out in the States who follow the sport and I’ve been watching it on TV for a few years now and I’ve really got into it."

Lescott says he might play Gridiron in the future; "The NFL guys are very agile and quick and they put a lot of hard work into their game. I’d definitely like to give it a go when my playing career ends – whether I’m any good or not remains to be seen!"

We’re not yet sure if Lescott, Richards and De Jong will douse ‘Coach Mancini’ in Gatorade, should they win the Premier League title, though...

By Steven Toplis

Pearce's shower scene and Maradona's fingerprints

2012-02-03T14:23:00Z

In the new FourFourTwo – out now, folks – we profile the work of Middlesbrough fan and artist Steve Welsh. A former cartoonist for iconic fanzine Fly Me To The Moon, Welsh set up MiniBoro.com to collate interviews but also to showcase his art. And we should all be glad.

Far from being Boro-centric, the site celebrates cult heroes from around the world and across the decades. Welsh's often simple yet brilliantly executed images tend to concentrate on a well-known aspect of a player or team and play with the visual iconography – so Stuart Pearce is celebrated with an image of the blood circling out of the shower in Hitchcock's Psycho, while Edgar Davids is represented as a pitbull with the simple byelaw-quoting 'no fouling'.

While their opponents had their half-time oranges Celtic's 1967 European Cup-winning 'Lisbon Lions' would obviously eat raw meat, and Maradona's complex relationship with the English psyche is summed up with the legend 'tainted love' and a fingerprinted football.

FourFourTwo's current favourite – and Welsh's images adorn the office walls at FFT Towers – is the first one below, dedicated to erstwhile Boro assistant manager Viv Anderson. The right-back is often pigeon-holed as 'England's first black international' but the MiniBoro illustration resembles an Ishihara colour-blindness test.

See below for all those images plus more dedicated to Carlos Valderrama, Socrates, Terry Butcher, Norman Hunter and Sheffield United. Welsh has produced dozens of images, perusable at MiniBoro.com and available to buy as prints, framed prints and stretched canvases.

What else is in the new issue?

Heroes & Villains: Missing millions, a good ref and a hapless handcuffer

2012-02-02T12:35:00Z

Midweek delight and derision from Mark Booth, with a little bonus moaning at the end from Gary Parkinson...

RESULTS (click team name for web-wide club news feed) Tue Jan 31 Everton 1-0 Manchester City; Manchester United 2-0 Stoke City; Swansea City 1-1 Chelsea; Tottenham Hotspur 3-1 Wigan Athletic; Wolverhampton Wanderers 0-3 Liverpool Wed Feb 1 Aston Villa 2-2 Queens Park Rangers; Bolton Wanderers 0-0 Arsenal; Sunderland 3-0 Norwich City; Fulham 1-1 West Bromwich Albion; Blackburn Rovers 0-2 Newcastle United

HEROES

Manchester United
The champions were the big winners of this midweek round of fixtures after easily seeing off the challenge of Stoke City. Now level with their neighbours at the top of the Premier League, United are moving into what is historically their favourite period of the season. With all the talk surrounding United’s lack of spending, it was a transfer out of Old Trafford that proved to be their most profitable on Tuesday, with Darron Gibson’s goal against Manchester City giving his former boss reason to smile over his bottle of plonk.

There was nothing particularly memorable about this efficient dispatch of Tony Pulis’ Stoke, who continued their poor run against the big boys with this 2-0 defeat. City cling on to top spot through goal difference, but Sir Alex Ferguson will feel the momentum is very much with his team and the neutrals rejoice as one of the tightest title races for years maintains its ebb and flow.

Everton
Everton were arguably the big winners of this year’s low-key transfer window, bringing in the natural finisher they’ve been crying out for in Jelavic, being reunited with Steven Pienaar on loan and, most crucially in this fixture, taking Darron Gibson off the Old Trafford scrapheap.

The contrast between the costs of the playing squads on show could barely have been greater, yet it was Everton who prevailed, displaying the kind of grit that characterises David Moyes’ tenure on Merseyside. A makeshift defensive pairing of Tony Hibbert and John Heitinga limited City to just a handful of clear-cut chances and Maraoune Fellaini worked tirelessly to suppress the creative artistry of David Silva and Samir Nasri.

The frustration for the Everton faithful is that they can drop points against teams like Blackburn, who got a draw in the last game at Goodison – perhaps explaining why Tuesday's attendance was only the second sub-30,000 league gate in Moyes' decade at the club. With their new reinforcements there is at last reason to believe there are brighter, more consistent times ahead for the Toffees.

Tottenham
It's as you were in the title race, as if the cruel defeat at the Etihad Stadium never happened: Spurs climb back to within five points of the summit. It was a particularly convincing performance from Tottenham, who needed a reaction after dropping five points in the last two Premier League games.

Harry Redknapp clinched the loan signing of Louis Saha on the final day of the transfer window and if he can stay fit, he could play a vital role as understudy to Emmanuel Adebayor. Against Wigan, it was again that prolific midfield coming up with the goods, including one beautiful individual effort from Gareth Bale. If Adebayor and Saha can find the back of the net on a consistent basis, perhaps Tottenham could find themselves in a title race after all.

Sunderland
If the Sunderland board were ever in any doubt as to whether they made the right decision in replacing Steve Bruce with Martin O’Neill, these reservations were seen off in convincing style on Wednesday night. Norwich were on a six-match unbeaten run before they made the trip up to the Stadium of Light but former Canaries boss Martin O’Neill has got the Black Cats doing the simple things well again and their ascent of the league table continues in style.

Frazier Campbell netted his first Premier League goal in 17 months and Stéphane Sessègnon maintained his excellent recent form to put Sunderland eighth in the table – a quite remarkable turnaround even by O’Neill’s high standards.

Andy Carroll
At times the criticism levelled at the 23-year old has crossed the line into something resembling glee and completely out of perspective for a young man trying to find his way at a big club. This dog’s abuse was silenced on the anniversary of his deadline day £35m move from Newcastle as he weighed in with a poacher’s goal which was the highlight of an encouraging Liverpool display.

Dalglish originally hoped that Carroll could work in tandem with the returning Luis Suarez, and there’s at least a suggestion that these hopes could be rekindled if this spirited performance at Wolves was anything to go by.

Chris Foy
Referees rarely get the headlines for getting decisions right, but Chris Foy deserves a mention after spotting the slightest of fingertips from Wojech Szczęsny in the last seconds at the Reebok Stadium on Wednesday night. Without that brush of glove it was the clearest penalty you’ll ever see as the Arsenal keeper took out Bolton's Mark Davies. Foy did spot it and the 0-0 stalemate was sealed – much to the ire of Owen Coyle, who missed it like the rest of us mere mortals.

VILLAINS

Manchester City
How Roberto Mancini must dread his trips to Merseyside. The Italian shouldered the blame for City’s toothless showing at Goodison Park, claiming to have underestimated Everton. If this was an exercise in taking the pressure off his players, it was misplaced given City’s miserable record in this fixture.

Outfought and bereft of ideas to break Everton’s resolve, this City side was a shadow of the outfit that romped through the league in autumn. After Darron Gibson delighted in opening the scoring against his previous team's cross-town rivals, there was nothing to be seen from David Silva, Samir Nasri, Sergio Aguero, Edin Dzeko – £125m of players went missing, more than any dog's Monaco bank account, making the absence of Yaya Toure in City’s midfield all the more obvious.

The truth is that City haven’t been at their sparkling best on a consistent basis since their air of invincibility was taken at Chelsea in December. Teams seemed to have worked out how to play against them, with the Martin O’Neill formula particularly popular: sit deep in numbers, invite City on, frustrate them and break with pace. If the oft-touted ‘form of champions’ is winning games ugly, surely dominating games and losing is the form of runners-up.

David Dunn
Blackburn can consider themselves unlucky to see Newcastle leave Ewood Park with all three points. It could have been so different for Steve Kean’s men had they not conceded a desperately unlucky own goal and had David Dunn converted the 43rd-minute penalty.

If that spot-kick had levelled the match, Blackburn may have picked up at least a point in their quest for survival; as it was, Tim Krul saved David Dunn's effort and as Blackburn chased the game Gabriel Obertan punished them on the break. Newcastle beat Rovers for the third time in four months and kept Kean's men in the bottom three.

Mick McCarthy
The pressure is mounting on the Wolves boss after a bad night against Liverpool at Molineux. The first of the dreaded “McCarthy out” bed-sheets made an appearance in the stands; in the mixed zone, with typical Yorkshire honesty, he took the blame for the defeat; and in the dressing-room he witnessed club owner Steve Morgan barge in to tear a strip off the underperforming Wanderers.

In the past Wolves have been guilty of failing to beat the teams around them and only a neat line in giantkilling has kept them out of trouble. With their powers of upsetting the odds starting to elude them, McCarthy needs to find some points – starting at QPR on Saturday – or the words on those scrawled bed sheets will soon find their way onto Wolves’ letterheaded paper.

Benoît Assou-Ekotto
Tottenham’s full-back will receive no punishment for his horror tackle on Franco di Santo on Tuesday night. Yet again this glaring flaw in the FA’s justice system has been brought to the light as referee Lee Probert admitted to seeing the challenge but decided to take no action, making the FA powerless to step in and land Assou-Ekotto with a deserved three-match ban. Football managers crying out for consistency in decisions on dangerous tackles are left to tear their hair out – a job that would take a while with Benoît's bouncing bouffant.

Deadline day
It seemed that the small matter of the football only conspired to get in the way of Sky’s now traditional deadline day song and dance. Jim White, the yellow ticker and Big Ben couldn’t save this deadline day which proved to be something of a damp squib as a new-found austerity gripped the Premier League.

Match of the Day
Speaking of TV and deadlines, the BBC's flagship football programme was inexplicably scheduled to started half an hour before the 11pm window-slam, when most fans were hopefully (or fearfully) scanning rolling news, websites, forums and Twitter.

Furthermore, with half the Premier League teams not in action until the following evening, you have to ask why the midweek edition wasn't on the Wednesday: fans of Arsenal, Aston Villa, Blackburn, Bolton, Fulham, Newcastle, QPR and West Brom won't get their licence fee's worth. There wasn't even the consolation bone-throw of a Match of the Day 2 with keen Colin and his chums – who, while we're on the moanbox, frequently put far more effort into their analysis than the main-show regulars. – GP

Handcuffs
Putting the boring adult hat on, people entering the field of play is a definite no-no, and although handcuffing yourself to the goalpost might deserve points for originality, the Liverpool fan protesting against his daughter's dismissal by Ryanair is hardly equivalent to emancipation-chasing suffragettes chaining themselves to 10 Downing Street. Nobody likes to see people losing their jobs but with youth unemployment reaching 21% and topping a million, if we're to have handcuffings for every jobless young person we're gonna need a lot of goalposts. – GP

In the new issue: Real Madrid, Barcelona, PSG, Man United, Southport...

2012-02-01T11:18:00Z

The evenings are slowly getting lighter and the Champions League knockout stages are inching closer. But right now, the FourFourTwo March edition is on the shelves – and do we have a story for you...

Could this be the season the tide turns in La Liga? Jose Mourinho may already be getting itchy feet, but he won’t leave a job unfinished and usually wins the league in his second season – which means Barcelona are in trouble. This month, FourFourTwo brings you unique insight into the greatest battle in modern football, and how Real Madrid may finally take Barça’s crown.

With two great sides going to war, perhaps England’s best hope is that they destroy each other. But don’t despair! We’ve put together a definitive battle plan for every English side in Europe on how they can beat their opponents. Using Stats Zone analysis and local knowledge, FourFourTwo has the masterplans to lead England to continental glory – plus interviews with star players Ramires and Wojciech Szczesny.

Elsewhere in Europe, there’s a revolution going on. Paris Saint-Germain look set to be the world’s new superclub, leading the league by a distance and backed by Qatari coffers and multimillion-pound signings. In the first of our new Club Focus series, we delve deeper to find out the full story, starring Leonardo, Ancelotti, Platini and more.

Our latest One-on-One is another cracker: none other than Denis Law. The Manchester legend talks City, United and how he played with only one eye. And yes, he was playing golf when England won the World Cup...

Would you paint your house in your club colours? How about your car? OK, then – would you quit your job and fly 10,000 miles to see your team lose 5-0? Thought not. We speak to the nutters who’ve done it all out of love for their club.

But enough of the big boys: as usual, FourFourTwo also gets down and dirty. First, we send our travelling trouper to the nastiest, most spiteful derby in the North West. That’s right: Fleetwood Town vs Southport. With the seaside pair both battling to gain Football League status, a double-header presented a perfect opportunity to see why they hate each so much.

While we’re on the subject of non-league, we ask a handful of Premier League players just how they went from part-time park football to walking out at Wembley. Chris Smalling, Steve Morison, Carl Jenkinson and Michael Kightly have all made the transition from non-league to the Premier League – now they tell us how.

Of course, we couldn’t ignore the 40th anniversary of the biggest Bulls hit ever: Ronnie Radford's Rocket for Hereford against Newcastle. The greatest FA Cup giantkilling ever is retold by those who were there, from narked Newcastle players to happy Hereford fans, and a few coppers who turned the other cheek to a certain pitch invasion.

And that’s not all. Elsewhere in the March issue we analyse this season’s Premier League substitutions to reveal which managers know what they’re doing and which are making it up as they go along.

Michel Salgado informs us why Thierry Henry and Paul Scholes’ comebacks could never happen in La Liga, Barney Ronay investigates the Messi v Ronaldo duel for spectators’ hearts, and we’ve interviews with David Trezeguet on moving to Argentina and Franco Baresi on how to make defending look easy.

Frankly, it’s difficult to work out how we managed to fit it all in.

The March issue of FourFourTwo was brought to you by: Denis Law, Johnny Giles, Jurgen Klinsmann, Michael Owen, Chris Smalling, Richard Lee, Ricky George, Ronnie Radford, Milan Baros, Dean Howell, Wojciech Szczesny, Neil Warnock, David Keyte, Colin Addison, Franco Baresi, Wayne Routledge, Carl Jenkinson, Manuel Preciado, Steve Morison, Nigel Martyn, Judge Jules, John Motson, Robert Pires, Michael Kightly, Malcolm MacDonald, Patrick Vieira, Ramires, Michel Salgado, David Trezeguet, Leo Messi’s cousin, the footballer with no nationality and Italy’s Subbuteo Ultras.

Tell me more...

Get more from the February 2012 issue

2012-01-25T11:46:00Z

So you've finished the February 2012 issue – on sale now – and you're thinking, "Well, that was a good read – but you know what? I want more." We hear you, brother/sister.

Take a look, then, at our monthly 'Further Reading' blog. Because sometimes, transsexual internationals, Sir Alex Ferguson and football's greatest conman just aren't enough...

FERGIE'S BIGGEST CHALLENGE
In our unparalleled 12-page feature, we look at what the future holds for one of the game's greatest ever managers. But let's not forget his past.

We've set up a special in-depth section of FourFourTwo.com dedicated to Sir Alex, including a detailed look into his 25 years at Old Trafford, a classic, fascinating exclusive interview with the Scot after his 1999 Treble triumph and his best ever Manchester United XIs. And for those of you who aren't fans of his, we've even recounted his 10 darkest moments.

Don't miss our gallery, either, of every trophy won by Ferguson during his reign at Manchester United.

AFRICA CUP OF NATIONS SPECIAL
We've not one but two magazines for you this month, with a 23-page ACoN mini-mag on the reverse of your regular read. And even that's not enough to satiate our Africa lust!

From the opening match to the final, we'll be covering the tournament on FourFourTwo.com with regular news updates, a diary from the legendary Jonathan Wilson and insightful analysis with FFT's award-winning Stats Zone, now extended to the ACoN. Don't forget to keep checking our Africa Cup of Nations blog section for the diary, Stats Zone, team guides and more. And hey, want to download Stats Zone for the Africa Cup of Nations yourself? Here's how.

FOURFOURTWO'S 12 FOR 2012
In the February issue FFT picks out a delightful dozen to watch this year, from gaffers to goalscorers, and we interview hotshots Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Rickie Lambert on what 2012 holds for them.

But if you feel mere words aren't enough, check out these tasty videos on the players to keep your eyes on...

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain looked the business against Manchester City, and even at the tender age of 18 he's an outside bet to make the England squad for Euro 2012. Here the winger shows what he's capable of even before he moved to Arsenal:

Speaking of hot young talent, Liverpool's 17-year-old Raheem Sterling looks a bit useful. Could this be the season he gets a crack at the first team in a labouring Reds side?

Moving overseas, it's clear already that Germany have wunderkids in abundance. After a fledgling Mesut Ozil and Sami Khedira (among others) drove their team to an impressive semi-final showing in the 2010 World Cup, another generation is already hot on their heels. Get an idea why everyone is raving about teenage sensation Mario Goetze, the highly sought-after Borussia Dortmund playmaker and Tintin lookalike (even if he is out for two months):

It's a big year for Cristiano Ronaldo, charged with leading Mourinho's Madrid to glory and, most importantly, triumph over Barcelona. Is he up to it? This video-maker says yes:

Back on home shores, it could be a massive 12 months for Edin Dzeko, too. The Bosnian striker may find himself having to take centre stage at Man City more often than first thought, with Sergio Aguero more suited to dropping deep and Mario Balotelli always one second away from a suspension. Here's Dzeko doing what he does best, possibly to the tune of a Justin Timberlake remix (feel free to press the mute button).

Into the Football League, two players to keep tabs on are the much-vaunted Rickie Lambert of Southampton and Jordan Rhodes of Huddersfield. Each seems to be on the verge of a move to the Premier League – here's why:

Young Spaniard Oriel Romeu also has a big year ahead of him at Chelsea. See why the Blues bought him below, then read why they may find it difficult to hold on to him.

THE DEATH OF THE TACKLE
Are the days of the meaty challenge finally over? FFT investigates in the February 2012 issue, and to accompany that we've dug around to find video evidence of some of the best and worst tackles the world of football has ever seen.

First, the worst – featuring Gazza, Keano and some of the dirtiest men outside prison. After seeing these, you'll be thankful these challenges are being outlawed.

But wait: tackling isn't all about fouling. What about when the ball is perfectly snatched away from an attacker's feet? Worship at FourFourTwo.com's defending altar, with our video tribute to the best tackles the world has ever seen, from Bobby Moore to Ledley King.

ONE-ON-ONE: DIETMAR HAMANN
The former German midfielder answers readers' questions in the new issue, but there's also a tricky poser from Pepe Reina, who asks: "You scored some decent goals, but which was your favourite?" Didi opts for two: one for Newcastle against Juventus, and one for Liverpool against Portsmouth. But which do you think is better?

Hamann didn't mind us photographing him making a fool of himself with a Liverpool shirt either. Guess who?

ASK A SILLY QUESTION
And we've plenty more exclusive interviews where that came from. This month it's the turn of Steve McManaman to field nonsensical posers on cavemen and the shape of the transfer window.

If you want more where that came from, head on over to our Interviews section, where we're constantly adding classic interviews from the FourFourTwo archive. We've got One-on-Ones, Perfect XIs and more, including – naturally – some of the very best interviews for Ask A Silly Question. Currently making us cackle in the office is Charlie Nicholas admitting he's jealous of bald people. Check it out.

GREAT GOALS RETOLD: ALLAN RAVN
Enjoy Allan Ravn recounting his belting strike against Manchester United? Want to see the goal in glorious technicolour? Of course you do. Watch the video, read the interview and marvel at the cartoon of the goal. We have more Great Goals Retold besides, too.

EURO 2012 ENGLAND SQUAD PREDICTOR
You can read the 23 players we picked for Capello in the February issue online, but we'll be updating it every month and we want your feedback. Where did we go wrong? Tell us in the comments section, on Facebook or @FourFourTwo on Twitter.

ROMANIA: THE MADDEST PLACE IN FOOTBALL
If you're still wondering why we identified Romania as the place where all the footballing wackos hang out, check out this video of Steaua Bucharest owner Gigi Becali carrying out some impromptu car repairs after being locked out of his £350,000 Maybach:

Not convinced? Here's goalkeeper Remus Danalache protesting a series of decisions against his Vointa Sibiu team in a game against Petrolul Ploeisti. The stroppy stopper turns his back on the penalty, refusing to try and save it. Then when he is forced to face the right way, he still makes no attempt to stop it. Noble, perhaps, but nonetheless bizarre.

FFT TRAVEL: ISTANBUL
Elsewhere in Planet Football this month we profile Istanbul as a footballing tourist destination. The Turkish capital is about more than a Liverpudlian miracle, dontcherknow – as our online Travel guide shows. We've many more city and team guides, too, from Copenhagen to Kiev and Birmingham to Barcelona.

THE GAMES THAT CHANGED MY LIFE: ROGER HUNT
Now we've some cracking archive footage for you, to accompany former Liverpool striker, and World Cup winner with England, Roger Hunt telling FourFourTwo about the matches that made him:

PERFORMANCE
Finally, you can find much, much more from FourFourTwo Performance online as well as in the magazine.

In the February 2012 issue, Michael Mancienne gives tips on playing the ball out from the back. Here, Rio Ferdinand gives his own tips on doing just that.

If you want more from the injury clinic, you'll find all you need in our injuries section.

We also have a guide in the magazine on drills to help you leave your marker for dead; online, Newcastle United strength and conditioning coach Duncan French has more drills for speed of foot and change in direction.

And if you're looking for more on shooting after Alan Shearer's guide to hitting the target with power, we have advice from Nani, Frank Lampard, Theo Walcott and more.

Enjoy.

Inside football’s poker pack

2012-01-24T15:54:00Z

Forget the bookies or a game of blackjack at the back of the bus. The modern-day footballer gets his off-field kicks on the felt. For the March 2011 issue, Steve Hill dug out his smartest suit to investigate...

As all but the unobservant will have noticed, poker is everywhere these days. The early noughties boom brought millions of new players to the game, with the convenience and anonymity of online play making it accessible to almost anyone, and bespoke poker rooms springing up in casinos for those who like to play live.

Gambling has been part of football culture for decades, with such apocryphal tales as QPR’s Stan Bowles being spotted in the bookies minutes before kick-off at Loftus Road. The obligatory card school on long coach journeys to and from away games is a staple of the domestic season. So it’s not the greatest leap of logic to think footballers might be interested in poker, particularly those encumbered with huge disposable incomes and swathes of free time.

Indeed, big names such as Andrei Arshavin, Andriy Shevchenko, Francesco Totti and Gigi Buffon even find the time to appear in high-profile card tournaments. These are generally as a result of sponsorship from the major online poker operators, but away from the cameras it is believed that a slew of footballers are regular poker players, either privately online or among themselves.

“There's supposed to be a big Premier League footballer game organised by Teddy Sheringham that a few play in, but names are kept on the QT,” claims PokerPlayer magazine editor Alun Bowden. “You rarely, if ever, see players at live tournaments.”

One player to buck this trend is Manchester United’s Darren Fletcher, who took advantage of Scotland’s absence from the 2010 World Cup to play in the World Series of Poker, the calendar’s marquee event in Las Vegas. It conjures a comical image of a ruddy-faced Sir Alex bundling into the Rio Hotel’s vast Amazon Room, elbowing Texans out of his way in a blur of poker chips, and hauling Fletcher out by the ear, much as he once curtailed Lee Sharpe’s nightclub escapades.

However, Fletcher’s appearance was presumably with his manager’s approval, or at least in the hope that Fergie doesn’t read the PokerStars blog, where Fletcher revealed his hard luck story and early tournament exit. Fletcher also exposed a nascent poker culture at Old Trafford, citing a weekly home game involving Wes Brown, John O’Shea, Jonny Evans and Owen Hargreaves. The mind boggles.

“Poker was a natural progression”
While the majority of poker-playing footballers appear to treat the game recreationally, a couple of former pros in this country are prepared to pit themselves against the world’s best: the aforementioned Sheringham and his former Millwall sidekick Tony Cascarino. While Shezza led the way on the pitch, it was Cascarino who first took to the felt, before introducing his long-term friend to the game.

“It was his fault,” insists Sheringham. “I met Cas at Millwall: that was when I started playing poker. Only on the coach, I was only a bit-player. Cas used to play all the time. It wasn’t until 10 years later that poker became really big in football.”

Cas & Shez hit the green baize

In his short time on the circuit, Sheringham has enjoyed some notable successes, most recently when coming fifth in a tournament in Vilamoura, Portugal, for a payday of €93,121.

His transition from footballer to poker player has been largely seamless. As he says, “I’ve always played cards so it was a natural progression. I play once, twice a week maximum. Every now and then I get weekends off where I can go and play tournaments – Vilamoura, or the Bahamas, which I went to last Christmas. I’m going to try and take in the Aussie Millions tournament next year. A couple of mates are going, so we’ll have a game of golf as well, a bit of fun, a few beers...”

As for his recent success, Sheringham says: “I was pleased I came fifth. Obviously €93,000 is not to be sniffed at. It puts me in a few more tournaments – all the five grands, 10 grands to enter, it pays for a few of them.”

For Cascarino, meanwhile, the poker boom came at just the right time. In his brutally frank autobiography Full Time, the former striker outlines how he played on through the pain barrier as a footballer with no real retirement plan.

When Cascarino did finally hang up his boots, he found himself living in Paris, where he was able to claim a reasonable level of unemployment benefit. “I’d finished, I’d retired. I had nothing to do,” he says, treating FFT to dinner after a recent win.

“I used to go to the Cirque Casino in Paris, and every time I lost I used to punish myself and walk home from the casino instead of getting a 50 francs cab. And I got really fit when I first started playing because I was walking home every f***ing night. I was playing against quality players. Them walk homes was when I really realised I was doing something seriously wrong.

“I lost quite a bit of money the first year and I learned a lot. I always treated that period of my poker as a real lesson as to why there’s luck and skill. Because if you’re relying solely on luck you can’t win at this game.”

Away days: Fulham's Johnny Haynes and Alan Mullery start the school

Cascarino’s progress culminated in a career-best result in 2009, when he won the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour Grand Final, trousering a cool £168,800. “It’s funny because I played in two World Cups and one European Championship as a footballer and I never got that in prize money for qualifying for them tournaments,” he laughs. “So I got more for playing poker – and I didn’t have to share it with anyone!”

Cascarino insists that the thrill from winning at poker is “far better” than scoring a goal. Sheringham, though, isn’t so sure. “Football’s in my blood,” he says. “Since I was a little kid I’ve always wanted to be a footballer, so I wouldn’t compare it to football because it’s very, very different. But I can’t run about anymore so I’ve got to try and find something else that gives me a bit of an adrenalin rush, and poker certainly does that, especially when we’re playing for a lot of money.”

“Fabien Barthez is good, because he's gently mad and has a poker face”
It’s a theme echoed by former Bayern Munich and France right-back Willy Sagnol, who caught the gambling bug as a youngster playing for Monaco. “When you’re a professional in sport you're living every day with this competition context,” he explains. “When you play for so long – like Teddy Sheringham played for more than 20 years – you get a lot of adrenalin on the pitch and you’re looking for that too after your career. There are not a lot of things that can give you this adrenalin rush. Poker is one.”

Sagnol even started installing a card room in his St Tropez villa before moving back to Munich, where he has begun work on a games room that will come with an open invitation to FFT to play him at poker. “Just make sure I’m there – I'll never say no,” he tells us.

Now scouting for Bayern, Sagnol mainly plays poker with friends – including some recent 16-hour sessions in Las Vegas – but has occasionally pitted himself against the pros. “I have played some tournaments, but I'd say poker for me is something very difficult because when you play football you know what to do; you know how to deal with situations normally.

"But with poker it’s something new. When I play in a poker tournament the pressure is bigger than when I was playing football because you’re not used to dealing with it and it’s something completely new. But it’s exciting at the same time.”

Who would you rather owe money to?

Poker isn't as big in Germany as it is in France and England, something Sagnol may have taken advantage of. “In Munich they weren't very good!” he says. “When I didn’t have any money at the end of the month I used to organise a poker game... no, that’s a joke! But at Monaco some players were quite good, like Fabien Barthez. He was good because he was gently mad and he has a poker face too – he can hide every emotion. But at Bayern, the main goal wasn’t to make money. It was to have fun.”

“If you let footballers loose, fortunes are won and lost”
But what happens when it becomes more than a bit of fun? Years ago at the launch of a betting website, ex-frontman and career gambler Steve Claridge relayed the tale of having to kick off at a bleak northern outpost having lost thousands on the horses during the coach journey. Losing cash to your team-mates could provide an even greater psychological minefield – as Claridge attests, having played cards at every club of his career.

“There could be a few hundred won or lost,” he says. “Managers will try and put a cap on it for obvious reasons. Players don’t want it on their mind that they’ve done a week’s wages before a game. Many players are gamblers but you just try and control the card game. If you let lads go loose, fortunes are won and lost. That can be a bit of a problem.”

Unfortunately for Cascarino, that problem came to a head in the Republic of Ireland squad. “My first trip was the [1988] European Championship,” he says. “Liam Brady organised a card school, and after loads of money had been won and lost – and I did win – we got on the plane, at which point Liam said, ‘Forget it. Amnesty. Bets are off.’ I was at Gillingham on two hundred quid a week and I’d won about £1,300, thinking, ‘This is paying for a lovely holiday.’ And I had to swallow it…”

International tournaments appear fertile breeding grounds for poker schools, and as Cascarino and Sagnol both admit, they can be good for team bonding and staving off boredom. “At World Cups and European Championships you’ve got a lot of time to blow. You end up playing loads and loads of cards,” says Cascarino.

Sagnol insists that hours playing poker brought the France team together at the 2006 World Cup. Perhaps England should have played a bit more poker in South Africa? “They didn’t stay long enough,” quips Sagnol, “but I’m sure they have played. That’s what football players should do because it’s about conviviality. The only negative thing I can see is if you were playing like mad: three, four, five times a week and betting £200,000. I think that would be a bit insane.”

Big Jack's lads relax at Italia 90

But would it? Surely today’s multimillionaire superstars can lose big money without it becoming a problem? “It’s a great question,” says Peter Kay, CEO of the Sporting Chance Clinic, which he founded with recovering alcoholic Tony Adams. “If they lose 20 grand, that’s like me losing 400 or 500 quid. It hurts, but it’s manageable. But if I kept doing that I would get to the point where I couldn’t pay the mortgage.”

One wealthy star whose gambling reached uncontrollable levels is Stoke winger Matthew Etherington. The winger’s debts reached £800,000 when he was at West Ham, the club having to lend him £300,000 to pay off some of that. Yet Sheringham claims Etherington was a good poker player, even making money.

“I’ve never had anyone presented to me who’s said, ‘I’m OK on everything else but poker is my problem’,” says Kay, himself a recovering alcoholic. “A lot of people who can control horse racing to a degree might be lost on a roulette machine or in a casino. But a good poker player will know when the odds are stacked against him cards-wise. Someone with an addictive nature will discard that and double the bet. You start taking risks.”

Etherington is now recovering after being treated by the Sporting Chance Clinic, but Kay isn't surprised when competitive sportsmen get drawn into gambling. “Matthew Etherington lost a fortune through gambling and a lot of people with addictive problems would think, ‘I’m really good at poker, I enjoy it and it’s a challenge.’ You’ve got to remember the competitive nature of footballers, especially when they retire. Poker gives them that.”

“It’s not a passing phase – we love it”
Competition’s not the only thing poker is giving ex-footballers. As Sheringham and Cascarino are proving, for those prepared to invest time and commitment, poker can provide a genuine post-career alternative to management, punditry or running a pub.

The former strike partners are certainly aiming high. “I’d love to win a big tournament,” says Sheringham. “But I know I’m playing with top professionals when I’m playing these big tournaments.”

Cascarino agrees. “I’d love to win a European Poker Tour or a World Series bracelet. But to be honest, I play poker because I love it, even when you have your bad days. That’s what me and Teddy have: a passion for it. It’s not a passing phase for us.

“A lot of people come in, try their luck and see how they go. Me and Teddy will be around playing poker until we pop our clogs...”

Heroes & Villains: the weekend's winners and losers

2012-01-23T11:48:00Z

Who left their mark and who hit the skids this Premier League weekend? Mark Booth investigates

RESULTS (click team name for web-wide club news feed) Sat 21 Jan Norwich City 0-0 Chelsea; Everton 1-1 Blackburn Rovers; Fulham 5-2 Newcastle United; Queens Park Rangers 3 -1 Wigan Athletic; Stoke City 1-2 West Bromwich Albion; Sunderland 2-0 Swansea City; Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-3 Aston Villa; Bolton Wanderers 3-1 Liverpool Sun 22 Jan Manchester City 3-2 Tottenham Hotspur; Arsenal 1-2 Manchester United

HEROES

Manchester City
Winning the Premier League requires a broad range of skills. Back in the first third of the season, Manchester City showed fluency as they put opponents to the sword with freewheeling football drawing admiration from all quarters. The Christmas period was a test of their mettle which City just about passed, but for their latest victory, the league leaders must thank the lords of fate.

Not only did Tottenham's Gareth Bale and Jermain Defoe conspire to waste a golden opportunity to win the match in injury time, but the Premier League’s foremost protagonist left his mark on the game in predictably idiosyncratic style. It’s impossible to read Mario Balotelli at the best of times but the did-he-didn’t-he-mean-it argument on his Scott Parker tread will remain a mystery to all but the striker. Had any other player been responsible there would be no debate but Balotelli invites controversy upon himself at every turn.

As it was, Balotelli stayed on the pitch and was the coolest man in the stadium when he sidefooted home in the 94th minute to seal the three points. City’s next five games (Everton A, Fulham H, Villa A, Blackburn H, Bolton H) look relatively straightforward when compared to Manchester United’s (Stoke H, Chelsea A, Liverpool H, Norwich A, Spurs H) and they will be relieved to escape this, one of their trickiest remaining assignments, with their title credentials intact.

Danny Welbeck & Antonio Valencia
Welbeck's performance at Arsenal showed exactly why he might feel that he deserves a better contract. It wasn’t just his match-winning finish but his link-up play with Valencia and willing running that characterised a hugely impressive performance from the striker. It was another efficient win from Manchester United, who seem to have the happy knack of winning games without playing particularly well.

Over the course of a season any successful side needs individuals to take responsibility and in Welbeck and Valencia, United have two players who will do just that as they look to hang on to City’s coat-tails. If the teams keep matching each other point for point as they have been doing, their meeting at the Etihad Stadium on the 28th April might just be the match that decides matters.

Norwich City’s backline
Norwich’s 22nd match since returning to the Premier League brought their first clean sheet. While Chelsea certainly looked the likelier to break the deadlock at Carrow Road, it was credit to the Canaries defence that the score remained level. John Ruddy was handed the man of the match champagne but there should be a glass each for his defenders. Daniel Ayala, Zak Whitbread, Kyle Naughton and Russell Martin worked in tandem to nullify the threat of Fernando Torres, who was withdrawn after 77 frustrating minutes.

Andy Johnson & Clint Dempsey
After Danny Guthrie gave Newcastle the lead just before half-time at Craven Cottage it looked bleak for one of the league’s most inconsistent sides. Fulham had offered nothing in the first half to suggest that they could get back into the match, but the introduction of Andy Johnson changed the game. Johnson's direct drive into the heart of Newcastle’s defence created Fulham’s second, while the fourth was a penalty won by Johnson after taking the ball around Tim Krul, who was left with no choice but to take him out.

Dempsey, meanwhile, notched a hat-trick – and if the first goal was fortunate, the second two were goals of the highest quality, both of them clinical thrashes across Tim Krul into the far corner. A wonderful servant, Dempsey has now scored 51 goals for the club.

Robbie Keane
Like he was never away. The Aston Villa loanee was largely anonymous against former side Wolves but popped up when it counted with two excellent finishes to fire Villa to 11th on manager Alex McLeish’s 53rd birthday. A move to the ever-improving MLS might not be the semi-retirement it once was but Keane’s match-winning performance suggests that the LA Galaxy forward might have crossed the Atlantic at least a season too soon.

Steve Kean
There’s no doubt that Kean’s players are standing firmly behind their manager and it’s paying dividends as Blackburn climbed out of the bottom three with a draw at Everton. David Goodwillie has shown in flashes that he might prove to be a smart acquisition for Kean, who is turning the volume down on his critics with each passing week.

QPR
It seemed the eyes of the country were on Loftus Road for QPR's relegation showdown with Wigan Athletic and Mark Hughes’s side didn’t flinch, securing a convincing 3-1 win. There was a lot of nonsense being spouted in the lead-up to the match, unsurprisingly centring around Joey Barton’s Twitter account, but the players kept their focus and Hughes picked up his first three points as manager. With reinforcements being lined up from across the world on Tony Fernandes’ ‘limitless’ budget, the Rs can start looking up the table at last.

Craig Gardner
When Gardner revealed this month that he was suffering from homesickness, it looked like his days at Sunderland were numbered – especially after being linked with a loan back to former club Birmingham. "I don't think that anybody wants him to leave the football club,” said Martin O’Neill after seeing Gardner score the goal of the day on Saturday – a beautiful dipping 25-yarder that sealed yet another win for in-form Sunderland. O’Neill’s powers of persuasion may still be tested before January is out, but given the Ulsterman's Clough-like ability to foster team spirit, Gardner would benefit from seeing things through to the summer as the Black Cats’ ascent up the Premier League table continues apace.

VILLAINS

Gareth Bale & Jermain Defoe
A stupid, crazy end to the game began as the hapless Stefan Savic allowed Bale and Defoe to break clear. Bale put too much on his sidefooted pass across to Defoe, who failed to adjust his legs and could only slide the ball wide. This was Spurs’ golden opportunity to truly join the title race but it wasn't to be after Ledley King subsequently took out Mario Balotelli – who might himself heave a sigh of relief at not being in this section – and now the Manchester clubs have pulled clear of Spurs. There’s no shame in leaving the Etihad Stadium empty-handed this season but the manner of this defeat clearly hurt Tottenham who looked shell-shocked at the final whistle.

The Arsenal support
This wasn’t a case of a few isolated idiots; there was widespread booing at Arsene Wenger’s decision to replace the lively Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain with the out-of-form Andrei Arshavin. There’s no doubt that it was a baffling decision but quite what the Arsenal fans hoped to achieve with their emphatic reaction to the substitution is a mystery. After two disappointing defeats, and facing champions who knew they had to keep up with their cross-city challengers, the last thing a team needs is a chorus of negativity from their own supporters – and targeting Arshavin will have done nothing but further damage the player’s ailing confidence.

Arsene Wenger
That said, it was a terrible substitution that might have cost them a point.

Alan Pardew
God knows what happened at half-time at Craven Cottage but Newcastle were every bit as bad as Fulham were excellent in the second half. Whether the Magpies thought the game was won or not, their defending was erratic to say the least, as Andy Johnson and Clint Dempsey were given a license to breach their defence at will.

Alan Pardew has deservedly won praise for his masterminding of Newcastle’s expectation-defying first half of the season, but he was too slow to react to Fulham’s reshuffle when Brian Ruiz was removed from the centre of midfield and they were overrun for most of the second half, shipping four goals before Pardew looked to his bench to change things. Even then, it was a negative substitution, a recognition that the game was up, and Newcastle slipped to a heavy 5-2 defeat.

Fernando Torres
Save for one genuine moment of inspiration when Torres had Ruddy at full stretch with a flick of the outside of his boot, it was another disappointing showing from the £50m striker at Carrow Road. He's now gone 15 hours without a goal – his longest dry patch in English football – but the most troubling aspect of Torres’ performance was the second-half performance in which the Spaniard looked lethargic and ponderous, finding blind alleys with overambitious dribbles that were easily snuffed out by Norwich’s resolute defence.

After a more encouraging display last time out against Sunderland, the striker saw his frail confidence take another hit after another missed sitter from 10 yards saw him withdrawn for Romelu Lukaku on 77 minutes. The consensus thus far has been that Torres needed games to restore his confidence, but how long can Villas-Boas – hardly in the world's safest seat himself – stick with a player whose misfiring is so obviously costing his team valuable points towards a Champions League berth?

Glen Johnson
In an unhappy Saturday evening for Liverpool at Bolton, Johnson was found wanting on numerous occasions, either failing to stop Martin Petrov getting past him or, worse, going completely AWOL. Yes, Johnson gets forward readily, but too often he is found to be positionally naive and caught too high up the pitch to fulfil his defensive responsibilities. Any England supporters looking forward to the summer should be hoping Fabio Capello finds a cure for his Micah Richards-phobia or get used to heart palpitations come June.

Emmanuel Frimpong
Your heart has to go out to the on-loan midfielder, who may now face another three months out of action after fracturing a cheekbone against Aston Villa. It’s bad news for Arsene Wenger, too, who would have been hoping for the 20-year-old to pick up some valuable first-team experience at Molineux. After spending last season on the treatment table, it’s another season of frustration for Frimpong who will be hoping more ‘DENCH’ times lie ahead in 2012/13.

Chris Coleman
Not an inspiring co-commentary spell from the new Wales boss, who namechecked Mario Bolochelli, Sergio Ramos (he meant Juande) and David de Silva. Fingers crossed he has an easier time remembering his own players' names.

Heroes & Villains: Slick Swans, slipping Spurs and critic-correcting Carrick

2012-01-17T10:22:00Z

Heroes

Manchester City
The DW stadium is hardly a fortress, but there’s no such thing as an easy three points when you’re without two of your most important players, as City were in the absence of Vincent Kompany and Yaya Toure on Monday evening.
Stefan Savic and Joleon Lescott settled well at the back after a scratchy opening 10 minutes, and look likely to continue their partnership against Tottenham on Sunday. Micah Richards should return for that fixture, though one would think he’d slot back in at right back rather than in the middle, especially given the threat of Gareth Bale from wide.
However, Roberto Mancini’s biggest worry will be in midfield rather than at the back. City missed the drive and ball-retention of the younger Toure in the middle of the park. Samir Nasri was better than of late, but still not at his best, and with Nigel de Jong short of match-time it could prove fatal to start the Dutchman ahead of the former Gooner in what will be a frenetic encounter.
As big as Sunday will be (title rivals Manchester United will also face Arsenal), City’s 1-0 win over Wigan took them to 51 points after 21 games. Opta data shows that all four sides to have taken over 50 points from their first 21 games of a Premier League season have ended it as winners.

Swansea City
In a meeting of two of the Premier League’s slickest short-pass specialists, Brendan Rogers’ men came out in top in a thoroughly enjoyable game at the Liberty Stadium. Last week we were treated to an exhilarating Manchester derby that left us breathless – on Sunday we were left satisfied by some classy caressing of a football. And credit to Swansea for giving it to us; very few established Premier League sides would have the confidence to try and beat Arsenal at their own game.

Steven Fletcher
As an impressive youngster at Hibs, Fletcher was once said to have grabbed the attention of Real Madrid. Not enough to elicit a formal enquiry from the Spanish giants, but they did compile a DVD of the Scot after some impressive displays.
However it is only really now, thanks to the loss of Kevin Doyle to injury, that Fletcher is starting to blossom into an accomplished footballer at the highest level. While he lacks Doyle’s industry, his touch and invention is superior to the Irishman, as is his goal threat; his opener against Tottenham was his ninth in the league this season, compared to Doyle’s two.

Blackburn Rovers
Relegation strugglers don’t usually pull off accomplished wins with only ten men, even at home. But for all Blackburn’s faults, they do know where the goal is – they are the joint sixth highest scorers in the league (with 32 goals), and goals keep you up; just ask Birmingham fans…
While they have issues at the back to sort out – starting with the future of Chris Samba – the loss of Yakubu through suspension for games against Everton, Blackburn and Arsenal is a blow.
But as they proved in the 70-odd minutes without the rotund Nigerian, they have the means to cope. Whisper it, but does anyone else get the impression the Blackburn players actually quite like Steve Kean? They certainly seemed to play that way…

Michael Carrick
A returning – and scoring - Scholes grabbed the headlines, but Carrick was superb against Bolton. Despite a couple of error-strewn performances in the last month, Carrick has been United’s best midfielder since THAT defeat to Manchester City (and one of those displays was at centre-back). He’ll never win over all his critics, but Carrick has seemingly convinced Sir Alex and the rest of the coaching staff at Old Trafford that he is a key part of Manchester United and their run-in for number “20”.

Villains

Chris Foy
At the end of a week in which every tackle had been scrutinised interminably, it was perhaps fitting that the man who started it all off by dismissing Vincent Kompany in the Manchester derby ended the week with a much, much worse decision.
QPR's Shaun Derry flew into a challenge on Newcastle's Yohan Cabaye right under the referee's nose, and was only booked for his trouble. Derry was off the ground, reckless and could easily have broken the Frenchman’s ankle had he made contact (though the former Lille man probably caused further damage by jumping up to remonstrate with the QPR midfielder).
It would have been interesting to see if Alan Pardew would have still accepted Foy’s awarding of a yellow card had Newcastle not taken all three points.

Tottenham Hotspur
A draw at home to Wolves hardly signals the end of Spurs’ title charge, but it is a blow, especially given how City and United had floundered over the Christmas period.
The novelty of a three-horse race means Spurs wouldn’t necessarily have to beat both Manchester clubs in order to win the title. But with that comes the added pressure of having to be near-faultless for the remaining 34 games - that includes beating lower-table opposition at home.

Kenny Dalglish
Since his return, King Kenny has impressed with his tactical dexterity, but against Stoke he perhaps tried to be too clever by adopting three at the back, which served Liverpool well at the Britannia last season.
His decision to then bring on Andy Carroll, only to sacrifice width with the withdrawal of Downing seemed equally perplexing. In the absence of Suarez, Dalglish would probably be better advised to go back to basics, especially given the limitations of the Uruguayan’s under-studies.
Yes Liverpool are unbeaten at home, but they have dropped 14 points - almost five games’ worth - in 11 games at Anfield.

West Brom
Only five points off the relegation zone, West Brom have been quietly slipping down the table; one point in the last four games – three of which have been at home – represents a worrying slip for a side few predicted for the drop.
Their performances have not been particularly bad, but a few more defeats could see Roy Hodgson’s men knee-deep in the mire at the bottom of the table.

The Euro 2012 England squad predictor - 06/01/12

2012-01-06T17:00:00Z

Who’d be on the Three Lions’ plane if the squad was picked today? Here’s your starter for 23, players in descending order of certainty to travel and/or 'undroppability'...

1 Joe Hart (Manchester City)
Undisputed No.1. Irreplaceable. Key man.

2 Wayne Rooney (Manchester United)
Forget the ban. England’s best player.

3 Ashley Cole (Chelsea)
Well ahead of his rivals, even if he's not quite at his peak.

4 John Terry (Chelsea)
Fading force but still crucial.

5 Scott Parker (Tottenham Hotspur)
Indispensable anchorman.

6 Ashley Young (Manchester United)
Finally finding his feet at international level - has made the left wing his own.

7 James Milner (Manchester City)
Capello favourite. Versatility makes him a perfect squad player.

8 Gareth Barry (Manchester City)
Has bounced back well from World Cup disappointment.

9 Glen Johnson (Liverpool)
Still first-choice, but faces competition from emerging Kyle Walker.

10 Leighton Baines (Everton)
Solid back-up in a position where there are few options.

11 Phil Jones (Manchester United)
Versatility crucial. Could start if he maintains early season form.

12 Stewart Downing (Liverpool)
Been back-up winger of late.

13 Daniel Sturridge (Chelsea)
Chelsea form and width can’t be ignored.

14 Theo Walcott (Arsenal)
Qualifying regular. But remember 2010?

15 Jack Wilshere (Arsenal)
Injury and return to his best permitting.

16 Joleon Lescott (Manchester City)
City form could get him there

17 Gary Cahill (Bolton Wanderers)
In possession, but in danger given poor recent form.

18 Frank Lampard (Chelsea)
Played in last six qualifiers.

19 Darren Bent (Aston Villa)
Should go as only out-and-out striker.

20 Scott Carson (Bursaspor)
Rebuilding in Turkey, but question marks.

21 Jermain Defoe (Tottenham Hotspur)
Potential game-changer. Predator.

22 Danny Welbeck (Manchester United)
Edges out Zamora and Carroll.

23 David Stockdale (Fulham)
Well at least he's now getting games in the Premier League.

But what of the chasing pack? Here are the other runners and riders...

Close contenders

Steven Gerrard will be almost assured of a place if he can stay fit for the remainder of the season, while if Kyle Walker's form at Tottenham between now and May is anything like that of the first half of the campaign he'll be a shoo-in. Adam Johnson will also be in the frame, as long as he secures regular first team football between now and May - though that's no straightforward task at Manchester City.

Any injuries or loss of form among the defenders could see Manchester United's Chris Smalling or Manchester City's Micah Richards make the trip, though the latter still has some impressing to do as far as Mr Capello is concerned.

Fulham hit-man Bobby Zamora has clearly caught Fabio's eye, but he'll need to score goals consistently to nab another international chance.

Bubbling under

Everton defender Phil Jagielka will be hoping a six-week layoff with knee ligament damage will not significantly scupper his chances, while Jack Rodwell also sustained an injury in Wednesday evening's defeat to Bolton. Spurs winger Aaron Lennon may be in with a shout if he can rediscover his early season form.

Having been denied a senior England debut when August's friendly against Holland was postponed due to civil unrest in London, Tom Cleverley was then struck down by foot and ankle injuries. If he returns, as expected, towards the end of this month and is able to hit the ground running, the Manchester United starlet should be well in contention.

Outside bets

At the start of 2011, Andy Carroll was seen as the answer to all England's problems. The striker was in hot goal scoring form and earned himself a £35 million move to Liverpool. He even scored in his second international appearance against Ghana in March. Yet his loss of form at club level has seen him play just three minutes for Capello's side since, and unless he can re-establish himself at Anfield in the absence of the suspended Luis Suarez, he's unlikely to make the cut.

Spurs' defender Michael Dawson will hope he can quickly nail down a place at White Hart Lane make a late surge, having missed the last five months through injury.

Gabriel Agbonlahor has enjoyed something of a return to form with Aston Villa this term, and is back in contention having been called into the squad for the Spain and Sweden friendlies, while Norwich target man Grant Holt's goal-scoring form in his debut Premier League season may have aroused Capello's interest. No, really. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is many people's tip to be England's wild card, though we fancy he'll need to play a lot more football in the second half of the season to convince the Italian he's worth the risk.

Fergie, transsexual internationals, football's biggest con-man and the death of the tackle

2012-01-04T07:30:00Z

Our New Year’s Resolution at FourFourTwo Towers was to give you more (and to try and not get so worked up about the state of public transport) – so here goes. In our new February 2012 issue, now on sale, we present... two magazines!

That’s right, ahead of the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, we have a special 23-page mini-mag on the tournament, to be found on the reverse of your usual issue. Click here for more details on that.

New Year’s Eve marked a big occasion: Sir Alex Ferguson turned 70. But how much longer can he lead Manchester United to the very top? In a special report, FourFourTwo looks back on Fergie’s career and forward to what is still to come, focusing on how he can overcome his two biggest challenges yet: bouncing back from European humiliation and keeping City in their box.

Certainly, exciting times are ahead, and not just in the UK. We pick our ’12 for 2012’ – a destined dozen to watch this year, from superstars Mario Goetze and legend-for-hire David Beckham to bright young things Ross Barkley and Raheem Sterling, including interviews with Rickie Lambert and Euro 2012 hopeful Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

We also have an exclusive interview with Newcastle boss Alan Pardew, who reveals his secret behind winning the hearts and minds of thousands of disillusioned Geordies – plus why he wants to manage abroad as well as take charge of England.

Meanwhile, we investigate the death of the tackle. “It isn’t a quality to aspire to,” says Xabi Alonso, and Rio Ferdinand agrees – but why is tackling a dying art form, replaced by visionary defenders and intercepting midfielders? And can centuries of English tradition catch up with the modern game?

It’s one of the most incredible football stories you’ll ever read: the Brazilian who had a long playing career without ever kicking a ball. Meet ‘the Kaiser’, and marvel at his stories of hiding his inability to play football while starring at the very top level. Just how did he do it? Read and find out.

Frankly, it’s enough to make you want a drink. So quench your thirst with our Action Replay on the history of beer and football as one, from pre-match whiskies to hoolies abroad.

Heard the one about the transsexual who helped a football team win their first ever football match? Thought not. FourFourTwo was there as American Samoa broke history, overcoming years of disappointment – and ribbing over a 31-0 defeat to Australia – to claim three points for the first time, with a highly unusual defender...

Things are just as odd up in Bradford, where 90th in the Football League played 92nd as the Bantams took on the Pilgrims of Plymouth. Was it all misery and moping? We sent our travelling trouper to find out.

Of course, that’s not all. The February issue also features a One-on-One interview with Dietmar Hamann, the former Liverpool man answering YOUR questions – including the one about the copy of Mein Kampf he received as a Christmas present at Newcastle.

Then there’s exclusives from Darijo Srna, Michel Salgado and Roger Hunt, our search for the longest away-day trips in England and Chris Smalling, Sebastian Larsson and Alan Shearer all offering advice in our Performance section.

Oh, and did we mention the Africa Cup of Nations?

We profile every team in this special magazine, from Ghana to Guinea and everyone in between.

Plus, we’ve a complete guide on what games to watch and when, a fascinating history on the hosts, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea, and a rundown of why the ACN is the craziest of all international tournaments. Leave your sacrificial birds at the door.

Oh, and we had a chat with two men who sadly won’t be at the competition, to see what they make of the candidates. Steven Pienaar offers his opinion on this year’s tournament, and Samuel Eto’o gives his verdict on every team.

Don’t miss out.

The February 2012 issue of FourFourTwo and the Africa Cup of Nations magazine were brought to you by... Rio Ferdinand, Roger Hunt, Bobby Hassell, Alan Pardew, Samuel Eto’o, Andy Cole, Pepe Reina, Andy Butler, Dietmar Hamann, Roy Barry, Lee Sharpe, Darijo Srna, Allan Ravn, Graham Potter, Brian Wake, Leon Cort, Steven Pienaar, Eamonn Bannon, Keisuke Honda, Ryan Giggs, Phil Parkinson, Rickie Lambert, Mark Hughes, Tony Cottee, John Gorman, Willie Miller, Alan Shearer, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Michael Salgado, Neville Southall, Michael Mancienne, Steve McManaman, Brazil’s Ricardo Rocha, Carlos ‘Kaiser’ Henrique, the stars of American Samoa and the shortest player in Europe...

FourFourTwo's Premier League XI

2011-12-19T11:45:00Z

FourFourTwo recently received an email from a Mr Steve James, who proposed the Premier League and La Liga should face off in something of an all-star match, but with a catch. No club would be represented by more than one player.

This would prevent any one club from dominating their league's representative XI (yes, we mean Barcelona, obviously) and would provide a greater indication of the strength (and, indeed, depth) of the two leagues.

The thought caused much debate at FFT Towers, with punches thrown and certain individuals refered to as 'ruddy idiots'. Fortunately, the violence died down once we had all agreed on our Premier League XI. We also asked FourFourTwo.com's man in Madrid, Tim Stannard, to provide his La Liga XI, which you can see here.

In putting together a Premier League XI to battle La Liga’s finest, FFT’s thoughts immediately turned to stifling the opposition; as the last four years have shown, going toe-to-toe with some of the tikiest-takiest players around will only end in tears.

However, with a one player minimum from each club, I entered this project with the type of blind-optimism usually reserved for our brave Lions on the eve of international competition. Remembering we also had to adhere to the stipulation, we delayed draping our Premier League flag out the office window, and sat down to make some very difficult, and no doubt disputable calls...

Michel Vorm  - Swansea City
Certainly not a household name on his arrival in the Premier League, despite already having a handful of Dutch caps and being one of the three keepers Bert Van Marwijk took to the 2010 World Cup, Vorm has endeared himself to Swans and fantasy football nuts alike. His brilliant reflexes and penalty-stopping expertise have won headlines and plaudits. Despite the season having not even reached the halfway stage, the former Utrecht gloveman has already saved a handful of points for the promoted side.

  Luke Young -  Queens Park Rangers
 With all due respect to the former England international, his presence in this hypothetical XI is largely down to the fact that the league’s best right-backs line-up alongside some lovely little creative sorts, who also feature on this list. While unspectacular, Young’s a solid ball-playing defender, with more than 10 years of Premier League experience behind him.

 Nemanja Vidic  - Manchester United
 It says it all about the Serbian’s influence (and Manchester United’s displays over the last 12 months) that a defender would be the standout pick from the league champions. While his inclusion means no place for Nani or Wayne Rooney, Vidic’s solidity has held his side together, especially during times when they have been found wanting further up the pitch. His absence for the rest of the season is a massive blow for Sir Alex Ferguson, but luckily he’s fit and raring to go for us in make-believe land.

Gary Cahill  - Bolton Wanderers 
"He’s not as good as people think!" go the tweets, with a few expletives thrown in hither and thither. While Bolton’s form is poor, it would be foolish to pin it solely on the England centreback, even though his performances have generally fallen below his own high standards this term. Talk has turned to rebuilding with the funds garnered from his sale in January, but he could play as crucial a part in the heart of their defence should he stay put.

Leighton Baines  - Everton 
Equally adept in defensive and attacking areas, Baines provides an extra threat on the left wing with his willingness to overlap and ability to cross from deep – not to mention his dead-ball prowess. Now England’s number two in this position, the former Wigan man has shown vast improvement since Fabio Capello decided against taking him to South Africa in 2010.

 Ramires -  Chelsea 
Last year he was branded little more than industrious, but this season has seen the Brazilian consistently put in polished displays - even demonstrating a goal-scoring aptitude many doubted he had. Everything about Ramires is relentless, and it is clear to see he is Andres Villas-Boas’ main man in the middle of the park.

 Yohan Cabaye -  Newcastle United
 One of the seven Gallic Geordies - or 'Mark Owen', as he is referred to by his teammates because of his boyband-like good looks – Cabaye has been the driving force behind Newcastle’s impressive start to the season. While classy on the ball, he’ll also provide some extra bite to the midfield.

 Luka Modric -  Tottenham Hotspur
 After early season discontent brought about by a botched move to Stamford Bridge, Modric has come back into the Spurs side and made them the title-challengers some have dared refer to them as. Undoubtedly one of the best midfielders in the league, the Croatian pips Gareth Bale to a spot in the XI, thanks in part to the choice of formation.

David Silva -  Manchester City
 The best player in the league? Almost certainly – a season of acclimatisation (with the odd flash of brilliance) has set him up for a second where he has become the heart-beat for a ruthless Manchester City. Looking as comfortable as he ever has done on a football pitch, the former Valencia man will know this opposition inside and out – as would have Juan Mata – but Silva’s greater influence (by virtue of a longer Premier League stint) gives him the edge in this one.

Luis Suarez  - Liverpool 
Not exactly flavour of the month right now, you can never quite take your eyes of Suarez for fear of missing something game-changing. While Liverpool struggle to get the best out of him without an accomplished striker, his energy and directness will prove a useful foil for this side’s front-man. Speaking of which...

 Robin van Persie -  Arsenal
 After a quite staggering run in front of goal, Van Persie’s sumptuous volley against Everton in the last round of fixtures leaves him one goal away from equalling Thierry Henry’s record of 34 in a calendar year (all this in what is arguably his secondary position). Aguero came close, but missed out because of Silva’s inclusion; Rooney’s tendency to drop was unwelcome give the personnel behind him. Demba Ba’s 11 goals so far gave him an outside chance, but unfortunately record-breaking trumps left-field, even in footballing Narnia.

FEATURE Tim Stannard's 'one man one club' La Liga XI

Could these 10 stars force their way into FFT's next Top 100?

2011-12-14T10:30:00Z

As you may well be aware, this month’s issue of FourFourTwo magazine includes our take on the Best 100 Players in the World.

The selection process wasn’t easy (as mag editor David Hall explained last week), with as many as half the names discussed during deliberations unable to squeeze into the final 100.

As such, there are some very good players who missed out. Below are 10 of the players who just missed the cut this year, but that we expect to be in the running next time round…

Ganso
Age 22
Position Midfielder
Club Santos
Nationality Brazilian
A potentially integral part of Brazil’s new breed, but lacks consistency and goals from midfield. It’s telling that it’s Neymar and Damiao being linked to Europe. Talented, but needs to step out of his team-mate’s shadow.

Alan Dzagoev
Age 21
Position Midfielder
Club CSKA Moscow
Nationality Russian
Made FFT’s longlist having been one of our under-20s to watch just six months ago. Already Russia’s main man and the reason CSKA’s Seydou Doumbia scores so many goals (look out for him too), the new Arshavin is on the verge of success.

Jan Vertonghen
Age 24
Position Defender
Club Ajax
Nationality Belgian
Won the title with Ajax, where he’s now captain, and appears regularly for Belgium despite competition from Thomas Vermaelen, Vincent Kompany and Daniel Van Buyten. As with Dzagoev, the real test will come in a bigger league.

Andre Ayew
Age 21
Position Forward
Club Marseille
Nationality Ghanaian
Narrowly missed out (along with team-mate Loic Remy), with 30 caps and a World Cup already under his belt. Impressed in patches against English teams in the Champions League, but has a tendency to disappear in big games.

Ashley Young
Age 26
Position Midfielder
Club Manchester United
Nationality English
An excellent start with United has silenced the doubters. It’s too soon now, but if he keeps up his early season form at domestic and international level, there’s no doubt he’ll be in with a strong chance of making our list next year.

Alvaro Negredo
Age 26
Position Forward
Club Sevilla
Nationality Spanish
The burly forward arrived in Andalusia in the summer of 2009, having won plaudits for his goal scoring exploits with Liga minnows Almeria. His first season at Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán was unspectacular, but last term he rattled in 20 league goals and appears to have moved ahead of Fernando Torres in the international reckoning.
Another season like that will see his stock continue to rise.

Nuri Sahin
Age 23
Position Midfielder
Club Real Madrid
Nationality Turkish
Having inspired Borussia Dortmund to their first league title in nine years last season, Sahin was spirited away by the bright lights of the Bernabeu. His impact in the Spanish capital has thus far been minimal, with a knee injury restricting him to just one league appearance at the time of writing. His flair and creativity will likely make him a key figure in Jose Mourinho’s side sooner rather than later.

Kwadwo Asamoah
Age 23
Position Midfielder
Club Udinese
Nationality Ghanaian
A key member of the Ghana sides that in 2010 made the final of the African Cup of Nations and the quarterfinals of the World Cup. The fleet-footed midfielder has quickly become a key creative outlet for both club and country. His form at Stadio Friuli side helped the Bianconeri into the qualifying stages of the Champions League where he was among the players who looked most likely to trouble Arsenal.

Maarten Stekelenburg
Age 29
Position Goalkeeper
Club Roma
Nationality Dutch
In joining Luis Enrique’s Barcelona-inspired project in the Italian capital, Stekelenburg became the first Dutchman to don the (now skin-tight) crimson shirt – or at least the goalkeeper’s equivalent. For his country, he has proved a more than capable replacement for Edwin Van der Sar, and at €6 million, he represents a steal for Roma, who are starting to get into their groove.

Ezequiel Lavezzi
Age 26
Position Forward
Club Napoli
Nationality Argentine
Lavezzi’s reputation may not have been enhanced to the same degree as Edinson Cavani by Napoli’s third placed finish of last season, but the Argentina international has already proven in this season’s Champions League campaign that he is a forward of the highest standard.

LIST FFT's Top Ten Goalkeepers
LIST FFT's Top Ten Defenders
LIST FFT's Top Ten Midfielders
LIST FFT's Top Ten Forwards

Prem Ratings: Chelsea find turning point as Spurs lose their rhythm

2011-12-13T10:30:00Z

FourFourTwo's James Maw makes with the ratings, as we round up another weekend of red hot, steamy, hardcore Premier League action. Mmmmm, sexy...

CHELSEA 9.0
(W 2-1, Man City A)
After half-an-hour of Monday evening’s match you would have got long odds on Chelsea overcoming the league leaders, with City totally dominant and looking capable of picking off the hosts at will. Yet Chelsea gathered themselves, remained patient and were eventually able to swing the balance in their favour. Some may claim Clichy’s dismissal was key, but the Blues were already well on top by that stage. A deserved and hugely encouraging win. A turning point?

MANCHESTER UNITED 8.0
(W 4-1, Wolves H)
United bounced back from their humiliating midweek exit from the Champions League in the fashion most would have expected, with Wayne Rooney scoring his first league goals since that red card in Montenegro. While wins against relegation fodder aren’t what win you titles, the margin of victory was at least a sign that United may be slowly getting back to somewhere near their best after a string of 1-0s.

WIGAN ATHLETIC 8.0
(W 2-1, West Brom A)
With the sparse surroundings of the DW Stadium unlikely to ever become an impenetrable fortress, grabbing the occasional win on the road by frustrating their hosts and pinching goals on the fly could make all the difference to Wigan’s survival hopes. For the second away day running, the Latics came from behind to seal three points, heaping pressure on the opposition manager and leaving Roberto Martinez with an unfamiliar feeling of contentment.

NORWICH CITY 7.5
(W 4-2, Newcastle H)
The Canaries have played some good football this season, but Paul Lambert’s side adopted a more pragmatic approach to best take advantage of the visitors’ under-strength defence - all four of their goals were headers, three of them from set-pieces. Although the Magpies were without several key players, three points against a side in such good form aren’t to be sniffed at, particularly when you’ve won one of the last six.

ASTON VILLA 7.5
(W 2-1, Bolton A)
It’s safe to say Villa fans haven’t exactly taken to their new manager, but a modicum of pressure was eased off Alex McLeish’s shoulders with this, their first away victory of the season. A switch to 4-4-2 appeared to pay dividends, with returning right winger Marc Albrighton – one of Villa’s stars of last season but surprisingly sidelined this – opening the scoring, and Emile Heskey only on the pitch for nine minutes…

ARSENAL 7.0
(W 1-0, Everton H)
With all the fanfare of unveiling statues, celebrating 125 years of history and watching Ian Wright lark about in a silly hat; you could be forgiven for forgetting there was a football match on at the Emirates on Saturday. Perhaps that explains the Gunners’ rather sluggish display, with Arsene Wenger’s side struggling to fully click into gear against the resilient Toffees (insert joke about being hard to chew here). A win at Man City on Sunday could make things very interesting indeed.

STOKE CITY 7.0
(W 2-1, Tottenham H)
The Potters made it three wins in a row with what was perhaps their most impressive result of the season, completely banishing memories of the four successive defeats that had preceded the current run. Fortune was on their side, with Tony Pulis’ side appearing to have the rub of the green with the officials in the second half, but the first half performance was hugely impressive nonetheless.

SUNDERLAND 7.0
(W 2-1, Blackburn H)
A first win on Martin O’Neill’s first afternoon in the Stadium of Light hot seat is clearly a positive, but shouldn’t gloss over the deficiencies displayed by the Ulsterman’s new charges in their last-gasp victory over the Premier League’s most hapless side. Not least the fact that, despite having oodles of possession, they were unable to carve out many half-decent chances until David Vaughan struck from long range (23 shots, only five on target).

SWANSEA CITY 7.0
(W 2-0, Fulham H)
The Swans ended a four-match winless run with a much-deserved victory over the Cottagers. Goal-scorer Danny Graham described it as a ‘must win’ match, and it’s hard to disagree given the three points are the difference between the South Wales side sitting in their current position of 11th or potential low of 16th. An impressive sixth clean sheet of the season came thanks to Michel Vorm’s penalty save.

LIVERPOOL 7.0
(W 1-0, QPR H)
At the third time of asking, Liverpool were finally able to defeat a newly-promoted side at Anfield. Despite the narrow score-line, this was a hugely improved performance, with the previously criticised Jordan Henderson and Charlie Adam both starting to make an impact in midfield. Concerns will remain over the Reds’ profligacy, with 25 shots on goal bringing just seven saves from QPR’s Radek Cerny, beating him only the once.

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 5.0
(L 2-1, Stoke A)
Had Emmanuel Adebayor not been incorrectly denied by an offside flag, this match may well have finished all square and been the archetypal ‘game of two halves’. Spurs were dire in the first half, they couldn’t live with Stoke’s power and failed to find enough rhythm of their own to trouble their opponents. A switch to 3-5-2 saw a huge improvement after the break, and Tottenham will count themselves more than a little unlucky to have lost. Still, they should look at their own first half performance before they point the finger of blame at Foy & Co.

QUEENS PARK RANGERS 4.5
(L 1-0, Liverpool A)
Neil Warnock seemed none too concerned by this defeat at Anfield, preferring to focus on the positives, namely his side’s resolute defensive work. The Hoops’ Premier League survival won’t hinge on matches away to the big guns, after all. The fixtures with Sunderland, Swansea and Norwich over the festive period will be far more decisive.

EVERTON 4.5
(L 1-0, Arsenal A)
Not for the first time this season, Everton set out to be hard to beat… but it just wasn’t enough. Their performance was resolute yet fruitless, with Robin van Persie once again the difference for the Gunners. Forget the Dutchman, the Toffees would kill for a player like Gervinho in their side, heck, maybe even Marouane Chamakh…

BLACKBURN ROVERS 4.5
(L 2-1, Sunderland A)
As has been the case on a fairly regular basis in recent weeks, Steve Kean will have walked away from a match feeling his side could and should have come away with more. In a sense, circumstances worked against Rovers here, with the visitors forced into making three substitutions within the first 52 minutes, meaning they were unable to replace any of their many pooped players in the final throes of the encounter, during which time they lost two goals and three points.

WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS 4.5
(L 4-1, Man Utd A)
There were conflicting suggestions that this was either the best or worst time to visit Old Trafford, with the champions still licking the wounds inflicted by Basel three days earlier. The final score perhaps suggests the latter, but unlike their recent defeat at Stamford Bridge, there was something to take from this performance, with United needing to dig deep to kill off the tie.

MANCHESTER CITY 4.0
(L 2-1, Chelsea A)
A curious performance saw City almost match the brilliance of White Hart Lane and Old Trafford in the first half-hour, before slumping to most probably their worst hour of football so far this term, at least domestically. While it was Gael Clichy who saw red, several of his team-mates could well have walked before him, with Yaya Toure in particular seeming to be lacking in discipline. Sunday's home clash with Arsenal now looks huge.

NEWCASTLE UNITED 4.0
(L 4-2, Norwich A)
Although there were mitigating circumstances in this defeat – Steven Taylor, Fabricio Coloccini, Cheick Tiote were all missing from the Magpies' line-up – Alan Pardew will still be furious with the nature of the goals conceded. Not only did three of Norwich’s goals come from set-pieces, but all four were in fact free headers.

FULHAM 3.5
(L 2-0, Swansea A)
The Cottagers continued their baffling inconsistency with a largely feeble showing at Swansea, just five days after they beat Liverpool. Earlier this season a 6-0 win over QPR was followed by defeat at Stoke, a lacklustre draw at Sunderland by an impressive 1-1 draw at Arsenal, and home draw with Blackburn with another against Man City. Uncovering the cause of this unpredictability could be key to Martin Jol dragging his side away from the drop zone.

WEST BROMWICH ALBION 3.0
(L 2-1, Wigan H)
As a rule of thumb, losing to at home to Wigan is generally considered bad. Very bad. Bad enough to get Steve Bruce the sack two weeks previously, in fact. The same fate is unlikely to befall Roy Hodgson, but with the chance to move as high as 11th spurned, upcoming trips to Blackburn and Newcastle will bring far greater pressure.

BOLTON WANDERERS 2.5
(L 2-1, Aston Villa H)
A home fixture against a side in almost as woeful form as themselves should have been the perfect chance for Bolton to dig deep and scrap for three points. Instead, the Trotters’ first half showing was as limp as you’d expect from a side without a midfielder who can tackle. Before Owen Coyle could say ‘those are the margins’, Bolton were two down, and not even an improved second half performance could save a point. Boo indeed.

How The End began

2011-12-12T12:30:00Z

In 1981, Peter Hooton founded a groundbreaking fanzine in Liverpool called The End. Here he explains how he helped start a revolution in football media

The idea for The End came well before the explosion of football fanzines in the mid-1980s and was an attempt to combine football, music and culture. I didn’t have a blueprint in mind but I thought if we can produce a magazine which reflected everyday conversations you had with your mates and the laughs you could have in the pub people might like it.

The End has been described as the grandfather of football fanzines, but it was never really a football fanzine as such and certainly wasn’t club-specific. Although football and terrace fashion was featured, our main aim was to observe and be satirical.

The End certainly inspired many people to write – the 1990s London clubbers' bible Boys' Own was probably the most successful – but we had many correspondents from around the UK who cited The End as an inspiration for them putting pen to paper.

An early correspondent to The End was Mike Ticher, who started the excellent When Saturday Comes in 1986 – five years after The End was born. The first few issues of When Saturday Comes were stencilled in the outdated tradition of the punk fanzine.

Having requested and received a copy of The End, he replied to say he was under the impression we were a football fanzine but was unimpressed by our lack of analysis and our obsession with terrace fashion and trouble at matches. We were unimpressed by his reply as he'd obviously missed the point of our magazine completely: we were just reflecting what young other match going football fans were interested in.

We weren’t obsessed with football hooliganism – we were actually ridiculing it – but we were going to lots of matches home and away, so we simply couldn’t ignore what was a feature of going to football in the 1980s. He must’ve been impressed with our layout though: their next edition looked like a replica of The End, which we took as a compliment, but our correspondence ended.

One thing many people have said to me over the years is that The End encouraged them to write down their ideas, whether it was via poems, stories or letters. This hardly sounds revolutionary now we have Facebook and Twitter, but in those days it was very much harder to get your opinions heard.

Now everyone's at it, expressing opinions on all sorts of topics whether on football forums, radio phone-ins or social networking sites. It has never been easy to get your views known – but you now have to wade through the dross to get to the good stuff.

At The End we prided ourselves in printing articles about boasters and exaggerators, phonies and characters we came across in everyday life. Maybe one of the main reasons for the phenomenal success of the recently-published The End compilation is that these people are still legion, especially in this vacuous celebrity-obsessed culture – or maybe people just want to laugh and reminisce.

In the 1980s and 90s some excellent football fanzines emerged – like When Skies Are Grey (Everton), What’s The Score (Merseyside), and United We Stand (Man United) – which clearly had the spirit of The End in mind. It's great that new magazines like Boss Mag and Halcyon in Liverpool have been recently put that style and attitude back into print.

Even though the people who produce these magazines were too young to have read The End first time around, they cite that they want to recreate its ethos – and now the The End compilation is out they can actually read it and hopefully see what all the fuss was about.

The End compilation is out now. Peter Hooton went on to be lead singer in The Farm and tells the story of their hit single All Together Now in the new issue of FourFourTwo, also out now

Get more from the January 2012 issue

2011-12-09T15:28:00Z

The January 2012 issue of FourFourTwo is out now, and positively bursting with fantastic features, sensational stories and exciting exclusives. For us, that's not enough – we want to give you more.

So welcome to our 'Further Reading' blog for the new issue. As you read, or if you prefer, after you've finished the magazine, take a look below and see what else we can offer you on what you've just taken in. We've got videos! We've got blogs! We've got rhythm!

EXCLUSIVE: CESC FABREGAS
The Spanish ace reveals all about leaving Arsenal and joining Barcelona in the new issue, but we've spoken to him before, y'know. Check out our online exclusive with the midfielder from October 2009, in which he talks about his early days at Arsenal and being a bad loser.

Want to go even further back? Here's another online exclusive with Fabregas, from September 2008. He tips a 16-year-old Jack Wilshere for the top, and hypes Theo Walcott to the heavens, saying that by the end of 2011 he could be "one of the best players in the world". There's still time...

100 BEST PLAYERS: ANALYSIS
Ooh, where do we start? You've read our piece on the 100 Best Players, but we have much more online.

First up, editor Dave Hall explains how we decided on the list (it wasn't easy). Don't forget: we want your feedback. Soon we'll have a blog responding to your comments, justifying our decisions and generally making everything nice and clear. Keep tabs on our Inside Track blog for that.

Elsewhere, our bloggers from around the world analyse what the results mean for their leagues and national teams. Inter have fallen, even nosedived, since last year's Top 100 list; Treble-winners one year, out of the Serie A title race the next. Richard Whittle examines what the hell happened.

Meanwhile, Tim Stannard reports on why good news for Barcelona and Madrid – who make up more than a quarter of the list between them – means bad news for the competitiveness of La Liga. There's more from La Liga Loca several times a week: he's awfully good, y'know.

We also have more on the very best players in each position on our Lists page, our extra insight partnered with lovely, lovely videos. And this week we'll profile those players who could make it next year – something to look forward to in more ways than one.

100 BEST PLAYERS: INTERVIEWS
Sure, we spoke to some of the greatest footballers in the world right now, but that doesn't mean we can't remind ourselves of what makes them so good.

Samir Nasri talks of his decision to leave Arsenal for Manchester City in the interview; here's the Frenchman looking a wee bit tasty during his time in North London:

His Eastlands team-mate Yaya Toure is more than useful too. Here he is, scoring a few goals to, erm, the theme from Stingray:

An Edinson Cavani highlights reel, you say? No problem, we say. Find out why many a top English club is keeping tabs on the Napoli and Uruguay striker:

Of course, it wouldn't be fair to exclude keepers from this audiovisual love-in. Step forward, the quite brilliant Manuel Neuer:

Alvaro Pereira, who speaks exclusively to FourFourTwo in the February issue, is touted as being Andre Villas-Boas' next signing for Chelsea. Here's why.

Leandro Damiao is another name being linked to the Premier League. The young Brazilian striker may sound like a surprising selection, but this should help to explain why he made our list:

We also had a chat with the highly-rated Yann M'Vila, aka the next Vieira. If you've got 18 minutes to spare, check out this video of everything he's ever done:

Phew. Now for something completely diffrent...

ONE-ON-ONE: RAZOR RUDDOCK

The big man not only gave us some interesting answers to your questions – such as revealing he cried upon finding out he hadn't made the 1996 FA Cup Final squad – but the permission to make him look silly in a bunch of exclusive photographs. For more shots of Razor and more, download the FourFourTwo gallery app for iPad, out later this month. For now, here are a few photos we didn't use in the magazine:

A lovely pair, we're sure you'll agree. We captured Razor on tape, too, talking about his famous 'Ruddock Stomp' after scoring a penalty for Southampton against Newcastle in 1989. Why didn't Matt Le Tissier and Alan Shearer want to take the spotkick? Razor reveals all...

PIQUE'S 36-YEAR-OLD RIVAL
In Planet Football this month we profile Sergio Ballesteros, the 15-stone, 36-year-old Levante captain and centre-back who's at the centre of a campaign to get him into the Spain squad. We promised we'd show you the video of him outpacing one Cristiano Ronaldo in the 91st minute of Levante's win over Madrid, so here you are. Look at him go! Sorry, Ron.

INSIDE QPR
Not got your fill of lovable loudmouth Joey Barton from our world exclusive in the February issue? Have a gander at our web-only interview with Barton from March this year, in which he says he might one day wear a snood.

Speaking of outspoken, we've also uploaded our One-on-One interview with Neil Warnock from 2006. He answers readers' questions on referees, playing like Ronaldinho and being called Colin Wanker. Hey, he seems fine with it...

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT: THE FOOTBALL LEAGUE
Does the Elite Player Performance Plan spell the end for Football League youth academies? No, it spells EPPP. But many a lower-league club is worried, as our Youth Development feature shows, and so they should be, says Aaron Cox in a doom-mongering blog. Read on, Football League fans, and learn why you should be scared.

GREAT GOALS RETOLD: MAURO BRESSAN
Surely a strong candidate for the best Champions League goal ever, Bressan's stunner against Barcelona remains as breathtaking as ever. Get the asthma pump ready and watch this beauty again.

GAMES THAT CHANGED MY LIFE: RAY WILKINS
Before he became a sense-spouting breath of fresh air to the punditry game – "Stay on your feet" aside – Butch was a handy old player. In his choice of Games That Changed My Life, he starts off with his England side beating France 3-1 in the 1982 World Cup. Prepare to go all misty-eyed:

PICK YOUR PREMIER LEAGUE XI...
...but you're only allowed one player per team. It's a tricky one, all right. But as we said on our Letters page, we want to see them, so send in your suggestions. We'll be picking our own this week – once we've finished arguing.

YOUNG CRUYFF & YOUNG BERGKAMP
Johan's grandson, Jessua Angoy, and Dennis' nephew Roland are both impressing at English clubs, Wigan and Brighton respectively. They've certainly got the genes but do they have the talent? These videos suggest so: here's Roland Bergkamp scoring, and below is Angoy walloping a very Cruyff-esque beaut:

PERFECT XI: FRANCO BARESI
Liked our Perfect XI with Franco Baresi? Then you'll love our One-on-One interview with him in November 2009! And if it's more star football names choosing their Perfect XIs you want, take a looky at our ever-expanding archive.

ALL TOGETHER NOW...
In our Action Replay on the First World War Christmas truce match, we speak to Peter Hooton of The Farm about their tribute to the game, the legendary anthem All Together Now. He's very kindly written a blog here on FourFourTwo.com, too, about the Liverpool fanzine he set up before his heady Farm days. John Peel described it as being about "beer, music and football" – which is enough for us. See what he has to say.

THE BOY'S A BIT LOCO: IULIAN BURSUC
The photos of that punch landed on referee Ghenadie Sidenco looked a bit tasty, didn't they? Here's the real deal: Moldovan midfielder Bursuc taking out a FIFA official, who takes it very well, with a right hook. Nasty.

PERFORMANCE
Last but by no means least, we have our superb Performance section. On top of the professional tips in the magazine, we have plenty more on the Performance website.

Want more from this month's Masterclass expert, Scott Parker? Read how he maintains fitness for 90 minutes.

Want more on playing as a full-back, after advice from Andre Santos? This page has all you'll ever need, including tips from England trio Ashley Cole, Glen Johnson and Kieran Gibbs.

Want more on playing into your forties, and even beyond, after those rousing words from Graham Alexander? Play until you're grey with this guide.

Want more on shooting, having taken Nicky Maynard's recommendations on board? We have a number of articles that should help your finishing.

Want more on gym workouts, after Tom Cleverley's guide? Portsmouth strength and conditioning coach Chris Neville knows all there is to know.

Want more on psychology thanks to our help on how to win without your star player? Our Performance site has professional psychological insight on everything from captaincy to dealing with a diver.

Like what you see? Subscribe now and nab yourself a special offer!

100 Best Players + Cesc speaks out, inside QPR & facetime with Razor

2011-12-07T10:20:00Z

At last, the issue of FourFourTwo you’ve all been waiting for. Yes, it’s that time of year again: the world’s biggest football magazine picks the 100 Best Players from around the world. We’ve got goosebumps just thinking about what you’ll make of it.

But we know you want more, so in the new January 2011 issue, out now, we have a world exclusive interview with one of that top 100 – none other than international superstar Cesc Fabregas.

Is Pep Guardiola a genius? Was leaving Arsenal the easy option? Why aren’t the Gunners winning trophies? Yes, no and it’s complicated, says Cesc. He also tells us exactly what’s wrong with English football. It’s a must-read.

Of course, the real question is this: where is Fabregas in our famed 100 Best Players list? We’ve blogged aplenty about our selection, from explaining how we do it to profiling the players themselves, but the only place you can read the FourFourTwo top 100 in its entirety, in order and featuring interviews with experts and the players themselves – including Nasri, Neuer and Cavani – is in the magazine.

Our January issue has bags more features, not least the final part of our Youth Development series. This month, we look at the Football League in England. As small clubs prepare to lose their best young talent to the top teams for much less money than before under the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP), we speak to anxious academy chiefs.

We also go inside QPR to take a look at the club reborn under Neil Warnock and owner Tony Fernandes. We have a chat with the outspoken pair, and take part in an extraordinary interview with the even franker Joey Barton – who even let us do this to him.

Our Action Replay this month looks at possibly the most historically significant football match of all time. Develop a new appreciation for humanity as you read the truth behind that most incredible of games: the First World War Christmas Day truce match of 1914.

On a lighter note, we get ready for football’s Christmas period by running down the times when the festive period threatened to kill a team’s season. Turkey with all the trimmings? All this lot got were 12-game winless streaks and X-rated teddy bears.

There’s even room for a One-on-One with the Razor: Neil Ruddock himself. The grizzled former defender gives his opinions on England, Alan Sugar and recalls the time he handcuffed himself to a stranger on a night out...

And there’s more. We reveal Arsene Wenger’s secret weapon, FC Lorient, dish out our alternative MLS end-of-season awards and present a feature on lesser footballing siblings, from Rhodri Giggs to Carl Hoddle.

Scott Parker gives us a consistency masterclass and Tom Cleverley the perfect gym routine in Performance, and there are more missives from Michel Salgado and our undercover columnist – plus a reviews special in time for Christmas. So go on: fill your sack.

Where do I get my hands on this fantastic organ?

The January issue of FourFourTwo was brought to you by Rio Ferdinand, Yaya Toure, Neil Warnock, Cesc Fabregas, Les Parry, Edinson Cavani, Gary Brooke, Ian Snodin, Scott Parker, Jason Roberts, John Bishop, Ray Wilkins, Yann M’Vila, Samir Nasri, Keith Southern, Adam Johnson, Mauro Bressan, Richard Dobson, Andy Awford, Leandro Damiao, Tom Cleverley, Manuel Neuer, Dave Merrington, Paul Futcher, Joey Barton, Michael Mancienne, Peter Hooton of The Farm, Alan Shearer, Neil Ruddock, Andre Santos, Nicky Maynard, Alvaro Pereira, Peter Schmeichel, Aidy Boothroyd, Robbie Savage, Tony Fernandes, Ossie Ardiles, Sean Scannell, Steve Evans, boxing Southend United chairman Tara Brady, Elvis lover Hermann Hreidarsson, Giuseppe and Franco Baresi, Graham Alexander, Michel Salgado, Daniele de Rossi, Kevin McNaughton, Dennis Bergkamp’s nephew, Michael Carrick’s brother and Yoann Gourcuff’s dad.

Football's worst lookalikes #5: Desperate Dunn

2011-11-30T13:06:00Z

We're big fans of Blackburn Rovers midfielder David Dunn's beard. And it sort of reminds us of somebody...

Sadly, we're told Venky's don't do a cow pie.

Football's worst lookalikes #1
Football's worst lookalikes #2
Football's worst lookalikes #3
Football's worst lookalikes #4

Premier Ratings: Tottenham hot to trot, while Potters stop the rot

2011-11-29T08:30:00Z

FourFourTwo's James Maw is the man with the scores after another madcap week of turbulent top-flight t....errrrm.....football

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 8.5
(W 3-1, West Brom A)
There's no doubt Spurs are hot at present. With Arsenal dropping points, this impressive away win saw Spurs open up a five-point lead on their local rivals, with a game in hand. Despite their impressive away form – only table-topping Man City can match their five successful road trips – it could be what they do at the Lane that seals a Champions League return: with 14 home fixtures remaining and only two of last year’s top six still to visit N17, they have a great chance to put points on the board.

WIGAN ATHLETIC 8.5
(W 2-1, Sunderland A)
This victory, combined with defeats for Blackburn, Bolton, Wolves and of course Sunderland, has dragged the Latics right back among their relegation rivals. A first league win since August – and a first away from home this season – sees Wigan now just two points from safety, yet with Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United all set to visit the DW in the next four weeks, more away points may be needed to avoid being cut adrift again.

CHELSEA 7.5
(W 3-0, Wolves H)
If Chelsea really were ‘in crisis’ prior to this match, it seems unlikely a routine victory against out-of-sorts relegation scrappers will have been enough to lift them out of it. But the three points were important, and they never looked likely to be heading back to Wolverhampton, with the visitors doing little to test the Blues' supposedly shaky defence. Encouraging, but there’ll be far sterner tests.

STOKE CITY 7.5
(W 3-1, Blackburn H)
The Potters stopped the rot with a typically battling win, though their performance still wasn’t entirely convincing. Rovers were afforded several opportunities to further close the deficit, while there was an element of fortune about Stoke’s deflected second. Still, Pulis & Co. will see this as three points well earned, and will hope the post-Europa hangover doesn’t strike again at Everton next Sunday.

NORWICH CITY 7.5
(W 2-1, QPR H)
While at present both Norwich and QPR are enjoying life in mid-table, trends of recent seasons suggest the newly-promoted duo are likely to slide as the season wears on, and it will be at that stage that these three points will start to feel particularly valuable for the Canaries.

EVERTON 7.5
(W 2-0, Bolton A)
The Toffees could be forgiven for feeling they’ve finally turned the corner after yet another sluggish start to a Premier League campaign. This win, combined with last week’s against Wolves, gives Everton back-to-back league victories for the first time this term, and helps allay fears of a season battling the drop – for now at least. While Cahill continues to struggle to find the net, new-boy Vellios at least seems to have quickly developed the knack.

NEWCASTLE UNITED 7
(D 1-1, Man United A)
Bouncing back from last week’s first defeat of the season at Man City looked like being quite some task given the venue of their next match, but Toon dug deep and once again displayed the kind of defensive resolve that has seen them become the Premier League’s early season surprise packages. While their penalty was more than fortunate, having endured such wretched luck at Old Trafford over the last two decades, they’re unlikely to lose much sleep over it.

FULHAM 6.5
(D 1-1, Arsenal A)
Of the many, many draws the Cottagers look likely to achieve this season (18 or so, at this rate), this will be one of the more rewarding. A resolute defensive showing – with the in-form Van Persie largely kept at arm’s length – was almost enough to seal a first ever win away to the Gunners, only for Vermaelen to level for the hosts late on. Performances are certainly improving and Jol will hope a similar upturn in results follows.

MANCHESTER CITY 6
(D 1-1, Liverpool A)
For only the second time this season City dropped league points, but unlike at Craven Cottage, they’ll have been relieved to escape Anfield with a draw. Perhaps for the first time domestically this term, City were second best, and when Balotelli was harshly dismissed Mancini must have feared the worst. Only another superb showing from Hart helped secure a draw preserved the five-point gap between the league leaders and their Manchester neighbours at the summit.

LIVERPOOL 6
(D 1-1, Man City H)
Few teams will be disappointed with a draw against City this season, but the Reds must be wondering what could’ve been, after dominating the second half and holding a one-man advantage for the final 10 minutes. Their run of coming up against in-form visiting goalkeepers continued, and the result means Liverpool have now won just two of their seven Premier League home matches this season. Still, it was an improvement on the drab home showings against Norwich and Swansea.

SWANSEA CITY 5.5
(D 0-0, Aston Villa H)
While Brendan Rodgers will be pleased with yet another clean sheet – the Swans’ sixth of the campaign – he may be equally concerned that they once again failed to score, making it three successive blanks, though the previous two fixtures were against Liverpool and Manchester United. Against Villa they seemed to lack any real creative spark or cutting edge in the final third, though the players could be excused if their minds were elsewhere, given the tragic events that preceded the match.

ASTON VILLA 5.5
(D 0-0, Swansea A)
Another away day without a goal, but at least Villa at times showed the attacking intent that had been missing from last Monday’s dismal showing at Tottenham. Agbonlahor once again looked the visitors’ most dangerous player – indeed he was the only man in a claret shirt to muster a shot on target.

ARSENAL 5
(D 1-1, Fulham H)
With Van Persie starved of openings and Gervinho benched for the first 70 minutes, the Gunners couldn’t overcome the well-organised visitors. The midfield three of Arteta, Song and Ramsey failed to make a much impact in the opposition half, but, despite what on the face of it is a disappointing result, there were still positives. Walcott continued his recent impressive form, with his delivery for Vermaelen’s equaliser a particular highlight.

MANCHESTER UNITED 5
(D 1-1, Newcastle H)
With City dropping points at Anfield, United will retrospectively see this as an opportunity spurned to close the gap at the summit. Though they can point to the baffling penalty decision that allowed Newcastle to level the scores, the champions should also have a long hard look at their wayward shooting – their failure to find a second goal wasn't all down to Tim Krul in the opposition goal, after all. A far cry from the free-scoring days of early season.

BLACKBURN ROVERS 4.5
(L 3-1, Stoke A)
For once, Steve Kean’s insistence that everything was hunky-dory wasn’t entirely misplaced, despite his side being beaten yet again. Rovers created enough chances to get something from the game and on another day this game could perhaps have swung the other way. But once again, sloppy defending was their undoing, with a needlessly conceded free-kick, a half-hearted block attempt and a failure to deal with a long punt up field costing them dear. Nelsen can’t return soon enough.

WEST BROMWICH ALBION 4
(L 3-1, Tottenham H)
Hodgson will be disappointed his team were unable to maintain the pace they set in the first 20 minutes, during which time they put Spurs completely on the back foot and took the lead through Mulumbu’s header. Had Brunt taken his second-half chance it may well have finished level. Things should improve when Odemwingie and Long are both fit for long enough to appear on the pitch at the same time and forge an understanding at the sharp end.

QUEENS PARK RANGERS 4
(L 2-1, Norwich A)
You can only imagine Neil Warnock told his players that, if they could silence intimidating crowds at Goodison, Molineux and the Britannia by securing impressive away wins then they could do the same at Carrow Road. Sadly for the Rs it didn’t work out that way, with the West Londoners never really able to get into their stride against their promotion partners. Still, Shaun Derry’s moustache looks good.

WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS 3
(L 3-0, Chelsea A)
While nobody expected Wolves to come away from Stamford Bridge with one point, let alone three, most would at least expect McCarthy’s team to ‘let the opposition know they’re in a game’, to coin a (meaningless) phrase. Gone are the days of Wolves being a difficult team to play against, one that will constantly harry opponents, chase down every ball and be rigidly organised for set pieces at both ends. Despite what looked some decent investment in the summer, they currently look a shell of the side they were last term – which can’t be good news.

BOLTON WANDERERS 3
(L 2-0, Everton H)
Coyle’s side don’t seem to be able to build any momentum. The 5-0 thumping of Stoke that was supposed to ignite their campaign has been followed up by meek back-to-back defeats, leaving the Trotters in the bottom three with a third of the season now gone. Of most concern to the Reebok faithful will be the fact there is seemingly little progress being made, and with key men Holden and Lee unlikely to return before spring, the struggle looks like continuing for a while yet.

SUNDERLAND 2
(L 2-1, Wigan H)
Up until this point the Black Cats had defended reasonably well this season, with just 13 goals shipped in their opening dozen matches – their problems have largely been at the other end. Yet a clumsily and needlessly conceded penalty and a last-gasp calamity of defensive errors saw Bruce’s men beaten at home by the side who had previously been bottom of the league, having scored just twice on their previous five away jaunts. No wonder the locals were miffed – the manager is surely staring down the barrel...

Weekend analysis with Stats Zone, from FourFourTwo & OPTA

Remembering Gary Speed

2011-11-28T13:26:00Z

The Premier League Legends were in Barbados this June to play in a 7-a-side tournament and meet old friends and foes over a dark rum and coke.

I was there to work. Well, sort of. When you tell your wife that you “have to go to Barbados with ‘the footballers’ for a job” you can imagine the reaction. Work involved getting 16 interviews done over five days on the beautiful Caribbean island. Some interviews would be easy as I knew the players, others less so. I didn’t know Gus Poyet, Gianfranco Zola, Frank Leboeuf, Alan Shearer or Gary Speed and needed to speak to all for FourFourTwo magazine.

A few days into the trip and the players were leaving the hotel at 5pm for a bus to the stadium. I got to the reception at 4pm and waited. The players started to pass by. They had nothing else to do and many stopped to make small talk. Most knew I was a journalist, which could warrant a blanking, but they liked FourFourTwo. Besides, I’d been invited by a player and was considered ‘safe’ and ‘trustworthy.’

“What if I meet a bird on the beach then you pop up with a camera?” asked one single player to a tabloid journalist. But even he knew that journalist and it was said half in jest. The mood was good.

The ex-pros also inevitably gossiped about what X or Y was up too. There were as many negative stories as positive ones. Divorce, gambling, financial problems. It’s not all milk and honey just because you used to be a football star.

I needed to speak to some of the Chelsea and Newcastle lads, that’s why I sat in reception waiting. The Happy Mondays might have done it, but returning from a work trip in the Caribbean with no work was not an option.

I saw Gary Speed approach through the palms. I’d always admired him from afar as a player. He scored well on the grapevine too. He wasn’t a big-time knob. He’d looked after himself after finishing playing, his good looks hadn’t faded and he still dressed well. He was also the current manager of Wales, more reason to interview him.

You sometimes think that you know famous people through their public persona. You don’t. So never take anything for granted when you ask a straightforward question.

I told Speed that I was from FourFourTwo and that I’d like 15 minutes of his time to talk about tactics at some point over the next two days. He said it would be fine and we arranged to meet at breakfast the next day. He was busy having breakfast with Shearer the following morning so I didn’t bother him, but I did see him later on. He said meet in an hour. He wasn’t there in an hour.

He turned up half-an-hour later, apologised for being late and then said that we should do the interview in his room rather than a public area. I walked with him to his room and made small talk.

Mentioned that I’d interviewed Danny Collins, one of his Wales players, a month before. Collins had fallen out with the Wales manager John Toshack before being recalled by Speed for the Euro 2012 qualifiers.

“I’ve really enjoyed playing under Speed,” enthused Collins. “The training is great and he’s really professional. I also respect the fact that he’s played over 500 Premier League games. If we can get our full squad out – which we need – then I think we can give it a good go at reaching the 2014 World Cup finals. I hope to still be playing then. I was a late starter so I’m not ready to give up yet.”

Speed reckoned Danny was “a good lad.” Such phrases oil and uphold reputations within football.

We got to his room and both sat on a sofa by the side of his bed. He wore an understated Rolex and a Ralph Lauren polo. I put a tape recorder between us and spoke about tactics for seven minutes, specifically scoring from a free-kick from near the touchline, in line with the edge of the 18-yard box. He was serious and went into precise detail.

Then we talked about what to say to players when they are underdogs, before a match and at half-time. One passage stuck out, with Speed saying: “Hard work beats talent if talent doesn’t work hard – that’s what I tell my players. The best players, the most talented ones, usually work harder than anyone. We have to better that work rate.”

That philosophy was paying off for Wales.

Then we did an interview, called: ‘At The End of the Day’. I looked back through it when I heard the terrible news of his death on Sunday. Some lines stand out a mile.

“I was heartbroken the day I left Newcastle, but football breaks your heart all the time,” Speed said.

Asked for his proudest moment in football, he said: “Being captain of my country, Wales.”

He still regretted not taking that penalty against Romania in 1993 and said: “If I had missed then it would be easier for me to live with it…”

There were more questions, like: “One thing you couldn’t live without?”

“My kids,” replied Speed. “I’ve got two at 14 and 12.”

The final question was: ‘What item do you cherish most?’ Sometimes footballers go onto auto-pilot in interviews. They talk clichés, niceties and nonsense. Speed paused for a good 30 seconds.

“Certainly nothing material,” he replied. “I don’t even know where my championship medal is from Leeds. So I’d say family. We’re an item and they mean everything to me.”

I thanked him for his time and wished him well, only pausing to remind him that he’d ruined the summer of an 18-year-old in 1992 by winning the league with Leeds. He smiled and said: “I think you’ve seen your team win enough. That was my only trophy in football.”

I left the room with a positive impression of Gary Speed being a well-rounded individual who had made a great success of his life through a combination of hard work, dedication and talent. No different from the many people who have worked with him in football and are likewise stunned and saddened by his death.

INTERVIEW: Gary Speed discusses his career with Andy Mitten

How we picked the world's 100 best footballers

2011-11-28T10:00:00Z

Yes, it’s back. For a fifth year, we at FourFourTwo have put our heads together to present you with our take on which 100 individuals are truly the greatest players in the world right now.

It hasn’t been easy. Oh, it’s been fun – deciding upon the globe’s best footballers is, of course, the pub conversation to end all pub conversations – at least for the most part, until punches were thrown and coffee was spilt.

For this is the hardest job in football journalism. How do you decide upon the very best? How do you compare a goalkeeper to a striker; a 34-year-old veteran to a prodigious youngster half his age; a gritty, reliable centre-back to a slick trequartista with a slide-rule pass and an eye for goal?

To an extent, of course, you can’t. We’ve worked hard on this list to make it as definitive as possible, but as time changes, so will the protagonists. Form is temporary, class is permanent – but if one of our top 100 now hits a colossal loss of form, that can’t be helped.

So here’s how we at FFT go about it. First, we get a hat and write down the names of every footballer in the world right now...

No, really. We speak to our vast legion of experts from around the globe; the people we turn to for that extra bit of insight on a player or team from their region. Spain, Italy, Portugal, Russia, Brazil – they’ve seen the lot and we’ve canvassed their opinions, to add to our own.

Once we’ve seen our overseas experts’ recommendations and included the domestic players we believe are at the very peak, we have well over 150 names. Then comes the whittling. It’s ruthless: we read every report, look at every stat, watch every video, but if a player doesn’t look the real deal, he’s out. Simple.

A darkened room welcomes us. We have just over 100 names; now we have to put them in a sensible order – no mean feat when you have to consider everything from form and importance within a team, to potential and overall class. Out comes the whiteboard and the markers.

By breaking the list down into positions, we can rank every defender, forward and so on, and once we have each mini-list, slot them together. There’s a lot of scrubbing – fortunately, we’ve not had a repeat of the permanent marker “No, he’s crap” incident from last year.

Finally, we have our top 100, ready for your delectation.

This process has been undertaken every year since 2007, inclusive. Back in those heady pre-Euro 2008 days, England had 13 players in our top 100 – the most of any country. Since then both Spain and Germany have improved immeasurably, while other countries, clubs and leagues have declined or joined them on the rise.

We’ll be asking our global experts on FourFourTwo.com for their take on local success or malaise. We’ll also have, every day from Tuesday to Friday this week, an alphabetical list of the top 10 players in their position – goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders, and forwards (note: this doesn’t necessarily equate to the best 40 players in the world). These will appear daily over at out lists page.

Most importantly, we want you to get in touch. Seriously, we do – please join the conversation, because we’ll try to respond to a few questions/rants/death threats about the list towards the end of next week. Send your feedback, however short or long, to @FourFourTwoEd on Twitter with the hashtag #FFT100, or on Facebook, or via email (contact@fourfourtwo.com) – you can even write a letter if you’re so inclined, but please, no more boxes of dog muck...

The January issue, featuring the full feature on the 100 Best Players in the World, is out on Wednesday, December 7. We don’t expect you all to agree with it – but we hope you all enjoy it.

And by the way, top of that first list in 2007 was Kaka, with Lionel Messi a ‘lowly’ fifth. How times change…

LIST FFT's Top Ten Goalkeepers
LIST FFT's Top Ten Defenders
LIST FFT's Top Ten Midfielders
LIST FFT's Top Ten Forwards

Why Barca focus on developing smaller players - behind the scenes at La Masia

2011-11-23T14:06:00Z

We couldn't help but notice, upon nosing through pictures of Barcelona's recently redeveloped La Masia academy, that the beds are rather tiddly, which perhaps explains a lot.

You're not going to cram a future 6ft5in target-man into one of those

Man Utd aren't the only club to be heavily involved with the glazers...

Where the next Messi will have growth hormones mashed into his breakfast

Ikea Madrid struggled to shift the Blaugrana range of storage units

Either a bench for tactical debriefings, or some kind of communal toilet...

"No spinning, and certainly no verticals!"

*Insert 'taking corners' joke here*

"That Zonal Marking has sussed us out, gaffer!"

Players may leave, but must first pass through the haunted corridor of doom

Prem Ratings: City still golden without Silva, as Spurs get what they deserve

2011-11-22T09:00:00Z

FourFourTwo's James Maw rates the weekend's Premier League action, as Chelsea stumble to another home defeat and Manchester City march on...

Manchester City 8.5
(W 3-1, Newcastle H)
Mancini’s side continued their march on the Premier League title, brushing aside a previously unbeaten Newcastle with relative ease. Even without Silva – rested on Saturday - City look like being too much for most in the division. A worrying thought for the rest.

Tottenham Hotspur 8.5
(W 2-0, Aston Villa H)
Their Monday night win took them third, a position they more than deserve given they have surely been the league's third best team so far this term. Having wobbled in their most recent wins, Spurs were back at their best against Villa, and should really have won by four or five. The imperious defensive performance of Kaboul meant that two was more than enough. With West Brom, Bolton, Stoke and Sunderland their next four, it's time to make hay while the sun is shining (even though it's winter...)

Arsenal 8.0
(W 2-1, Norwich A)
The narrow margin of victory flattered Norwich, as Arsenal attacked with the kind of verve that saw them so feared a few years back. With all the ‘one man team’ talk that has followed Robin van Persie's recent sensational form, the performances of Walcott and Gervinho will have been particularly pleasing for Wenger.

Liverpool 7.5
(W 2-1, Chelsea A)
Perhaps not the most convincing performance, but there’s no doubting the Reds will be happy with the result. Dalglish will be delighted with how his side held off the hosts’ second half storm before popping up the other end to pinch a winner. Now all they have to do is start doing this at home...

Queens Park Rangers 7.5
(W 3-2, Stoke A)
Few would’ve expected the Rs to win at ‘Fortress Britannia’, let alone net three times, but that’s exactly what they did thanks to a superb attacking performance. But they rode their luck too – Stoke saw strong claims for two penalties turned down. At present you'd have to fancy the Hoops to finish the higher of the two sides.

West Bromwich Albion 7.0
(W 2-1, Bolton H)
Not for the first time this season, the Baggies were left thanking their lucky stars for Shane Long’s clinical finishing. The Irishman’s 56th minute strike made all the difference in what had been, up until that stage, a closely fought encounter.

Manchester United 7.0
(W 1-0, Swansea A)
Saturday evening’s win in Wales was far from United’s most convincing or enthralling performance of the season, but it displayed their long-established champions’ knack of sealing victory when most others would drop points.

Everton 7.0
(W 2-1, Wolves H)
The Toffees took a large stride away from the drop-zone with this narrow, scrappy win. Although the visitors enjoyed more possession, Everton generally were able to keep them at arms length, and in the end were deserved winners, even if that decisive strike came from the penalty spot.

Swansea City 6.5
(L 1-0, Man Utd H)
While Swansea deserve credit for sticking to their slick-passing guns over the last three months, this defeat – and one in which they played very well - will perhaps serve as a reminder that there is still a time and place for the humble hoof. Had Angel Rangel realised this, they would quite probably have taken a point.

Fulham 5.5
(D 0-0, Sunderland A)
This rather stale performance came as something as a surprise, given it followed their far more impressive display at home to Spurs prior to the international break. Two wins in twelve will have all at the club concerned.

Norwich City 5.5
(L 2-1, Arsenal H)
The Canaries will be ruing coming up against the newly reinvigorated Gunners, rather than the out-of-sorts early-season version. They will still take encouragement from the way they were able to frustrate the Londoners, even if it wasn’t enough on this occasion.

Newcastle United 5.0
(L 3-1, Man City A)
So it has finally come to pass – Newcastle United have been beaten, despite a spirited performance at Eastlands. Bouncing back quickly will be key to avoid a prompt slide back to midtable, though with Old Trafford their next destination that’ll be easier said then done.

Wolverhampton Wanderers 5.0
(L 2-1, Everton A)
While this was an improvement on some of his side’s recent performances, McCarthy will be worried his side created so little – just the one shot on target - despite having more of the ball than their opponents. The slide continues.

Sunderland 4.5
(D 0-0, Fulham H)
This was as disappointing and frustrating a draw as a Premier League side is likely to endure this season. The Black Cats mustered just three shots on target at home to a side who are notoriously poor travelers, which will have done little to appease their concerned fanbase.

Blackburn Rovers 4.0
(D 3-3, Wigan A)
Entertaining though it may have been, Saturday’s draw at the DW helped neither side. Though their comeback deserves credit, Rovers’ defending was largely atrocious, and this kind of performance won’t see them pick up points against most other sides.

Wigan Athletic 4.0
(D 3-3, Blackburn H)
Like Rovers, Wigan won’t be satisfied with this point. While they could rightly point to the curious Pedersen corner which lead to Blackburn’s second, their defending for their first was abysmal, and they’ll be kicking themselves at blowing the lead in the sixth minute of injury time.

Stoke City 4.0
(L 3-2, QPR A)
We’d like to call this an uncharacteristically shoddy defensive performance, but given the Potters have shipped 14 goals in their last four league matches, perhaps the days of Pulis’ men being a tough nut to crack are coming to an end. That said, they had the chances to at least draw this one.

Aston Villa 3.5
(L 2-0, Tottenham A)
Though Villa were unlucky to face a Spurs side in such fine fettle, their manager's curious tactics did little to help their cause. Deploying Alan Hutton on the right of midfield and Heskey on the left did little to prevent Bale and Lennon causing havoc from the wings, while neither Spurs fullback was given too much to worry about either. Not a performance that will help McLeish win over the doubters among the club's fanbase.

Bolton Wanderers 3.5
(L 2-1, West Brom A)
The Trotters reverted to type after their 5-0 thumping of Stoke, with a meek second half display at the Hawthorns seeing Coyle’ side beaten for the ninth time in 11 league matches. This kind of timid showing is fast becoming a worrying norm for the men from the Reebok.

Chelsea 3.0
(L 2-1, Liverpool H)
Although at one stage of the second half the Blues looked the more likely winners, their defence was so exposed that Liverpool were always going to be in with a shout. Plenty has been said of their high defensive line, but it was sloppy passing and a lack of concentration that was the West Londoners’ undoing. They currently look far closer to the chasing pack of Spurs, Arsenal and Liverpool than the leading lights of Manchester, and their points tally is a clear reflection of that.

H&V: Big Four throwbacks, goalscoring moxie and premature commentary

2011-11-21T10:08:00Z

Heroes

Liverpool
After his second successive win there, Stamford Bridge is becoming something of a happy hunting ground for Kenny Dalglish. The match itself was a throwback to ‘Big Four’ clashes of yore, rather than your 2011 standard goal-fest, and in a game petering out to a 1-1 draw it was the away side who managed to find the break-through.
With all the old boy talk centring on Chelsea subs Torres and Meireles, it was Liverpool's ex-Chelsea full-back who came up with the goods, with Glen Johnson's jinking run and cool left-footed finish proving the difference. What will please the Anfield faithful most is the way they hung on after the break when Chelsea looked to be in the ascendancy, especially when Danny Sturridge levelled soon after the break.
Liverpool are locked on 22 points along with Spurs, Chelsea and Arsenal, and with the Manchester clubs already 12 points away, the race for the Champions League berths could be one of the most open in recent years.

Robin van Persie
Arsene Wenger reportedly told journalists he would consider his future at the end of the current season, hinting that he may have ‘taken the club as far as he can’, as the old saying goes.
After the match he seemed to step down from this stance, having seen his side continue their recovery with a hard-fought win at Carrow Road. Robin van Persie continued his staggering calendar year with goals number 30 and 31 from 29 appearances in 2011. Goal 31 was particularly special, a right-footed chip over Norwich keeper John Ruddy the perfect demonstration of what a natural goal-scorer the Dutchman has become.
Reports of Arsenal's demise were greatly exaggerated, it seems, as this was Arsenal's tenth win in 12 games and a match the Gunners would surely have dropped points in during the early weeks of the campaign. As a note of caution though, after Norwich's opener you'd be forgiven for wondering: just what is the question if Per Mertesacker is the answer?

Everton
David Moyes' men silenced the Blue Union protest group who held a demonstration before kick-off calling for Bill Kenwright to sell the perennially skint Merseyside club.
The manner of the victory was typically Evertonian, a late Leighton Baines penalty edging a tight, physical encounter against Wolves. The left side proved to be the most fertile for Everton in their second home win of the season, with Baines and Drenthe showing evidence of a blossoming understanding with some good work on the flank.
A just-about deserved win then, but Everton are at least three players short of their 2008 best under Moyes, meaning the investment the Blue Union are calling for is long overdue.

Manchester City's Destroyers
Another match, another convincing win and another ludicrous set of statistics. City have now scored at least three times in 10 of their 12 Premier League matches this season and if they continue their current scoring rate will have hit the back of the net 130 times by the end of the season.
But Saturday’s home fixture with previously unbeaten Newcastle was another stern test of mettle for Roberto Mancini's men, particularly without their talisman, David Silva. It's true that City are less eye-catching without their playmaker, but what they lacked in cohesion, they made up for in muscle against Alan Pardew’s spirited Magpies.
The Etihad Stadium's resident destroyers took top billing to end the Magpie's unbeaten run, with De Jong finally looking up to speed after an injury lay-off and Yaya Toure continuing his fine run of form breaking up Newcastle's play and embarking on his trademark marauding runs.
It was Micah Richards who was named man of the match after a goalscoring star turn. His exile from the England squad continues to baffle.

Yakubu
Whether Rovers fans like it or not, Blackburn's late, late rally keeps Steve Kean in employment for another week and their portly predator weighed in with another vital brace.
Yakubu's penalty nine minutes into stoppage time secured a priceless point in their battle against relegation. It was an anarchic end to the match, with keeper Paul Robinson fouled by David Jones to win the spot kick to save the club from their ninth league defeat.
In truth, it was another disjointed performance from the team, with poor defending and goalkeeping from Robinson on Wigan's first and third goals making for an uphill struggle for Steve Kean's men.

Heidar Helguson
Only Robin Van Persie has scored more Premier League goals than Helguson in the past month and the Icelandic striker also showed his moxie in QPR's entertaining win at the Britannia Stadium.
Neil Warnock was full of praise for the spirited front-man, “I thought Heidar Helguson epitomised us today. He has got a lump the size of a golf ball on his cheekbone from the first minute but he was fantastic for us in both boxes.”
Helguson was a thorn in the side of Manchester City before the international break and repeated the trick against Stoke's gargantuan defence with two more goals for his tally.
The Rs are enjoying a rich vein of form of late, founded on a durable and technically gifted central midfield of Faurlin and Barton, all contributing to that rare smile on Neil Warnock's face.

Villains

Scott Sinclair & Angel Rangel
Swansea managed to suppress the Champions' attacking overtures for much of their rather flat Saturday evening encounter, limiting United to just a handful of decent chances.
It could have been even better for the Liberty Stadium faithful had Scott Sinclair managed to convert a cut back half way through the first period. It was a momentary lack of concentration that proved costly in a game of few chances and proved to be a cruel lesson in the importance of being clinical in front of goal for the newly-promoted side.
Still, Sinclair was one of the Jacks' most dangerous players - their principal threat coming from the wings with Lloyd Dyer also doing enough to give Phil Jones and Patrice Evra a few headaches. Sinclair's miss was one of two fatal moments that settled this match, Angel Rangel was the other guilty party.
It's admirable that the Welsh team refuse to abandon their ethos of aesthetically pleasing football but if you're going to pass the ball out of defence, probably best not to find Ryan Giggs rather than your own team-mate. Fortunately his manager was more forgiving than Giggs and Hernandez…
"Blame's on me. I ask the players to play. He could have smashed the ball, but we look to pass our way out of trouble and they are clinical.”

Bolton Wanderers
…and everything was looking so rosy. Wanderers fans will be craving for another International break after a second-half collapse saw them come unstuck at The Hawthornes.
Most worrying of all for Coyle will be the team's total lack of direction in the second-half with balls being launched up to Kevin Davies who looked to have forgotten what to do with them. Chris Eagles was symptomatic of a rudderless display, giving possession away on several occasions against a hungrier West Brom side who arrested control of the match after the break.
The club laid on free travel for the Wanderers faithful to boost their away support but even that gimmick won't be enough to attract much repeat business for their trip to White Hart Lane in a fortnight. Back to the relegation zone and back to the drawing board for Coyle and Co.

Stoke City
No Europa League to blame this time for the Potters and that famous line about going to the Britannia Stadium is fast becoming a myth. Stoke have now lost their last two at home and the optimism and expectation raised after the signings of Crouch and Palacios seems to be weighing heavily on a small squad.
Tony Pulis urged his team to “stick together” after this latest defeat that leaves Stoke second bottom of the form table, having lost their last four games. Stoke probably did enough to snatch a point against QPR, especially seeing as Mike Jones turned down a decent penalty shout, but shipping three goals at home proved just too much for them in the end.
Pulis has earned deserved praise for keeping Stoke's above water in a competitive division but when their divisive tactics and occasional over-physicality aren't successful, it ain't half ugly. An eminently winnable home game against Blackburn on Saturday can't come soon enough.

Andre Villas-Boas
You have to feel for Chelsea's 34-year old boss. In a dressing room packed with strong characters, his attempts to revamp Chelsea into a Barcelona-esque pressing and ball-retaining juggernaut are admirable but fundamentally flawed.
Unfortunately for AVB, Chelsea are around 20 years behind the Camp Nou side and the chances of him being given even a quarter of that time to realise his vision are about as slim as his chairman's model girlfriend.
A second successive defeat at Stamford Bridge for the first time in a decade must force Villas-Boas back to basics or discontented murmurs are likely to increase in volume against an impatient backdrop.

Fulham and Sunderland
If Nytol ever loses its clout, source yourself a DVD of this match. Scrappy, tense and severely lacking in quality, the final whistle was sweet relief for 37,688 hardly souls who probably wished they'd used their Saturday afternoons on something more exciting, like washing the car.

Martin Tyler
Dear Martin, next time you start excitedly describing a Didier Drogba free-kick goal, best make sure it's, y'know, in the goal first...

Football finances need investigation, not speculation

2011-11-11T11:34:00Z

An economist at the University of Portsmouth has recommended that Premier League clubs televise more games, as it would result in far greater TV revenue at the cost of only a slight decrease in match-day gate revenue.

Adam Cox, of the Portsmouth Business School, has suggested that increased televising of games for clubs across the division would "help redress the imbalance in overall earnings, and therefore in the fortunes, of clubs at the bottom of the league," arguing that currently "the Premier League is acting as a cartel to protect clubs’ gate revenue by artificially limiting the number of rights to screen games".

Cox used a statistical model to measure losses in revenue, analysing data from a number of sources including Setanta Sports, Sky Sports, National Statistics and Virgin Media, from 2004 to 2008. Following his study, Cox suggests that "all three parties – fans, broadcasters and clubs – would be better off if the number of Premiership matches shown on television was increased".

While economically this may make a certain top-line sense, the study raises a number of questions. For a start, it only takes into account gate revenue, ignoring other important matchday income streams (food, drink, merchandise).

The central thrust of the study is also very arguable. Cox's main point is that gate revenue across the 20 clubs only drops by £232,237 per broadcast, while TV reimbursement in the 2007/08 season averaged at £4.12m a game. However, this is divided between the 20 clubs, with more for those who are televised – and elementary maths tells us that £4.12m divided by 20 is £206,000 per club, even before we take into account the weighting away from those clubs not on TV (and therefore competing with the allure of sofa or pub).

"Yay! We're making clubs rich!"

Speaking of weighting, the study says that the top four clubs – defined as Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United – would see gate takings drop by an average £50,060 per televised game (2.4%), but the bottom five clubs (here mysteriously defined as Birmingham, Middlesbrough, Sunderland, West Brom and Wigan) would lose £169,839 – a rather painful 21.47% of their takings.

In other words, televising fixtures hurts less successful clubs much more than the big boys at the top – who are already benefiting more than others from the Premier League prize-money allocations.

THE WIDER PICTURE
Furthermore, if Premier League clubs were to be televised more often, as the study suggests, it would cater only for their (to use Cox's word) "cartel" – increasing their earnings but providing nothing for the teams playing in the divisions below them.

Perhaps most importantly, Cox fails to consider the whole picture, completely ignoring the Football League. In doing so, he fails to consider the impact that increased broadcasting of the Premier League may have on the structure of the English game as a whole.

Cox believes that televising more Premier League games "would benefit the clubs with more money to buy greater playing talent, which will then attract more audiences, and would also benefit customers as they have a greater choice of where they can watch a football match".

This in itself is highly assumptive but even so, if this were to happen, surely the already widening gulf between the Premier League and the Football League would increase further and faster.

Premier League clubs would become far richer, meaning that those that are relegated each season would be at such an advantage to the other teams in the Championship that the likelihood of their immediate promotion back into the Premier League would be even greater than at present.

The broadcasting of more Premier League games would also overshadow or replace the Football League games that do get shown live at the current time, decreasing the revenue of Football League clubs and widening the gap between them and the Premier League.

FURTHER PROBLEMS
Furthermore, the study assumes that Sky and ESPN would continue to pay broadcasting fees at the same rate for a larger pool of fixtures, which somewhat ignores the economic law of supply and demand – speaking of which, is Cox quite sure that viewers would continue to watch in the same volume as they do now?

That in turn raises another point. Let's say, for the sake of academic enquiry, all Premier League games are televised. Unless the fixture list is fanned out over the entire weekend to ensure no two games are on simultaneously, wouldn't fans be forced to choose between competing games – probably favouring the teams at the top rather than bottom?

It's difficult to understand why this study has been released now, with the majority of the Premier League seemingly content with the current TV revenue format. When Liverpool’s MD Ian Ayre was recently quoted as proposing dismantling the Premier League’s current collective-bargaining system for overseas TV revenue in favour of individual rights sales, few football figures supported him.

Indeed, Ayre's comments caused such widespread condemnation that he was forced into backtracking, saying he didn't want to end the collective bargaining but wished to change the way the money was distributed. As it stands, overseas revenue is split equally between all 20 teams in the league, with each club receiving £17,926,595 last season, whereas domestic rights are split – 50% distributed equally among the teams, 25% on merit by league position and 25% according to number of appearances.

Premier League: Not half bad?

Although it could distribute its money more fairly among its members (and certainly to clubs outside the division), the Premier League is already the most equitable of Europe’s top divisions, with the ratio for last season's TV revenue between the top club Manchester United and the bottom club Blackpool being 1.54:1.

By that rationale, England’s top division distributes TV revenue with far more equality than some of the other leagues in Europe. The German league – in many ways a model of fairness – distributed twice as much to the top club as the bottom, France's Ligue Un was 3.5:1, Italy's Serie A was 10:1 and Spain's La Liga was 12.5:1.

In terms of equal earnings within the top division, the current system works better than most. There are clearly huge discrepancies between the earning power of Premier League and Football League clubs, but that isn't something Cox's study touches upon at all.

Cox’s doubtlessly diligently researched evidence turns up some intriguing findings. But this study feels fundamentally flawed. While football's finances are always worthy of investigation, you would like to imagine that with the current global recession and financial mismanagement encouraging thousands to protest on the street about fiscal inequality, economists could come up with better suggestions than ways for the elite to protect and increase their income at the expense of others.

Prem Ratings: Ghostbusting Bolton, bubbling Magpies and stuttering Liverpool

2011-11-07T14:22:00Z

Bolton 9
(W 5-0, Stoke H)
The Trotters busted the ghosts of last season's FA Cup semi-final thumping by reversing the score on the side who beat them at Wembley in April. In doing so, they won only their second game in ten. Kevin Davies and Klasnic a handful throughout while Eagles finally looks like he might fulfil his undoubted potential. The winger scored a brace at the weekend and tormented Stoke’s defence all afternoon.

Wolves 8.5
(W 3-1, Wigan H)
O’Hara inspired Wolves to a 3-1 win against bottom-placed Wigan at Molineux. The home side would have scored more were it not for Ali Al-Habsi’s heroics in the Wigan goal. A first win in nine was well-received by Mick McCarthy, who even enjoyed the support of the sometimes hostile Molineux crowd on Sunday. A potentially huge mental boost.

Arsenal 8
(W 3-0, WBA H)
The Gunners cruised to a 3-0 win, with Van Persie again on the scoresheet. The flying Dutchman is the division’s form player this season and added two assists to his goal on Saturday. Elsewhere Ramsey and Arteta impressed in the middle of the park while the welcome return of Thomas Vermaelen produced a clean sheet and a first goal of the season for the defender.

Newcastle 8  
(W 2-1, Everton H)
  Despite having to re-jig their midfield with Tiote still out injured and Cabaye hobbling off after half an hour, Newcastle performed well. They were lucky to take the lead through a Heitinga own-goal but there was nothing lucky about their second, Ryan Taylor slamming home from 30 yards in off the crossbar. The Newcastle bubble remains intact.

Swansea 8
(D 0-0, Liverpool A)
Swansea had goalkeeper Michael Vorm to thank for a point at Anfield, with the Dutchman keeping his fifth clean sheet of the season as Brendan Rodgers’ side frustrated Liverpool. And they had the chances to win the game, with Mark Gower blazing the best of them over the bar. Rodgers will be delighted with a point as Swansea remain in the top half.   

Aston Villa 7.5
(W 3-2, Norwich H)
Agbonlahor was the best player on the pitch at Villa Park this weekend, scoring one and assisting both of Bent’s goals as his side struggled to overcome a resilient Norwich side. Villa looked comfortable going forward through Bent and Agbonlahor but conceding two at home is never ideal. A first win in four eases the pressure on McLeish and moves Villa up to eighth.

Manchester City 7
(W 3-2, QPR A)
Many are running out of superlatives to describe David Silva this season, and despite having a relatively quiet game, his goal in the second half was the best moment in the match. Yaya Toure rose highest to score the winner, and while the three points were the priority, City will be concerned at their record of just one clean sheet in their past seven games, and how much they struggled at the back without the suspended Kompany.

Tottenham 7
(W 3-1, Fulham A)
A Redknapp-less Spurs can count themselves lucky to come away from Craven Cottage with all three points after being outplayed by Fulham. A deflected Bale effort, followed by a fantastic goal from Lennon gave Spurs a 2-0 lead at half-time, but the second half was far less comfortable. Defoe secured the points in the 93rd minute with a firm volley that flew past Schwarzer, meaning Spurs remain in fifth with a game in hand.

Chelsea 7
(W 1-0, Blackburn A)
Frank Lampard scored his fifth goal in five games to give Chelsea the win at Ewood Park. Chelsea were disappointing though, and were fortunate that Blackburn couldn’t finish on a number of opportunities - though the best chance was spurned by Torres at the other end. Chelsea stay in fourth place, ahead of Spurs on goal difference.

Manchester United 6.5
(W 1-0, Sunderland H)
Fergie’s anniversary was celebrated with a 1-0 win at Old Trafford, United old-boy Wes Brown scoring an own-goal to hand his former team all three points. Rooney was again influential in a midfield role, with Welbeck and Hernandez lining up ahead of him. An unbelievable series of saves from Westwood limited the score to 1-0, with Rooney and Evra both having efforts saved late on.

Queens Park Rangers 6
(L 3-2, Manchester City H)
QPR gave City the closest league game of their season so far at Loftus Road. Jay Bothroyd was again on the scoresheet and continues to excel in the absence of Adel Taarabt, while the central midfield partnership of Joey Barton and Alejandro Faurlin fought well against City’s normally dominant midfield. QPR are definitely a club on the rise.

Liverpool 5
(D 0-0, Swansea H)
More dropped points at home for Dalglish’s side. Despite being unbeaten at Anfield, four of those six games have ended draws, including games against newly promoted Swansea and Norwich. Dalglish rightly criticised some of his expensive signings following the game, as Liverpool have now scored just 14 goals in 11 games, the joint 10th worst record in the league.

Fulham 5
(L 3-1, Tottenham H)
A superb second-half performance that included 24 shots on goal was not enough for the Cottagers as their best attacking efforts were thwarted by an inspired performance from Friedel. Zamora and Dembele looked to strike a decent understanding upfront while the midfield duo of Murphy and Sidwell also impressed.

Everton 4.5
  (L 2-1, Newcastle A)
  After going 2-0 down Everton did well to score minutes before half-time after a fine Drenthe cross found an unmarked Rodwell in the Newcastle area. Everton didn’t play badly, they just didn’t create enough clearcut chances, with too great a gap between Louis Saha up front and the midfield behind him. Moyes’ men have now lost five out of their last six league games.

Norwich 4.5
(L 3-2, Aston Villa A)
Norwich are quickly becoming one of the division's most entertaining teams, with their first eleven games yielding 34 goals. Pilkington scored a fantastic free-kick to give the Canaries the lead on Saturday but they were then outclassed by Villa’s in-form strikers. Having conceded six in their last two games it is clear Lambert needs to work on his defence in the weeks to come.

Sunderland 4.5
(L 1-0, Manchester United A)
Bruce has now failed to win in all 18 games he has managed against his mentor, and the manner of this defeat will have been particularly hard to take. Wes Brown’s own goal proved the difference, with Bruce seething that Sunderland were denied a penalty late on. The early loss of Connor Wickham was a blow to the visitors, as the youngster had looked sharp in recent games, and they will hope he does not face a lengthy spell on the sidelines. Sunderland are now 15th, hovering dangerously above the relegation zone.

Blackburn 4
(L 1-0, Chelsea H)
Despite a banner ban at Ewood Park inventive Blackburn fans hired a plane to fly a ‘Kean out’ banner over the ground, and this result will not have helped the beleaguered manager. Yakubu and Hanley both missed easy chances, while Gael Givet also struck the crossbar late on. Blackburn should have got a point from this game against a lacklustre Chelsea side. Their winless streak is now extended to six games.

WBA 4
(L 3-0, Arsenal A)
West Brom looked bereft of ideas going forward at the Emirates despite lining up with a midfield of Thomas, Morrison, Dorrans and Brunt, all creative players. They have started to drift towards the relegation zone after just two wins in their last 8 and Hodgson will look to address this slump during the international break.

Wigan 3
(L 3-1, Wolves A)
Martinez’s men have now lost eight consecutive games, with no other club in the Premier League’s history going on such a run and avoiding relegation. Wigan have a huge task on their hands and could really do with Hugo Rodallega finding some form after the striker endured yet another horrid performance in front of goal.

Stoke 2.5
(L 5-0, Bolton A)
The absence of Etherington, the poor finishing of Crouch and Howard Webb’s refereeing decisions cost Stoke dearly as they were trounced by Bolton. They have now lost in each of the four league games they have played following Europa League fixtures and this defeat also makes it four consecutive losses in the league.

Get more from the December 2011 issue

2011-11-03T10:37:00Z

The December 2011 issue of FourFourTwo (out now) is packed with fascinating features and illuminating interviews, but we know that you want more. Of course you do. And you’re right to demand it.

And here’s your reward: an extra-special blog to accompany (and expand upon) the new issue, with bonus titbits to sate your footballing hunger. Don’t say we don’t love you.

ONE-ON-ONE: PAUL SCHOLES
Paul Scholes, he scores goals. Or at least he did. Once you've finished reading the great man answer YOUR questions, see why his shooting – if not his tackling – was so famed. Think of it as an enhancer for your reading experience; the biscuits to your nice cup of tea.

And, if you like what you just read, browse through our massive compilation of One-on-One interviews on our online archive.

MATA & SILVA EXCLUSIVES
Want to see exactly why Chelsea and Manchester City were so keen to splash their petrodollars on this pair of Spanish tiki-taka-ing fancy dans? It's because they can run the show at the highest level, as these videos show. First, we have David Silva turning defenders into spectators as he dictates play from midfield before skipping past them or playing the perfect pass.

Of course, Mata is pretty tasty himself. He scores goals, he creates goals and already he looks like he might be the missing part of Chelsea's attacking jigsaw. Here are some of his best bits at Valencia, for your eyes only (and anyone else who wants to see some classy football).

And, for good measure and to illustrate our feature on the Premier League's new midfield maestros, here's fellow mini-magician Luka Modric belting one in against Liverpool. Kapow!

And that's not the end of the midfield marvels. See why we can't wait to see 17-year-old Ross Barkley, 18-year-old Larnell Cole and 17-year-old Denis Suarez (No.10 in the third video) unleashed on the Premier League:

ON THE ROAD WITH LIBYA
The Libyan national football team's incredible journey from fighting Gaddafi to qualifying for the Africa Cup of Nations, which FFT follows in person in the new issue, is just part of a sea change in African football. Our blogger Jonathan Fadugba investigates an unusual set of qualifiers, in which the new Cameroon, Nigeria and South Africa are Botswana, Niger and Zambia – plus Libya themselves.

WHY SPAIN WILL DO A SCOTLAND
Now that Levante's grip on the top spot has been prised free by Madrid and Barcelona's crowbar of money, we're back to a two-horse race in La Liga. Is one of the top two leagues in the world in danger of turning into the SPL, with two teams battling it out for supremacy while other teams stop trying and everyone else stops caring? For regular updates on the weird, wonderful and worrying, take a look at our cracking La Liga Loca blog – we've missives from Spain several times a week.

FOOTBALL CLUBS' UNLIKELIEST OWNERS
From professional gamblers to celebrity boob barons, some unusual folk are in charge of football clubs. Which fruitcake owns your team? Find out with our Rich List, 2011-12.

GREAT GOALS RETOLD: GAIZKA MENDIETA
The one-time Middlesbrough man was the architect of Valencia's success at the turn of the century, and he scored a couple of belters in his time with Los Che. See what the man himself makes of his fine effort against Barcelona in the 1998-99 Copa del Rey, and watch the video – and see more Great Goals Retold besides – here.

GAMES THAT CHANGED MY LIFE: NIGEL WINTERBURN
The legendary Arsenal full-back recalls his most memorable matches, from 1983 right up until 1998, and understandably, the Gunners' dramatic 2-0 win at Liverpool to win the 1988-89 First Division title is among the games. Here are the highlights, featuring a tidy free-kick from Winterburn himself to create Arsenal's first (on 4:00).

PERFECT XI: JOHN COLLINS
Once you've read Celtic's first million-pound man picking the ideal team from his former Bhoys, Hibs, Monaco, Everton and Fulham team-mates, take a look at our ever-expanding Perfect XI archive. From George Best to Jamie Carragher, footballing icons' chosen XIs are here.

FOURFOURTWO STATS ZONE
Hey, you. Yes you, reading the ad on page 87. Like the look of FourFourTwo Stats Zone? Then check out the Stats Zone blog, with insight from yours truly and Michael Cox, aka Zonal Marking, the doyen of tactical analysis himself.

FFT TRAVEL: PARIS
So: Paris, eh? City of romance, easily reachable and with PSG, one of the most exciting new teams in Europe, playing there – it doesn't sound like a bad trip for a football fan. But if you don't love the Louvre, take a look at our dozens of football travel guides, to cities and teams alike – and plan your trip now.

PERFORMANCE
Want more than your FourFourTwo Performance pages in the magazine? Have a wander around the Performance website. We have more from Nemanja Vidic, on everything from forming the perfect defensive partnership to bouncing back from criticism.

There's more from James Milner, too, on how to get the best out of training, as well as a multitude of tip-top tactics tutorials and, to go with your new sleep cycle courtesy of the magazine, instruction on what foods help you sleep. Be honest: you weren't expecting cottage cheese on that list, were you?

Like what you see? Subscribe now and nab yourself a special offer!

Scholes unleashed, mini-magicians, Gaddafi, naked marches and Bebeto Jr

2011-11-02T11:34:00Z

The weather’s getting colder and the nights are drawing in, but FourFourTwo is as sizzling as ever. In our brand new December issue, out now, we have exclusive interviews with the Premier League’s hottest Spanish imports, Juan Mata and David Silva, not to mention a fiery, no-holds-barred One-on-One with a little maestro by the name of Paul Scholes...

That’s right: one of England’s finest footballers for a generation, answers your questions on everything from his relationship with Fergie to why England always fail.

The king is dead; long live the king. While Scholes departs, the new stars in town are still those mini-magicians of midfield: the playmakers who take apart an opposition with a sliderule pass. We investigate the phenomenon, and what it means for England.

And who better to explain than the experts themselves? We asked David Silva how he feels about being arguably the best player in the Premier League right now – but still without a guaranteed place in the Spain team.

Meanwhile, in one of our most enlightening ever interviews, we talk to new Chelsea star Juan Mata about...well, everything. Real Madrid, karaoke, his dad being held up in a bank robbery – it’s all here, and all in his own words.

“As a football player, I wasn’t allowed to be on the front line. But in the end, I just took the gun.” Those are the shocking words of Libyan footballer Walid el Kahatroushi – and he’s not alone. FFT travels with Libya to find the incredible truth about a team fighting Gaddafi off the pitch while qualifying for the Africa Cup of Nations on it.

Almost as extraordinary is what lies ahead for Spanish football. With the gap between Real Madrid and Barcelona and the rest of league widening into a chasm, it could all go very wrong for La Liga in the near future. We ask: could Spain 'do a Scotland'?

Stuart Pearce and Hope Powell have been appointed managers of Team GB at the 2012 Olympics, but the arguments rumble on. Don’t be surprised: the British Olympic football team has always been a monumental c**k-up. Read our account of the team’s bizarre history, from upset Celts to rugby-tackling clergymen.

Talking of mistakes, what’s happened to Sheffield? FFT investigates why the Steel City derby between United and Wednesday is taking place in the third tier, and goes along for the (bumpy) ride.

Part five of our youth development series is one of our most fascinating yet: Japan. Find out how the fortunes of an ambitious nation were turned around by an enthusiastic American. They’ll win a World Cup soon, y’know.

But for real craziness, look no further than our dossier on football’s maddest protests. Yellow and green scarves? Pah! We’re talking naked marches, mass graves and lasagne. Now THAT’S sticking it to the man.

And naturally, that’s not all. Also to be found on our glossy pages are an exclusive interview with Welsh captain and the future of Arsenal, Aaron Ramsey, plus interviews with football clubs’ most unlikely owners, from boob barons to professional gamblers.

Want more? Then have our 13 football apps that should exist (Fergie Translator, anyone?), Michel Salgado on how foreigners are killing the Prem, Nemanja Vidic’s tackling masterclass, a Ryan Babel exclusive and the best chants from around the world... EVER. Don’t miss out.

The December 2011 issue of FourFourTwo was brought to you by... Paul Scholes, Freddie Ljungberg, Jamie Carragher, Amir Khan, Danny Wilson, Nemanja Vidic, Paddy Kenny, John Ryan, Shinji Ono, Marcus Bean, Lee Strafford, Ryan Babel, Ken Hodcroft, Michel Salgado, Gary Speed, Kieran Gibbs, Kevin Foley, Aaron Ramsey, Jimmy Quinn, David Silva, Martin Allen, David May, Richard Mantell, Bob Rich, John Collins, Nigel Winterburn, Gaizka Mendieta, James Milner, Juan Mata, Roy Hattersley, Tony ‘The Lizard’ Bloom, the Libyan national team, the saviour of Japanese football and the new star of Flamengo, 17-year-old Bebeto Jr.

Like the sound of all that? Click here to subscribe to the mag now!

Premier Ratings: Arsenal's devastating dismantling and Liverpool's professional job

2011-11-01T15:30:00Z

As 39 more goals fly in across thecountry, Charlie Scott runs the rule over the latest top flight action...

Arsenal 9
(W 5-3, Chelsea A)
Arsenal have now lost just one of their last nine in all competitions, and after this devastating dismantling of Chelsea’s backline they storm into November full of confidence. At the other end concerns surrounding their defence rumble on with the imminent return of Thomas Vermaelen seen as key to the side’s hopes of returning to the Champions League next season.

Tottenham 8.5
(W 3-1, QPR H)
Harry Redknapp’s men were irrepressible at times at White Hart Lane on Sunday with Bale, Lennon and Modric all performing superbly. The club have taken 19 points from their last seven games, a feat only matched by high-flying Manchester City. This win takes them to fifth in the table, behind fourth placed Chelsea on goal difference, yet with one game in hand over their London rivals.

Newcastle 8.5
(W 3-1, Stoke A)
Alan Pardew is performing wonders at Newcastle. There, I said it. Newcastle are now third in the table after starting the season superbly, with Pardew’s summer acquisitions proving inspired buys. Demba Ba took the plaudits with his hat-trick last night, but credit must go to the unfamiliar central midfield pairing of Guthrie and Cabaye, with Cheik Tiote out injured.

Swansea 7.5
(W 3-1, Bolton H)
Swansea continued their unbeaten home record with a comfortable win over Bolton. The visitors’ strike was the first goal scored by an opposition team (and it was an own goal) at the Liberty Stadium this season, a hugely impressive stat for a newly promoted side. Sinclair and Graham were again on the scoresheet as the Swans exploited their extra man following the sending off of Ricardo Gardner shortly after the interval.

Liverpool 7
(W 2-0, West Brom A)
King Kenny’s men ground out a decent win at the Hawthorns without ever really moving out of first gear. An early Charlie Adam penalty and a neat Andy Carroll finish shortly before half-time effectively killed off the contest against a weak West Brom side. This was a professional performance from the Reds, and with Swansea visiting Anfield on Saturday they will look to build on this victory before their visit to Stamford Bridge on the 20th.

Manchester City 7
(W 3-1, Wolves H)
City remain five clear at the top but feel this victory was perhaps not as comfortable as it may have been, having endured a nervy final 15 minutes with 10 men after Vincent Kompany was sent off. An injury-time goal from Johnson sealed the win, yet the game should have been put beyond doubt way before the 91st minute.

Manchester United 7
(W 1-0, Everton A)
This trip to Goodison saw the return of Rooney, not only to his boyhood club but also United’s starting line-up. Having taken the lead through Hernandez midway through the first half, United appeared content to sit on their lead, withstanding a barrage of Everton attacks in the second half. A decent win for the champions, particularly when considering Everton’s impressive second-half performance.

Fulham 6
(W 2-0, Wigan A)
They took the lead completely against the run of play through Dempsey before adding a late second through Dembele. A fortunate win, but a win nonetheless. Martin Jol will hope the distraction of the Europa League does not hamper his side’s league performance.

Aston Villa 6
(D 2-2, Sunderland A)
Stiliyan Petrov’s left foot is a thing of wonder. The Bulgarian added another wonder-strike to his collection this weekend, yet sadly it was not enough to secure his side the win. Sunderland fought back well, with both teams scoring in a frantic final ten minutes. Darren Bent will be cursing his miss late on that could have proved decisive against his former club.

Everton 6
(L 1-0, Manchester United H)
David Moyes was rightly disappointed at his side’s failure to get a point from this game. Everton had 11 shots on target, with Baines hitting the cross-bar with a free-kick and Louis Saha squandering numerous opportunities to score. Currently lying in 16th the Merseyside club could rise as high as 9th if they win their game in hand.

Sunderland 5.5
(D 2-2, Aston Villa H)
Despite the result being decided by a dramatic late equaliser this could well be a turning point in Steve Bruce and Sunderland’s season. Connor Wickham justified the hype on Saturday, tormenting Villa’s backline and beginning to look worthy of his £8.1m price tag. With Sessegnon shining and Wickham finding form Sunderland’s season looks to be on the up.

Blackburn 5
(D 3-3, Norwich A)
Steve Kean will be furious at the final result after watching his team dominate proceedings at Carrow Road. Junior Hoillett continues to impress while Mauro Formica also appears to be finding his feet in the Premiership. They need to start winning, fast, otherwise Kean could well find his P45 arriving in the post any day now.

Wolves 5
(L 3-1, Manchester City A)
Outplayed for large spells, McCarthy’s team did well to trouble City in the second half although they did have the luxury of an extra man for the final stages of the game. Wolves are languishing in 17th place, and will now be firmly looking over their shoulder. There appears a long and frustrating season ahead for McCarthy and his men.

QPR 4.5
(L 3-1, Tottenham A)
Despite standing still and letting Spurs run rings around them in the first half Neil Warnock’s men looked far better in the second 45 mintues. The mercurial Taarabt was rightly hauled off at half-time, with his replacement Jay Bothroyd proving far more of a handful for the Spurs defence, combining well with Jamie Mackie and Shaun Wright-Phillips as QPR looked far more of a threat as the game wore on.

Norwich 4
(D 3-3, Blackburn H)
The Canaries did well to get a point in this game, and that’s about all they did well. Blackburn will rue two dropped points, as Norwich were lucky to get anything from the game. They rescued a draw courtesy of a heavily deflected effort from Bradley Johnson and an extremely fortuitous late penalty that was converted by Grant Holt. Delia’s boys are sitting pretty in 8th.

Wigan 4
(L 0-2, Fulham H)
Rock bottom after 10 games with just one win to their name, Wigan fans must be beginning to think that maybe their time in the top division is finally up. They were much the better side on Saturday yet still lost 2-0. Victor Moses remains a rare ray of light in an increasingly bleak season, but even that may soon be extinguished with some suggesting he may be on his way in January.

West Brom 4
(L 2-0, Liverpool H)
A limp performance from West Brom allowed Liverpool to run out easy winners in this fixture. The Baggies fans were furious when referee Lee Mason chose to award Liverpool a ninth minute penalty and were far from complimentary of the officials’ decision-making for the remaining 81 minutes, perhaps distracting from their own team’s poor performance.

Bolton 3.5
(L 3-1, Swansea A)
Bolton can now count themselves in serious trouble having lost eight of their last nine league games, with their last win coming against Wigan, the only team below them. Fans must be praying for Stuart Holden to return from injury while a return to form for both the Davies boys - Kevin and Mark - would not go amiss.

Stoke 3
(L 3-1, Newcastle H)
Broken Brittania? It would seem so. Despite receiving praise for their home form Stoke are only the 11th best side at home in the Premier League this season - though they have faced rather strong opposition. They failed to cope with a tightly knit Newcastle side, and the pace and athleticism of Demba Ba and Leon Best proved too much for Woodgate, Shawcross and Upson.

Chelsea 3
(L 5-3, Arsenal H)
Andre Villas-Boas apparently hauled his side in for a dressing-down on Sunday following their embarrassing performance against Arsenal this weekend. Petr Cech in particular appears a shadow of his former self, and Villas-Boas will no doubt look to address what appears a crisis of confidence in his squad, starting with his goalkeeper.

Tottenham's defensive odd couple look to forge a partnership

2011-10-28T12:00:00Z

They say opposites attract, and football is no different. The history of the game is littered with successful partnerships consisting of players not cut from the same cloth – be it physically or technically.

Tottenham Hotspur defenders Younes Kaboul and Sebastien Bassong certainly fit that mould. France international Kaboul is big, powerful and superb in the air, while Bassong – who went to last summer’s World Cup with Cameroon, the country of his parents – is nimble, quick and good on the ball.

On the basis of FourFourTwo’s meeting with the pair, Kaboul and Bassong are also two very different characters. The former is enthusiastic, outgoing and jovial, while the latter seems more pensive, calm and quiet.

This difference could well be down to their contrasting fortunes with Spurs this season.

While Kaboul has been widely praised for his composed and rock-solid performances at the back – playing in 12 of Spurs’ 14 competitive matches to date – Bassong has been largely left kicking his heels on the sidelines.

A common sight in recent months: Bassong warms up

The stringing-out of Ledley King’s injury-plagued career has seen Bassong play little over two-and-a-half hours of league football so far this term. And being a regular fixture in Harry Redknapp’s Europa League ‘second string’, last week even captaining them, has done little to quell his dissatisfaction.

“It’s naturally frustrating when you’re not playing week in, week out,” Bassong tells FourFourTwo. “I’m wanting to play week in, week out, so when I get a chance to play I’m trying to make sure I do a good job – that’s what I’m getting paid for, after all. That is what the manager is expecting from me.

“That’s how football is – not everybody in the squad can play every game. There is the starting XI and if you’re not in it you just have to accept it and keep trying your best.

“No matter what happens you can only accept the manager’s decision. I’m not going to lie, for me it’s been very tough at times. I didn’t always understand the [manager’s] choices, as I’d been playing well but still got dropped. But that’s football.”

Tottenham’s recent form has been impressive. The North Londoners have taken 16 points from a possible 18 and steadily rose from the bottom of the Premier League at the end of August to fifth place by mid October.

“We had two bad games against Manchester United and Manchester City, and then it was the [international] break,” Kaboul explains. “We knew we had to come back and start the season again, playing at the level we had last year. We’ve been able to do that and from then on we’ve been doing OK.

“We just need to continue in this way and have the belief that it will take us back into the Champions League next year. That’s what we want.”

Kaboul nets against Manchester City, but Spurs are still well beaten

Spurs recent impressive form combined with Arsenal’s early season struggles has lead to much talk of a ‘shift in the balance of power’ in North London. Could it come to pass?

“I don’t know,” comes Kaboul’s honest reply. “When we’ve played them in the last two years we have been better than them, and it’s about us improving rather than them just getting worse.”

“It’s possible we could finish above them,” add Bassong. “But who knows what could happen? The gap is definitely closing, a few years ago Arsenal were a lot better than Tottenham, but now...”

“Henry is not there,” Kaboul quips.

“...and we have been improving and improving and hopefully we will finish above them this season,” Bassong continues.

In last Sunday’s win at Blackburn, Kaboul and Bassong started a league game together for the first time since April 2010, though on that occasion – a 2-1 victory over Chelsea - Kaboul was deployed at right back. Despite rarely being given the chance to prove themselves in tandem, Bassong believes he and Kaboul could be a successful central defensive partnership.

“We enjoy playing together, but we’ve not had the chance to do it too often. There’s a lot of competition at Tottenham, but I think if we get the chances we can make a good partnership. We understand each other and work well together.”

With Michael Dawson still nursing an Achilles injury, Ledley King struggling with continuing knee problems and William Gallas yet to make an appearance this season after suffering two calf injuries, now is perhaps as good a chance as ever for Kaboul and Bassong to stake a claim for dual starting spots.

Bassong and Kaboul 'hug it out' in training

Their story doesn’t start at White Hart Lane, but instead in the youth system of French football in the early years of the last decade.

“We’ve known each other since we were sixteen,” Kaboul, now 25, reveals. “I was at Auxerre and he was at Clairefontaine and then Metz and we would often play against each other in youth tournaments.

As Kaboul reminisces on his formative years in Burgundy under the tutelage of the legendary Guy Roux, his modern day teammate interjects. “Younes was the biggest fella we ever played against, we’d never forget him – he’s always been a big guy.”

“I was at Clairefontaine with players like [Abou] Diaby and [Hatem] Ben Arfa and it was a really good experience to be in that environment. They taught us the skills you need for football, but also they taught us to love football.”

Through the 90s, France’s elite youth academy has churned out such players as William Gallas, Nicolas Anelka and Thierry Henry. While England’s Lilleshall centre was shut down in 1999 in favour of club academies – many of which began to recruit from overseas – Clairefontaine continues to develop top level players.

“Having an elite academy like that in this country it would really help English football,” says Kaboul. “Maybe even two – why not one in Manchester, one in London?”

Of course, England will soon once again have a centralised elite academy in Burton, and Bassong speaks from experience when he says its opening cannot come soon enough.

“Let [the young players] focus on football, always,” the defender reasons. “We would have school in the morning and then football in the afternoon. But we lived for football – we always thought about football and how to be better. The environment was built for this.”

The lengthy queue for the London Eye didn't please the Spurs duo...

That’s the long term future of English football sorted, then. But what of the shorter term?

Spurs manager Harry Redknapp has been widely touted as the man to succeed Fabio Capello as England coach when the Italian steps down following next summer’s European Championships in Poland and Ukraine. Is this something that the defensive duo have spent much time thinking about?

“No, we’re not English!” The pair quickly chuckle in reply. But they’re only half-joking.

“If he gets the job, good for him,” Bassong reasons. “If he can get the job and he wants it, then what can you say? Do we worry about it? Not really.”

More immediately, Tottenham face a Queens Park Rangers side on a high having just beaten West London rivals Chelsea for the first time in 16 years.

Neil Warnock’s team have shown signs of improvement since Tony Fernandes arrived in Shepherd’s Bush in the dying days of the summer transfer window and allowed Neil Warnock the finances to invest heavily in his squad.

“They seem to be a strong team,” says Kaboul. “With the teams that have just come up you never know what will happen. They can beat Manchester United one week and then lose the next. But it’s the same as any game in the Premier League for us – we have to be prepared and concentrate 100 percent.”

And that could be the key to Spurs’ hopes of returning to the Champions League. Not since 2006/07 have Spurs taken nine points from their three home matches against the newly promoted clubs. After all, the 19 points dropped to last season’s bottom five were ultimately what cost the North Londoner’s an immediate return to Europe’s elite cup competition.

NEWS Visit FFT's Tottenham Hotspur club page

Kaboul and Bassong were playing Battlefield 3, out now on Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC. For more information visit www.battlefield3.com/uk . For the latest news. Visit facebook.com/battlefield3 and follow @battlefield3 on Twitter.

Rovers fans right to want rid of Kean, the David Brent of the Premier League

2011-10-26T13:18:00Z

When Steve McClaren was the England manager, he was in a perpetual struggle with the size of the task entrusted to him.

He failed to adjust to the pressure placed upon him and was incapable of adapting to the constant focus he received. McClaren had taken for granted that he had the ability to do the job and, in a bid to regain some control, used empty, clichéd rhetoric such as "I'm a winner” and “when their backs are against the wall, English players will fight to the end”.

It's a similar situation to that currently unravelling (there can be no more appropriate a word) at Blackburn Rovers, only this time the protagonist is Steve Kean.

Only last weekend Kean said: "Look at Fergie and Redknapp and how they turned things around. I know I can do that."

What he overlooks is that Harry Redknapp, at Tottenham Hotspur, inherited a squad that was struggling and drastically changed their fortunes and league position and while Sir Alex Ferguson may have once been under pressure at Manchester United, they'd been underachieving before he ever got there.

Kean, however, last season almost relegated a Blackburn side that had previously look destined for mid-table. The contrast truly couldn't be greater and thus his argument carries the weight of a Championship jockey.

Under Sam Allardyce – and with a poorer squad – Blackburn regularly fulfilled their ambition of Premier League survival and did so with relative ease. Now, under Kean - and boosted with the additions of Scott Dann, Mauro Formica and possibly Yakubu - they are the worst team in the league.

Blackburn’s fans, refreshingly, are not known for their unrealistic expectations – unlike at Newcastle United, Allardyce's exit was never their making – but they know that prolonging Kean's stay severely risks their Premier League status.

Kean, like McClaren, speaks with not so much a whiff but an overpowering stench of 'he doth protest too much'. His public positivity - not indifferent to David Brent's – has the subtlety of a Rory Delap throw-in and is as desperate as it is unconvincing.

"I see myself as a friend first, entertainer second, and football manager third..."

In reality Kean fools no-one – save, discernibly, Blackburn’s owners, Venky's – and merely serves to infuriate those who want a reality check at a club who claim to have targeted the signatures of Diego Maradona, Ronaldinho and Raul in recent months.

“For us to control as much possession as we did and create that many chances, I think we have got to give ourselves a pat on the back.” Blackburn had just lost 2-1 at home against a below-par Tottenham to go bottom of the league, yet Kean maintains a positive stance – a moment of blind optimism if ever there was one.

Kean says what he believes he should say, not what he wants to. He’s all too aware of the fact he was fortunate to be appointed manager and his consequent reluctance simply enhances the view that Blackburn are continuing their practice in pretence.

“Even the ones I didn’t bring to the club I consider my players. I’ll take the criticism on my shoulders and take it away from them.” Another blatant attempt at a model managerial aphorism and another that fails to disguise the severity of the situation.

Countless managers are prepared to take pressure for their players or to divert it elsewhere. What they don’t do is talk about it or seek praise for doing so. Saying this, earlier in the season, is an acknowledgement on Kean’s part of the failings of his team – for which he is responsible – but a reminder that he is still capable of doing the bare minimum.

The greatest managers in the game possess both a natural authority and conviction – Kean has neither. Like McClaren, he appears to be fighting an inner doubt – an acceptance that he’s out of his depth – and hopes that, by some stroke of fortune, saying the right thing will somehow make him appear responsible if his players can only find it within themselves to excel and drive his side out of trouble.

Blackburn were once one of the finest run clubs in the league. Under Mark Hughes they worked judiciously, signing Christopher Samba and Ryan Nelsen, making vast profits on David Bentley, Roque Santa Cruz and Stephen Warnock and overachieving with their league finishes.

Now, under the ownership of Venky’s – to whom they were sold amid fears of not being able to sustain their existence in the top flight – they are a directionless, soulless and ignominious club, a cruel irony to suffer for the fans of this once-proud small-town side.

Like McClaren, Kean’s best role may not be as a manager, juggling numerous strains, but as a coach in the relative comfort zone of the training pitch and away from the unforgivable, omnipresent public glare.

And, like McClaren, Kean seems destined to undergo a painful, public decline as his team falls to depths previously unimagined by those who appointed him before his role ruthlessly reaches its ungraceful conclusion.

Gone are the days of Shearer and Sutton, of Wilcox and Sherwood and of Flowers and Hendry. Blackburn’s fans know it but their manager and owners appear unaware.

Southampton, Sheffield Wednesday, Charlton Athletic and Coventry City are just four of the clubs who have plunged to greater depths after relegation from the Premier League. Under Kean, Blackburn look set to join them.

In the day when football fans wrongfully refuse to back their manager because of irrational expectation levels, Blackburn’s fans are the exception to the rule. They know a good manager when they see one, and they know that Kean has to go.

Follow Declan Warrington on Twitter @decwarrington

Heroes & Villains: Balotelli, booing and other less popular things

2011-10-24T15:30:00Z

As the delightfully bonkers 2011/12 season countinues to rumble on in Premier League town, FourFourTwo's James Maw names the super stars and ne'er do wells of match day nine...

HEROES  

Manchester City 
Well yes, obviously.  In his programme notes for Sunday’s game, Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson described City counterpart Roberto Mancini’s handling of Tevezactinglikeadouchebag-gate as "a master class in management". What Ferguson didn’t realise was that the Italian’s tutorial was still in session. 
City’s emphatic win at Old Trafford could be the most symbolic result in the recent history of English football – as clear a sign as could be imagined of the much-discussed shift in power. City’s players showed the kind of unity, workrate and relentlessness that have served their city rivals well over the past two decades.
The Tevez affair, which for a brief moment looked like derailing City’s entire ‘project’, has instead galvanised the manager, fans and seemingly the bench-dwelling Argentine’s team-mates. The widely-predicted selfishness and mutiny haven't spread, and instead Tevez has been ostracised, isolated and made an example of. City’s stars know that if they don’t pull their weight and toe the party line, a similar fate will be theirs.
Even Mario Balotelli, long tipped to explode, has kept his head down (on the pitch, at least). Player, team and club are feeling the full benefit – and the rest of the league is looking up at an outfit  as awe-inspiring yet daunting as the madcap garb Balotelli is likely to don come Halloween...

Norwich
"Playing without fear", "a breath of fresh air", "Stephen Fry supports them, dontchaknow?"...
Yes, yes, yes – everybody loves Norwich at the moment, just like everybody loved Blackpool in the first half of last season, and Hull in the first half of 2008/09. While Paul Lambert is certain not to develop into as big an attention-seeking irritant as Phil Brown or Ian Holloway, his team are likely to face a similar sticky period to those suffered by the Tigers and Tangerines in their debut Premier League seasons; how they deal with it will be decisive in deciding whether they will suffer their third successive Premier League relegation.
But the signs so far are hugely positive. Unlike Hull and Blackpool, Norwich’s early success hasn’t been built entirely on catching out inattentive rivals with aesthetically pleasing football. Lambert’s side know when it’s time to dig deep and show a little pragmatism, which is exactly what they did at Anfield on Saturday evening.
Having weathered something of a Liverpool storm with only one goal conceded, the Canaries battled back through the power and commitment of Grant Holt, who thumped a header past Pepe Reina to level the scores. Keeper John Ruddy, meanwhile, was superb throughout, though it was his full-stretch 95th minute save from Luis Suarez that made headlines, denying the Uruguayan a certain winner and securing the point for the Norfolk side.

Yoann Cabaye
The midfielder took his tag of Newcastle talisman to the next level by scoring the winning goal in a match his side largely stuttered through and largely looked far from certain to win. The Frenchman’s first Premier League goal was certainly a timely one, and the three points keep Toon’s unlikely push for a Champions League spot rumbling on, for the time being at least. If Alan Pardew’s side are to continue their impressive form, they will need Cabaye to keep performing to the same level for months to come.

Robin van Persie
Arsenal were only able to avoid another Monday-morning inquest by throwing on their half-fit skipper against a Stoke side who have often frustrated the Gunners in recent years. While Arsene Wenger may be concerned his side needed the Dutchman’s intervention to see off a side seemingly suffering from another post-Europe hangover, he should be glad to have the striker at his disposal, as without him the Gunners look a rather average side.

Rafael van der Vaart
Van Persie wasn’t the only Netherlands international to score twice on Sunday, with compatriot Van der Vaart netting both Spurs’ goals in a 2-1 victory at Ewood Park. So it was double double Dutch. Or quadruple Dutch. Or something.  

VILLAINS 

Manchester United’s defence 
Roberto Mancini’s side were of course superb, but the margin of victory wasn’t entirely down to their own attacking verve. Was it, Jonny Evans?
It would be harsh to lay full blame for their pummelling at the hands of City at the Ulsterman’s door, but there’s no denying the tide of the match turned on the moment of madness that saw the United defender red-carded for hauling down Mario Balotelli in what can only be described as brainless fashion. 
From that point onwards, United’s defence – already missing Nemanja Vidic – was all at sea. Their haphazardness was perhaps best summed up by City’s fourth.
Rio Ferdinand gave away a needless corner, then failed to track Edin Dzeko when Joleon Lescott knocked the ball back across goal, leaving the Bosnian with a simple tap-in. That was the first of four minutes of added time; City created four more clear chances in the time remaining, two of which resulted in further goals. 
The most worrying thing for United fans will be the way heads dropped once all hope looked lost rather than battling to the bitter end – they won’t have seen that too often over the last 20 years.  

Phil Dowd & Darren Cann 
There’s no getting round it, the dismissal of Aston Villa’s Chris Herd was as inexplicable a refereeing decision as has been made in the Premier League all season – and that's no mean feat. The official line is that Herd stamped on West Brom’s Jonas Olsson, though replays appeared to show little if any malice, and even less contact.  

Alan Hutton 
But Villa shouldn’t complain too strongly about Herd’s red, as defensive cohort Hutton should really have been forced into a premature appointment with his rubber duckie and a bottle of Matey. The Scot unleashed a ‘full-blooded’ tackle – a cute little euphemism for a reckless attack that could have resulted in a serious injury – on West Brom’s Shane Long, before having another nibble at the same player a few moments later.

  Bobby Zamora 
The England striker’s 89th-minute miss at 1-1 cost Fulham the chance to pocket three points from a match they would ultimately lose. Zamora kept his composure in brushing the ball past Tim Howard, then suffered from a rush of blood to the head with the empty net gaping, bending the ball past the far post. Seventy seconds later, Louis Saha had put Everton back in front.
Given he’s something of a confidence player, it will be intriguing to see how Zamora reacts to his glaring miss.

Asmir Begovic
With the Candian-come-Bosnian making an impressively solid start to the season between the sticks for Stoke, it was something of a surprise to see him beaten by two shots most top flight keepers would expect to gather. Yet both of Robin van Persie’s second-half strikes were relatively tame, and neither was placed out of the keeper’s reach.

Wolves boo-boys
 While they could be forgiven for going into Saturday’s clash with Swansea under an ugly cloud of apprehension given their side had just lost five league games on the bounce, the tetchy, impatient and aggressive atmosphere created by a number of Wolves fans during the match was hardly conducive to inspiring a turnaround in fortunes. 
Even before Danny Graham’s 23rd-minute opener, the locals were getting on their team’s collective back, pouncing on every misplaced pass and perceived lack of urgency. In reality, Mick McCarthy’s side were merely feeling their way into the game. Quickfire goals from Graham and Joe Allen saw the Welsh outfit surge into a 2-0 lead, and caused the atmosphere outside the away end to turn viciously sour.
The moaning and groaning of the first half was followed largely by silence in the second. Even after Kevin Doyle narrowed the deficit with six minutes remaining, it was the travelling fans that were most audible.
All the more galling, then, to hear the Molineux faithful bate the Swans fans following Jamie O’Hara’s unlikely equaliser. “You’re not singing any more” crowed large numbers of the home support, without a hint of irony. Sigh.

Premier Ratings: City dare to believe as Chelsea & United endure hell

2011-10-24T07:30:00Z

FourFourTwo.com's Christopher Cox runs his eye over the weekend's efforts in the Premier League...

Manchester City – 10
(Man Utd A, W 6–1)
Quite extraordinary, thoroughly deserved and highly entertaining. All hail the Premier League champions elect? This was without question the most momentous result in the Premier League for quite some time and one that was a joy to watch. Silva, Balotelli, Dzeko and Aguero lit up the Manchester derby (no jokes about Balotelli’s bathroom, please) and they’ve put smiles on the face of just about every neutral in the land. City don't have to dare to dream anymore. They can dare to believe.

Queens Park Rangers – 8
(Chelsea H, W 1–0)
Have QPR played a part in the most pivotal weekend of the 2011-12 season to date? Their pressing game prevented Chelsea from playing their usual fluid and flowing football in the first half, the one that ultimately counted. Barton looked every inch the perfect captain, his decision to take the ball off of Taarabt prior to the penalty paid off for a huge three points.

Sunderland – 8
(Bolton A, W 2–0)
This huge win for Sunderland will ease the pressure on Steve Bruce, though realistically it was a game that could have gone either way. The victory was a timely one - being just the fifth the Black Cats have mustered in their last 23 league outings. Eight out of ten for the magnitude of this result and the potential for it to be a turning point. Perhaps we’ll see more of the prodigious Connor Wickham in the coming weeks, too.

Norwich – 7.5
(Liverpool A, D 1–1)
A result Canaries fans will be rightly proud of. They’ve not been overawed by the ‘big teams’ this season and it’s as good a draw as they’ll get all season, especially given how Liverpool rallied late on. This result is another confidence booster and Norwich look almost certain to stay up if performances and results continue in this vein – what a set of saves by keeper John Ruddy, too.

Everton – 7
(Fulham A, W 3–1)
It’s hard to see Everton winning all that many games on the road this season – they only managed four last term – so this will have gone down very well with the club‘s rather concerned fanbase. At times the Everton defence was like the Alamo as Fulham rained in shots and duly got their equaliser. It could have been worse had Zamora not missed a sitter, but Saha and Rodwell’s late late strikes provide a fortunate yet welcome three points.

Arsenal – 7
(Stoke H, W 3–1)
Arsenal’s record against Stoke may be horrible, but Van Persie’s in front of goal is fantastic. A good win for the Gunners, but they need to learn how to score without their captain. Positives? Fourth place is up for grabs again based on this performance, but results like this need to keep coming. As for negatives, look no further than Chamakh – lazy, tepid and just not a very ‘Arsenal’ player.

Tottenham Hotspur – 7
(Blackburn A, W 2–1)
Job done. Van der Vaart was in scintillating form and Spurs have averaged two points per game, a record which, should it continue, will put Harry Redknapp‘s side in a very strong position in the race for a top four spot. They took the opportunities presented to them on the Ewood Park pitch and off it – with Liverpool only drawing, this was a good weekend for the men from White Hart Lane.

West Brom – 7
(Aston Villa A, W 2–1)
The talking points will be Alan Hutton’s tackle and Chris Herd’s red card, not the Baggies’ win, which is unfortunate. Hard-fought wins like this point toward a mid-table finish for Roy Hodgson’s men, and full credit to them for capitalising on the opportunity presented to them. A good win and their first at Villa Park since Art Garfunkel’s ‘Bright Eyes’ was number one in the hit parade…

Newcastle – 7
(Wigan H, W 1-0)
It took 81 minutes to come but their fans won’t mind. Newcastle knocked on the door throughout the game against lowly Wigan and they’ve now cemented their place as a top half team. Measures of a good team include grinding out results, finding that goal from somewhere just as it looks as thought all hope is lost and beating the underdogs when required to do so. Newcastle met all those requirements on Saturday.

Swansea – 6
(Wolves A, D 2–2)
Not a result Swans fans will look back on fondly, but the performance was certainly impressive. It was all going swimmingly, with Vorm playing the game of his life, another goal for ‘Golden’ Graham and a 2-0 lead that looked unassailable - but they then blew it against a side who had looked awful at best for most of the 90 minutes. A worrying sign, not least in a match against a potential relegation rival.

Wolves – 5.5
(Swansea H, D 2–2)
For a long time it looked as though Mick McCarthy’s men were in trouble – as was the man himself, with boos ringing around Molineux owing to some ‘interesting’ substitutions. Wolves were abysmal and yet somehow got the two goals to level it up but this is by no means a bright new dawn for Wolves. It‘s probably fair to say they papered over the cracks with their point rather than building towards anything solid.

Liverpool – 5.5
(Norwich H, D 1–1)
While Liverpool are ambitious, it doesn’t look as though this season will be the one where they get back into the top four. This wasn’t as bad a result as, say, their loss to Wolves last season, but it may have a brought back a few bad memories of the Hodgson era for some Reds fans. You don’t qualify for the Champions League without winning home games against sides outside the elite, so a draw against a newly promoted team is no good to them.

Aston Villa – 5
(West Brom H, L 2–1)
On paper Villa had the better team, but this reign of Alex McLeish seems to be defined by the club’s continuing run of below par performances and underwhelming results. Villa are in a rut and losing to West Brom at home will be seen as unacceptable by the club‘s fans. With five of last season’s top six coming up in the next ten matches, could things be set to get worse before they get better?

Wigan – 5
(Newcastle A, L 1-0)
Only losing 1–0 is almost an achievement for Wigan these days, especially when facing a side in as ruthless form as Newcastle are at present. It seems nothing has changed since that final day relegation decider last season, and it feels like light-years since those euphoric scenes at the Britannia. How they will regret Rodallega’s missed chance in the first half…

Fulham – 5
(Everton H, L 3-1)
A winnable fixture and for most of the game Fulham played as if they would take at least something, with the Cottagers creating several chances to put themselves in front. Bryan Ruiz’s audacious chip will have inspired the Craven Cottage faithful but it was a completely false dawn. Seven points from nine games isn’t good enough, nor were their squandered opportunities. There is a slight bit of hope on the horizon – Wigan away up next...

Stoke - 5
(Arsenal A, L 3–1)
Maybe the good old days of Arsenal being intimidated by Stoke are over, maybe they suffered from hard luck due to an inspired substitution. Either way, Stoke lost 3–1 at the Emirates which in itself is hardly humiliating, though Tony Pulis will be concerned his side once again fell short following a midweek European match. Still, another goal from Crouch proved just how good a signing he is.

Bolton – 4
(Sunderland H, L 2–0)
What is going on at the Reebok? Answers on a postcard please, as it’s baffling stuff. Following last weekend’s success over Wigan, you’d have tipped Bolton to record back-to-back wins due to Sunderland’s equally poor start to the season. Is this a sinking ship? Owen Coyle is constantly praised for having a commendable ‘footballing philosophy‘, but has he met his match? Can he show strength in a relegation battle…?

Blackburn Rovers – 4
(Tottenham H, L 2–1)
How long can Rovers stick with Steve Kean? In truth, it’s surprising he’s lasted this long. The league table tells you all you need to know, five points from nine games, one win and five defeats. The ineptitude of sides around them is the only thing preventing them from being completely cut adrift.

Chelsea – 3
(QPR A, L 1–0)
Horrific. David Luiz, Jose Bosingwa and Dider Drogba let their team down in quite some fashion at Loftus Road. Luiz has looked defensively shaky in recent weeks and giving away the penalty wouldn’t have helped his confidence. Bosingwa showed glimpses of his Ancelotti-era self with a clumsy tug on Shaun Wright-Phillips that drew a red card, while Drogba’s tackle and sending off was a result of his sheer frustration at being isolated up front. Bouncing back from this will be Villas-Boas’ first real test.

Manchester United – 1
(Man City H, L 6–1)
There can’t be many weekends when you see a one out of ten rating for the champions, but this is deserved – it may well have been zero were it not for Darren Fletcher’s goal. A horrendous result for United, who rang the changes - as they had done at Liverpool - and they again paid the price. Evans’ dismissal shouldn’t be an excuse for the margin of defeat - United looked stale with 11 men and those left on the pitch looked largely disinterested.

Weekender: Pots, Pearce and the Grim Reaper

2011-10-21T14:36:00Z

1) Young guns fire at old pots
Arsenal hosting Stoke this weekend pits the Premier League’s greenhorns against its gnarly old veterans. Averaging 24 years of age, Arsenal have started 13 different players under the age of 21 so far this season – while Tony Pulis has yet to start a single under-21 so far, the only Premier League manager to do so. Then again, Stoke are sprightly wet-ears compared to Levante, who last weekend fielded the oldest team in la Liga history: nine of starting XI were over 30 and the back five alone totalled 170. The club doctor has put the side's good start down to pizza and beer.
LA LIGA LOCA Levante's special snacks

2) Tricky Dicky Nixon: Man City's derby dominator
It's hardly Any Given Sunday or Braveheart, but ahead of their Old Trafford trip this weekend Roberto 'Bobby Manc' Mancini could be forgiven for showing his Manchester City players the recently televised film Frost/Nixon. Something about Richard Nixon seemed to inspire City to Mancunian dominance: from the moment he ran for US President in early 1968 to his shamed resignation in August 1974, City triumphed on six out of seven visits to Manchester United – but since Nixon left office, they've only one there once…
VIDEO VAULT Fifty years of Manchester derbies
NEW ISSUE The Battle of Manchester plus much more

3) Pass and move, pass and move…
All hail Bradley Johnson. The recent England call-up the only Premier League midfielder to have covered 12km or more in every game he has played, but he's not just a roadrunner: he is also the top passer at Norwich this season with 343, a whacking 72 more than any other Canary. And that, folks, is how you pass and move from non-league loanee to international recognition within five years.
STATS ZONE Like statistics? You'll love Stats Zone, from FFT & Opta

4) Pearce: not a tournaments man?
Never one to shy away from a challenge, Team GB's Olympic football boss Stuart Pearce may need to sharpen up his tournament record. Despite leading England to three U21 European Championships in his time as boss, Pearce has mustered just four wins from 12 games at the finals, and one of those required penalties. The U21s did reach the 2009 final, but that ended in the tournament's biggest ever final defeat as England were swept aside by a rampant Germany: sound familiar?
INTERVIEW Stuart Pearce One on One: "I was a nautical tw*t, probably"

5) They could've come in a taxi…
For Man City fans this Champions League lark is all fresh and exciting, but it's less of a draw for Villarreal. City fans have snapped up all 1,400 tickets for their forthcoming Champions League trip to Spain's east coast but when the sides clashed in Manchester this week, Villarreal brought a mere 17 fans. Maybe, despite their Anglophile nickname El Submarino Amarillo (the Yellow Submarine), they just don't like English clubs: after all, Villarreal's last two Champions League campaigns have been ended by Arsenal, in the 2006 semi-final and 2009 quarter-final.
FFT TRAVEL GUIDE Villarreal, Valencia & Spain's east coast

Be an England mascot
Fancy walking out with the Three Lions lot before the Spain friendly next month? (NB: only seven- to 11-year-olds need apply)
See all competitions

Despite league starts strong enough to impel pundits to say "two-horse race", Manchesters City and United were still seeking their first Champions League victories. Both had to sweat before sealing three points – United through two Wayne Rooney penalties at Otelul Galati, City at home to Villarreal courtesy of a last-gasp Sergio Aguero strike after some nifty work from James Milner.

On Wednesday, headlines heralded two astonishing things. Firstly, £50m frontman Fernando Torres SCORED TWO GOALS as Chelsea mercilessly slapped Genk around for an hour and a half (winning 5-0 in the process). Not only that, but Arsenal WON A GAME AGAINST SOMEBODY HALF DECENT thanks to Aaron Ramsey's last-minute strike in Marseille. Less surprising was the sexy opener scored by Andres Iniesta in Barcelona's win over supermodel soundalike Viktoria Plzen.

Meanwhile, in the Championship, table-toppers Southampton improved their chances of back-to-back promotions followed by a speedy relegation with a 1-0 win over closest chasers West Ham, while Steve Cotterill's Forest debut was a 2-0 win over previously unbeaten Middlesbrough, achieved with neither brolly nor cod-Dutch accent.

Then in Thursday's not-at-all-anticlimactic Europa League action, Spurs overcame Rubin Kazan, Birmingham won at Club Brugge, Celtic drew at Rennes, Fulham were beaten by Wilsa Krakow and Stoke won 3-0 against Maccabi Tel-Aviv, who went down to 10 men after defender Yoan Ziv made did a Fergie and comically hoofed a boot at the linesman.

Stats Zone: Tactical preview: Could Clichy help City shackle Nani?

Spain: La Preview: Ronaldo losing killer instinct

Jon Champion: Liverpool struggle to accommodate Carroll

Fan's Eye View: Curly captain Coloccini leading Newcastle to success

Italy: Juventus nearing end of an era as Del Piero gets his curtain call

Holland: Great pretenders Heerenveen seek to climb back into contention

Euro 2012: Ending the argument – why Wayne Rooney must go

Italy: The history of the 'perfect' 0-0 draw

More features uploaded every day at http://fourfourtwo.com/blogs/

Why Premier League greed will kill the Football League – and England

The Grim Reaper was welcomed in by the Football League this week. Under financial pressure from the Premier League, who threatened to remove their vital annual £5m youth development funding, the 72 clubs voted to overhaul the academy system as part of the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP).

Unveiled in January by Sir Trevor Brooking and passed by Premier League clubs in June, the EPPP aims to revolutionise youth football but could rip the heart out of the Football League, leaving teams that consistently produce quality youngsters, such as Crewe Alexandra and Crystal Palace, with very little to show for their endeavours.

Currently, tribunals set compensation for players under the age of 17; this week, Chelsea paid MK Dons £1.5m rising to £2m for 14-year-old Oluwaseyi Ojo. Under the EPPP, standardised compensation will mean that big clubs can buy any under-17 footballer they like for well under than £200,000 – reducing trickle-down economics to a barely dripping tap.

Compensation is higher for better academies, which will now be stratified with the top category costing £2.5m per year and requiring 18 full-time staff. Even outside a recession, there aren't many Football League clubs able to afford that – especially if to cover costs, they would have to sell 20 top-rated 17-year-olds every single season.

If (or rather when) this leads to the closing of many Football League academies, the EPPP becomes counter-productive by significantly reducing the number of players coming through academies. Only those players deemed good enough in their early teens by the big clubs will survive; the others, previously picked up by smaller clubs, will drift out of football altogether.

So there'd be no academies to produce Ashley Young (Watford), Joe Hart (Shrewsbury), Chris Smalling (Millwall), Darren Bent (Ipswich), Gareth Barry (Brighton), Kyle Walker (Sheffield United) and Leighton Baines (Wigan, after being released by Liverpool at 17) – not to mention all the players produced by the excellent academies at Middlesbrough and Southampton, whose jewels would be snatched for far less than the recent going rates.

The days of seeing the local boy make his debut, or getting that shiver down your spine as you see a 17-year-old talent for the first time on a wet and windy night at Gresty Road or Selhurst Park, may well be over. The Reaper is on his way to your club, and it would appear you have little choice but to open the door and welcome him in.

– Aaron Cox, FourFourTwo.com writer

Read the full feature here

We're busily transferring over 15 years of FFT interviews to our online archive. Among the 400 we've uploaded so far:

"I've got nothing against the Neils of this world"
Ask a Silly Question, Mar 2010: Shaka Hislop

"The last thing you need is an overlapping full-back"
Perfect XI, Sep 2009: Denis Irwin

"I was hard but fair. Well, maybe not fair at times"
One on One, Jan 2003: Stuart Pearce

This Weekender was brought to you by Gary Parkinson, James Maw, Gregg Davies, Huw Davies, Aaron Cox, Adam Williams, Will Dalton and the goshdarned M4

Ending the argument: Why Wayne Rooney must go to Euro 2012

2011-10-19T13:45:00Z

As Wayne Rooney returns to making headlines for the right reason with two Champions League goals against Otelul Galati, Declan Warrington explains why the Manchester United star must be included in Fabio Capello's squad for Euro 2012, despite his three-match ban...

Within Fabio Capello’s current mess there exists a wider dysfunction: an over-reliance upon individuals, a lack of a Plan B and an inherent lack of character.

The confirmation, then, that Wayne Rooney is suspended for the Euro 2012 group stages has potentially devastating consequences.

England are already a side with the flexibility and predictability of a freight train. Removing their best player - one of the few with a capricious quality to his play - suddenly strips them of the last dregs of spontaneity that could just conjure a first tournament highlight since Euro 2004.

Succeeding in international football entails navigating a process of fine lines and small percentages. The ability to create something above and beyond that of a mere mortal can make the crucial difference and quite rightly ensures the likes of Paul Gascoigne and Dennis Bergkamp are firmly written into the annals of tournament football history. Rooney, far more than any other England player, has the ability to join them.

The arguments against his inclusion are as futile as they are mystifying. If England are to have any chance of reaching the semi-finals - a genuine achievement if not lofty ambition - Rooney has to be involved. Those arguments are based on the concept that a squad place would be wasted and therefore better served by a striker who can be picked for the first three games, an argument that may have substantial substance were it not for England's shortage of genuine forward options.

At Euro 96, Terry Venables opted to select Alan Shearer, Teddy Sheringham, Robbie Fowler and Les Ferdinand, leaving out Andy Cole, Peter Beardsley, Stan Collymore, Chris Sutton and Ian Wright. Fabio Capello has no such luxury.

In Danny Welbeck, Daniel Sturridge, Theo Walcott and Andy Carroll, England have promise and potential, but little more. Darren Bent is a prolific domestic goalscorer but still unproven at the highest level, Jermain Defoe isn't a Tottenham regular and Peter Crouch is clearly not to Capello's liking.

Consequently it can be safely assumed that Capello will include four strikers in his final squad. Bent is currently in pole position to be one, Welbeck and Carroll - who Capello has admitted to liking - are likely to be two more. Sturridge looks set to have the biggest future of that group but he doesn't provide a drastically different option to either Bent or Welbeck, making Rooney the outstanding candidate for the fourth spot (with Walcott likely to go as a winger, rather than central striker).

For Capello, being limited to three strikers represents risking England's chances of advancing beyond their group. Ignoring this isn't something that comes naturally to the Italian's deep-rooted conservatism - his reputation has been built upon successes achieved by trusting experienced, reliable performers instead of gambling on the promise and captivations of youth – but it’s a calculated gamble given Rooney’s standing as a player within the context of viable alternatives.

With Rooney's inclusion comes the experience of two World Cups, a European Championship, three Champions League finals and seven full seasons at one of club football's elite.

Beyond his on-pitch qualities is his popularity within the England squad - a player adored for his enthusiasm for the game and for entertaining others is one that cannot be instantly dismissed within the monotonous restrictions of Camp Capello. Therein also lays the possibility that this figure - a victim of UEFA’s harsh punishment - could incite among his team-mates an inner anger at a perceived injustice and nurture a siege mentality from which they could grow.

Ultimately, England’s manager finds himself in an unenviable ‘catch 22’ of prodigious proportions. Leaving Rooney at home would mean any failure beyond the group stage would be blamed upon his absence - taking him, however, means any failures will likely be attributed to the distractions of his presence.

If it is as a team unit that England’s greatest problems become apparent - sterile, passionless, joyless football, bereft of invention and technical prowess - then removing Rooney, the driven playground footballer and a technician of the very highest caliber, is an exercise in exacerbation.

There was a time when it was wrongly assumed one player could make all the difference for England. In 2002 and 2006, broken metatarsals ensured panic-stricken build-ups to two World Cups when the potential absence of an individual - first David Beckham and then Rooney – was thought to denote the end of any English hopes.

Then, England had a stronger side and others with the ability to compensate - Scholes and Owen in 2002, Gerrard or Lampard four years later. Now, with Wilshere’s fitness a doubt and Gerrard’s decline regrettably debatable, Rooney’s importance is unparalleled.

An injury against Portugal in 2004 stole his international equilibrium and it has yet to be recovered. Rooney has work to do at this level - he has to be given a chance to do it.

Follow Declan Warrington on Twitter @decwarrington

Heroes & Villains: EPL highlights and horror shows

2011-10-17T11:36:00Z

Another Premier League weekend, another pantomime parade of goodies and baddies. Mark Booth cheers and boos

HEROES

Anthony Pilkington
It will have felt like a long international break for Anthony Pilkington. Having missed a golden opportunity to put his side 1-0 up at Old Trafford a fortnight ago, Pilkington got to work on the training ground – and it paid off with a double salvo against fellow newly-promoted side Swansea. The first goal, after just 49 seconds, was particularly clinical with Pilkington hitting it on the turn to end his sleepless nights. Vital in securing the Canaries' third win of the season.

Bolton Wanderers
Cause for optimism at last for the Bolton faithful as they ran out comfortable winners at Wigan. A first goal for summer capture David Ngog, as well as an inspired performance from Chris Eagles, ended a run of six successive defeats for the Trotters. Phil Gartside isn't a trigger-happy chairman, but another defeat here would have put at least a question mark over Owen Coyle's future. Wanderers fans can start to look up the table with a fixture list that suddenly doesn't look quite as scary as their early-season assault course.

Newcastle United
Alan Pardew's men passed their most significant test of the season so far. Falling behind twice to Tottenham, Newcastle showed their team spirit by rallying for a hard-earned point – and weren't happy to settle for a point even after Shola Ameobi's brilliant equaliser. There's more to this team than bluster, though: Yohan Cabaye looks a classy addition and with Hatem Ben Arfa and Davide Santon coming off the bench, they look to have a good mix of exciting young prospects and seasoned Premier League campaigners. Credit to Alan Pardew for dealing with the exits of last year's core trio of Joey Barton, Kevin Nolan and Andy Carroll to build a squad with real competition for places on a tight budget.

Robin van Persie
Arsenal's captain and saviour-in-chief continues to mop up sub-editors' superlative quotas. A stunning free-kick eclipsing the earlier effort from Seb Larsson settled their win over Sunderland. Van Persie's contract situation is a continuing headache for Arsene Wenger who is under no illusions as to the Dutchman's importance for the Gunners: “Robin van Persie is a special player and he's shown that again today. He's blessed at the moment and let's touch wood with his injuries. He's shown what a great player he is when he can be consistently playing.”

Liverpool
Despite a turgid first half at Anfield, Liverpool excelled in the second and were unfortunate not to get three points. Steven Gerrard isn't quite back to his imperious best but provided the relentless drive from midfield that they've missed. The returning talisman's explosive energy was at the heart of everything good about Liverpool on Saturday, as he chased lost causes and gave the United defence an uncomfortable afternoon. One lapse in concentration spoiled the perfect day for Liverpool but they've got cause to believe that the gulf between United and themselves has been exaggerated.

Roy Hodgson
A comfortable win against Wolves was just the tonic for Hodgson, who must have been starting to get worried. The Baggies had won only one game all season and Hodgson doesn't have to leaf too far back through West Brom's history for the name of Roberto di Matteo, who was hastily removed from the hot seat last season.

VILLAINS 

Wigan and Antolin Alcaraz
No-one in football wants to see Roberto Martinez fail but beside Mohamed Diame's excellent equaliser and the return of Hugo Rodellega, this was another soul-sapping afternoon. A terrible performance was characterised by hapless centre-half Antolin Alcaraz, whose errors during a masterclass of bad defending were exposed not only by Bolton but also by Alan Hansen in a Match of the Day clipreel which will have had Wigan fans cowering behind their couches. A much better defender than this evidence suggests, Alcaraz needs to find some form quickly. So do Wigan.

Gabriel Agbonlahor
Such is the tidal nature of football, Agbonlahor's chance against Manchester City was probably the pivotal moment of the match. Score and the Etihad Stadium's natives might have grown restless, having not seen their team fall behind this season – especially with former City stars Richard Dunne and Shay Given's reputations for rearguard actions. As it happened, Joe Hart was equal to the one-on-one and City helped themselves to four goals.

Sunderland
Although Sunderland could count themselves somewhat unfortunate to leave North London with nothing, their willingness to gift-wrap shots on Simon Mignolet's goals through free-kicks was staggering. Wes Brown, Michael Turner and John O'Shea were all guilty of diving in on Arsenal's attacking triumvirate of Theo Walcott, Gervinho and Robin van Persie – and it eventually proved to be the difference between the teams.

Wolves
Five straight league defeats means Wolves continue to slide down the table, meaning August's flirtation with the Champions League berths are a fuzzy, half-forgotten dream for most Wanderers fans. Mick McCarthy's post-match press-conference prickliness about the logo on West Brom midfielder Paul Scharner's T-shirt told you that this was a man feeling the pressure. Next Saturday's lunchtime encounter with Swansea is as close to must-win as a game in October gets.

Luis Suarez
Whether Patrice Evra's accusations of racism are true or not, the Uruguayan doesn't exactly shy away from a flashpoint. A frustrating afternoon in front of goal told on a striker who is in danger of letting moments of petulance overshadow his more admirable talents.

Premier Ratings: Bogeymen, cockroaches and David Dickinson

2011-10-17T10:30:00Z

FFT's Christopher Cox runs his eye over the weekend's efforts in the Premier League

Manchester City 8.5
(W 4-1, Aston Villa H)
Predictable but impressive win, despite the lack of a clean sheet. More performances like these are needed if the balance of power in Manchester is to change. Villa are in transition but City did exactly what Liverpool failed to do at Anfield – take advantage of what was in front of them.

Chelsea 8
(W 3-1, Everton H)
Bogey side? AVB (as it seems we're obliged to call him) secured a solid win, the Blues’ first at the Bridge in six attempts against Everton. Goals from a striker (Sturridge), midfielder (Ramires) and a defender (Terry) suggest that there's goals throughout this side, but Juan Mata once again stood out with contributions to two of the three goals.

West Brom 8
(W 2-1, Wolves H)
Not a classic game but West Brom’s first home win, and against bitter rivals, could turn their season around. They have a good side – goalscorers Odemwingie and Brunt have already made their mark, while Championship fans know all about how good a signing Shane Long is. More of the same and Albion are upwardly mobile.

Norwich 8
(W 3-1, Swansea City H)
Experts peg promoted sides' home games against each other as "must-win", and Norwich did it in style against an equally entertaining Swansea City side. Anthony Pilkington seems a great bargain spotted by the David Dickinson of East Anglia, Paul Lambert. Only another 30 points to go and safety should be secured…

Bolton 7.5
(W 3-1, Wigan A)
Just what the Trotters needed: a fixture against a poor team. Wigan were in a similar mess going into this game and Bolton's win could have been better but for a familiar face between Wigan's sticks saving a penalty. A good win which needs to reboot the Reebok season.

Arsenal 7
(W 2-1, Sunderland H)
A much-needed win against a Sunderland side who have been poor almost all season. Arsenal could have and should have scored more (11 shots on target, 60% possession) but a superb Arshavin cameo and a very strong Van Persie performance hint at an Arsenal revival.

Stoke 7
(W 2-0, Fulham H)
Five Live's Pat Murphy called Stoke cockroaches: no matter how hard you stamp them out, you just can’t get rid of them. He may have a point; they won't give a damn. With a good win in a scrappy game full of fouls, Stoke continue to perform in the Premier while enjoying the Europa. Not many teams manage that.

Tottenham 6
(D 2-2, Newcastle A)
Playing good football and doubling Newcastle's goals-against at St. James’ Park, Spurs already look a better team than last season; perhaps that campaign wasn’t as good as it gets. If they’re to claim a Champions League place again, this might well prove a valuable point.

Newcastle 6
(D 2-2, Tottenham H)
While pundits scratch their heads trying to understand how Newcastle have started the season so well, the Toon just get on with it. Worries over the lack of a good striker are ebbing with Demba Ba’s form, and it’s just as good to see Shola Ameobi stepping up to the plate. Coming from behind twice implies the good run could last.

Manchester United 6
(D 1-1, Liverpool A)
'Resting' Rooney and playing Phil Jones in midfield led to a disjointed performance in what the boss had described as the biggest game in the known universe, or something. As usual United clawed something back when all looked lost, but arguably unnecessary tinkering led to just three shots on target and two points lost.

Liverpool 6
(D 1-1, Manchester United H)
A missed opportunity against a huge but vulnerable rival. If Liverpool are to challenge for the title, they have to capitalise when dominating an entire half at home against an unusually under-strength United. King Kenny needs more from his subjects, and will be pleased with the goalscoring return of Steven Gerrard.

Blackburn 6
(D 1-1, QPR A)
The international break seems to have done Steve Kean’s Blackburn some good. They still look average, but they came back to earn a point away from home. That's exactly what they need: to fight for every point they can in what will surely be a long old season.

Sunderland 5
(L 2-1, Arsenal A)
There's fear in the side from Wearside: Sunderland are 16th and look bereft of confidence. Some fans may have set off for the Emirates in hope of a point against a below-par Arsenal, but although there was only one goal in it, in truth the home side could have hit double figures. How much can the visitors put that down to the absence of Bendtner?

Everton 5
(L 3-1, Chelsea A)
The last Chelsea manager to take three points from Everton at the Bridge was Jose Mourinho, but David Moyes won't be happy with how his team conceded (Sturridge from a preventable Mata cross, Terry from a regrettable free-kick). Cahill and Saha had early chances but the better team won.

QPR 5
(D 1-1, Blackburn H)
Hosting one of the worst Blackburn teams in living memory was the perfect chance to banish those horrible memories of the derby at Craven Cottage, and it was completely passed by. QPR still haven't managed a home win and Neil Warnock needs to stop that rot quickly.

Fulham 5
(L 2-0, Stoke A)
A trip to Stoke was always going to be tough for the men from Craven Cottage. Much better sides have been made to look very foolish at the Britannia but some fighting spirit from their previous Premier League game – the 6-0 win over QPR – wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Swansea 4
(L 3-1, Norwich A)
Not a good day for Brendan Rodgers when you consider his team ‘only’ lost 1-0 at the Emirates a few weeks ago. Losing 3-1 at a fellow promoted side is a blow. True, the Swans only had two fit defenders and contributed to the entertainment value of the match, but this now gets filed under ‘what if’ – a dangerous pile for any team to fill.

Wolves 4
(L 2-0, West Brom A)
After a promising start, it’s all starting to come undone for Mick McCarthy’s Wolves. Deserved derby defeat will leave a rather bitter taste; Wolves had their chances, but they need to rediscover their spark – perhaps when Fletcher returns it might just come back with him.

Aston Villa 4
(L 4-1, Manchester City A)
It was never going to be easy, but Villa didn’t have to make it so hard. A ‘transitional’ Villa displayed little quality and there was a strong sense of inevitability about the result. Barry Bannan’s midfield bite and creativity was sorely missed, as was James Collins’ strength at the back.

Wigan 4
(L 3-1, Bolton H)
There can’t be many worse feelings than being a Wigan fan watching your side on a terrible run losing to your hated rivals on an even worse run. Is this the season Wigan finally lose their battle against the drop? If they spurn opportunities like these, it could be.

Weekender: Snooty, stocks and kids going south

2011-10-14T11:19:00Z

1) Ivor Lott 1-2 Tony Broke
It's the haves vs the have-nots at Stamford Bridge this weekend as Chelsea host Everton. However, as in the Ivor Lott & Tony Broke comic strips of yore, the well-heeled don't always get their own way. Roman's rich kids haven't taken three points against Everton since April 2008, and haven't beaten them in a home league game since April 2006. In fact, David Moyes's ragtag bunch – hard-up Everton haven't paid a transfer fee in the last four transfer windows – have the best record of any Premier League team in the Abramovich era. Eat that, Lord Snooty!
STATS ZONE Zonal Marking's Michael Cox on how Everton face the big guns – plus Liverpool v Man U

2) Fergie chases six (thousand) of the best
Man United are scoring a goal every 26 minutes in the league, but the next one will set a benchmark: it will be their 6,000th in the top flight. The champions still lag behind Everton, who have scored 6,600 – but the Toffees have played more top-flight games than any other team, 4,220 of them (1.56 goals per game), compared to Man U's 3,481 (1.72 goals per game). Besides, the corollary of having 108 top-flight seasons is that nobody has conceded more goals than Everton's 5,891 (1.39 per game) – miles clear of Man U's 4,507 (1.29 per game). Oh well: you win some, you lose some.

3) From Faroe defeat to glory
If Estonia beat the Republic of Ireland to reach Euro 2012 they'll create football history. Not only will it be their major-tournament debut - and help them become famous for something other than that whole "not turning up to play Scotland" thing – but they will become the first team to qualify after losing to the Faroe Islands, who beat them 2-0 in June. Indeed, the Faroes almost opened their group campaign by beating Estonia in Tallinn, but the hosts' two injury-time goals snatched victory from the public laughing-stocks of defeat… temporarily.

4) Points mean prizes (or at least not relegation)
This weekend’s meeting between Bolton and Wigan brings together two managers fighting to get away from the bottom – of the top flight's points-per-game table. Owen Coyle has gained 1.08ppg at Bolton, while Roberto 'Bob Martin' Martinez has averaged exactly a point per game at Wigan. Both fare better than Blackburn's Steve Kean (0.93ppg) but if we include previous top-flight adventures, there are two other relegation candidates. Neil Warnock (currently 1.14ppg at QPR) is dragged down to 0.99ppg by previous top-flight relegations at Notts County and Sheffield United, while Mick McCarthy (1.02ppg at Wolves) falls to 0.87ppg if you include his time at Sunderland. We're sure he'd rather not.

5) Goals galore at the Pirelli
There'll be more than the usual buzz at Burton Albion tonight as the home side welcome Cheltenham – and few will risk leaving early. In March 2010 the sides fought out an astonishing game at the Pirelli, in which Burton led by two goals on three occasions – at 2-0, 4-2 and 5-3. However, the Robins kept bobbing and after Michael Pook's 87th-minute winner halved the deficit, an injury-time leveller from Justin Richards was followed by Pook completing his hat-trick to seal a 6-5 win.

6) Forest hoping Frank Clark helps history repeat
It's 12th October 1993 [No it's not – Ed.]. In Frank Clark's first season as manager, Nottingham Forest are positioned one point and one place above the relegation zone. That season, after a remarkable charge up the table, the club finish second to seal automatic promotion to the Premier League. The following season they finish third in the top flight and qualify for the UEFA Cup. Fast forward to 12th October 2011. In Frank Clark's first season as chairman, Forest are positioned one point and one place above the relegation zone...

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Mixed results for these islands' nations as the Euro groups ended. England qualified top despite Montenegro's late leveller and Wayne Rooney's red card, which will rule him out of all three group games in Poland/Ukraine, while the Republic of Ireland beat Andorra anxiously and Armenia amusingly to reach a play-off against Estonia.

The other three home nations will stay at home next summer. Scotland squeaked past Liechtenstein 1-0 but were doggedly beaten 3-1 by a supreme Spain while the Czechs' win in Lithuania ruled Craig Levein's side out of the play-offs. Wales beat Switzerland and Bulgaria to finish fourth with three wins in four games, a smile on the face and hope in the heart.

By contrast, Nigel Worthington granted most Northern Ireland fans their wish by stepping down after closing losses to Estonia and Italy left the team fifth. Worthington's parting shot was that his players were not committed to international friendlies, claiming those games “were like trying to push water up a hill.”

Back in the ever-glorious Premier League, Carlos Tevez returned from his two-week club suspension just in time to discover that an internal Manchester City investigation had found the bench-bound bull of Buenos Aires guilty of breaches of contract. Disciplinary proceedings await.

Meanwhile on famously socialist Merseyside, Liverpool ignored David Cameron's "we're in this together" schtick by announcing that they wanted to break away and negotiate individual overseas TV deals in the manner of Barcelona and Real Madrid – and heaven knows we wouldn't want a two-team league like that.

The club's MD Ian Ayre claims that the current collective-bargaining deals leave British clubs at risk of being left behind by their European counterparts by sharing money equally among the 20 Premier League clubs. You can imagine how quickly Wigan chairman Dave Whelan was on the phone to the media.

The Olympic Stadium farrago continued with the owners deciding they weren't going to hand the keys to West Ham after all, but seek tenants. The Hammers immediately suggested themselves.

Down in the Championship, Nottingham Forest have begun their rebuilding after the resignations of Steve McClaren and chairman Nigel Doughty by appointing former Forest player and manager Frank Clark as chairman. Clark’s first job was to appoint Steve Cotterill as new manager, but there'll be a few who'd like to have Clark back in the dugout – or for that matter at left-back.

And finally, in Northern Ireland's Irn Bru League Cup, the game between Glentoran and Portadown was marred by Glens goalkeeping coach David McClelland getting his contact lens blown out by a firework.

Stats Zone: Left-wing Liverpool, right-wing Chelsea & Moyes's defence plan

Jon Champion: Premier League returns with beef, steak & puffed chests

Spain: La Preview – the new Depor & Levante's special snacks

Italy: Serie A's sensational newcomers

Argentina: Atlanta, Artime, Zubeldia, Bohemians & Millionaires

Holland: Van Wolfswinkel bides his time before the big stage

Spain: Poll reveals deep divide in La Liga loyalties

More features uploaded every day at http://fourfourtwo.com/blogs/

Where next after Nigel for Northern Ireland?

So Nigel Worthington has finally jumped before he was pushed. Cue the rumours for the lucky person who will try to lead Northern Ireland to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Worthington has been hard done by, especially with some of the abuse he was getting towards the end by the supposed best fans in the world. OK, we've only won two out of 23, but the qualifying defeats to Serbia and Estonia came down to individual mistakes by players, which was hardly Worthington’s fault. And 11 of the 23 have been friendlies, which our best players love to pull out of. As Maik Taylor said, “There's a sense of resentment among the lads who do turn up and put their necks on the line for the country.”

The first XI is definitely capable of finishing more than one place above the Faroe Islands. Steve Davis is by far Rangers’ best player. Chris Baird, Chris Brunt and Jonny Evans play every week in the English Premier League. Craig Cathcart has a season in the top flight under his belt with Blackpool and Kyle Lafferty is finally starting to look like a half-decent striker. The young players coming through look positive. Josh Carson and Ryan McLaughlin were fantastic last week in the Under-19 tournament. And at the highest level, despite losing 3-0 to Italy, the kids who actually bothered to turn up for the senior squad did well.

But young players switching their allegiance to the Republic is killing us. Under the Good Friday Agreement (which FIFA says makes them powerless to intervene), those born in the north can choose their sporting allegiance. Having come through the Northern Ireland youth teams, Manchester United’s Darron Gibson, Stoke’s Marc Wilson, Everton's Shane Duffy and most recently Sunderland’s James McClean have all gone south. In a bid to stop this, Worthington spent an amazing amount of time – especially compared to Lawrie Sanchez – working with the under-age squads. Northern Ireland legend Gerry Armstrong was even appointed the IFA’s elite player mentor to try and stem the flow of players switching to the other side.

The IFA have said they will wait until after December to make their decision on who will take over. A friend asked at the weekend if I thought Nigel Worthington could lead us to Brazil. I replied that I thought not – but I don’t think anyone else can either. Hopefully the new manager will prove a few people wrong.

– Ralph Hewitt, FourFourTwo.com writer

Read the full feature here

We're busily transferring over 15 years of FFT interviews to our online archive. Among the 400 we've uploaded so far:

"He appeared on the training field completely naked"
One on One, Dec 2006: Paolo Di Canio

"I’ve got my driving test coming up: if I pass I’d like a VW Golf"
Boy's a Bit Special, Aug 2002: Darren Bent

"I dressed like a tramp and he was black. We were the ‘Cockney Blades’"
Sing When You're Winning, Oct 2005: Paul Heaton

This Weekender was brought to you by Gary Parkinson, Gregg Davies, Huw Davies, Aaron Cox, Ralph Hewitt, Andy Kerr and a 41-pass goal

Meet the club that paid £7.5 million per Premier League point

2011-10-05T08:00:00Z

Below you’ll find a rather interesting league table. It shows the price that 10 Premier League club owners have paid for each and every point their club has won since they took over. Take a look…

So how much would you pay for a Premier League point? Any Premier League club owners care to answer?

Now, we’re not stupid: we know the science we’ve applied isn’t going to win the Nobel Prize anytime soon. But as a snapshot of the current situation in Premier League boardrooms, it’s fascinating stuff.

Though Liverpool top a table that John W Henry would surely rather they didn’t, you’d guess he won’t be too upset. Having splashed out to buy the club 12 months ago, then invested in players to make them competitive again, he’ll feel confident that the points will pile up and the price per point will rapidly drop.

Find out where John W Henry is in the Football Rich List 2011/12

Ditto Sheikh Mansour – if he cares at all.

After all, in this particular league, once you’ve bought your club, the only way is down. Even Roman Abramovich is under £2m per point now.

The big losers: Arsenal & Everton

But what of Stanley Kroenke at Arsenal, third in the list, having spent £1 million more PER POINT than both Manchester United and Chelsea, but still struggling to compete for silverware.

Or Everton, the paupers across Stanley Park. At £48,000 per point, the Toffees even manage to make Tottenham Hotspur look profligate.

And the revelation, just four days after another derby defeat, that Liverpool have spent 156 TIMES MORE per point can only increase the pressure on an Everton board already facing serious criticism for their failure to invest.

Find out where Bill Kenright is in the Football Rich List 2011/12

In the context of our price per point league table, a 2-0 defeat to Liverpool looks admirable. But not many in the Gwladys Street End will see it that way.

Did you know?

This bit won’t stand up to any mathematical interrogation whatsoever. But it’s harmless enough. At £7.5m per point…

• Liverpool would have had to stump up £301m to guarantee avoiding relegation last season.

• Or £608m to win the Premier League title.

• Luis Suarez only needs to earn Liverpool 3 points this season to pay back his transfer fee.

• And Charlie Adam only needs to earn 1 point to pay back his transfer fee (though some would say he owes another 3 points after that sending off against Spurs).

Club-by-club breakdown: how we worked it out

Liverpool
Since October 15 2010, Liverpool FC has been owned by Fenway Sports Group (which in turn is owned by American, John W Henry). Fenway paid £300m for the club, and have spent a further £144m on it in the interim, resulting in a total spending figure of £444m. In the short time period since this ownership began, Liverpool have scored 59 Premier League points making Fenway’s cost per point £7,525,423.73.

Manchester City
Sheikh Mansour became the owner of the Manchester City football club on September 23 2008, paying £210m to take control of the club. Since then he’s poured £793m into the club, bringing his total spending to a staggering £1.003 billion. Since then, City have notched up a total of 188 premier league points, meaning Mansour has paid the grand sum of £5,335,106.38 for every league point.

Sunderland
Ellis Short has invested £300m into Sunderland since taking it over in May 2009. The club has only won a total of 93 points since then, creating a hefty sum of £2,257,526.88 for every point earned.

Arsenal
Stanley Kroenke’s Arsenal shares are worth around £731m. In the period since he first bought shares in the North London club in 2007, Arsenal have picked up 298 Premier League points, resulting in a price of £2,453,020.13 per point.

Manchester United
US billionaire Malcolm Glazer controversially bought Manchester United for £790m in May 2005. Since then he has invested nothing in the club, the funds for transfers being self-generating. Yet Manchester United has gone on to win 523 League points, resulting in a total expenditure of £1,510,516.25 for every point.

Chelsea
Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea for £140m in June 2003 and has since spent £816.5m on the club, bringing his total expenditure to £956.5m. In the eight years since the transaction took place, Chelsea have won 680 Premier League points resulting in a total cost of £1,406,617.65 for every point.

Aston Villa
American entrepreneur Randy Lerner bought Aston Villa for £62.6m in August 2006, and has put a further £223m into the club since. Villa have won 289 Premier League points in Lerner’s five years, making the price of every point £988,235.29.

Fulham
Infamous as the previous owner of Harrods, Mohamed Al-Fayed, added Fulham FC to his portfolio back in the summer of 1997. He paid £6.25m for the club and has since put around £203.6m into it. In the 14 years since he bought it, Fulham has earned a total of 460 Premier League points meaning that Al-Fayed has paid a comparatively cheap £456,195.65 per point.

Tottenham Hotspur
ENIC Group owner Joe Lewis first bought shares in Tottenham Hotspur in 2001 and, by 2011, owned 85 percent of the club. The club was worth £150m then, and has earned 564 League point since, which works out at £303,191.49 per point, including Lewis’s subsequent investments.

Everton
Everton chairman Bill Kenwright paid a relatively small £20m for the club. Since he became majority shareholder in 2004, the Toffees have earned 415 League points. That works out at the cheapest price per point in the 2010/11 top 10 Premier League clubs: just £48,192.77.

FOOTBALL RICH LIST: Sheikh Mansour stays top of Rich List
FOOTBALL RICH LIST: Henry highest new entry on Rich List
FOOTBALL RICH LIST: See the Top 100 in full
FOOTBALL RICH LIST: Man United players dominate Rich List
FOOTBALL RICH LIST: Discover the 20 richest players
FOOTBALL RICH LIST: Capello tops manager standings
FOOTBALL RICH LIST: The 10 richest managers revealed
FOOTBALL RICH LIST: How we count the beans

The Football Rich List 2011/12: How we count the beans

2011-10-05T07:30:00Z

So the FourFourTwo.com Football Rich List is out. How do we do it? Is it as easy as ringing up Becks and the boys and asking how they're rolling?

Of course not. (For a start, Rio would probably merk us and say he's worth a trillion. And Carlos wouldn't come to the phone.) But much of the information is in the public domain, and checkable.

The first thing we do is hire the experts. As ever, the FourFourTwo Football Rich List 2011/12 was compiled by Philip Beresford, who is compiler of The Sunday Times Rich List and has been working on that list since 1989. He's ably assisted by Dominic Prince.

Together with his team of researchers, Beresford has combed the company accounts of both quoted and private companies to search for our top 100. Like we say, the information's often out there. It's just a boring job compiling it. Leave it to Bez, that's what we do.

To qualify, football’s wealthiest people had to be either British citizens, based here or have a significant stake in an English, Welsh or Scottish football league club if they are based overseas.

Football is no different to any other walk of life in that most of the money belongs to people in suits. That's why the bulk of the list is made up of directors, shareholders or both.

Now, in case you're confused, directors sit on the board and make decisions about the future of the club – whether or not they have shares.

Football very rarely being a lucrative business, they've often made their money elsewhere and been invitedon to the board to try to make money for the club. In many cases, the money coming in tends to be their own, because in the vast majority of instances, up and down the land, the directors are there because they're fans of the club.

We have also included the elite of players from Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City and other clubs who have – through contracts and endorsements – made enough to make our cut-off point of wealth.

All stakes and options in quoted companies were valued in late-September 2011 using the Financial Times prices page as our source. Can't say fairer than that. We've tried to take a realistic view of likely tax bills (usually low) when private companies have been sold. Private company stakes are valued at approximately 10 times their latest profit figures.

Reference sources include:  Fame and Dash (two computerised databases giving access to Companies House), Nominus (which tracks stakes in quoted companies), the Corporate Register and Hemscott.net for access to quoted company details. The Sunday Times Rich List has also proved invaluable in tracking footballers’ wages and endorsements. The Forbes list has also been referred to.

And that's it. It's all above board and on the level. Honest, guv...

The 100 richest people in British football * The 20 richest players in Britain * The 10 richest managers in Britain

The Battle of Manchester, football trafficking and a trip to the seaside

2011-10-05T07:00:00Z

We don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a bit of noise coming from Manchester this season.

For the first time in over 40 years, United and City are locked in a meaningful battle – and we have the full story from the men involved in the November issue of FourFourTwo, out now.

It’s on: the fight for footballing supremacy. FourFourTwo investigates the shift in power towards Roberto Mancini’s men, from Mansour’s millions and the rejuvenation of a city, to both teams’ scintillating starts. What’s more, we speak to Mancini himself, as well as Paul Scholes, Nemanja Vidic, Micah Richards, Tom Cleverley and Brian Kidd. Phew.

Plus, Michael Cox of Zonal Marking uses our app FourFourTwo Stats Zone to analyse where and how United and City win their battles.

Sergio Aguero has looked a different class since his arrival in England. The Argentine superstar tells FFT about handling expectations, scoring goals and the Manchester weather – not to mention the relationship between his manager and a certain Carlos Tevez.

Also hitting the heights at last is Ashley Young, who has realised his overwhelming potential at Old Trafford. He answers our questions on becoming England’s new hope, beating his boyhood heroes 8-2 and how it feels to be leading the kids at Manchester United.

Of course, the title race and quest for Champions League glory isn’t based solely in the north west. Chelsea’s Fernando Torres has endured a rocky start to his new life in London, but can he recover his world-conquering form of old? We thought we’d ask him, in a tell-all exclusive. Did you know he used to be a keeper?

Nando’s worries pale in comparison to some who wish to be as famous. Lured to Europe by false promises from false agents, thousands of young African wannabes are abandoned on the streets of Europe with no money and no food. FFT explores the tragic truth of football trafficking.

Our One-on-One this month is a bit of a cracker – no less than Rivaldo, once the best player in the world and still plying his trade in Brazil. He answers your questions on World Cups and why he regrets never playing in England – but not the face clutch against Turkey.

Heard the one about the player who watches Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory before every game? Or the club president who scattered 26kg of salt on his team’s pitch for luck? No? Then you need to read FFT’s guide to football’s maddest superstitions.

One team don’t need luck, and that’s Uruguay. With a superb youth system and thriving league, the South Americans have undergone a revolution under Oscar Tabarez to become one of the world’s best sides, despite having a population count lower than Scotland. Find out their secret in part four of our youth development series.

And if that’s not enough, we go on the road with Ipswich fans given a free trip to Blackpool, speak to Thiago Silva about Milan and Brazil, recall when Scottish teams were good as Rangers were a whisker away from the 1992-93 Champions League Final, pit the latest incarnations of PES and FIFA against each other and get a possession masterclass from Jack Wilshere. It’s all here, in the new November issue of FourFourTwo, on sale now.

The new issue of FourFourTwo was brought to you by: Rivaldo, Rogerio Ceni, Frank Leboeuf, Sean Rigg, Paul Lake, Damian Lewis, Andrew Cole, Tony Book, Paddy Kenny, Ashley Young, Micah Richards, Jean-Marc Adjovi-Boco, Dave McPherson, Frank de Boer, Stuart McCall, Trevor Sinclair, David Wright, Jack Wilshere, Linus Hallenius, Greg Abbott, Neil Murray, Jason Roberts, Justin Moorhouse, Tom Cleverley, Steve Morison, Sergio Aguero, Diego Aguirre, Pieter Huistra, Gus Poyet, Danny Green, Oscar Tabarez, Brian Kidd, Thiago Silva, Nemanja Vidic, Gary McSwegan, Nick Worth, Paul Scholes, Fernando Torres, Tamika Mkandawire, Roberto Mancini, Scott Parker, Jean-Claude Mbvoumin, Fabian Coito, Michel Salgado, Ken Doherty and Stuff magazine, who review FIFA 12 and PES 2012 for us.

Heroes & Villains: Lovable barmpots, sub-human scum & hypocritical gum-flappers

2011-10-03T15:30:00Z

FourFourTwo.com features editor James Maw names the boys who 'done good' and shames those who...didn't

HEROES

Roberto Mancini & Mario Balotelli
The Italian’s decision to make five changes from Tuesday’s defeat in Munich was vindicated - and then some - with the Eastlanders romping to a 4-0 victory at Ewood Park.

The less-than-sexy shadow of Carlos Tevez had threatened to loom large over the previously in-form Citizens, but an emphatic victory over their north-west rivals did little to suggest any long-term damage had been done, not least with lovable barmpot Mario Balotelli once again coming to the fore. The Italian scored his second league goal in as many games, while creating goalscoring opportunities for others and was a constant thorn in the side of the ragged Rovers defence, in what was an impressively mature performance from a player often chastised for lacking focus and drive.

If Super Mario can maintain this form, perhaps there'll be no need to splash out on a replacement for Tevez in January.

Frank Lampard
We were told his career at the top level was over. He scored a hat trick on Sunday and is now, once again, in Fabio Capello’s England squad. Some decline, eh?

His treble at the Reebok helped the Blues romp to a 5-1 win over Bolton, and saw him become Chelsea’s fifth highest goalscorer of all time. Lampard still has a big role to play for Chelsea, even if that role doesn’t entail starting every single match. His desire and experience could be crucial if the West Londoners are to successfully chase down Manchesters United and City.

"In case you were struggling, this is how many goals I've scored"

Andy Johnson
We were told his career at the top level was over. He scored a hat-trick on Sundaybut is still NOT in Fabio Capello’s England squad. Where’s the justice?

Despite the crushing disappointment of not being involved in the national set-up, Johnson will be on somewhat of a high, having scored as many Premier League goals in one afternoon as he mustered in the entirety of the 2010/11 season. In doing so, he helped Fulham to their first league win of the season and helped manager Martin Jol end a 13-match run without a win in England’s top flight, spanning the first two months of this season and the bitter, soggy dregs of his tenure at Tottenham.

Gabriel Agbonlahor
Like Johnson, Agbonlahor has already matched his tally of top flight goals from last season; his opener against Wigan was his fourth of the campaign, and the jet-heeled forward looks to be heading back to somewhere near his best.

Scott Parker
While Kyle Walker was named Sky Sports’ man of the match after a decent all-round performance, capped off by his 30-yard winner, the real plaudits should go to England squad-mate Parker, who demonstrated exactly why Harry Redknapp had been so keen to take him to White Hart Lane with a dominant midfield display in Sunday’s win over Arsenal.

The 30-year-old continued his speedy assimilation into the Tottenham engine-room, protecting the back four in a game that saw Spurs without the ball for prolonged spells. His record since arriving in N17 speaks for itself – played four, won four.

Ooooh errrr...

Adel Taarabt
With his team getting comprehensively gubbed, the QPR playmaker left Sunday’s match at Craven Cottage early and caught the bus home - clearly on the same wavelength as the fans. A real man of the people…

VILLAINS

Premier League fans
Not all of them, obviously, but this was hardly a weekend when those on the terraces covered themselves in glory.

First their were the berks in the crowd at Goodison Park, who saw fit to launch a barrage of bottles, coins and other brick-a-brack at Liverpool players who had the audacity to celebrate scoring a goal in a rather important match, or even - wait for it - TAKE A CORNER! A number of Arsenal fans, meanwhile, felt it appropriate to serenade former player Emmanuel Adebayor with a reprehensible chant relating to the gun attack on the Togo national team bus during the 2010 African Cup of Nations in which two of the Tottenham loanee’s fellow countrymen, and the bus driver, were killed. This in turn led to pockets of the home support responding with that old, pathetic chestnut about Arsene Wenger. Scum, sub-human scum.

At least Norwich fans gave us something to smile about, with their chant aimed at Manchester United’s ‘green and gold’ brigade; “We’ve come for our scarves. We’ve come for our scarves. We’re Norwich City, we’ve come for our scarves.”

"...but the vending machines here don't take £2 coins"

Bolton
The very nature of this blog, and indeed football, means there is a certain degree of repetition. As such, you have probably heard this before, but Bolton really are looking utterly atrocious at the back this season. The figures don’t make particularly pleasant reading for the club’s fans, players or manager; in the six Premier League matches since their opening day win at QPR, Wanderers have scored five, conceded 21 and accrued the disconcertingly circular total of zero points.

As a Trotters cult hero, Owen Coyle can expect more patience than many other managers in his position would be afforded, but it can't be much longer before serious questions are asked of him.

Mark Halsey & Ron Ganfield
Wolves will certainly have felt hard done by in their home defeat to Newcastle. The Midlanders should have had a first-half penalty - when lumbering Toon defender Steven Taylor brought down Jamie O‘Hara in the penalty area - only for Halsey’s to insist the incident occurred just outside the 18-yard box.

Then, as they chased a late equaliser, Matt Jarvis headed the ball back across for Kevin Doyle to bundle home, at the second attempt. But flag-tender Ganfield -sporting a very fetching cap that would not have looked out of place on the head of a Geography teacher on mufty day - inexplicably ruled that the ball had gone out of play and awarded the visitors a goal kick, much to the delight of Mick McCarthy.

Martin Atkinson
There’s no point skirting round the issue, Atkinson made a right old clanger in dismissing Everton’s Jack Rodwell for a legal - if robust - challenge on Luis Suarez, who of course reacted in modest fashion…

Having then made a rod for his own back, Atkinson failed to dole out matching punishments to a host of players - in red shirts and blue - for similar and, in some cases, clearly more dangerous challenges.

One man who decided to shy away from a debate on refereeing inconsistency was Liverpool boss Kenny Dalglish. The Scot reacted angrily to being asked about the key talking point of the match in an interview with the BBC, having spent the last month flapping his gums about what he had perceived to be a string of injustices against his side to anybody who would listen. Maybe he’s just getting bored of it…

Weekender: Missing history, infrequent derbies and a timely rant

2011-09-30T15:00:00Z

1) Willy and Manu will miss out on making history
With Spurs defender William Gallas set to miss Sunday’s meeting with former club Arsenal, he and new Tottenham teammate Emmanuel Adebayor will miss out on the chance to make a bit of history. The pair were set to become the first two players to feature together for both clubs in a North London derby. Regardless of who they first appear together in white shirts against, they will become only the second duo to have played together for both North London sides, following in the footsteps of Steve Walford and Willie Young – albeit the other way round. Walford and Young first lined up together for Terry Neill's Tottenham against Ipswich Town on January 31 1976, but Neill soon made the controversial switch to Arsenal and took Walford and Young with him. The pair played together for Arsenal several times.

2) Over familiarity breeds contempt...
There are three big derby matches in the Premier League this weekend, but for QPR and Fulham it will be the first ever in the top flight. Liverpool and Everton are far more familiar when it comes to ‘enjoying’ eachother’s company at English football’s top table - the Merseyside Derby is the most played top-flight derby in England, with Saturday’s set to be the 185th. Spurs and Arsenal, meanwhile, will meet for the 149th time in the top division. Yet those records are dwarfed by the Old Firm, with last weekend’s meeting at Ibrox the 301st between the Glasgow giants in the top flight. That’s what happens when the two biggest teams in the country are pitted against one another more often than the average octogenarian goes to the lavatory…

3) If you want goals, head to the Reebok this weekend...
Bottom of the table Bolton Wanderers are the only team in the Premier League or Football League whose league matches have all featured three goals or more. Next up for the Trotters? Chelsea, a team who have scored four goals on their last two trips to Bolton, and have the highest number of different goalscorers in the Premier League so far this season (10). It could be another long afternoon for the Lancashire side and their be-shorted manager.

4) This is England's worst Champions League in eight years
This is the worst start four English clubs have had to a Champions League group stage. Two measly wins and eleven points from eight matches do little to support suggestions the Premier League is ‘the best league in the world’.
While Arsenal and Chelsea may be happy with four points apiece, Manchester United will be concerned at having drawn twice against what they’d consider weaker opposition – and their city rivals, err, City, will be nervous at having just one point to their name.
This is a stark contrast to the 2006/07 season, when Liverpool’s draw in Eindhoven was the only blemish on the start made by the English ‘Big Four’ (remember them?). Three English sides made the semis that year, too, with Rafa Benitez’s Reds losing 2-1 in the final to AC Milan.
Still, at least it’s not 2003/04. That was the last time England didn’t have four representatives in the group stage – Newcastle failed to qualify. Even so, it wasn’t the best start for the three that made it. Arsenal were battered 3-0 at home by Inter and struggled to a 0-0 at Lokomotiv Moscow, Manchester United suffered a 2-1 defeat in Stuttgart and Chelsea lost 2-0 at home to Besiktas.

Win! Xbox360 with FIFA 12
Nothing beats a good five-a-side football match with the lads. But with shoddy weather fast approaching, Wash & Go are giving you a warmer, indoors-based option...
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However much Carlos Tevez may try and avoid it, there was some compelling action taking part on football pitches across Europe over the last seven days.

Last Saturday saw Manchester United flinch for the first time in the title race, drawing 1-1 at Stoke in a typically full-blooded encounter. City seized the chance to move back level on points with their rivals with a 2-0 win over Everton.

The chasing pack all won too, with Chelsea, Spurs and early surprise packages Newcastle dispatching of Swansea, Wigan and Blackburn respectively.

There were also wins for relegation candidates Norwich - who beat Sunderland 2-1, and Arsenal (tee-hee) - who were much-improved in a 3-0 victory over Bolton.

In the Football League - the very bottom of it, no less - beleaguered Plymouth finally won a League Two match. Argyle disposed of Macclesfield 2-0 just days after sacking poor old Peter Reid. Whether or not it cheered him up remains to be seen. Similarly, Championship side Doncaster Rovers sealed a first league win of the season, having replaced Sean O'Driscoll with Dean Saunders just a day beforehand.

Crystal Palace came from behind to win at rivals Brighton, though that Championship clash was overshadowed by the midweek Champions League action.

It was a rather mixed week for the English sides, with Manchester United slumping to a disappointing draw with Swiss side Basel, City being defeated in Munich and Chelsea blowing a lead late on at Valencia thanks to a mindless moment from Salomon Kalou in the penalty area. It was left to 'crisis club' Arsenal to find a win, with Greek champions Olympiacos beaten 2-1 at the Emirates.

It was a better night in the Europa League on Thursday, with all four English sides winning. Stoke beat Besiktas, Fulham overcame Odense, Birmingham came from behind to beat Maribo, while Spurs recovered from a scare to eventually put Irish minnows Shamrock Rovers to the sword.

Finally, a word on that man Xavi Hernandez. Barcelona's midfield maestro completed more passes in the first half of the European champions' match away to BATE Borisov on Wednesday than the entire Belarussian side. He's good. Good at football.

Zonal Marking's Stats Zone EPL preview: Moyes's plan, Coyle's dilemma

Italy: Inter sacking the only predictable thing in a mad week

Video: Jose Mourinho loves shaving and, apparently, chairs

Spain: Catalan press beg beaten Mourinho to stick with Madrid

Fan's Eye View: Was Fernando Torres ever really that great?

France: Meet the Mexican goalkeeper so popular he crashed the internet

Iffy's Inside Write: Stupefying sackings and mystifying money moves

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Warnock's unusual rant was the right move

Neil Warnock has never been a man to mince his words. That’s why, even after lingering for a good hour inside the surprisingly swish Loftus Road media suite in the wake of QPR’s dramatic 1-1 draw with Aston Villa on Sunday, his belated arrival at the post-match press conference still aroused in me a pang of keen anticipation. This, I thought, will surely be good.

I figured he would rail against referee Michael Oliver’s admittedly mystifying decision to award Villa a penalty just after the interval, and question how Alan Hutton had afterwards gotten away with several pieces of defending more in keeping with basketball than the beautiful game. He did.

I also thought he might bring up namesake Stephen Warnock’s ugly-looking challenge on his skipper Joey Barton midway through the first half, the kind of challenge Barton himself has subjected many an unfortunate opponent to in his controversial career.

That he didn’t was surprising, but even more so was the vitriol he reserved for the tackle which earned full-back Armand Traore, recently signed from Arsenal, a second yellow card with a minute of normal time remaining.

“I thought it was a disgrace, and I’ll fine him as much as I can,” Warnock said of the incident.   “I pulled him back in the tunnel to tell him what a disgrace he was. I think he understood what I was saying. It’s not clever at all.”

The QPR boss then went on to temper his criticism with the more standard ‘he’s a young lad and a very good player so I’m sure he’ll learn from this’ line, but it was the cutting nature of his initial remarks which stuck – both in the mind and in the following day’s headlines.

While Warnock’s response was utterly justified, it was still extraordinary. In an era of unprecedented media coverage, it has become virtually unheard of for a top level manager to chastise one of his own players so unequivocally in public.

Warnock’s public reprimand does not guarantee that Traore will never get needlessly sent off again, but it will certainly make him think twice before making further rash decisions which could have dire consequences for his team.

So too will the rest of the QPR squad, for fear of being subjected to similar treatment in the future. The boss has made his point, and made it well.

Although one wonders whether Warnock would have been quite so vociferous in his criticism had the player in question been Adel Taarabt or, heaven forbid, Joey Barton. Twitter might have exploded with the backlash…

– Liam Twomey, FourFourTwo.com writer

Read the full feature here

We're busily transferring over 15 years of FFT interviews to our online archive. Among the 400 we've uploaded so far:

"I wasn't a Tottenham fan; I was a Hoddle fan"
One on One, Feb 2011: Dennis Bergkamp

"I did my diploma as a baker. My speciality? Swabian pretzels"
Ask a Silly Question, Dec 2007: Jurgen Klinsmann

"His goal against the English was amazing. It was something only a genius could do"
Tevez on Maradona, 2008: Carlos Tevez

This Weekender was brought to you by James Maw, Ryan Peasland, Tom Hocking and the Lithuanian basketball team for trying

For sale: One Manchester City shirt, hardly worn...

2011-09-29T11:32:00Z

"I won't be needing this..."

See, Carlos Tevez isn't all bad. Despite refusing to appear in Manchester City's Champions League defeat to Bayern Munich, he was still willing to do the honourable thing and swap shirts with Brazilian fullback Rafinha.

Warnock's Traore rant - though extraordinary - was just the tonic

2011-09-27T14:19:00Z

Neil Warnock has never been a man to mince his words.

That’s why, even after lingering for a good hour inside the surprisingly swish Loftus Road media suite in the wake of QPR’s dramatic 1-1 draw with Aston Villa on Sunday, his belated arrival at the post-match press conference still aroused in me a pang of keen anticipation. This, I thought, will surely be good.

Warnock collars Traore as the fullback heads for the tunnel

There is no question that what Traore did was worthy of the rebuke. With time running out, his team chasing the game and despite the knowledge he had already been booked, either laziness or frustration prompted the full-back to make a challenge he knew, or at least should have known, would end his time on the pitch and hinder the efforts of his team.

But while Warnock’s response was utterly justified, it was still extraordinary. In an era of unprecedented media coverage, it has become virtually unheard of for a top level manager to chastise one of his own players so unequivocally in public.

Indeed, the opposite has actually become the norm: to justify or at least to mitigate dubious actions even when all sound reason and logic suggests otherwise.

You would be hard pressed to find an example of Sir Alex Ferguson setting upon one of his own charges in such ruthless fashion regardless of the transgression, and Arsene Wenger has ‘failed to see’ far worse from Arsenal players.

Wenger was far more peaceful in his handling of a young Traore

Moreover, it’s easy to understand why most coaches opt against this kind of public shaming. Footballers already receive enough criticism on a regular basis from journalists, ex-pros and fans without their own boss weighing in, and often a gentle arm around the shoulder ultimately proves more productive than a sharp slap across the face.

Yet a healthy dose of humiliation can occasionally be just what the doctor ordered to restore a player’s sense of perspective. Mario Balotelli is, and probably always will be a high-maintenance individual, but boss Roberto Mancini’s intelligent use of ‘tough love’ has commanded the headstrong youngster’s loyalty and respect to an extent which no other manager has so far proved capable.

It is also true that singular bouts of ill-discipline, if left unchecked, can gradually spread throughout a club and create an entire culture which is much harder to eradicate.

Just ask Arsenal, who are consistently near the bottom of the Premier League’s disciplinary table and whose players have already racked up three red cards and a retrospective ban in the first six games of this season.

So too will the rest of the QPR squad, for fear of being subjected to similar treatment in the future. The boss has made his point, and made it well.

Premier Ratings: Chelsea looking fluid as Balotelli finally cracks a smile

2011-09-27T08:30:00Z

FourFourTwo.com's James Maw attributes fairly arbitrary ratings to each of the Premier League's 20 clubs on the basis of their performances this weekend - just to keep himself busy...

CHELSEA 8.5
(W 4-1, Swansea H)
As tactically impressive a display from Andre Villas-Boas and his side as has been seen so far this season. The West Londoners responded well to going a man down when Fernando Torres was dismissed, and looked a fluid attacking unit, even with only 10 men on the pitch.

MANCHESTER CITY 8.5
(W 2-0, Everton H)
Had Saturday's match finished a draw, it wouldn't have been the first time in recent memory the Toffees have frustrated a title challenger. The fact that Mancini's men were able to eventually break their resistance is a very good sign – as was the smile that adorned Mario Balotelli’s scampish mug.

NEWCASTLE UNITED 8
(W 3-1, Blackburn H)
While few expected Newcastle to start the season so strongly, most would have tipped them for a home win against Blackburn. But that’s exactly why this was such a good result – Pardew’s side didn't wilt under the pressure of expectation from the stands, and that’s half the battle at St James’ Park these days.

NORWICH CITY 7.5
(W 2-1, Sunderland H)
A much-needed first home win of the season saw the Canaries rise to ninth in the Premier League, and the Norfolk outfit looked more than comfortable for the bulk of Monday night’s match. Yet their profligacy in front of goal and sloppiness at the back led to a nervous final five minutes, when things could and perhaps should have been more straightforward.

ARSENAL 7.5
(W 3-0, Bolton H)
At this stage of their ‘crisis’ any win would do for the Gunners, but with Saturday’s came perhaps their best league performance of the campaign to date. Van Persie appears to be relishing his new ‘Captain Marvel’ role, notching his 99th and 100th goals for the London side as they eased some of the tension engulfing the club with a comfortable win.

STOKE CITY 7
(D 1-1, Man Utd H)
The most telling sign of Stoke’s rise is that this result didn’t come as a surprise. The Potters kept David de Gea busy all evening and were more than worth their point. Five points from home matches with Chelsea, Liverpool and United represents a highly impressive and typically solid home start to the new campaign.

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 7
(W 2-1, Wigan A)
Another win, another impressive showing from Parker and Adebayor. Had Spurs been able to maintain their first-half momentum, this would have been a stroll; the fact that things didn't pan out that way suggests they may need to learn to make their dominance count for more in future.

LIVERPOOL 7
(W 2-1, Wolves H)
Perhaps not the most spectacular of victories, but given their back-to-back defeats on the road in their last two matches, it was certainly a timely one. Dalglish will have been most encouraged by the performance of Andy Carroll, who led the line as any No.9 worth £35m of salt should – holding up the ball and bringing team-mates into play. If he can continue that, goals should follow in time.

MANCHESTER UNITED 6.5
(D 1-1, Stoke A)
In many ways Saturday’s fixture looked United’s most challenging so far this season, and when Hernandez joined Rooney on the sidelines after 11 minutes, the task got even tougher. Despite those absences, Ferguson will still have expected more from his side in the final third, with the experienced Giggs and in-form Nani spurning clear chances to turn one point into three.

QUEENS PARK RANGERS 5.5
(D 1-1, Aston Villa H)
After an impressive display against Newcastle and a superb win at Wolves, this was something of a step backwards for Warnock’s new look Hoops. Perhaps most concerning was the fact that, having had 17 cracks at goal, it took a deflection off Villa defender Richard Dunne’s burly frame to salvage a point for the hosts.

ASTON VILLA 5.5
(D 1-1, QPR A)
Another away point and another game unbeaten, but this was hardly a performance that inspired a belief that run will be extended much further than the current six matches. Villa were poor for large swathes of the match and were fortunate to be awarded a soft penalty, though that luck had clearly expired by the time Dunne bundled into his own net to level the scores.

WEST BROMWICH ALBION 5.5
(D 0-0, Fulham H)
The Baggies were perhaps fortunate to avoid going in at the halfway mark of Saturday’s match on level terms, having been well bettered by the visitors, before a spot of tactical tweaking from Roy Hodgson saw the hosts revert to their traditional 4-4-2 formation from their strange, exotic and foreign-sounding 4-3-3.

FULHAM 5.5
(D 0-0, WBA A)
Like the Baggies, Fulham won't take much from their bore-draw at the Hawthorns. But unlike the Midlanders, the West London side are still looking for their first league victory, a pattern that will grow all the more concerning as the season wears on. Still, this wasn’t a bad performance, but the Cottagers will need to be more clinical – and perhaps cynical – if they’re to avoid a season of struggle.

EVERTON 5
(L 0-2, Man City A)
While Moyes will be happy his side were able to frustrate City for so much of Saturday’s early kick-off, there will be few neutrals who enjoyed a performance that would perhaps best be described as overly robust. The most notable flashpoint came when Tim Cahill flew in on Vincent Kompany, a challenge which ultimately forced the Australian to withdraw from proceedings.

WIGAN ATHLETIC 5
(L 1-2, Tottenham H)
While they improved after the break, Martinez’s side put in a first-half shift so lacklustre that their usually patient and realistic fan base sent them scuttling off for their half-time oranges with the sound of booing ringing in their ears. And yet had it not been for Figueroa’s under-hit pass three minutes in, they may well have got a point.

WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS 5
(L 1-2, Liverpool A)
A generally impressive performance was undone by two momentary lapses in focus that saw Liverpool move into a 2-0 halftime lead. Mick McCarthy was delighted with his side’s second half showing, celebrating the fact his side were ‘back in the groove’ having played poorly in back-to-back home defeats. He’ll want points to show for it next time out, though.

SWANSEA CITY 5
(L 1-4, Chelsea A)
A relatively heavy defeat, yes, but one from which there is plenty to be drawn for the Swans. Merely breaching the Blues’ defence would have been some cause for satisfaction, particularly after their slow start to the season in front of goal, while 428 completed passes away to a top-four side is highly impressive for a newly-promoted side.

BLACKBURN ROVERS 4
(L 1-3, Newcastle A)
There was something of the After The Lord Mayor’s Show about this match and performance from Rovers, who reverted to type after their superb win over Arsenal last time out with a relatively meek showing at St James’. Steve Kean’s side mustered just three shots on goal over the 90 minutes – only one on target.

SUNDERLAND 4
(L 1-2, Norwich A)
A real lackadaisical and almost disinterested performance saw Sunderland left with too much to do by the time they woke up with five minutes left to play. Bendtner led the line well in patches, but had little in the way of support, and the Black Cats midfield did little to pressurise their opponents and prevent them playing, even if the visitors did enjoy more of the possession.

BOLTON WANDERERS 3
(L 0-3, Arsenal A)
While they have been forced to endure a fairly torrid run of fixtures since their opening day waltz through Shepherd’s Bush, Bolton should certainly be concerned that they haven’t picked up a point since. To an extent, they didn’t help themselves here, with David Wheater sent off on his first league start for the club.

Heroes & Villains: Super Mario's warm embrace & Berba's missed opportunity

2011-09-26T11:25:00Z

As City return to winning ways, United make their first slip and Arsenal actually win a football match, Mark Booth runs through the weekend's Premier League goodies and baddies...

HEROES

Alan Pardew
It can't be easy starting a new job to a cacophony of unrest from people who preferred your predecessor, then having the fixtures and fittings sold from around you. Such has been Alan Pardew's first 10 months on Tyneside: backed by only 5% of fans upon his appointment, seeing Andy Carroll sold on January's deadline day and not replaced in summer despite the additional noisy exits of Kevin Nolan, Jose Enrique and Joey Barton. No wonder the club is so often accused of being its own worst enemy.
All things considered, it's astonishing that Saturday's convincing 3-1 home win over Blackburn leaves the Magpies occupying a Champions League berth. Newcastle owe much of this unexpected wave of optimism to their manager, who continues to leap over the obstacles Mike Ashley leaves in his ample wake. Demba Ba has yet to prove he can produce the goods on a consistent basis at this level but a well-taken hat-trick and the continued good form of strike partner Leon Best could save their fortunate owner a cool £35m.

Mario Balotelli and Roberto Mancini
Bench-bound for all but 18 minutes of this Premier League season, Balotelli seized his chance after replacing Edin Dzeko in the 60th minute. With Everton's excellent defence squeezing City till the pips squeaked, the home side were running out of ideas – but the Italian usually introduces the unpredictable and scored within eight minutes, sprinting to warmly embrace Mancini.
The manager hinted after the game that the seemingly stroppy striker has reacted maturely to his place in the pecking order: "Mario didn't start for three or four games but he has worked well, did not say anything and he was waiting for this moment."
So, a manager juggles a squad of considerable talent to overcome doggedly defensive visitors and gain three points despite the team being far from its best. The stuff of champions?

Andre Villas-Boas
When AVB was named as Chelsea manager in June, hacks licked their lips and sharpened their pencils. Tediously (and falsely) touted as Mou II, the 33-year-old is a completely different character but has gone about his business at Stamford Bridge with impressive shrewdness given the instant results expected from the trigger-happy Abramovich and the size of the rebuilding job required.
He might not provide the red-tops with soundbites and headlines, but he deserves credit for Chelsea's effective start to the campaign. With Juan Mata adding a shot of well-timed and much-needed cunning to complement the muscle, the Blues lie just three points from the Manchester pacesetters. When you consider they could count themselves unlucky to leave Old Trafford empty-handed last Sunday, things don't look as gloomy for Andre Villas-Boas as some would have you believe.

Stoke City
After a weary Europa League hangover last Sunday at Sunderland, this was more like the Stoke City we've come to expect. Their fans will be heartened by the way in which the Potters rallied to recover from a goal down in a spirited second half showing against the reigning champions. A deserved point in what is normally a miserable fixture for Stoke could have been three but for a David De Gea 'worldy' from an Andy Wilkinson rasper. With Peter Crouch starting to get among the goals, Stoke could be set for a top-six challenge.

David De Gea
One way to describe a truly world-class save is that you couldn't pick fault with the goalkeeper had he not saved it. De Gea made at least two such saves to preserve a point as Manchester United started to buckle under a Stoke onslaught. The save from Andy Wilkinson was particularly eye-catching such was the speed the shot was travelling at. This wonderful performance should finish what Fergie has suggested is a media conspiracy to “destroy” the Spaniard – and perhaps the rest of the Premier League will think again before peppering the United goal with speculative efforts from range.

Robin van Persie
A brace for the Dutchman brought up a century of goals for Arsenal and showed why he's so crucial to Arsenal's hopes of getting back on track this season. At times this season Van Persie could have been forgiven for wondering what he was still doing in N5, but the manner in which he has carried himself is a credit to Arsene Wenger, thriving with the increased responsibility the Arsenal captaincy brings. What a lift a contract extension would bring to a club that enjoyed their most comfortable 90 minutes of the season so far at Bolton's expense.

VILLAINS

Dimitar Berbatov
If being a striker is largely about taking your chances, this was a huge fail for the Bulgarian. With the hamstrung Rooney ruled out, Manchester United's fallen star had a great opportunity to stake a claim for regular inclusion in a (previously) rampant side – but Berbatov offered Fergie precious little.
There are easier places to shine than the Britannia but for much of this United wing-clipping last season's Premier League top scorer was anonymous – as he has largely been since his surprise exclusion for last year's Champions League final.
Some of United's more reactionary fans are even suggesting Owen and Macheda should relegate the Bulgarian to fifth choice. While that may be a bit much, Berbatov must take his chances when they come.

David Moyes
You can hardly blame Moyes for the manner in which his side set up against City's galaxy of stars; it wasn't pretty but it was effective. Shame, then, about the Scot's vapid post-match bleating about a so-called Vincent Kompany stamp that saw Tim Cahill limp out of the match. It was an inexplicable interpretation of an incident that looked more like Cahill sliding through the back of an unaware Kompany to pick up a deserved yellow card.
Fans and journalists should place a premium on any post-match conference that isn't packed with anodyne platitudes, but fabricating controversy to divert attention from a fruitless afternoon's frustration is damaging to the game and grossly unfair on Howard Webb. Moyes continues to do a remarkable job at Goodison Park with next to no resources but it's spoiled somewhat by his occasional gracelessness in defeat.

Bolton Wanderers
Wanderers sunk to the bottom of the table after Arsenal consigned them to a fifth consecutive Premier League defeat – a 10th in 11 games if you include the soggy ***-end of last season. Owen Coyle seems to know his honeymoon period is over, given his groundbreaking dabble with 4-2-3-1 in place of the usual 4-4-2, with long-time key man Kevin Davies even dropped to the bench (though the skipper was back on 20 minutes in, replacing the groggy Ngog).
Granted, The Trotters might have fancied pulling the plug on the fixture computer that dealt them the Manchester clubs, Arsenal and Liverpool in their first six games, but with Chelsea up next Bolton will require all their manager's renowned positivity to stay chirpy.

Michael Oliver
The Premier League's youngest ever referee has acquitted himself well in his fledgling top-flight career thus far, though he incurred the wrath of Neil Warnock on Sunday afternoon for a head-scratching penalty decision. Armand Traore was adjudged to have impeded Gabby Agbonlahor on the back-post and in spite of not one protest from Villa player or supporter, a spot-kick was given. It was a bizarre moment in a game that at least seemed to spark into some semblance of life after Barry Bannan converted the fortuitous penalty. Oliver got most of his decisions right in the end but will hope for a more straightforward assignment next weekend. Though preferably not one that features Warnock.

Fernando Torres
Oh, Nando...There's no doubt the extra yard of pace and spatial awareness are at least in the post back to Chelsea's record signing. Torres buzzed around Swansea's back four with real menace, taking down Juan Mata's curled through ball before instinctively drilling the ball across Michel Vorm into the far corner to put Chelsea 1-0 up. The unfortunate thing is that Torres will miss his side's next three league matches after a wild lunge on Swans midfielder Mark Gower earned him a deserved red card. Sadly, that's just the way it's going for poor El Niño right now and he spends his second consecutive week among the villains.

Bad Boys
Five red cards and forty two yellow cards in nine games. If only those inconsiderate Premier League stars would spare a thought for those long-suffering refs who'll have endured some late nights with all that extra paperwork...

Weekender: The Grim Reaper's efficiency drive

2011-09-23T13:06:00Z

1) Pride comes before a fall for promoted clubs
Last weekend all three Premier League newbies won their games – for the first time since February 10, 2007. That day Reading defeated Aston Villa, Sheffield United beat Tottenham and Watford won at West Ham – but things didn't go as well on the next matchday. On February 24, the Blades were battered 4-0 at Liverpool, Reading were beaten at Middlesbrough and Watford suffered a 3-0 home defeat at the hands of Everton. QPR, Norwich and Swansea, be warned.

2) Jon Parkin: the second tier's managerial Grim Reaper
New Doncaster manager Dean Saunders shouldn't make himself too comfortable in the Keepmoat dugout, not unless he quickly shifts the club's newest loanee. On Thursday Cardiff lent Jon Parkin to Rovers, who sacked Sean O'Driscoll on Friday morning. Nothing new for poor old Parkin: in the last 21 months, he has seen four managers hoofed out: Dave Jones (Cardiff, May 2011), Darren Ferguson (Preston, December 2010) and Alan Irvine (Preston, December 2009). With each successive manager getting a shorter time than the last before getting the elbow, we calculate Saunders was due for the sack around Friday lunchtime.

3) How to get in the referee's head
If Kenny Dalglish was trying to influence referee Mike Jones ahead of Liverpool’s match at Tottenham when he publicly announced he'd have a private conversation with his board about condemning referees publicly (still with us?), he failed. All didn't end well for the Reds, who ended that game at White Hart Lane with nine men and with a 4-0 spanking. Still, don’t fret Kenny, here’s Robbie Savage to tell you how it’s done...
PERFORMANCE Savage on influencing referees

4) Many hands knocking at the league's back door
Want a close title race? Try Division Five. Ten games in, the Blue Square Bet Premier (as marketing men in Daffy Duck ties now insist on calling it) has Luton, Wrexham, Gateshead and Fleetwood tied up on top with 20 points, with Mansfield and Braintree only a point behind. That’s one point separating the top six, in a division from which only the champions go straight up, with the next four playing off for the second promotion slot. Much more exciting than last season’s canter by Crawley, who racked up 105 points – 25% more than sixth-placed Kidderminster. Long way to go yet, Brian, but long may the title race stay fresh.

5) Coming (very soon): Stats Zone over Europe
Ever wanted to know how many passes Xavi completes, how many times Arjen Robben gets fouled or how many shots Cristiano Ronaldo blazes a shot off target in a Champions League match? Well now you can, thanks to the latest addition to FourFourTwo's StatsZone app – due out in time for Tuesday's games. You can now access and analyse data from all of this and last season's Champions League matches, allowing you to gauge exactly how much better Barcelona are than everybody else. Yay!
STATS ZONE More on the analysis app created by FFT & Opta

They say it never rains but it pours. Even so, the inclement Lancashire weather would’ve been the least of Arsene Wenger’s problems as he watched his Arsenal side collapse in comedy fashion away to Blackburn last Saturday lunchtime.

Their 4-3 defeat to a side who had previously propped up the Premier League only served to highlight the lingering problems plaguing the Gunners – not least a disorganised defence, especially at set-pieces. Manchester City showed weaknesses of their own, dropping deep to blow a two-goal lead at Fulham, while Liverpool looked a real mess in the 4-0 tonking at the hands of Tottenham.

Tuesday and Wednesday saw the biggest of the big guns (plus Stoke and Birmingham) join the League Cup fray. Of course, they all took it very seriously, and didn’t field teams full of kids or hapless fringe-players, or stick Dimitar Berbatov at centre back for 20 minutes. Not at all. Well, maybe a little bit.

Arsenal had to come from behind to beat League Two Shrewsbury, Spurs crashed out to Stoke, Liverpool edged past Brighton, Chelsea needed penalties to knock out neighbours Fulham, while Manchester United saw off old chums Leeds.

That match at Elland Road was somewhat overshadowed by the pathetic chanting of a minority of morons, who saw fit to make light of the death of two Leeds fans in Istanbul in 2000, or the 23 who perished in the Munich air disaster. More pathetic still has been the resulting finger-pointing session and accompanying cries of ‘but they started it’. These are grown men. Amazing.

Oh yes, and Fernando Torres missed a sitter in Chelsea’s 3-1 Premier League defeat at Old Trafford, but you’re bored of that now, surely...?

Zonal Marking's Stats Zone EPL preview: Moyes's plan, Coyle's dilemma

Italy: Inter sacking the only predictable thing in a mad week

Video: Jose Mourinho loves shaving and, apparently, chairs

Spain: Catalan press beg beaten Mourinho to stick with Madrid

Fan's Eye View: Was Fernando Torres ever really that great?

France: Meet the Mexican goalkeeper so popular he crashed the internet

Iffy's Inside Write: Stupefying sackings and mystifying money moves

More features uploaded every day at http://fourfourtwo.com/blogs/

No, you DON'T need a 20-goal striker

One of football's most enduring clichés returned last Saturday, when some ex-pros watching tellies with Jeff Stelling decided that Newcastle front-man Leon Best "isn't a 20-goal-a-season striker".

They're right – he isn't – but not many are. Last season's Premier League top scorers, with exactly 20 each, were Dimitar Berbatov and Carlos Tevez – both arguably available, but not cheap. Two seasons before that, nobody reached 20. Indeed, since the top flight reduced to 20 teams in 1995, only 21 players have reached 20 – and 10 of those were playing for that season's champions.

Clearly those who score more than a goal every other game are at a premium. But are they essential? Having one go-to guy leaves teams at the mercy of suspension, form, fitness and hatchet men, as well as risking tactical one-dimensionality.

Sir Alex Ferguson knew that. Ruud van Nistelrooy scored 20 or more in four of his five seasons at Old Trafford (he was injured for half of the other one) but in that half-decade Manchester United only won the league once. They sold him to Madrid and won three successive titles.

Having a league-leading goalscorer is undoubtedly a source of pride but football is a team game and it's far better for the unit to have a spread of players chipping in regularly rather than one spectacularly. Last season's runners-up Chelsea had Florent Malouda on 13, Didier Drogba 12, Salomon Kalou and Frank Lampard on 10; apparently they signed a big-name striker in January, but it didn't work out too well.

Although either solution would suit Alan Pardew, they do (as we're constantly reminded) love their No.9s in Newcastle. And the reliance on one goalscorer dates back to the archetypal centre-forward – the Jackie Milburn, the Nat Lofthouse, the Tommy Lawton – at the vanguard of a 2-3-5 formation designed to feed him in an era when even relegated teams would score 50 or 60 goals, the lion's share from the iconic centre-forward.

Tactics, expectations and defences have changed. Even if built around a contemporary battering ram – Drogba for Chelsea, Kevin Davies for Bolton, Grant Holt for Norwich, Emile Heskey for Fabio Capello – fluid forward formations frequently find the goals coming from other players. And as any defence knows, the more varied the angle of attacks, the harder they are to defend.

Here's another angle. Steven Fletcher's 10 goals for Wolves last season were enough to keep the Molineux side in the top flight, but Andy Johnson’s 21 in 2004/05 couldn’t save Crystal Palace from the drop. Be careful what you wish for.

– Gary Parkinson, FourFourTwo.com editor

We're busily transferring over 15 years of FFT interviews to our online archive. Among the 400 we've uploaded so far:

"I wouldn’t dream of trying to learn to fly a helicopter"
One on One, Mar 2007: Michael Owen

"I'd rather break a limb than listen to non-stop hip-hop"
Ask a Silly Question, Dec 2007: Marcus Hahnemann

"My players have to watch out or I'll come in the dressing room and kill them"
One on One, Nov 2003: Claudio Ranieri

This Weekender was brought to you by James Maw, Gary Parkinson, Gregg Davies, Huw Davies, Vithushan Ehantharajah, Huw Davies, Ryan Peasland, Nick Ford and the Lithuanian basketball team for trying

Jose Mourinho likes shaving and chairs

2011-09-22T13:12:00Z

A frankly bizarre video featuring your friend and ours, Mr Mourinho, prancing about with a chair and pointing at stuff for some reason...

No, we don't get it either....

Premier Ratings: Spurs new boys catch the eye as Wenger's nightmare continues

2011-09-19T16:34:00Z

FourFourTwo.com's James Maw rates (and slates) the Premier League's 20 clubs on the basis of their performances this weekend...

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 9
(W 4-0, Liverpool H)
Don’t let the two red cards fool you - Spurs won this game thanks to their own brilliance, rather than Liveprool’s indiscipline. Adebayor’s impact has been instantaneous, yet it was fellow new-boy Parker who caught the eye - not allowing the Reds a moment’s peace in the middle of the park.

BLACKBURN ROVERS 8.5
(W 4-3, Arsenal H)
While they enjoyed a substantial serving of good fortune in being on the right end of two own-goals, Rovers’ doggedness and willingness to throw players forward on the counter saw them worthy of a win. If Kean can continue to tease performances out of Yakubu, relegation will look far less of a certainty.

QUEENS PARK RANGERS 8
(W 3-0, Wolves A)
While it shouldn’t be a surprise to see Rangers reinvigorated after their late-summer splurge, the speed with which they have clicked into gear certainly raises eyebrows. A comprehensive win at a ground where Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea all lost last term suggests they are acclimatising well to life back in the top flight.

SWANSEA CITY 7.5
(W 3-0, West Brom H)
Premier League goals for Swansea City are evidently like London buses - although they probably don’t smell of pee-pee. Having gone four matches without netting, the Swans finally came good thrice over. Although there’ll be tougher challenges ahead, this win will give confidence that their patient approach is the right one.

NORWICH CITY 7.5
(W 2-1, Bolton A)
Having completed barely over 200 passes - the fourth-lowest for a winning side in the Premier League this season - and enjoyed just 40% possession, this was, if nothing else, an efficient win. And that’ll please Paul Lambert no end.

EVERTON 7
(W 3-1, Wigan H)
This routine victory proved there’s life for Everton after Mikel Arteta (and Jermaine Beckford...), with new boys Apostolos Vellios and Royston Drenthe both netting their first goals for the club. While there are big questions to be answered off the pitch, it appears the Toffees should have enough to remain competitive in the top half.

FULHAM 7
(D 2-2, Man City H)
While they may still be searching for that elusive first victory, the Cottagers will be buoyed by their comeback against a side in such form. With West Brom and QPR coming up, they will fancy their chances of getting off the mark sooner rather than later.

MANCHESTER UNITED 6.5
(W 3-1, Chelsea H)
A win, and a win against a likely title rival, but not a performance that convinced in the same way as the four preceding it. Sir Alex Ferguson will be concerned by the number of chances his side allowed their opponents in the first half, and their inability to kill off the game in the second.

SUNDERLAND 6.5
(W 4-0, Stoke H)
The Black Cats were far from unlucky in their victory over the travel-weary Potters. But that won't matter a jot to Steve Bruce, who will have been delighted to see his previously goal-shy side net four against a traditionally solid defensive unit.

NEWCASTLE UNITED 6.5
(D 1-1, Aston Villa A)
The Magpies’ steady start to the campaign continued with a solid draw at Villa Park, but they may feel they could have had more. Pardew’s men had 22 attempts at goal, though only six hit the mark - perhaps a sign the fans’ calls for strengthening their forward line were justified.

MANCHESTER CITY 5.5
(D 2-2, Fulham A)
City will likely endure worse results than this in the coming months, but the nature with which they dropped deeper and deeper into their defensive third and ultimately blew a two-goal lead suggests that, although technically on point, they perhaps lack the mentality of 'champions'. Not that we’re ruling them out just yet, of course.

CHELSEA 5.5
(L 1-3, Man Utd A)
There’ll be plenty of positives for Andre Villas-Boas to take from Sunday’s defeat - not least the performance of Fernando TorRes, despite THAT miss. Had luck, and the offside flag, gone in their favour, they could well have taken a point, which would have been just about right given their input to a compelling match.

ASTON VILLA 5.5
(D 1-1, Newcastle H)
There are unbeaten starts and there are unbeaten starts. Seven points from five matches against sides who finished outside last season’s top six is a fairly unspectacular version. Eight shots on target in their last three matches perhaps underline where the problem lies.

WIGAN ATHLETIC 4.5
(L 1-3, Everton A)
While Martinez will have been frustrated at having seen the game slip away in the dying minutes, perhaps a bigger blow was the injury suffered by star striker Hugo Rodallega, who looks set to be out until Christmas with a knee ligament injury.

BOLTON WANDERERS 4
(L 1-2, Norwich H)
Alarm bells will be ringing at the Reebok after a fourth straight league defeat. Losing to Manchester City, Liverpool and Manchester United is nothing to be ashamed of, but a home defeat to the newly-promoted Canaries exposed Wanderers as somewhat witless - Owen Coyle quickly needs to find a way of turning the tide.

WEST BROMWICH ALBION 4
(L 0-3, Swansea A)
Having tried playing well and losing (three times) and playing not-bad and winning, the Baggies opted to play terribly and get thumped in South Wales. And it worked a treat, with the visitors gifting the Swans a two goal lead.

WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS 4
(L 0-3, QPR H)
Having started the season so strongly, and made Molineux something of a fortress last term, few would’ve had Wolves down to lose two straight home ties, shipping five goals. The big test for Mick McCarthy will be picking up his troops so as to prevent this from becoming a false dawn.

LIVERPOOL 4
(L 0-4, Tottenham A)
Could it be that Kenny Dalglish’s conspiracy theorising backfired? Referee Mike Jones certainly didn’t have a problem booking the Scot’s players, who largely appeared to be frustrated.

STOKE CITY 3.5
(L 0-4, Sunderland A)
An uncharacteristically pathetic defensive performance saw the Potters comprehensively beaten on their return to these shores following their midweek jaunt to Ukraine. Their efforts were summed up by Peter Crouch’s botched attempt at goal from six yards in the dying minutes.

ARSENAL 3
(L 3-4, Blackburn A)
In a way, this result will have smarted more than the 8-2 mauling at Old Trafford. The farcical nature of the goals conceded perhaps sums up the Gunners' current malaise, and while Wenger will be pleased Arteta has hit the ground running, the lack of cohesion at the back means the nightmare's not over yet.

WHAT YOU MAY HAVE MISSED: Porous Reds, sliding Blues and Swans' chevron
HEROES AND VILLAINS: Banquets, scalps and coffin nails

Heroes & Villains: Banquets, scalps and coffin nails

2011-09-19T09:12:00Z

Who rocked and who shocked in the Premier League this weekend? Mark Booth hands out the bouquets and brickbats

HEROES

The Premier League
Sometimes, just sometimes, the BestLeagueInTheWorld justifies the hype. This weekend had storylines and sub-plots aplenty with Manchester United's win over Chelsea proving to be the thrilling showpiece dessert to a banquet weekend of Premier League fare featuring controversy, dramatic comebacks and a whopping 38 goals.

Nani
His detractors might need to check their stance. There are those who say he goes missing in big matches, but his sublime goal against Chelsea was impeccably timed as the visitors looked to be getting a foothold in the match. There are those who say he has a lack of final product, but 19 goals and 33 assists in his first 100 Manchester United matches compare favourably to Cristiano Ronaldo's 19 goals and 12 assists.

If Nani can produce this kind of performance on a regular basis, United are going to take some stopping – especially with Ashley Young and Wayne Rooney looking similarly imperious.

Fulham
Showed wonderful spirit to get back into a match that looked finished 11 seconds into the second half. Sergio Aguero's second straight after the break sparked the home side into life which earned its reward when Bobby Zamora and Danny Murphy fired them level. The energy on display was all the more remarkable when you consider the modesty of their squad size and the fact that they were in Europa League action on Thursday night.

Martin Jol's appointment at Craven Cottage was a popular one across the Premier League; although Fulham are yet to record a win, there was enough evidence on Sunday afternoon that it should be a fun season again in West London, both at home and abroad.

The newly promoted sides
It's been a tough introduction to Premier League life for Norwich, QPR and Swansea but all three recorded relatively comfortable wins on Saturday afternoon that allow supporters cause for optimism. Swansea's brand of easy-on-the-eye football was growing increasingly liable to win more praise than points, but a hugely impressive 3-0 win over West Brom proved that the ancient art of keeping the ball on the floor can prosper when the individual sacrifices itself for the collective.

QPR proved at Wolves what they had hinted on Monday night against Newcastle, that their new acquisitions have added real dynamism to a solid if unremarkable squad, while Norwich, widely seen as the weakest of the newly promoted sides, recorded a vital three points at Bolton in what could still prove to be a long season for Paul Lambert's men.

Tottenham Hotspur
Relations between Messrs Levy and Redknapp will have improved no end after thrashing their race-for-fourth-place rivals at White Hart Lane. Although they were helped on their way by Liverpool's lack of discipline, even at 11 versus 11 Spurs were well on top and this result could prove to be a platform for greater things. What was also evident was that an interested Luka Modric is worth his weight in gold if Spurs have aspirations of rubbing shoulders with Europe's elite once more next campaign.

Steve Kean
Whilst one high-profile scalp won't be enough to mute the bloodthirsty thousand who marched on Ewood Park on Saturday afternoon, it will have heartened Steve Kean to see the manner in which his Blackburn Rovers side went about their business. Looking in trouble when Arsene Wenger's side took the lead twice, Blackburn rallied and the sight of Martin Olsson bouncing on the spot, eagerly awaiting his introduction in the second half, preceded his inspired assist for Arsenal's second own goal courtesy of Laurent Koscielny – the definitive fourth nail in Arsenal's coffin.

Sunderland
Granted, they were facing an exhausted Stoke City 'fresh' back from Kyiv and lacking experience in simultaneous fighting on domestic and continental fronts, but you still have to put them away – which Sunderland duly did. A 4-0 scoreline in no way flattered Steve Bruce, who will be delighted to silence his increasingly vocal critics. Breathing space at last for a clinical Sunderland.

VILLAINS

Fernando Torres
It might not be the most fashionable opinion that Fernando Torres has been Chelsea's most effective performer this season so far, and had it not been for one lapse in concentration, he could well be included in the Heroes section for his lively performance at Old Trafford. Unfortunately that momentary loss of muscular co-ordination was one of the most staggering misses in living memory.

A delicious stepover took David De Gea out of the game and for all the world it looked like Torres had the simplest of tasks in rolling the ball into an empty net. Not so, as the Spaniard sliced Chelsea's faint hopes of a point wide of the target.

Liverpool
Ill-discipline and a lack of organisation cost Liverpool dear and there's a vague sentiment emanating from Anfield that King Kenny's honeymoon period might be coming to an end. It's difficult to remember Liverpool being so hopelessly outclassed, though they weren't helped in their cause by Charlie Adam and Martin Skrtel's suicidal second yellows.

Steven Gerrard looks set to return in midweek for the League Cup fixture at Brighton; perhaps it's a game too late for Liverpool, as his leadership would have provided the missing example in a worryingly rudderless showing at White Hart Lane.

Roberto Mancini
More of a reality check than a crisis but after endless eulogies about attacking football from pundits and neutrals, Mancini reverted to type in the 69th minute at Craven Cottage. With Fulham in the ascendency after halving City's advantage, Mancini replaced the team's heartbeat in David Silva with the defensively-minded Pablo Zabaleta – and sacrificed two vital title-race points. City were dropping deeper with each passing minute and with this change the Italian surrendered any attacking intent and invited Fulham on.

This fixture might have been the perfect chance to shuffle his pack and bring in Mario Balotelli and Carlos Tevez rather than leaving them on the bench again; continuity is fine if you're winning matches but City's wasteful first-half performances in their last two games will have drawn raised eyebrows from two of the squad's more disruptive characters.

Arsenal
Their appearance in this villains section is growing dangerously regular. Some of the most naive defending you will see in the Premier League this season saw Arsenal snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at Ewood Park. Most problematic of all, deadline signings Andre Santos and Per Mertesacker seem to have immediately bought into that Arsenal defensive mantra: abandoning all sense of responsibility when put under pressure.

Before watching the second half through their fingers, Gooners would have had cause for encouragement as Mikel Arteta pulled the strings from a quarter-back role; however, without Jack Wilshere Arsenal lack a player to set the emotional tone of the team – and the way they wilted in the second half against a very average Blackburn side will have given Arsene Wenger yet another sleepless night.

Phil Dowd
There was a time a foul in the penalty box equalled a penalty – especially when perpetrated on a home player at Old Trafford. Not on Sunday, when Ashley Cole was lucky to escape with only a yellow for an ugly scything challenge on Javier Hernandez in the penalty area. A spot kick did not follow. Eh?

Weekender: Fouls, feasts, freebies and fire

2011-09-16T13:20:00Z

1) Holt and Davies set for foul-off
Last weekend Kevin Davies became the second player in the history of the Premier League to collect 100 yellow cards, joining fellow foul-finder Lee Bowyer. Davies has topped the foul charts in six of the last seven seasons, but there may be a new bruiser in town – literally, this weekend, when Bolton host Norwich. The Canaries' former tyre-fitter Grant Holt leads this season's sinners' list with 15 fouls, four clear of Davies. Expect some keenly-contested corners and perhaps the odd eye-watering tackle, then.

2) Champions League – goal feast or goal famine?
Big Ears is back and one of its most interesting groups – Real Madrid, Ajax, Lyon and Dinamo Zagreb – started disappointingly cautiously with just one goal in its first two games. The lowest aggregate score in any first-round Champions League group came in 2005/06 when Villarreal, Benfica, Lille and Man United managed just 12 between them in 12 games. However, Fergie's men also took part in the highest-scoring group, three years previously when they scored 16 goals, Maccabi Haifa 12, Olympiacos 11 and Bayer Leverkusen nine to share an astonishing 48 goals – an average of four per game. Beat that, Mou & Co.

3) Paralympians prepare to represent their country
While we wait for the FAs of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to stop bickering over who (if anyone) represents the host nation at the 2012 Olympics, at least we know there'll be a British Paralympics side. Two, in fact – a five-a-side team of visually impaired athletes and a seven-a-side team of players with cerebral palsy. The action will take place between August 31 and September 9 2012, but tickets are currently only on sale until September 26 2011 – a week on Monday. Act now – for more information, visit tickets.london2012.com.

4) Magic ref makes beautiful assistants disappear
Players and management of Hereford and Gillingham should be mindful of their manners around referee Paul Tierney on Saturday. The Lancashire official took charge of the League Two pair’s previous clash in April, in which he booked eight players and sent both sides’ assistant managers – Dave Kevan and Ian Hendon – to the stands for persistently protesting at the pernickety whistle-blower.

5) Let's go somewhere nice, love. Ooh, there's a game on…
Leaves are falling faster than QPR ticket prices and half the UK is being whipped by hurricanes. Anybody fancy getting away for the weekend? FFT's travel partner Nickes offer bargainous ticket-and-hotel deals to world-renowned destinations which combine football with fun – like Rome, Amsterdam, Madrid and Milan. There's Lazio v Roma on Oct 16, from £259; Ajax v Feyenoord on Oct 23, from £231; Real Madrid v Atletico Madrid on Nov 27, from £261; or AC Milan v Inter on Jan 15, from £251. See FourFourTwo.com's Travel Guide for dozens more, plus exclusive city guides.
TRAVEL Check out FFT's football travel guide

Win tickets to "the" Arsenal
We've got some tickets to give away for when the Gunners host Shrewsbury. Want some?
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Bad weekend for the big names. Inter lost 4-3 to Palermo in the first round of the strike-delayed Serie A; Barcelona sit fourth after a draw at Real Sociedad; and Bury lost 4-2 at home to Rochdale in League One's North Manchester Clasico.

Nearby, the two Manchesters swatted aside local pretenders Bolton and Wigan to remain 100%. Below them, Arsenal were gifted slim victory by Swansea's goalkeeper and Liverpool lost despite dominating Stoke. If the champions beat Chelsea this weekend the two MCR clubs could be pulling clear already.

In midweek, a Premier League side lost in a cup competition – but it was Wigan's second string losing at Palace in a riot-rescheduled Carling Cup game, so nobody paid much attention. After all, Fernando Torres was setting up both goals in Chelsea's opening Champions League win while Arsenal were conceding a late Dortmund equaliser.

The following night, the two Manchesters found it less easy to impose their will with 1-1 draws for United at Benfica and City at home to Napoli. In truth, it wasn't a great midweek for the island's continental ambassadors: in the other trophy Celtic and Birmingham lost while Fulham, Stoke and Tottenham U21s were held.

And finally, an award for severalupmanship to Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo, who put an unfriendly welcome in Zagreb down to his being "rich, handsome and a great player". Smooth.

Jon Champion's EPL: Tetchiness, tactics & dry-docked flagships
Read now >>

Italy: Milan act their age while Inter just show theirs
Read now >>

Zonal Marking's analysis: Chelsea's weak spot & United's soft centre
Read now >>

USA: Earthquakes, hurricanes & platelet-rich plasma
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Holland: PSV & Ajax prepare to resume battle for supremacy
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Spain: Famous club seeks 10th European triumph. Again
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More features uploaded every day at http://fourfourtwo.com/blogs/

How to save the Europa League

It’s safe to say the return of the Europa League was met with little more than a half interested raising of eyebrows. The standing of Europe’s secondary competition is arguably at an all-time low. Put simply, the Europa League needs a kick up the jacksie – and not some hackneyed re-branding and a few added bells and whistles. Here are some suggestions.

Revert to a straight knock-out. You can see why UEFA copied the Champions League cash-cow with a group stage, but the fans aren't buying it – literally, given the low attendances. Eradicate the dead rubbers, making every match a must-see, ending "squad rotation" and hiking prices for broadcasters.

Redistribute money more evenly. Few teams make a profit in the Europa League; many make a loss. The competition winners only get €3m, compared to the €7.2m each doled out to every single Champions League group-stage team. Nobody's asking for parity but UEFA already have the prize money to make it more of a bonus than a booby prize.

Move the matches to a Tuesday. One of the Europa League's big problems is that it feels like an afterthought. More would watch if it were on a Tuesday, with Champions League on a Wednesday and Thursday – forcing fewer teams to switch their weekend kick-offs to Sunday.

– James Maw, FourFourTwo online features editor

For six more ways to save the Europa League, read the full feature here

We're busily transferring over 15 years of FFT interviews to our online archive. Among the 400 we've uploaded so far:

"It's like he's got wing mirrors"
Perfect XI, May 2011: Jamie Redknapp

"They really are scum"
More Than A Game, Jun 2004: Millwall v West Ham

"I've been at Napoli when fans were setting fire to seats"
Celebrity Fans, Sep 2011: Massive Attack's 3D

This Weekender was brought to you by James Maw, Gary Parkinson, Gregg Davies, Huw Davies, Tom Burrows, Nick Ford, Ali Maxwell, scohns and sconns

More Than A Game: Millwall v West Ham

2011-09-16T12:00:00Z

"Don’t do it, chums! DON’T throw soil,  cinders, clinkers, stones, bricks, bottles, cups, fireworks or other kinds of explosives, apples, oranges, etc. on the playing pitch during or after the match. DON’T barrack, utter filthy abuse, or molest in any way the players of the visiting team.” Millwall warning notice, 1949-50.

“Oh, Wisey! Woah ah ah oh! He’s only five-foot-four! He’ll break your fackin’ jaw!”

Flooding out of the New Den into the glorious afternoon sunshine, you’ve never seen quite so many cheerful, rosy-cheeked and twinkly-eyed South-East Londoners. Millwall have just beaten West Ham and dozens of delirious denizens are on their mobile dogs, imparting this information to a woman called Anne.

“Four-one! AN' it could have been seven! AN' we missed two penalties! AN' their keeper got fackin’ sent off!”

I’m trying to fit in. By not looking like a soft,  middle-class, Northern homosexual who likes opera, real ale and kittens. I’ve done me homework. I’ve got a copy of the Millwall fanzine The Lion Roars in me sky rocket. Inside is a savage attack on an Evening Standard article entitled 50 Things Every Londoner Should Do This Year. Number 17 is: “Go for pie and mash.” To which a disgusted TLR replies: “Do not do this as a novelty, do this as part of everyday life.”

So there I am. Trying to look like the sort of tasty geezer who has pie and mash on a routine basis. And who hates West Ham, not because they’re Cockneys but – get this – because they’re not Cockney enough. Which they achieve by, er, being too Cockney.

Of course, nobody in football needs a reason to hate the scum from up the road. But Millwall make a decent fist of it. The fanzine hates West Ham “because they won the World Cup and are the ‘Academy of Football’ and are loveable, cheeky barrow boys and that lovely Alf Garnett, wasn’t he funny? Grrrrr!”

From the Millwall perspective, says Garry Robson, author of No One Likes Us We Don’t Care – The Myth And Reality Of Millwall Fandom, the rivalry with West Ham “is played out entirely in terms of toughness, virility and cultural authenticity within Londonness”.

John, a Millwall fan quoted by Robson, states this in plainer language: “They’re all fakers – the ‘East End’, all that ‘loveable Cockney’ b*ll*cks. And this thing with the Krays, and it’s gone on and on and on. They all love the Queen Mum and it was bombed  during the war. With us it’s, like, ‘They’re all thieves and gangsters over there’, but with them it’s, ‘Oh they might be thieves, but they’ve all got hearts of gold and they have nice street parties and they’re not really bad lads.’ Like they keep saying about the Krays – you could always leave your door open. It’s all b*ll*cks.”

West Ham, on the other hand, would “rarver fack a bucket / Wiv a big hole innit / Than be a Millwall fan / For just one minute”. And they tend to look down on “Scumwall” as “pikeys”.

“They really are scum,” explains Hammers fan Pete. “I mean, I was on the train once and there was this Millwall fan. He was asleep, he was about 60, really revolting-looking. And he had ‘I Love Sex’ tattooed on his hand. That says it all, really.”

So you get the picture. This is Ronnie Kray vs Charlie Richardson. Dirty Den vs Del Boy. Jim Davidson vs Hale & Pace. It’s an argument with no real rhyme, reason or rationale. Two predominantly white tribes – both increasingly drawn from far-flung suburbs in Essex or Kent – at loggerheads over which best represents an ever-more multicultural East London. Total b*ll*cks, really. When you think about it. So it’s a good job nobody really does.

“Where were you at Upton Park?” sing the 2,000-odd visiting West Ham fans, all apparently pointing at me. I blush. Because this is actually my second attempt to see a game between these two sides this season. A furious West Ham press officer refused me access to the first.

“Why do you want to see the game?”

I’m doing an article on the rivalry…

“There is no rivalry! There is NO rivalry between West Ham and Millwall! It’s just a game! OK!? It’s JUST a game!”

Yes, but…

“IT’S JUST A GAME!” (End of conversation.)

OK, OK – it’s just a game. So why am I feeling just a little bit nervous? Well I’ve done me research, see. And most fans, academics and media pundits agree – visiting Millwall is like walking naked into a pit full of grizzly bears. With a sign saying ‘Grizzly bears are puffs’ around your neck. Arsenal’s Gooner fanzine  babbles about the “Dickensian surroundings with water dripping from the dank viaduct”, and claims that leaving the ground is “like being on manoeuvres in some enemy-infested outpost in Vietnam”.

John King, in his seminal hoolie novel The Football Factory, gibbers that Millwall has a history of  “a hundred years of kicking the f*ck out of anybody who strays too far down the Old Kent Road”.

A hundred years? Try 400. In the 17th century,  panicking Puritans condemned this area as a bolthole for every species of “dissolute, loose and insolent”  ruffian, “evill dispozed person” and “sturdy beggar” on the planet. South London, wrote bible-basher Donald Lupton in 1632, is “better termed a foul den then a faire garden” (the name kind of stuck). In 1837, Charles Dickens set Fagin’s den on Jacob’s Island in Bermondsey: “The very repulsive lineament of  poverty, every loathsome indication of filth, rot and garbage.” And in 1996 the US State Department  ‘red-flagged’ the area as a no-go zone for tourists, claiming it was as dangerous as Guatemala (which, at the time, was overrun by right-wing death squads).

This, as former Millwall player Eamon Dunphy so eloquently put it, is quite simply “the wrong part of London”. And – if the press are to be believed – Millwall FC are the living embodiment of sporting evil. “The New Den, like the old Den, remains  unparalleled, a uniquely poisonous, malevolent, ugly, depressing venue,” frothed Keith Pike of The Times. “To watch Millwall is to journey into a valley of hatred,” blathered Ken Gorman of the Daily Star as he stared fearfully at “a sea of scowling vengeful faces bounded by beer-fuelled loathing for any outsider”.

“To talk of hatred,” ranted Ken, his nostrils dilated in animal terror, “is not to exaggerate the most evil stench of wretchedness I have ever encountered.”

So that’s why I’m doing my breathing exercises and trying really hard not to s*it myself as I walk from the tube station, past the yuppie-flat building sites, down by the railway lines and under the dank, graffiti-covered Victorian brick arches. Past evil-looking crows that go “Caw!” And the gluehead-wobbly scrawled sign that reads “west ham will not make the den!”

You want menace? I’ll give you f***ing menace. This morning, before setting off, I tuned into Talk Sport Radio. Tony Cascarino and Andy Townsend were discussing the derby and engaging in a strange hyperbolic willy-waggling that made the game sound like a showdown between Freddy Kruger and the KKK. “I wouldn’t take my daughter to it!” said Cascarino. “Ooh no! I wouldn’t take my wife to it!” one-upped Townsend. And the two of them then segued seamlessly into a discussion about Republic of Ireland games in Belfast during the height of the Troubles – and al-Qaeda, armoured cars and guards with guns. And I’m stood there, electric toothbrush in my gob, absolutely terrified. Thanks, lads.

The press build-up to this game has bordered on the hysterical. The Observer refer to Millwall as “the Mike Tyson of football”. Writing in The Guardian, Zoe Williams reveals she is told not to go by her  brother because “the one thing they hate more than each other are journalists”. A gentleman called Forest Gate Phil happily tells a lads’ mag “I fully expect there to be murder”. And former West Ham hooligan Cass Pennant is quoted as saying that “the atmosphere of hatred is unreal”.

Pennant is the author of the definitive history of West Ham hooliganism, Congratulations – You Have Just Met The ICF. The chapter on these derbies does not make for pleasant reading. It involves boots, fists, knives, machetes and – in one horrible instance – giant British Rail track-spanners. This history is well known by the Burberry-capped adolescent t***-psychopaths who keep the flame of hooliganism alive on the  internet. And some of them are positively drooling over West Ham’s visit to the New Den.

So it’s no wonder that, according to the tabloids, this game is going to be like the opening scenes of Dawn Of The Dead, with grown men tearing each other apart with their bare teeth. They should make a film about it. In fact they are doing. It’s called Hooligan [ed: it ended up being called Green Street]. With Elijah Woods as an American student who is “seduced by the world of football hooliganism” at a Millwall/West Ham derby. Seriously. It’s going to make The Texas Chain Saw Massacre look like Finding Nemo. What am I doing here?

But the sun is shining on the railway sidings and the spring flowers are poking their dainty heads through the cracks in the quaint Victorian arches. And if this bit of London is Dickensian then it’s most definitely the Consider Yourself One Of Us scene out of Oliver! (rather than that bit where Bill Sikes smashes Nancy’s skull in with his stick).
Twenty minutes before kick-off and the West Ham fans start singing Bubbles. And the Millwall fans respond with their trademark howl. But it’s all a bit intimidation-by-numbers. (He said, smugly, knowing there are over 1,000 police at this game.)

Meanwhile, the stands nearest the visiting fans are full of mime artists. One combs a huge imaginary quiff, pretends to be a tea-pot and then uses his arms to suggest West Ham are “all mairf” (by imitating the jaw movements of a large fish).

The game itself is farcical. Millwall miss a penalty. West Ham score an own goal. With an hour gone the score is 3-1. West Ham’s keeper is sent off. Millwall are awarded another penalty (which they also miss). And that’s when some of the West Ham fans decide to ‘attack’ the Millwall fans. Sort of.

What happens is that a couple of hundred away fans are, er, ‘held back’ by a very, very thin blue line. Consisting of five coppers. ‘Enraged’ and ‘frustrated’, the West Ham fans jump up and down for a bit and demolish a Kick Racism Out Of Football banner. More coppers turn up. And about 10 minutes later some policemen in riot gear amble over. It’s all utterly ritualistic and without any real menace, but it’ll allow a few a***holes some bragging rights on the hoolie websites tomorrow. “We’d’ve took Millwall if it hadn’t been for those five coppers asking us politely to sit back down,” etc. And that’s the main thing.

So where did it all start, this jellied-eel-fuelled blood feud? This interminable geezer vs geezer  bitterness? West Ham Pete thinks he knows.

“There was a big strike at the ironworks about 1912 and the Millwall lot were the ones who crossed the picket line. So basically they’re the scab team.”

But this, alas, turns out to be an urban legend – at best total b*ll*cks, at worst a garbled re-telling of the Portsmouth/Southampton story.

“Look, if this rivalry went that far back,” says Phil, a West Ham fan, “then, when the Den was bombed during the Second World War, why did West Ham offer to ground-share? There’s always rivalry between South-East London and the East End, yeah? That’s obvious – ’cos we never had rats in the East End until they built the Rotherhithe Tunnel.”

We’re in a pub in London’s neutral West End. West Ham fans Ian, Phil and Pete are trying to shout down Millwall fans LSD and Jane. Some of the fans present might be described as former hooligans. Nobody is using his or her real name.

An outsider witnessing this maelstrom of shouting, swearing and table-banging would probably find it hard to believe that all the people here are friends. And that (Millwall) Jane and (West Ham) Pete are girlfriend and boyfriend. The Dickensian ambience is heightened still further by the fact that a certain extremely drunk 1970s punk rock star is also at the table. He will take no part in the conversation,  however, as he is far too busy engaging in the latter stages of foreplay with an extremely drunk young lady.

Is it not true that this rivalry is really overblown and a lot of Millwall fans and West Ham fans are actually friends?
Ian No!
LSD No!
Pete Oh come on! You know it’s f*cking true!
Ian Thing is, West Ham don’t consider Millwall to be any sort of challenge. Tottenham are our main rivals.
LSD Yeah, right. And then Arsenal and Real Madrid. But not necessarily in that order.
Ian Ha ha ha! Thing is, South London are obsessed with East London. ’Cos they’re rubbish!
Phil It’s because no one sells pegs round our way and they see us as a potential market.

Do Millwall have a problem with the way West Ham bang on about how they won the World Cup in 1966?
Ian No, it’s just the fact we wear shoes!
LSD Yeah, normally white ones to match your socks.
Ian Oh hark at Captain Reebok! It’s all down to the Jubilee Line extension. South London’s always been gutted because they can’t get anywhere and now they’re getting ideas. Oh, which way to the Bernabeu?
Phil It used to be that people would go to West Ham one Saturday and go to Millwall the next.
LSD That’s quite true. In the ’40s and ’50s. The antagonism started in ’73 when a fan went under a train at New Cross.

But which is the real London? The East End or  South-East London?
LSD They both are. Yes, definitely. Without a doubt.
Ian But you lot ain’t Cockneys.
Phil Well, neither are you!
Ian And neither are you, you Barking c***!
Pete Ian! Steady!
Ian Whatever happens, we’ll bash the journalist c***.

Is it not true that both teams increasingly draw the bulk of their support from the suburbs, which makes all the argy-bargy about “Londonness” somewhat redundant?
LSD No!
Ian No!
Pete Whoa, hang on!
Phil East London’s changing all the time. The area around Upton Park is far more Asian and a lot of the West Ham support have moved out to Essex.
LSD Look, the two areas of London with strongest identity are East and South London, yeah? Which basically came from the Romans up to the modern day.
Phil What the f*ck are you talking about?

If you walked into a pub full of East London football fans, is there any way you’d be able to tell them apart?
Phil If they was trying to sell you heather and pegs…
LSD There is a way – you won’t like it. Black geezers.
Phil You see, you got no style, you got no soul…
LSD Millwall supporters see it as a bit like the attitude there used to be in the East End. It’s still very strong in Bermondsey. They see it – wrongly or rightly – as the last white, working-class bastion of inner London.
Ian It’s a fackin’ island!
LSD I’m not saying it’s right; I’m just saying that’s the way it is. South Bermondsey, round where the football ground is, it’s not a good place to walk around if you’re black. There are black supporters of Millwall, but they’re very few. The black community don’t want to associate themselves with Millwall and the white community who go to Millwall don’t want to associate themselves with black people.
Ian Can’t we just all get together and kick the f*ck out of the journalist?
Jane With Millwall it’s passed on. If your dad supported them, you do. It is quite exclusive – it’s kept in the family almost. West Ham is anyone – it’s like Man United.

Jane, does your dad know you’re seeing a West Ham fan?
Jane It’s not going down well, let’s put it that way. But what you say about a lot of our supporters being in Kent, that  is true. I mean, all the kids in Bromley support Millwall because of the ‘bad boy’ reputation.
LSD You can’t blame them. You can’t hold your head up high and say you support Palace or Charlton, can ya?

What happens if Millwall go up and West Ham don’t? How will you deal with losing that chip on your shoulder?
LSD I ain’t got a chip on me shoulder!
Jane It’s pride.
LSD I’m proud of supporting a little club in South-East London that’s got no money. Whose back’s against the wall – and the rest of the football league hates you! We sing about it every week! We’re proud of it!
Phil Yeah, but without being too damning, what’s your average gate this season? Ten thousand?
Jane That doesn’t come into it.
Phil But it does. West Ham have been relegated and they get 32,000. I mean, come on!
Jane That’s not what it’s about.
LSD Millwall are the only club in the world where the fans are more famous than the club. The celebrities are in the stand, not on the pitch.
Phil Millwall have always had something against us.
Ian They’ve always hated us more than we’ve hated them.

Is that true?
LSD No.
Ian Fack off! We don’t give a fack about you!
LSD I hate Charlton more than I hate West Ham.
Phil Look, people support teams for all sorts of reasons, but Millwall fans are just born there – bang – and that’s it. And the Millwall people I know, they’re as genuine as I am. So let them enjoy their day. They had us over. You’ve just got to say well done and good luck to them.

And all is peace and harmony. But just then the 1970s punk rocker notices that someone has nicked his pint. A right old hoo-hah ensues. The punk is screaming in rage and fury. A fight almost starts.

And the West Ham and Millwall fans smile at one another and shake their heads. Some things just aren’t worth fighting about...

Words: Steven Wells. From the June 2004 issue of FourFourTwo. Subscribe!

Nine ways to save the Europa League

2011-09-15T15:18:00Z

It’s safe to say the return of the Europa League this week is generally likely to have been met with little more than a half interested raising of eyebrows.

The standing of Europe’s secondary competition is arguably at an all-time low. Several strong sides, including Sevilla and AS Roma, have already made a half-hearted departure from the competition, while many of those who remain, including Harry Redknapp’s Tottenham, are unlikely to view it as anything but a colossal inconvenience until Easter at the earliest, should they manage to crawl through the group stage.

Put simply, the Europa League needs a kick up the jacksie – and we mean with real, sensible action, rather than some hackneyed re-branding and a few added bells and whistles to temporarily appease the gawping masses.

Here are a few suggestions…

Revert to a straight knock-out
Perhaps the biggest complaint of the Europa League is the number of matches the winning club must play – 17 if they enter at the play-off round, where the highest-ranked entrants start their odyssey. For comparison, the top-ranked Champions League competitors only have to play 13 games.

You can see why UEFA introduced the mini-league to the secondary competition – in an attempt to copy that Champions League cash cow which guarantees each group competitor at least three home games. Trouble is, the fans aren't buying it – literally. Last season Juventus's three home group games were watched by 10,837, 12,162 and 6,992.

And it's not just those deadest of rubbers at the end of the group stage. Even for their first home group game, big teams struggled to get half the fans they would for a league game. Stuttgart (league average attendance 39,012) started with a pitiful 13,800; PSV Eindhoven (33,494) got 17,500; Sampdoria (23,330) got 12,159.

The group games just aren't attractive. A straight knock-out competition would eradicate uncompetitive dead-rubbers and make every match a must-see (causing much more competition among broadcasters), while also streamlining the whole competition – much to the delight of managers who wouldn't have to play their second strings in order to concentrate on finishing higher up the domestic league. Speaking of which…

Redistribute money more evenly
When Celtic waltzed to the UEFA Cup final in 2003, it was said they didn’t actually make any money until the final itself. Similarly, speaking in 2001, then-Ipswich boss George Burley expressed concerns that his side would actually lose money by taking part in the competition, rather than turn a profit.

Nobody's saying Europa League contestants should get as much as Champions League participants but currently the divide is frankly startling. This year’s winners will be rewarded with €3 million, less than half the €7.2 million doled out each of to the 32 Champions League group-stage teams and way, way short of the €50+ million pocketed by last year’s Big Cup finalists Manchester United and Barcelona.

Splitting the money more evenly would not only add as a greater incentive to teams competing in the Europa League, but would also help ramp up competition on the domestic front: qualifying for the secondary competition would revert to being a bonus instead of a booby prize.

Move the matches to Tuesday
One of the Europa League’s biggest problems is that it is seen as an afterthought to the week’s Champions League action. After two nights watching the likes of Barcelona, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Otelul Galati, there's substantially less appetite for a third night featuring the continental competitions' ugly sisters in their tatty ball-gowns.

The solution is simple – switch the Europa League games to Tuesday evening and have the Champions League spread over Wednesday and Thursday. This will allow Joe Public to whet his footballing appetite by watching up-and-coming players at teams on the rise, before tucking into the main course.

Due to the way the Champions League "matchdays" are divided up (with protagonists currently switching between Tuesday and Wednesday), it would also mean fewer domestic matches would need to be switched to Sunday the following weekend, because nobody likes a weird kick-off time. Which brings us to...

Scrap 6pm kick-offs
Since last season, UEFA has staggered Europa League kick-off times in order to allow broadcasters to show back-to-back matches. That’s sort of understandable (although they don't do it for Champions League games), and clearly the broadcast revenue is important to the participating clubs, but it’s a bit of a ball-ache for the fans, some of whom, we’re told, have jobs and stuff...

Don’t parachute in the Champions League failures…
There can be few more disheartening sights for a club who have battled their way through the Europa League group stages than seeing their path blocked by eight sides who have failed in another competition. It seems preposterous that a team who crash out of one knock-out competition can crash-land in another. The "relegation compensation" does little to dampen the notion that the Europa is anything more than a poor relation.

…but give a Champions League spot to the winners
Rewarding those who succeed is quite different from compensating those who fail – especially in a separate season. Reversing the flow between the two competitions makes perfect sense; much like awarding a Europa League place to domestic cup winners can revitalise those competitions, it add motivation for those in the competition and would certainly dissuade any team considering treating it with disdain.

Keep thinking outside the box for final venues
While we all enjoyed last year’s Champions League final at Wembley, the novelty is likely to have worn off by the time ‘the home of football’ hosts it again in 2013.

That’s exactly why taking last year’s Europa final to Dublin was a masterstroke. It was the first time Ireland had hosted a major European final, while the same came be said of Romania for this season’s final in Bucharest. This provides an increased sense of occasion, while also spreading the wealth, and indeed love, across the ‘UEFA Family’.

Ditch the ‘anthem’
There are many Champions League trademarks the Europa League would do well to imitate, but the over-dramatic pre-match ditty is not one of them.

While the Champions League theme sets pulses racing and causes the hair on the back of the neck to stand up, its Europa League equivalent only conjures images of Colin Murray mumbling incoherently on Channel Five. After all, the climactic Champions League anthem lyrics are "Die Besten, les grandes équipes, the champions"; what's French for "cup-winners" and German for "also-rans"?

Lose the stupid name
“Consignia? Scope? It’s the Post Office and the Spastics Society!” Had Alan Partridge’s rant against renaming taken place a few years later (and if he had given half a hoot about football) he may well have included the Europa League.

Of course, if we’re losing the ‘league’ element of the competition, it makes perfect sense to revert back to a cup-based moniker. How about – oh, we don’t know – the UEFA Cup?

Van Nistelrooy, Vieira and a gladiatorial battle for footballing supremacy

2011-09-13T10:22:00Z

A bevy of busty maidens are sitting around a lunch table, gossiping like a brood of clucking hens.

Oblivious to the flesh on show, a battalion of Roman centurions – one of whom is chatting away in his gladiatorial war mask – are gathered on another table chewing the fat.

As I stroll across a red carpet, into a huge, lavishly decorated ancient building, another centurion, with arms more akin to a disproportionately-sized action figure, saunters past me as he speaks in German to the person on the other end of his phone.

He is quickly followed by a flat-cap wearing Andy Ansah (co-host of Wayne Rooney’s Street Striker), who is predictably gushing about the “unbelievable tekkers” of Patrick Vieira and Ruud van Nistelrooy.

A spaghetti junction of wires, lights and cameras, are being hauled from A to B.

To understand how I find myself in this surreal situation, we need to rewind the action.

Heineken, sponsors of this year’s Champions League, have invited me to the shoot of their new advert at a studio in Prague, starring Vieira, Van Nistelrooy and Bayer Leverkusen goalkeeper Rene Adler.

In the commercial, former foes Vieira and Van Nistelrooy will clash for a ball dropping from the heavens into the Pantheon of Rome (a temple to all the gods of Ancient Rome). The winner of the aerial battle will send a header flying towards Adler’s goal – a box in an opera house.

Before the guys start shooting the ad, I get a chance to grab a chat with them.

Adler is up first and he isn’t happy about having to concede a goal.

“It’s a great honour to be here with great players like Patrick Vieira and Ruud van Nistelrooy, but it’s going to be difficult to let the ball in. My heart will break,” says the German, who reveals a plan to broker a deal with the Dutch striker.

“I’ll agree to let Van Nistelrooy score as long as he doesn’t do it in the Bundesliga.” (The evil laugh of Van Nistelrooy could be heard on the Costa del Sol as he signed for Malaga in June).

As Adler shuffles off, Champions League veteran and former Premier League and Serie A enforcer, Vieira takes his place.

The towering Frenchman starts to speak about the difficulty of returning to Highbury in a Juventus shirt – probably because his former young apprentice Cesc Fabregas absolutely schooled him (FFT put this in much more diplomatic terms).  

“It’s difficult trying to control yourself (when you play against a former team) because you spent so much time at your old football club and you know everybody there. It adds pressure,” admits Manchester City’s Football Development Executive.

“I had this feeling when I left Arsenal and went to Juventus and we played them in the Champions League. I saw all my old friends – it was difficult.”

After reliving the nightmare, Vieira slips off to nurse reopened wounds with some cake.

As he departs I see the forehead of Van Nistelrooy zig-zagging through a maze of folding screens, like a shark fin cutting through calm waters.

The penalty box predator and scorer of 56 Champions League goals in 81 games – bettered only by Raul (71 in 144) – is here to talk about the games that changed his life.

He recalls his first outing in Europe’s elite competition: “I scored a hat-trick for PSV in my first Champions League game (v HJK Helsinki, November 25, 1998) and I thought, ‘This is a big moment’,” says the Malaga hitman.

“It was a moment to breathe and look back at what I’d been through since that youth game - climbing up through the Dutch leagues with Den Bosch, Heerenveen and PSV. It was a crazy moment.

“Scoring this hat-trick gave me a lot of hope and belief towards achieving my dream - to be successful on the highest stage. I really enjoyed this moment.”

As the interview ends, van Nistelrooy gets called on to set – it was time to get the cameras rolling.

Watching from a balcony, I watch the former Premier League titans line up alongside one another, waiting for the ball to drop from the skies.

I can see them in their Arsenal and Manchester United colours, the legs have aged, the occasion is different, but the intense competitiveness is there.

“Action!” A ball drops towards the jostling pair. Under the instruction of the director, Van Nistelrooy comes out on top. The duo share an awkward laugh after the first take. But with take after the take, the heat of battle turns up a notch.

Sweat drips down their foreheads, their elbows sharpen and the veins in their necks bulge.

The PR knew it was time to leave. This shoot was about to turn into a bloodbath. As we stride off set the Arsenal fan in me took over, like the Incredible Hulk’s rage.

Looking at the smug Van Nistelrooy basking in his staged glory, I lost control.

Breaking free of the PR’s safety net I gallop towards the former Real Madrid assassin and leap into the air, arms aloft, a la Martin Keown at Old Trafford 2002, roaring, “Yyyyooouuurrrr ssshhhh****tttt aaahhhhh” as I clatter his head.

The 6ft 2in Dutchman falls to the floor holding his face, crying like a baby. Vieira holds me aloft on his shoulders as we chant, “Good to, good to be, good to be a Gooner!"

OK, the last three paragraphs are nothing more than a figment of my imagination. In reality I left the studio, profusely thanking the players for their time and wishing I had teamed up with Arsenal’s greatest No.4 (sorry, Cesc).

When the 2011/12 Champions League campaign kicks off tonight, I’ll be looking out for the advert, hoping to see Vieira catch Van Nistelrooy with a sneaky elbow to the ribs.

Clarence Seedorf, Gianluigi Buffon, Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Patrick Vieira and Rene Adler star in the new films from Heineken to promote their new UEFA Champions League ‘Legendary Football’ campaign. To find out more visit facebook.com/heineken

Premier Ratings: United & City march on as Bolton's chocolate defence melts

2011-09-12T21:00:00Z

FourFourTwo's Huw Davies allocates the averages for this weekend's Premier League performances...

MANCHESTER UNITED 9
(W 5-0, Bolton A)
A generous scoreline, yes, but United are already looking so close to the finished article they seem to be terrifying opposition sides into making mistakes. Phil Jones made a case for himself at right-back, while Hernandez proved he is arguably Rooney’s more natural striking partner.

MANCHESTER CITY 9
(W 3-0, Wigan H)
While their cross-city rivals were flattered by their scoreline, Mancini’s men could've had a hatful rather than a palmful. And for all of the brilliance shown by Silva, Aguero, Tevez and Nasri – with four-star Dzeko on the bench – City’s back line shared seven shots between them.

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 7.5
(W 2-0, Wolves A)
There’s nothing like a win to banish wantaway blues: Niko Kranjcar, parked by the exit for over 12 months, created chance after chance. And with some of the flotsam and jetsam washed away, Spurs are beginning to look like a team again – especially with Parker and Adebayor starting well.

STOKE CITY 7
(W 1-0, Liverpool H)
If their big-money summer signings suggested ambition, this result certified it. A massive win over a confident Liverpool side sent the men from the Potteries into the top four. Who needs possession and more than three shots when you have Jamie Carragher to gift you a penalty?

CHELSEA 7
(W 2-1, Sunderland A)
Meireles was a massive influence in the middle of the park as Andre Villas-Boas’ Blues took advantage of a Sunderland defence having a shocking day at the office. The new manager’s first big test comes this weekend, though, away at Old Trafford.

WEST BROMWICH ALBION 6.5
(W 1-0, Norwich A)
The Roy renaissance continues: after frustrating defeats despite solid performances, a good away win gives the Baggies some elbow room at the bottom. They must learn to wrap up a win though: a missed penalty meant for some nervous tension in the closing stages.

ARSENAL 6
(W 1-0, Swansea H)
Hardly a comfortable win at home to a team yet to score this season, but exactly the kind of gritty victory Arsenal needed to jumpstart their campaign. Of the three debutants, Mikel Arteta appeared to settle the quickest.

QUEENS PARK RANGERS 6
(D 0-0, Newcastle H)
Given the Hoops had five debutants in their side, they did well to click so quickly into gear, although they will be disappointed to have ultimately drawn a match they had largely dominated. Neil Warnock will have been delighted with the way his side played, if not their profligacy in front of goal. Find that cutting edge and they look like being more than comfortable.

NEWCASTLE UNITED 5.5
(D 0-0, QPR A)
Alan Pardew’s side certainly rode their luck in drawing 0-0 at Loftus Road, and the Magpies manager will likely be concerned by the ease with which the hosts created chance after chance. Nonetheless, they’ll be happy with a point, particularly given it takes them into the top four at this admittedly early stage of the season.

EVERTON 5.5
(D 2-2, Aston Villa H)
A functional result on the surface, but David Moyes will be frustrated his team twice failed to hold onto a lead. That nearly half of their shots came from outside the box suggests goals may not continue to come easily while Tim Cahill is forced into a lone striker role.

ASTON VILLA 5.5
(D 2-2, Everton A)
Fabian Delph might do well not to show his face in the dressing room for a bit, having conceded an idiotic penalty; nevertheless, Villa grabbed an important point. They may not have deserved it, creating few chances and completing just half of their forward passes, but McLeish won’t care.

BLACKBURN ROVERS 5.5
(D 1-1, Fulham A)
Off the mark, though one point could have been three had Ruben Rochina passed to a wide-open Goodwillie early on. A sublime strike absolved him, but Steve Kean knows Rovers can’t rely on 20-yard howitzers for a result every week. Also lucky to survive a good penalty shout.

FULHAM 5
(D 1-1, Blackburn H)
If you’re away day draw specialists, you have to win your home games, particularly against struggling opposition. Riise Senior worked the left flank well, but Duff’s inability to cross right-footed – and unusual refusal to cut inside – let the (right) side down. Martin Jol may be starting to worry with his side still winless.

WIGAN ATHLETIC 4.5
(L 0-3, Man City A)
The Latics somehow fired in 11 shots without ever really looking in the game. Fortunately, the imminent return of James McCarthy, restricted to substitute duties by a knee injury, should help them to gain greater control of the midfield.

WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS 4.5
(L 0-2, Tottenham H)
A hugely disappointing result given they had made such a positive start this season. Only Jamie O’Hara, against his former club, kept up the impetus from a decent first-half showing, but many of his teammates appeared to shirk the challenge as the game slipped away.

BOLTON WANDERERS 4
(L 0-5, Man United H)
A score of 5 when they conceded as many goals might seem absurdly charitable, but Bolton had their chances; in fact, they had 22, eight shots more than their conquerors. They were, however, architects of their demise for some chocolate defending (i.e. melting under the spotlight rather than particularly tasty).

SWANSEA 4.5
(L 0-1, Arsenal A)
One mindless c**k-up from Michel Vorm, so solid until now, was enough to deny Swansea a first point on the road. You don’t win games without scoring goals, though, and record signing Danny Graham is in urgent need of a confidence-boosting account opener – as are his team.

LIVERPOOL 4.5
(L 0-1, Stoke A)
It’s never an easy game at the Britannia, but having utterly dominated from start to finish, this defeat would have hurt. Liverpool’s impotency was best summarised not by Suarez’s late miss, but Henderson’s inability to lift the ball over Begovic no fewer than three times in one attack.

SUNDERLAND 4
(L 1-2, Chelsea H)
Gyan suddenly sloping off under seemingly cynical circumstances did nothing to help pre-match preparation, so it’s hard to be too critical. However, Steve Bruce’s side looked utterly devoid of interest and incisiveness. A debut goal for Ji Dong-Won does at least point to the future.

NORWICH CITY 3
(L 0-1, West Brom H)
Opportunity lost. Norwich remain winless, thanks mainly to a lingering lack of lethal finishers: the Canaries had 18 shots but rarely troubled Ben Foster. And if it hadn’t been for the post and a penalty save, West Brom’s winning margin could have been greater.

Heroes & Villains: Featuring, for some reason, Abel Xavier

2011-09-12T15:07:00Z

Rounding up the weekend's Premier League victors and varmints...

HEROES

Sergio Aguero
While the Argentina forward’s speedy assimilation into Premier League life surprised few pundits outside Isleworth, this shouldn’t stop us revelling in what has been one of the most eye-catching arrivals in English football since Abel Xavier’s hair/beard combo.

Six goals and one assist in four matches that have seen his new team net 15 times represents as good a start as any made by a Premier League ‘noob’ in recent times, and the 23-year-old’s hat-trick against Wigan demonstrated the quick feet and quicker mind that have see him so instantly click with his new teammates.

Wayne Rooney
In continuation of the theme of this fledgling Premier League season, the Mancunians playing second more than matched their rivals’ earlier efforts. At Bolton, a second successive league hat-trick took Wayne Rooney to eight goals already as United waltzed with growlingly familiar ease to a rampant win.

It’s curious to think that at the turn of the year, United were struggling for points away from home and Wayne Rooney was looking a shadow of his former self. United’s second league victory away from home last term came on New Year's Day, while Rooney didn’t hit the eight-goal mark in the league until the day after April Fool's Day.

Emmanuel Adebayor
Spurs are likely to be heavily dependent on Adebayor over the course of the season, and Harry Redknapp will no doubt take great encouragement from a debut performance that saw Spurs move off the bottom of the Premier League after successive shoeings from the Manchesters.

The Togo striker didn’t hang about in making an impact for his new club Tottenham, leading the line in a way Peter Crouch could only dream of and scoring a calmly-taken goal that sees him move within three of the Stokeward-bound forward’s league tally of last term.

Rubén Rochina
More than seven months after moving to Ewood Park, and two days after Jon Champion told FFT that the Spaniard needed to "come through and show what [he's] made of", the former Barcelona B-teamer finally got his Blackburn career up and running with an impressive performance with helped Rovers to their first point of the campaign with a 1-1 draw at Fulham.

Although some of his longer-range passing was a bit wide of the mark, Rochina was more than willing to get his hands dirty, making seven successful tackles and two defensive clearances. But his most notable contribution, of course, was the spectacular 32nd-minute drive from the edge of the Fulham box that left Mark Schwarzer helpless and gave Steve Kean’s side the lead.

Daniel Sturridge 
The Chelsea starlet could quite easily have upped sticks for any one of the host of clubs interested in his services this summer, having proven himself a Premier League quality striker during his six-month loan spell at Bolton. But instead he knuckled down, impressed the Blues' new manager Andre Villas-Boas and is now keeping ‘Fifty Million Pound Misfit’ Fernando Torres kicking his expensive heels on the sideline.

Meanwhile Sturridge used his own heels to devastating effect, deftly flicking past a bamboozled Simon Mignolet to seal three points for the West Londoners at the Stadium of Light. Cue England speculation, what with Mr Capello apparently now very much down with the kidz.

  VILLAINS

Kevin Davies
It’s not too hard to imagine Davies as a ranch worker during the American Depression, unaware of his own strength and accidentally crushing a mouse. Not if you’re familiar with the work of John Steinbeck, anyway. As has been noted, the Bolton battering-ram is one of the Premier League’s most fouled players as well as one of its most persistent foulers, but he was definitely the sinner on Saturday evening – clattering Tom Cleverley in the third minute, then clobbering Patrice Evra in the 12th. While the French full-back was fortunate enough to avoid injury, the young midfielder was left with ligament damage and four weeks out of action. We’re sure the big lummox didn’t mean any harm…

Gabriel Tamas
The West Brom defender caught Norwich’s James Vaughan with an injury-time elbow which was at best clumsy and at worst massively thuggish. The Romanian appeared to have a quick glance over his shoulder before swinging an arm in the direction of the former Everton striker, who was left both furious and in need of surgery. "James has gone to see the plastic surgeon, and it's a bad one," said Canaries boss Paul Lambert. "It has gone straight through the lip and they can't just stitch it up, the specialist has got to look at it.”

Michel Vorm 
Football is a fickle game. Last month’s be-gloved superhero can be this month’s bumbling clown – just ask Heurelho Gomes. Swansea’s Dutch keeper became an instant hit after an impressive debut performance against Manchester City and back-to-back clean sheets against Wigan and Sunderland, but the blame for Saturday’s narrow defeat at the Emirates will lay solely at his door.

His overly ambitious quick throw toward a congested area of the pitch saw the ball rebound off his own player and fall kindly for Andrei Arshavin, who was left with an opportunity even he couldn’t botch.

Sunderland’s defence
Imagine for a moment you are a Premier League defender, and your club has sold its two star strikers over the previous two transfer windows. You can't help that, but you know it’s time to step up to the plate and show a desire to dig deep, battle and throw your body on the line (in the most literal sense) for the cause.

Sadly for Sunderland, their back four adopted a rather more lackadaisical approach to keeping Chelsea at bay during the first half of their meeting with the Londoners on Saturday, instead opting to let John Terry and co do pretty much as they pleased in the penalty area. Between them they spurned three chances to properly clear the ball after Juan Mata’s freekick had come back off the post, with John Terry – criminally unmarked at the far post – able to slot home from a tight angle at the second time of asking.

Jamie Carragher
You can always count on ‘Carra’ for an honest assessment of a controversial incident, but his frankness when asked about the penalty he conceded at Stoke was perhaps telling. The Liverpool defender said that he didn’t get a clear view of a coming-together that saw Mark Clattenburg award a penalty for a foul on Jonathan Walters as he was “too close to see." Perhaps, Jamie, that’s because you had your arm wrapped around him as he looked to ghost past you...

Weekender: Solo snipers, a trip to the seaside & Italy's lack of Ballons

2011-09-09T11:16:00Z

1) Contrite Tractors trundle to the seaside
You can tell there's a recession on if clubs are feeling contrition toward their "customers". Arsenal have apologised for their abject annihilation at Old Trafford by offering fans free tickets, following similar post-pasting offerings by Energie Cottbus and Wigan's players. And this weekend Ipswich will attempt to make up for their 7-1 thrashing at Peterborough by laying on free buses to Blackpool, their longest away trip of the season. The Tractors normally tear up the Tangerines, too: Ipswich have beaten Blackpool eight times, drawn seven and only lost three times. And nothing says "Sorry" like three points.

2) Italy needs to grow some Ballons
Serie A finally gets under way this weekend after the first round of matches was postponed due to strike action, but you could be forgiven for feeling something was still missing. Following Brazil international Ronaldinho's move from AC Milan to Flamengo in January, there are now no Ballon d'Or winners currently active in the Italian top flight for the first time since 1982. Could this be a further sign of a decline in the quality of Italian club football, following the country's slide down UEFA's coefficient rankings in recent seasons?
BLOG Follow the Italian action with Serie Aaaargh!

3) Second-tier Three Lions aplenty
Despite losing Scott Parker to Spurs last week, West Ham are still keeping the Football League's England flag flying. There are 11 second-tier players with England caps – Michael Ball, Darius Vassell, David Nugent, Nicky Barmby, David James, Kevin Phillips, Anthony Gardener, Lee Bowyer, Robert Green, Carlton Cole, David Bentley – with the last three all plying their trade at Upton Park. Perhaps not all names you would class as international quality, but the likes of Fabio Capello, Steve McClaren, Sven-Göran Eriksson and Kevin Keegan thought differently...

4) Strikers should (almost) never go back home
Craig Bellamy’s not your typical striker, which is good news for Kenny Dalglish. Forwards returning to a former club usually fare much worse, as can be seen by analysing the goal returns of 10 Premier League-era strikers who have returned for a second period at the same club. In their original spells, the 10 players we assessed scored 798 goals in 1704 matches – an average of a goal every 2.1 games. Upon their return they notched 276 in 824, averaging a goal every 2.95 games. Only one of the strikers did better in his second spell: Can you guess who it was?
BLOG Imperfect 10: The strikers' suspect second spells

5) Solo sniper Cristiano can outgun Getafe
Cristiano Ronaldo has good cause to be confident of outscoring Getafe, the side he and Real Madrid will face this weekend. The Portuguese forward has scored 69 league goals for los Merengues since arriving at the club in 2009, two more than the 67 the entire Getafe squad have netted during their collective time at the Coliseum club. Mind you, he's had enough practice: since 2006/07 C-Ron has had by far the most shots in Europe's top five leagues with 1,017 attempts – 335 clear of nearest challenger Wayne Rooney (662).
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Win the shirt off Phil Neville's back – and his breakfast
The Everton captain has signed a shirt and donated the WinNaturally essential snacks and supplements he swears by. Nice of him, eh?
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The past seven days have taken England within touching distance of Euro 2012, left Scotland’s hopes hanging by a thread and totally dashed the hopes of Northern Ireland and Wales. Spain, Holland and Italy, meanwhile, have all booked their tickets for next summer's jaunt to Ukraine and Poland.

The praise following England’s comfortable 3-0 victory in Bulgaria didn't last long, with more questions being asked of Fabio Capello after a nervous 1-0 Wembley win over Wales. While Capello's final home game was unconvincing, Gary Speed will be hugely encouraged by Friday evening's 2-1 victory against Montenegro and a confident performance in London, when his young team recorded 10 shots to England's 11 and lost to the only effort either side got on target.

Scotland were seething after two dubious penalty calls in the 2-2 draw with the Czech Republic left them with an almighty struggle to grab second spot behind Spain in Group I. Steven Naismith kept their slim hopes alive in a 1-0 win over Lithuania.

Northern Ireland are out after a 4-1 defeat to Estonia led to calls for manager Nigel Worthington to be sacked. Republic of Ireland held firm against a dominant Russia in Moscow to secure a credible 0-0 draw and maintain second place in their group.

Holland secured their place for next summer thanks in part to a thumping 11-0 win against minnows San Marino with Robin van Persie grabbing four, while Spain maintained their 100% record with a 6-0 win over Liechtenstein despite dropping Fernando Torres. Meanwhile, an 85th-minute winner courtesy of Giampaolo Pazzini means Italy will be there – unlike Zlatko Kranjcar, sacked by Montenegro despite the Balkans sitting second in England's group. Tough game, this football.

Why it's wrong to take pleasure in Lampard's decline
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America, Pep and the quest for football
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Conte looks to future for Juventus
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Championship: Bentley's chance, Le Fondre's step up & McClaren's sighs
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More features uploaded every day at http://fourfourtwo.com/blogs/

Don’t scold Mourinho, enjoy him - warts and all

For most, the prospect of international football providing a timely distraction when the world’s disapproving gaze is negatively focused upon your behaviour would be, at the very least, a stroke of good fortune. Somehow, it seems highly unlikely Jose Mourinho will see it that way.

Real Madrid started the season with an impressive and purposeful 6-0 victory over Real Zaragoza, but focus had remained upon Mourinho’s petulance against Barcelona, when he prodded the eye of Barca coach Tito Vilanova.

Speculation grew that he was set to resign as Real’s manager, that he had lost the backing of the club’s board and that his distasteful conduct warranted severe punishment.
To let the incident pass without consequence would unquestionably be wrong and set a dangerous precedent, but to hound one of football’s best managers away from one of the world’s biggest clubs and the sport’s most intense rivalry would be equally nonsensical.

Imagine a world without him, where every press conference is conducted in the monotonous tones of Glenn Roeder, Chris Hutchings, or Howard Wilkinson. Every defeat is accepted with the utmost grace, while refereeing decisions are half-heartedly criticised.

He may be arrogant and curt, and he can be devious, but Mourinho’s one of the best and he doesn’t care who he upsets in his bid for success. It’s time to appreciate him, warts and all.

– Declan Warrington, FourFourTwo.com blogger - read the full feature here

We're busily transferring over 15 years of FFT interviews to our online archive. Among the 400 we've uploaded so far:

I'd run over a dragon in my Range Rover"
Ask A Silly Question, Nov 2010: John Hartson

"For some reason, I've become known as 'Lips'"
Boy's A Bit Special, Jan 2006: Anton Ferdinand

"I caught one with a Malteser, one with a Sugar Puff"
My Secret Vice, May 2007: Jimmy Bullard

This Weekender was brought to you by James Maw, Gary Parkinson, James Lewis, Chris McDonald, Izzie Boulert and the good folks at Opta.

America, Pep and the quest to find the meaning of...football

2011-09-06T12:54:00Z

Irish warehouse operative Paul Ring crosses the globe in the hope of finding an answer to the game's biggest question...

Have you ever had a question that just keeps nagging away at you? Ever had one of those Wednesday morning’s when you drift away and begin to contemplate the deeper issues, like football, life in football and your love of football?

On one such morning, this particular warehouse operative kept coming back to one puzzler; what is the meaning of football?

Anyone who says it is a sport played by twenty-two players would also say the Great Wall of China is merely a boundary line.

Bill Shankly once famously explained the importance of football as more important than life and death - though he may have been joking, but what, if any higher meaning does the beautiful game have? And who could answer such a question?

It could not be Jose Mourinho, who would explain the functional meaning of the game - score goals, win trophies, prod opponents in the eye and uncover the odd conspiracy along the way. It would have to be his nemesis; for if Jose is the Special One, then Pep Guardiola is The Guardian. The man with the answers. The question needed to be put to the Barcelona coach.

It is 3,286 miles from Shannon in County Clare to Washington D.C. Not quite a small step for man, but it could be one giant leap towards the answer. Tickets were booked, hotels were reserved and a press pass was secured via Manchester United fanzine Red News. In the interests of pure journalism I planned to follow Pep wherever he went .

Barcelona were in the US capital to play United in a glamorous pre-season friendly. A press conference was scheduled for two days before the game and I made my way to their hotel and blended in with the great and good of the football media awaiting the guardian.

I had poured over interviews with Juanma Lillo, Pep’s mentor, and dissected FourFourTwo’s summer feature on the Nou Camp boss. He doesn’t do one-on-one’s. He is the mythical figure atop the mountain who can answer anything and everything, but he has a press officer next to him saying; one question only.

Details were a little hazy as to what we could expect from the European champions’ press conference, but it had to ask my question. I had crossed an ocean, taken a metro and now braved the harsh confines of the Ritz Carlton. The moment was close.

There cannot be many who feel a crushing sense of disappointment when Xavi and Gerard Pique walk into the same room. The pass-master and elegant defender were good company, with Pique especially diplomatic in his answers. But it just wasn’t Pep.

I nodded and cracked the smile of a kid who’s just unwrapped a pair of socks on Christmas morning. The greatest socks in the world, but socks nonetheless.

I resumed the hunt at Friday’s open training session. I was pitch-side as Andres Iniesta, David Villa and the rest emerged into the giant FedEx stadium and quickly began to zip the ball around. Pep took his bow soon after. I shouted in vain but my plea was defended by the school-girl-style screaming of the Barca fans.

My pursuit was failing. Later that night at the Lincoln Memorial I heard people asking honest Abe for answers to life’s problems. I pondered for a second if the Great Emancipator might have Pep’s number but thought better of it. He wouldn’t have given it to me anyway.

Saturday was the day. He would be appearing after the game to take questions. First, if somehow Barca lost a game or second if they had won. I readied myself. My incessant itch would be scratched. The meaning of football, hell the meaning of life would be explained in a soft Catalan whisper.

Barca lost to a Michael Owen finish. A functional finish. We awaited Pep with baited breath in the press room.

“Mr Guardiola will take questions now”

My hand went up. I wasn’t called. It was to become the theme. Pep said he was ‘so, so happy with this performance’. He lauded United for their performance and praised them because they used ‘the counter attack, their best weapon’. You get the feeling he distains counter-attacks.

He drew the biggest laugh of the night when pushed on Cesc Fabregas, then of Arsenal. “There is a lot of talking on this, he is an Arsenal player, there is nothing more to say.”

When the reporter tried to force the issue, Pep cut him off like he was sweeping in front of Koeman; “Only one question per person” I only need one!

The language was then effortlessly switched to Catalan and Spanish. Why didn’t I have a translation ready?

The end came soon after and it was abrupt. He moved swiftly through the room and passed effortlessly through comments and handshakes. The sage was leaving and my answer was leaving with him.

He was now mere meters from me, I pondered calling out but a mixture of fear, respect and sheer awe prevented me from doing so. He embraced a Catalan journalist and the two jovially skipped out while I was left wide eyed and disappointed. How I wish the question I wanted answering was when Lionel Messi would be back fit.

My question remains unanswered, but only because I have yet to ask it.

Lillo once said “Fulfilment comes from the process” I am in the middle of that process. The question remains.

Released Birmingham youngster left with a difficult but common dilemma

2011-09-02T13:01:00Z

Kris Heneage speaks to a young player left looking for a club after being let go over the summer...

Three weeks ago, Cesc Fabregas departed England and returned home to Barcelona - he leaves the country with a fluent grasp of the language and a more than healthy bank account. Having joined Arsenal aged sixteen, he represents the completed development of talent Arsenal had identified eight years previously, but for every foreign player that makes it, there are a great number that don’t.

Take for example Alpaslan Ozturk. Born in Belgium to Turkish parents, he moved to Birmingham City from Germenial Beerschot on a youth contract - a deal that in itself provided few guarantees, as he explains; “I came to England without knowing where I was staying, if I was going to get paid or not, or if I was going to sign a contract”

Having left his family and friends behind, he was now forced to ingratiate himself in to a new country, city and culture, despite being only a teenager. He remembers it vividly; “I had just turned 16 when I first came to England. It was the 30th of August 2009, I had come alone but it did not matter for the first few weeks because you’re still in a bit of a shock that you’re playing in England.” He said.

Many foreign players struggle linguistically in England, and even though Alpaslan spoke English, he still had problems. Now fluent, he reflects on it with a degree of humour, explaining- “I could speak English before I came to England but I had a lot of trouble with the Brummie accent (laughs). Eventually I got used to that as well, I even think I’ve got one now.”

Once the initial excitement of a move to the Premier League had dissipated, homesickness began to set in for the youngster. “After the first couple of weeks it got hard without my family with me, but in my second year I got used to it,” he said.

Having represented both Turkey and Belgium at youth level, his future seemed bright, but problems soon began to surface between his new and former club. “When I got to England we were going to sign a scholarship deal,” he said.

The uncertainty didn’t end there, with Ozturk in a state of limbo, he explains; “Birmingham had to pay Beerschot, but for one reason or another they didn’t, and they put me on extended schoolboy forms. The issue never got solved and a few days ago the club told me that they are not gonna offer me a deal because of problems with Beerschot”

In what could be deemed slightly naive, he took to his (now deleted) Twitter page to explain just why he felt he had not been retained, tweeting; “Leaving Birmingham City Football Club, the club can’t afford to pay my compensation, thanks for the great memories Blues Fans and Club.”

With Birmingham’s reported financial troubles, his claims did not seem without foundation. Ozturk seemed a prospect, after all he was given a squad number last season and promoted to the first team for the club's FA Cup tie against Bolton. The game is something he looks back fondly on, telling me; “I cant explain that feeling it was a mixture of everything. A bit of fear, happiness, craziness, everything was in it. When I saw ‘33 Ozturk’ on the back of the shirt I was the happiest man on earth. I buzz off seeing the shirt even today.”

When asked about the player's situation, a Birmingham spokesman said; “It came to decision time, and unfortunately for Alpa the club decided not to retain his services. The club wish him all the best in the future.”

It’s difficult to decipher just where the truth lies. Don Henley once sang "There’s three sides to every story, yours, mine and the cold hard truth," - and that could arguably explain the situation. Alpaslan is now heading towards free agency, like so many unfortunate youngsters before him. Yet his outlook is still positive.

“I have no regrets” he said. It’s a statement he reiterates regarding his entire time with Birmingham, adding; “I’ve never ever regretted anything in my life, and certainly not coming and playing for the Blues [Birmingham]. As for Twitter, I just wanted to thank the fans for their support throughout my two seasons at the club. Now I have to find a new club, I’d have loved to come back and play for Birmingham, but if it’s not meant to be then it’s not meant to be.”

Now 18, Alpaslan still has an entire career ahead of him, with his dream still to play in England’s top league, he hasn’t given up just yet; “I will keep trying, I am just thankful to Birmingham for my time there. Now I will sit down with my agent and my family and decide what’s next."

Premier Ratings: City 'set a marker' as Arsenal verge on the criminal

2011-08-30T09:18:00Z

FourFourTwo.com's James Maw plays the numbers game following a breathtaking weekend of Premier League action...

Manchester City 9.5
(W 5-1, Spurs A)
Although Spurs may have played into their hands somewhat by not bothering to play anybody who would even pretend to tackle a City player in central midfield, Roberto Mancini’s side really ‘set a marker’ by winning so emphatically at White Hart Lane. Samir Nasri slotted in effortlessly as Edin Dzeko continued his ‘resurrection’ with his most complete performance in English football to date.

Manchester United 9
(W 8-2, Arsenal H)
A mark for every goal (and an extra one for the funny faces Anderson pulled as Wayne Rooney lined up those free-kicks). We place them below City as torturing a massively under-strength Arsenal at home is marginally less impressive than thrashing last year’s Champions League quarter-finalists on their own patch. Fergie won’t be happy his side allowed the Gunners to score twice and have a further 18 attempts at goal, but will at least be chuffed they netted eight against a ‘title rival’. Obviously.

Liverpool 8
(W 3-1, Bolton H)
With Arsenal and Tottenham faltering, Liverpool look huge favourites to grab the final Champions League spot – or better. Midfielder Charlie Adam came to the fore as he and Jordan Henderson scored first goals for the club in another impressive attacking display from Kenny Dalglish’s side.

Wigan Athletic 7.5
(W 2-0, QPR H)
Roberto Martinez’s side have had an expectedly smooth start to the new season, despite losing star man Charles N’Zogbia and having to fend off interest in Hugo Rodallega. They’ll do well to ‘make hay while the sun shines’ in these early months, as three points pinched from QPR could look all the more crucial should the winter be a bleak one.

Newcastle United 7.5
(W 2-1, Fulham H)
Like the Latics, Alan Pardew’s side have made a solid start to the season. The Magpies managed to navigate round the storm that was Joey Barton's departure with a fairly routine home win, and at present look a long way from being candidates for the drop - whoever would’ve thought it, eh? (clue: check the fourth entry down… and ignore the bit about Wigan struggling).

Stoke City 7
(W 1-0, WBA A)
Stoke had to weather something of a storm during their trip to the Hawthornes, with the Baggies dominating for large spells of the match, enjoying 60 percent possession and 11 more attempts at goal than the visitors. Yet it was the Potters wot won it, thanks to Ryan Shotton’s last-gasp prod out of Ben Foster’s mitts, which just goes to show you’ve got to make those chances count in this here Premier League.

Everton 7
(W 1-0, Blackburn A)
What’s that? A 1-0 away win thanks to a late, controversial goal? Oh go on then. The Toffees won their first league match of the season at the second time of asking - uncharacteristically early for a side gaining a reputation as sluggish starters - thanks to a baffling penalty awarded against Chris Samba in the dying minutes. This certainly won’t be the last time they dig deep, knuckle down and pinch points this season.

Chelsea 6.5
(W 3-1, Norwich H)
Seven points from nine represents a far from disastrous start to life in West London for Andre Villas-Boas, but it’s the nature of the performances that has raised eyebrows. The Blues appear to lack a little fluidity and imagination and, while Juan Mata will surely get the Londoners’ creative juices flowing once he’s up and running, there’s still a need for a little more artistry.

Wolverhampton Wanderers 6
(D 0-0, Villa A)
Although the Molineux men lost their 100 percent record to Aston Villa, this is still Wolves’ best start to a top flight season since 1979. Their newly-found defensive solidarity west tested in Saturday’s derby, but Roger Johnson and co passed with flying colours, holding off their rivals to secure a well deserved point.

Norwich City 6
(L 3-1, Chelsea A)
Despite ultimately succumbing to defeat in West London, the Canaries gave a more than creditable account of themselves on their trip to the capital. At one stage the Norfolk side even looked the more likely winners, before Ramires ‘won’ the penalty that saw John Ruddy dismissed and Paul Lambert’s side crumble.

Aston Villa 5.5
(D 0-0, Wolves H)
A solid, if unspectacular start to the season continued in solid, if unspectacular fashion as Villa stopped Mick McCarthy’s party bus gaining too much speed. Villa fans may have fancied their team as the favourites for this one, but McLeish is one of several managers still looking to chop and change his playing staff, and may be happy just to avoid getting off to a bad start.

Sunderland 5.5
(D 0-0, Swansea A)
Steve Bruce’s side extended their winless start to the season to three matches, although will take some solace from being unbeaten on the road. Maybe. Their biggest concern will be a lack of goals – just one from 40 attempts so far - that has this morning seen the club linked with a move to Peter Crouch.

Queens Park Rangers 5
(L, 2-0, Wigan A)
Granted, the Super Hoops are in the midst of a rather encouraging squad shake-up, with the likes of Joey Barton, Luke Young and Armand Traore only likely to improve the Shepherds Bush side, but come the end of the season they may live to rue surrendering three points to the Latics without too much of a fight.

Swansea City 5
(D 0-0, Sunderland H)
Three Premier League games without a goal will have Swans boss Brendan Rodgers a little concerned, especially given two of those matches were at home to sides who finished in the bottom half last term. On the plus side, another clean sheet and another near faultless performance from goalkeeper and potential cult hero Michel Vorm.

Bolton Wanderers 5
(L 3-1, Liverpool A)
Another defeat and another three goals shipped see the Trotters’ opening day rout at Loftus Road a distant memory. While Owen Coyle will be pleased with the number of chances his side are creating - and particularly how many Ivan Klasnic is converting - he won’t be with how many Zat Knight and co. are allowing down the other end. Still some defensive tweaking to be done, and that’s if they can actually keep Gary Cahill…

Fulham 5
(L 2-1, Newcastle A)
Their stroll to the Europa League group stages has perhaps masked how stilted a start the Cottagers have made to the Premier League campaign. Although Clint Dempsey flicked home their first league goal of the Martin Jol era, the Dutchman is still looking for his first league win and will be keen to get it before the rigours of another season in Europe hit.

West Bromwich Albion 4.5
(L 1-0, Stoke H)
While there were crumbs of comfort to take from their defeats to Manchester United and Chelsea, there was less to gleam from a loss to Stoke that sees the Baggies still to get off the mark. Roy Hodgson (we only call him Woy to be affectionate when he’s doing well…) was quick to criticise keeper Foster for his part in Stoke’s goal, a move hardly likely to quell suggestions he’s lacking when it comes to man-management…

Tottenham Hotspur 4
(L 5-1, Man City H)
Their defeat was perhaps more embarrassing than humiliating. Spurs played reasonably well in spells and came up against a highly talented team somewhere near the top of their game, but there will still be tactical questions over which Harry Redknapp will have to mull, but first he’ll be looking to squeeze a little cash out of Daniel Levy. He is ‘daaaahn to the bare baaaahns’, after all.

Blackburn Rovers 3
(L 1-0, Everton H)
There was an air of inevitability around the nature of Everton’s late win at Ewood. Blackburn’s concerned fans would’ve been half expecting the Toffees to win with a penalty, after their side had twice failed to score from the spot. That’s the way things are going for Rovers at the moment, the question is, does Steve Keen have the personality and nous to turn things round?

Arsenal 2
(L 8-2, Man Utd A)
The number of first-choice players missing shouldn‘t mask exactly how awful a performance the Gunners put on at Old Trafford, and the severity of the spanking doesn’t say much for the depth of Arsene Wenger’s squad. Heads dropped and lost causes weren’t pursued, and against a side like Manchester United those are acts verge on criminal. The next two days will most likely prove the most important of Arsenal’s season.

HEROES & VILLAINS Wenger's gap year, suicidal Redknapp and Shearer's hairline

Heroes & Villains: Wenger's gap year, suicidal Redknapp & Shearer's hairline

2011-08-30T07:30:00Z

FourFourTwo.com's man in sunny Sussex Mark Booth runs the rule over a weekend of Premier League action that will live long in the memory for anybody who wasn't at Swansea vs Sunderland...

Heroes

The city of Manchester
Although the Premier League season is barely over two weeks old, Sunday's action hints at this being a very Mancunian title race.

What a difference 12 months has made for Manchester City. On the opening day of last season, Mancini parked an armoured tank infront of his side's penalty box at White Hart Lane to escape with a 0-0 draw, this season the Premier League's new great entertainers dazzled with an exhibition of incisive one-touch football that yet again saw David Silva pull the strings as City's outstanding player. Debutant Samir Nasri's look of disbelief after Edin Dzeko added a sublime fifth told the whole story – on this form City will take some stopping.

But anything City can do, those old hands across town believe they can do better. Arsenal might be at their lowest ebb, and weren't helped by mounting suspensions and injuries, but United's dominance proved just how canny their manager can be in the transfer market. They didn't come cheap, but Phil Jones and Ashley Young are already looking like two excellent pieces of business. This will probably prove to be Ferguson's final generation of young players, but there's a togetherness and a cohesiveness in United's play that indicates those Wembley lessons from Pep Guardiola's Barcelona have been fully taken on board.

A lack of an outstanding competitor blighted last season and though they barely got out of first gear, Ferguson sealed their 19th title. If he's to add a 20th in May, City's new-found swagger means it will certainly have been harder earned. Roll on October's Manchester derby.

Eight goals and not an OG in the bunch...

Norwich City
The 3-1 scoreline at Stamford Bridge on Saturday afternoon flattered Chelsea. Norwich City have one of the UK's best young managers in Paul Lambert and a striker in Grant Holt who might just provide the firepower to keep the Canaries in the top flight. Despite their frugal approach over the summer, and without wishing to patronise, they matched their more illustrious opponents for long periods at Stamford Bridge. Though they left the capital empty-handed, Lambert's men will do well to remember that there are 16 easier places to pick up points and if they can match the level of imagination and desire on show here, they should be alright come May.

John Henry
Tottenham broke the old Big Four order once and for all after heavy investment in 2010, and after a similar outlay, Liverpool already look like having every chance of breaking back in after an impressive start to the campaign. John Henry stated that Liverpool are far from the finished article at the start of the season but they're already a million miles away from where they were this time last year.

The addition of Downing's width and Adam's craft in the middle mean that this Liverpool side has more in common with a side their manager may have played in. Factor in Lucas, carrying the water as one of the Premier League's most dramatic improvement stories of recent times, as well as a world class 'false nine' in Luis Suarez and it's no exaggeration to say that even Steven Gerrard might have his work cut out to find a place in this team. It seemed like a long way back for Liverpool when Dalglish took the reigns last season but the rate at which the Scotsman has turned their fortunes around is staggering and a lesson to those at the Emirates of the value in being active in the transfer market.

Is Leon the Best of a bad bunch at Newcastle?

Leon Best
Much has been made of Mike Ashley's failure to reinvest the £35 million Liverpool paid for Andy Carroll in January, but Leon Best's recent form in the Premier League suggests his replacement might come from the unlikeliest of sources. Eight goals in 15 league games in 2011 compares favourably to Carroll's record before upping sticks for Anfield and for the much-maligned forward, that happy knack of being in the right place at the right time is synchronised perfectly with the needs of Alan Pardew, who must be getting tired of seeing his best players leave the club. Following Enrique and Barton's exits, Newcastle's quota of quality Premier League players is receding at a similar rate to Alan Shearer's hairline so these timely contributions from Best had better not dry up any time soon.

Roberto Martinez
It's refreshing to have a young manager so likeable in both personality and tactical approach in the Premier League. Wigan played some outstanding stuff on Saturday against QPR, with Franco Di Santo's first goal particularly well worked. It'll be most interesting to see if the Argentine striker can take heart from his “where-the-hell-did-that-come-from” performance to finally make good on the potential that brought him to these shores in the first place. Having Martinez at the helm gives him the best possible chance. It's just a shame that the empty seats at the DW stadium suggests he doesn't have the town of Wigan behind him.

Villains

Harry Redknapp
Following 36 odd hours of Arsene Wenger mopping up much of the criticism heading for North London, Tottenham manager Redknapp owes the Frenchman some gratitude. Although Manchester City were superb during their romp at White Hart Lane, Spurs certainly helped them along their way through a lack of hunger and direction for which Redknapp should carry the can. It may be churlish to suggest Redknapp's suicidal decision to play two creative central midfielders - Niko Kranjcar and 'wantaway playmaker' Luka Modric - was a demonstration of poverty towards chairman Daniel Levy, but the Tottenham boss has been backed heavily in the transfer market in recent times and it's starting to look like those famous motivational powers are on the wane. The two Manchester clubs were hardly ideal opponents for their first two fixtures, but if Spurs fail to pick up three points away at Wolves next weekend, perhaps Levy and Redknapp's relationship won't be too far from breaking down irreparably.

Errrm, how did Barnet get on this weekend...?

Arsene Wenger
It's perverse that following an 8-2 defeat in the Premier League to one of their biggest rivals, it still almost seems unfair to add the Arsenal manager's name to this list. Wenger deserves sympathy for the manner in which his summer has panned out, but he must shoulder the blame for the current struggles his club face - at least partly.

With Barcelona and Manchester City stalling on meeting fair valuations of Fabregas and Nasri respectively, Wenger's first XI has had its heart ripped out in a fortnight. Ideally these two pieces of business would have been concluded in June, leaving the manager ample time to identify and recruit their replacements. As it is, Arsenal have missed out on Juan Mata and find themselves in the unfortunate position of appearing rich and desperate to clubs possessing potential targets, like a naive gap-year student arriving at an exotic marketplace with with a huge wad of daddy's cash in hand. This means Wenger will doubtless have to break his stubborn spending policy, or likely face the oblivion of being outside the top four. It's reactionary at best to question his position as Arsenal manager as some have, but it's already clear that there's a massive rebuilding job facing the Frenchman if they're to keep Liverpool from stealing their Champions League berth.

Andrei Arshavin
In usual circumstances a team will be desperate to avoid going down to ten men, particularly when they're without several of their key players, but many Arsenal fans were probably joining the cries of 'off, off, off' from their Manchester United counterparts after the out-of-sorts Russian clattered Phil Jones. The Arsenal 'star' was fortunate to avoid a red card, while the United defender was lucky to escape serious injury. That aside, the former Zenit forward also went in late on Jonny Evans, failed to muster a single shot at United's goal and completed a rather poor 71% of his passes. Not a good day at the office, but he'll be getting used to it by now.

Bolton Wanderers
Bolton's organisational strengths have become a footballing cliché as well-worn as the half-time orange in recent times, though that may require revision after Saturday's Anfield collapse. Liverpool were neat and tidy but were made to look extraordinary through Bolton's ball-watching-cum-shadow-chasing. Speculation surrounding Gary Cahill looked to have taken its toll with the defender lacking his usual presence in the back four and a uncharacteristic failure to take responsibility characterised this routine 3-1 home win.

Mauro Formica
If you're going to dive to win a penalty – probably best to score it, eh? A couple of dubious pieces of sportsmanship won his side two penalties they would ultimately fail to convert, succumbing to a late Mikel Arteta spot-kick as Blackburn snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. This bile-inducing folding into a defender's legs in anticipation of a foul is best off out of the Premier League and all Formica will have done is ensure his name will be pre-emptively etched into referees'minds up and down the land.

Alan Shearer
Matching shirt with the far superior Dixon and those same tired lines rolled out with that inane smile of the damned. We pay his wages, if that isn't worth rioting for, what is?

The musings of Messi, the development of Dortmund & how to beat Barca

2011-08-26T12:18:00Z

The season’s underway and the Champions League is gathering speed – so what else would you expect from FourFourTwo’s October issue other than a Champions League special and an exclusive interview with that man Messi?

On the back of pretty much a perfect season, we asked Lionel Messi if he’s ready to sit back and soak it all in. His response? “We didn’t win the Copa del Rey.” One of football’s greatest ever players reveals his motivations, his success and his all-new snazzy dress sense in an in-depth exclusive to FourFourTwo.

Continuing our Champions League special, we attempt to answer the impossible: how to beat Barcelona. From Jose Mourinho and other conquerors of the Catalans to Xavi himself, experts reveal how Barça can be toppled.

Plus, we have the ultimate guide to Europe’s premier competition in our ‘Champions League Most Likely To...’, and if that’s not enough, we delve deep inside David de Gea’s psyche and speak to Vincent Kompany about Manchester City’s chances.

And in the third installment of our Youth Development series, Borussia Dortmund open their doors to FourFourTwo to explain how a team of unknowns with an average age of 24 can win the Bundesliga, and why Germany have the future in their hands.

Bolton boss Owen Coyle is probably unique among Premier League managers: he’s teetoal, can’t swim and wears shorts on the touchline. He reveals all (not literally) in an absorbing interview. Turns out he doesn’t think much of tactics blogs...

The Scottish disciplinarian wouldn’t have though much of Wimbledon’s antics either if he’d been their gaffer during the ‘80s. But how did The Crazy Gang get so crazy? Here’s the story of their origins, and how an era of carnage began to unfold.

Elsewhere the October edition is crammed with fascinating features. In Fans vs Players, we take in all manner of confrontations, from pitchside scuffles to a supporter kidnapping a striker and forcing him to limbo dance (no, really). It’s a must-read.

It’s all much friendlier in the English Midlands, home to the Nottingham derby. Why do Forest and County fans like each other? Where’s the aggro? Our intrepid reporter investigates.

Ever heard the story of Charlie Davies? You will. He’s the man behind football’s most incredible comeback, making an extraordinary recovery from a death-cheating car crash. Face fractures, broken bones, a lacerated bladder... but he’s back.

And naturally, that’s not all. Also crammed into the new issue: top 10 player revolts, Franz Beckenbauer answers your questions, Hugo Sanchez talks us through the greatest bicycle kick of all time, we reveal the secrets of why it’s so hard to play away from home, there’s an England Performance masterclass with John Terry, Theo Walcott, Andy Carroll and Joe Hart and we take you inside FourFourTwo’s very own football theme park. Don’t miss out.

The October issue of FourFourTwo was brought to you by... Franz Beckenbauer, Andrew Cole, Stuart Lewis, Jody Craddock, Richard Money, Lionel Messi, Matthias Sammer, Owen Coyle, Karl Duguid, Scott Sutter, Esteban Vigo Benitez, Lars Ricken, Adam Gemili, Phil Brown, Garry Birtles, Michel Salgado, Xavi, Michael Frontzeck, Mark Le Tissier, Joe Hart, John Terry, Deco, Victor Munoz, Sepp Maier, Kurban Berdyev, Damian Scannell, Hugo Sanchez, Jay Bothroyd, Peter Taylor, Andy Carroll, Abel Resino, Javi Chico, Lawrie Sanchez, Kevin Blackwell, Juanma Ortiz, Gary Mabbutt, Theo Walcott, Pepe Mel, Jurgen Klopp, Ron Noades, Carlton Fairweather, Mark Lawrenson, Jason Manford, Gareth Southgate, Charlie Davies, Vincent Kompany, Manolo Jimenez, Jose Mourinho, Phil Neville, Brian McBride, Quique Sanchez Flores, Martin Lasarte, Leonardo, Dave Bassett, Emmanuel Adebayor, Chris Kamara, Messrs Dolce & Gabbana themselves and a lot of love.

Weekender: Robocop, chained-up coaches and back-rubs gone wrong

2011-08-26T12:00:00Z

North London has the edge over Manchester
While things may be looking rosy for the two big Manchester clubs, as North London's Premier pair fret over problems on and off the pitch, it's Spurs and Arsenal who have the historical edge ahead of this weekend's North London vs Manchester double-header. Just.
On 15 previous occasions in Premier League history there have been two fixtures pitting North London's finest against their Manchester counterparts, with North London and Manchester both managing five aggregate wins apiece. However Spurs and Arsenal have the edge as far as wins in individual matches are concerned, with the capital chums accruing eleven match wins to City and United's nine.

It's all kicking off in Italy...
...well, it is and it isn't, with a strike seeing off the opening weekend of the season in Serie A. Renzo Ulivieri, the former Bologna tactician now in charge of the Italian coaches' association, sensationally chained himself to the gates of the Italian Football Federation on Wednesday in protest at plans to allow clubs in the top two divisions to appoint managers without qualifications. The 70-year-old, a self-proclaimed communist, has always considered himself a revolutionary and once said that he'd enjoy being likened to Comrade Lenin, of whom he has a bust in his house.
While mediators were called in to persuade Ulivieri to give it up, recently relegated Bari had a stand-off of their own to passify when new signing Alessandro Crescenzi was hit by a plate thrown by his teammate Salvatore Masiello at dinner. Masiello was aiming at Bari's Czech goalkeeper Zdenek Zlamal who had reacted badly to having his pants pulled down by the defender in training the day before. Crescenzi put his right arm in the way to protect Zlamal's face and required no fewer than 40 stitches for his trouble. Masiello has been suspended from training and no longer has a future at Bari. It's not the first time Masiello has fallen foul of the club's disciplinary policy. Three years ago, he reportedly came to blows with the club's masseuse. Either way it's clear there's tension at Bari and everyone could do with a back rub.

EXCLUSIVE: Barcelona are not Robocop
Ever wondered how to beat Barcelona, short of going at Lionel Messi’s knees with iron bars or poking a member of their backroom staff in the eye with a boney Portuguese finger? Well then the October edition of FourFourTwo Magazine can help. We’ve spoken to the great, the good and Emmanuel Adebayor to gauge the best way to better Barca. And happy-go-lucky Togolese forward Adebayor – a member of the Madrid side who beat Barca in last season’s Copa del Rey final – tells exactly how ol’ Mou was able to put his team’s task into perspective; “Mourinho told us Barca aren’t Robocop; they are players, like us, which means if we try to play our football and press them high then they will make some mistakes.”
No news yet on whether Pep is the Terminator...
The October 2011 issue of FourFourTwo is out now

Borussia are bouncing ‘bach
If you thought Wolves had bounced-back well from their dice with the drop last term, then check out the start made by German side Borussia Mönchengladbach. Die Fohlen only avoided relegation last season thanks to a relegation play-off win over VfL Bochum last May, but now sit atop the Bundesliga with seven points from three matches, including an away win at Bayern Munich and a 4-1 gubbing of Wolfsburg. If they beat Schalke this weekend they will have made their best start to a season since 1973/74. Beat that, Mick McCarthy...

You’re all going on a European tour…
Or at least you could be. Why not make like Manchester United, Arsenal, Spurs and…errrm…Birmingham and take your team to the continent? FFT’s travel partners Nickes are giving you the chance to take your team on a training camp in Europe, play a friendly against a local team or perhaps even take part in a five-a-side tournament in Barcelona or Valencia.
For more information, click here

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Italy's loaded stars justified in pay strike. No, really
Read now >>

The Casillas-dropping, Güiza-welcoming weekend predictions
Read now >>

United's evolution and City's revolution helping Manchester set early pace
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Nasri and Fabregas: Two very different tales
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How do you solve a problem like Mourinho?
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Heroes & Villains: Pickpockets, Greg Goodridge and soggy sandwiches
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More features uploaded every day at http://fourfourtwo.com/blogs/

Wenger a victim of his own success
There's a banner that regularly appears at the Emirates Stadium that reads: "In Arsene we trust".

It's a banner that's emblematic of the respect that exists for one of the world's best managers. An acknowledgement of the transformation of an entire club, of the admiration for the one man responsible for that transformation.

It's a banner that underlines gratitude for an individual who had a vision for a footballing Utopia and who dared to make that vision a reality.

A man who took less than two seasons to turn a stale, underperforming club into Premier League champions, change the culture of English football and thereafter raise the bar for those targeting domestic success.

Since being appointed Arsenal's manager, Arsene Wenger has succeeded in every conceivable way. That he is now under greater pressure than he has been at any stage of his time at the club is a total travesty.

It seems that Premier League titles, FA Cup wins, European finals, a highly successful transfer policy and the most entertaining brand of football in the country aren't enough to justify patience in a man who is revered around the world as one of the best in the business.

That Wenger has overseen the development of a sensational new stadium, exceptional training facilities, one of the world's best youth systems and is an outstanding nurturer of talent is seemingly irrelevant. That he has rejected the advances of Real Madrid on several occasions, displaying an all too rare loyalty in the modern game and a dedication to his work beyond the norm is being taken for granted.

The cliché is as inevitable as it is appropriate: if ever there was an instance of someone being a victim of their own success, this was it.
– Declan Warrington FourFourTwo blogger - read the full feature here

We're busily transferring 15 years of FFT interviews to our online archive. Among the 400 we've uploaded so far:

"I like pies. Cherry pie, apple pie, with ice cream"
– One on One, Dec 2007: Arsene Wenger

"I'm the housewives' and grannies' favourite now"
– One on One, Sep 2002: Ryan Giggs

"I was pretty good at football, but I felt tennis was more my thing"
– Celebrity fans: Rafael Nadal

This Weekender was brought to you by James Maw, James Horncastle, Declan Warrington, Ryan Kelly, Alex Darbyshire and Group Q of the Europa League group stage.

Premier Ratings: Utopia, chickens and Noddy's hat

2011-08-23T08:30:00Z

FourFourTwo.com editor Gary Parkinson allocates the averages for this weekend's Premier League performances...

MAN UNITED 8.5
(W 3-0, Spurs H)
Dig the new breed. Yet again youth gets its head and rewards Ferguson's faith. The rejuvenated Red Devils' second-youngest line-up ever (average age 22.9) showed startling maturity, keeping their heads as the clocked ticked on then ruthlessly exposing Spurs as the visitors vainly chased parity.

MAN CITY 8
(W 3-2, Bolton A)
The allegedly defensive grinders have bagged nine goals in three games with attacking talent to spare (sorry Signor Ballotelli) and more to come. They'll face less expansive opponents than Swansea and Bolton but you feel they're ready to be dour or delightful as circumstance demands.

LIVERPOOL 8
(W 2-0, Arsenal A)
After fading badly against Sunderland, Liverpool finished with creative determination fuelled by astute substitutions. It's a long time since Arsenal completed fewer passes than their opponents but Henderson, Adam and Downing are finding their (and each other's) feet, the full-backs are impressing and Liverpool have options.

NEWCASTLE 7.5
(W 1-0, Sunderland A)
If you can keep your head… United reacted well to the Larsson brouhaha and Pardew's perceptive half-time switch (pulling Cabaye deeper and pushing Barton wide) paved the way to control and ultimate victory. With their centre-back pairing again impeccable, Newcastle enjoyed derby superiority – again.

QPR 7
(W 1-0, Everton A)
One shot on target, but it sure counted. Despite a widespread stomach bug the Rs matched Everton in most departments, turning the home fans in on themselves and enjoying a benchmark day while also looking forward to a future bankrolled by the new owner. No wonder Warnock waffled about Utopia.

STOKE 7
(D 1-1, Norwich A)
Tired by European exertions and facing an expectant Canary crowd, Stoke let the ball do the work and outpassed Norwich, claiming majority possession for the first time in Pulis's top-flight reign. The red card helped but it was the Potters' determination that made the difference.

WOLVES 7
(W 2-0, Fulham H)
(Briefly) top for the first time since the 1973 heyday of Noddy Holder's mirrored hat, Wolves flattened phlegmatic Fulham with a quick one-two before half-time. A defence well marshalled by Roger Johnson was rarely troubled and a three-sided Molineux rejoiced.

WEST BROM 7
(L 1-2, Chelsea A)
Again unluckily beaten by a late goal from much richer opponents, Roy Hodgson can be content: Baggies defended doggedly, should have doubled their lead and Shane Long looks a bargain who might link well with Odemwingie. Good for them: with Stoke and Norwich next up, they need to convert promise into points.

BOLTON 6.5
(L 2-3, Man City H)
Though you sense Man City had gears to go through had they not been gifted goals, Bolton performed with the sort of pluck and panache for which their fans will forgive defeat to heavyweights. Coyle needs more men but the ones he's got are playing to his wishes, attacking with optimism.

NORWICH 6
(D 1-1, Stoke H)
Much was made of a clash of styles but Paul Lambert made six changes to counter Stoke, Grant Holt battered away up front and the home side scored with a defender's header from a set-piece. That versatility will be needed and the ref won't always drop a clanger like Barnett's red card.

ASTON VILLA 6
(W 3-1, Blackburn H)
Villa's sparsest league crowd in four years watched their front three dismantle desperate Blackburn. Agbonlahor aped Ashley Young's cut-in-from-the-left schtick to great effect, Heskey did his pivotal thing and Bent sniffed out a goal. Big Eck will be pleased but bigger tests await.

WIGAN 6
(D 0-0, Swansea A)
Ceding possession but shading territorial advantage, Wigan could and should have spoiled Swansea's party. Watching from a safe distance as the hosts passed without probing, Latics displayed greater street-savvy as the game went on, hitting post and bar before failing from the penalty spot.

SWANSEA 5.5
(D 0-0, Wigan H)
Cold water alert: Swansea are still to score and Michel Vorm has already saved 14 shots on target, including Ben Watson's penalty. City are passing prettily but not yet piercingly – they had the top seven players for completed passes but Wigan's Jordi Gomez completed more than any where it counts, in the final third.

ARSENAL 5.5
(L 0-2, Liverpool H)
Not outplayed, despite the hysteria: statistically Liverpool shaded it by the narrowest of margins, while practically Arsenal were undone by a naive red card, two questionable offside calls, an unlucky deflection and a lack of defensive cover. Wenger can't change all of those things but which will he address first?

TOTTENHAM 5
(L 0-3, Man United A)
No shame in losing at Old Trafford – most teams do – and Redknapp may be right that chasing the game only increased the damage. But Spurs' lack of incisiveness only made them miss Modric more, and there's a far more important battle to win there: he may be Redknapp's most important transfer coup this week.

CHELSEA 5
(W 2-1, West Brom H)
With half-time boos for the Blues, AVB almost barged into Arsene Wenger's spotlight: had West Brom held (or extended) their lead, the new Bridge boss would have been under extreme early examination. Fittingly for a team in transition it took a very un-AVB switch to 4-4-2 to win. Help and change are on the way; both seem needed.

FULHAM 4.5
(L 0-2, Wolves A)
Tired already? Martin Jol doesn't think so, but a side that has looked almost impregnable in Europe seemed curiously inert in the Midlands. The absence of Bobby Zamora shouldn't cause the almost total absence of attacking initiative Fulham displayed and this time round Danny Murphy couldn't claim they were kicked out of it.

EVERTON 4.5
(L 0-1, QPR H)
Everton starting poorly is nothing new but this time it feels worryingly ominous. The squad is thin, the chairman admits they're skint and the manager's withdrawal of their one striker prompted boos. Ross Barkley showed great promise but how Moyes must envy QPR's prosperity, positivity and potential.

SUNDERLAND 4
(L 0-1, Newcastle H)
Daft to think Steve Bruce is under pressure, but derby defeats hurt and his team lost composure, shape and eventually face. Where Sunderland were savage Newcastle were savvy, and after heavy expenditure Bruce needs wins. Pity their next visitors are Chelsea.

BLACKBURN 4
(L 1-3, Aston Villa A)
Unlike most, Steve Kean saw the positives and his side were far from outclassed, if just as far from promising. For all the talk of Ronaldinho and Raul, Kean has gathered just 22 points in 23 games and Venky's chickens may be coming home to roost. Rovers need help but they also need stability.

HEROES & VILLAINS Pickpockets, Greg Goodridge & soggy sandwiches

Heroes & Villains: Pickpockets, Greg Goodridge and soggy sandwiches

2011-08-22T11:30:00Z

The goodies and the goofers from the weekend's Premier League action, as rated by James Maw

HEROES

David Silva 
As the half the civilised world fell over themselves desperately trying to squeeze Sergio Aguero into their Fantasy Football XI, the elegant Spaniard's brilliant start to the 2011/12 season in last Monday’s win over Swansea was relatively overlooked.

Not so this week, however. Silva was the undisputed star of the show as a pleasingly expansive City edged to a 3-2 victory over Bolton Wanderers at the Reebok. While there may have been an element of fortune about Silva's opener, it was deserved reward for another 90 minutes of probing passing and pocket-picking.

Roberto Mancini will rest easy in the knowledge that, while would be title-rivals Manchester United and Chelsea are still believed to be desperately seeking to add a splash of creative genius to their midfield, he’s got that area well covered – Nasri or no Nasri.

Alex McLeish
The new Villa boss will be delighted to have taken four points from his first two games since making the potentially sticky trip across town from Birmingham. Not least as it will allay the fears of Villa’s home crowd who, let’s face it, haven’t often held back when sticking it to unwanted occupants of the managerial hot seat.

Getting off to a good start will be crucial to avoid a repeat of last season's destructive terrace grumbling. And the locals will have been impressed by a generally less restrained performance than they’ve become accustomed to in the last 12 months, as Villa dispatched an admittedly sorry-looking Blackburn.

QPR
When you’ve been tonked 4-0 on your own patch in your opening fixture, you’ll probably be grateful to be away to a team with their own on- and off-pitch problems a week later. That’s not to say anybody expected QPR to return from their trip to Everton with anything more than a few match-day programmes and the Z Cars theme-tune stuck in their heads, not least because the Rs squad was hit by a virus in the 24 hours before the match.

But, against the odds, Rangers sealed their first Premier League away win since Greg Goodridge (yeah, exactly) netted in a 3-1 victory at Sheffield Wednesday (yeah, exactly) in February 1996. The victory, combined with the long-awaited buy-out of the club by lifelong ~~West Ham~~ fan Tony Fernandes, should have QPR fans looking ahead to the coming season with wide-eyed excitement rather than trepidation. 

Ross Barkley 
The tiniest slither of a silver lining for Everton came in the form of debutant Ross Barkley. The 17-year-old battled back from a broken leg last October to make his Premier League bow in the Toffees’ belated opener, and wowed the home faithful with a dynamic and energetic performance on a day when several of the club’s bigger stars went into hiding.

Sadly, he was denied a fairytale debut by his team-mates’ inability to find the net (or perhaps more accurately, his club’s inability to scrape together the pennies to buy a striker who can find the net…), but on a personal level he’ll still consider it a good first day at the office. 

Roger Johnson
Mick McCarthy’s shrewd summer signing has made an instant and noticeable difference to Wolves' defence this term. The 28-year-old was outstanding again as Mick’s men beat Fulham 2-0, commanding, composed and comfortable at the heart of the back four. 

VILLAINS

Soluble Arsenal fans
 Nobody likes getting wet, let’s get that straight for starters. But what is even less pleasant is seeing dozens, maybe even hundreds of empty seats in the front few rows of a stadium at a crucial stage of a big Premier League match because the precious little things who should be gracing them with their buttocks don’t want to get their replica shirts wet. What would Roy Keane say?

But as a downpour hit during the second half of Saturday’s match between Arsenal and Liverpool, that’s exactly what happened. The Emirates Stadium is an expensive place to watch a game; it's lunacy to forgo the full ‘matchday experience’ in favour of being marginally more warm and cosy for 20 minutes – especially when Arsene Wenger is insisting his team need all the help they can get from the fans.

Alex
 “Turin seems like a nice city, I’d quite like to go and live there sometime soon, far less looting and John Terry than this here London. Oh drat, Shane Long is running at me. Oh drat, I’ve got the ball stuck under my feet and now I’m facing the wrong way. Oh drat, he’s gone and we’re 1-0 down…”
Disclaimer: Chelsea’s Brazilian defender probably didn’t really say or think this. Probably. 

Seb Larsson
 If there’s anything worse than a blatant bit of cheating, it’s a blatant bit of cheating following by a big dollop of fibbing. (Obviously there are other things that are genuinely much worse, like murder and Celebrity Big Brother, but you get the idea.)

The Swede impressed with his acrobatic debut leveller at Anfield on the opening day, but his biggest contribution to the Tyne/Wear derby was rather less pleasing. A handball as unignorable as Steve Bruce's head left Newcastle’s Joey Barton furious – for once with good cause. To make matters worse, Larsson then had the front to irately holler at officials that the ball hit his face.

The former Birmingham wide-man was lucky England’s brave World Cup hero Howard Webb – or perennially petrified-looking assistant Scott Ledger – didn’t see Larsson's save, or he’d have become the latest player to be sent off in this most fiery of derbies... 

Phil Bardsley 
Instead that ‘honour’ was saved for team-mate Phil Bardsley, who lurched towards the other end of the naughty spectrum by hurtling towards Fabricio Coloccini’s shin in a rather reckless fashion. The Argentine was hugely fortunate to avoid serious injury.  

Neil Swarbrick
 The following is from the FIFA rulebook: "A penalty kick is awarded against a team that commits one of the ten offences for which a direct free kick is awarded, inside its own penalty area and while the ball is in play."

So it was odd at Carrow Road yesterday to see Swarbrick award Stoke a penalty for what would generally be described as a non-foul about four yards outside the box.

Still, one out of three is… wait… actually it’s ruddy terrible.

Weekender: Ned Flanders, Joey Barton and Graham Norton

2011-08-19T09:21:00Z

1. Expect Hansen's head to shake about Swansea vs Wigan
Pre-match attention will be on Roberto "Bob Martin" Martinez as he makes his first return to Swansea, but focus will soon switch to the strikers. The 19 games between these two sides have featured 60 goals – an average somewhere north of three per game. Five of those fixtures have featured five or more goals; only one has been goalless, and only two have been draws. The 1990/91 season was particularly splendid: Swansea arrived at Springfield Park in late December bearing the unseasonal gift of a 4-2 defeat, a present returned with interest just after Easter when Latics turned up at the Vetch and battered the Jacks 6-1.

2. What's Spanish for "Hidely-ho, neighbourinos"?
Whether or not it kicks off on schedule tomorrow – the players' union may strike over a lack of payment at some clubs – the 2011/12 Primera Liga season will see 34 derbies thanks to promoted sides renewing rivalries. With Granada and Real Betis joining Sevilla and Malaga, there will be 12 all-Andalucian affairs; there'll also be a dozen capital clashes now Rayo Vallecano have joined Real, Atletico and Getafe. Throw in the Valenciana trio (Valencia, Levante and Villarreal), Barcelona-Espanyol and the Basque clash between Real Sociedad and Athletic Bilbao and you have yourselves plenty of local pride to play for.
La Liga Loca: The Great Season Preview

3. Saints go marching on
Championship-topping Southampton have started where they left off from last season – winning games. The Saints are currently on a run of nine league wins in a row and looking for number 10 against Millwall on Saturday. It’s their longest-ever run of consecutive wins, but they've a way to go before they'll match the club record unbeaten run: from September to December 1921 the team went 19 games without loss. To top that, the current side will have to avoid defeat until after the October 29 game against Middlesbrough.

4. Football: Facebook likes this
Tonight, football breaks a new barrier with the first game to be broadcast on Facebook. The FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round tie between Ascot United and Wembley FC will be streamed live to a potential audience of 700 million. It's not the first online live match broadcast: in 2009 the collapse of Setanta meant England's World Cup qualifier in Ukraine was streamed online, while this July's Copa America was shown on YouTube. Coming up next: Joey Barton to start broadcasting games via Twitter...
Join us FourFourTwo on Facebook

5. Stats Zone: your own portable facts machine
Ever needed proof of a tactical hunch? Whether you're in the stands or the pub, try Stats Zone. Brought to you by FFT and powered by data from Opta, Stats Zone brings you a mass of information on Premier League games, as they happen, all presented in handy pitch-diagram form for you to post online or simply wave in your mate's face. Whether you're tracking every pass, shot, tackle, foul and assist, comparing players and teams, analysing how matches change over time or simply maximising your fantasy league selections, give it a whirl. It might just prove what you already know: you're smarter than they think.
Stats Zone Info, screenshots and instructions

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And it's back. The world's most analysed league kicked back off in generally underwhelming fashion, with due respect to the 4-0 wins chalked up by Bolton at QPR and a Sergio Aguero-inspired Man City at home to Swansea. Chelsea drew a blank at Stoke, while down the road Manchester United won 2-1 at West Brom despite only having one shot on target.

Arsenal also endured a goalless grizzle at Newcastle, whose recalled social media tsar Joey Barton received a stamp from Alex Song and a slap from Gervinho. Both are now banned for three games and the Gunners will also have to make do without Cesc Fabregas, who finally left for Barcelona; with Samir Nasri seemingly set on switching from the Emirates Stadium to Man City's Etihad Stadium, some Gooners have taken to vocally demanding incoming transfers. Fabregas, meanwhile, made his debut in the Super Cup win over Real Madrid, whose boss Jose Mourinho congratulated the hosts by apparently sticking his fingers in a Barça coach's eye.

Back in Blighty, the first Football League midweekers started to shake the divisions down a little. Still roaring along with three wins from three are Southampton, Brighton and Derby (in Division Two), Charlton and Sheffield United (Division Three) and Rotherham (Division Four), while Coventry and Doncaster, Leyton Orient, and Crewe and Hereford still seek their first point.

In the financial pages, Malaysian businessman Tony Fernandes bought control of QPR, Everton chairman Bill Kenwright said the bank won't lend the Toffees any more money for transfers, and the Glazers seem set to sell a slice of Manchester United on the Singapore stock exhange to help clear debts. You'd think there was a recession on.

The stars (and FFT) predict who'll do what in the Premier League
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Remembering Uzbek football's darkest day
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The fall and rise of Stephen Dobbie
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What's going on in the Turkish match-fixing scandal
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Stats Zone: Joey Barton, cross? Never...
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Can Chelsea's rough diamond make the grade?
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For some people, there's no such thing as a home fixture
While Cesc Fabregas – a World Cup winner in South Africa last summer – ponders how many swimming pools his new palatial Catalan home should have, the stars of the lesser heralded World Cup kicking off in France this weekend will have rather more substantial concerns.

The ninth annual Homeless World Cup will gets underway this weekend in Paris, with 512 players from 64 countries competing in what perhaps sounds the most unlikely of international tournaments. The competition is the brainchild of Big Issue co-founder Mel Young-Schweb and has grown year-on-year since 2003's 18-sided inaugural tournament.

"The winning clout of the Homeless World Cup is that takes disadvantaged people from streets across the globe, and through the universal language of football, brings them together, empowers them to be fit and motivated, re-builds pride and inner strength, and so changes lives," explains Big Issue co-founder John Bird.

While the HWC's tarty Blatter-endorsed sister enables players from lesser leagues to put themselves in the proverbial shop window in the hope of catching the eye of a cash-rich European club, the stars of the homeless version have far more humble aims. It's said that more than 70% of players in each tournament are helped to turn their lives around – overcoming addictions, securing jobs, seeking education, fixing damaged relationships and, of course, finding a home.

But with over one billion homeless people across the globe, that's only really scratching the surface. It's certainly something to think about while the transfer window approaches a screaming climax involving tens of millions of pounds spent on players awarded contracts worth over £100,000 a week.
– James Maw, FourFourTwo online features editor

We're busily transferring 15 years of FFT interviews to our online archive. Among the 400 we've uploaded so far:

"I did a baking diploma. I liked making pretzels"
– One on One, Aug 2004: Jurgen Klinsmann

"I would pay to watch Steven Gerrard"
– Web Exclusive, Oct 2009: Cesc Fabregas

"Me and Robbie Keane watch Graham Norton, cuddle up and fall asleep"
– My Secret Vice, Jul 2001: Rio Ferdinand

This Weekender was brought to you by James Maw, Gary Parkinson, Ryan Kelly, Alex Darbyshire, Steve Grant and Phil's tasty nuts. They're good for you, Mum!

New balls, please: Meet the new season's glamorous globes

2011-08-16T15:57:00Z

The professional football season is back, and ready to follow in its wake are millions of keen part-timers. From amateur and semi-pro players already embarking on pre-season training to sofa-dwellers who fancy a kickabout from time to time, everybody is kicking balls.

But which ball to kick? That old Jabulani sitting by the front door is looking jaded and even – whisper it quietly – only 99% spherical. It’s time for a new one. (NB: the Jabulani is still being used in MLS this season, so if you want to insist it’s still ‘new’, we won’t stop you.)

Here, then, is football’s real Big Four: the best balls being used this season, from the Champions League final in May next year to Burton Albion v Macclesfield on a windy Tuesday night. We’ve had a play with each during our regular Thursday lunchtime kickarounds, and having retrieved them all from neighbouring gardens soon afterwards, fashioned a small report for you. We’re nice like that.

Look at these footballs. Read about them. Imagine belting one of them into the top corner. Then pick your favourite, and let us know what you think.

Nike Seitiro
Premier League, La Liga and Serie A
First up, the ball used by the three major European leagues (sorry, Holland). Looks-wise, the splashes of colour are designed to help players see the ball and therefore make decisions faster, as part of Nike RaDar technology, which stands for Rapid Decision and Response. We certainly found that to be true at The FourFourTwo Arena: defence-splitting passes to nobody in particular were made, on average, 0.3 seconds earlier.

The Seitiro is hard – not break-your-foot medicine-ball hard, but sturdy enough not to turn to blancmange after a few thwacks from your centre-back. It’ll keep its shape like no other.

But most importantly, the Premier League ball absolutely flies when you hit it. Sorry for blinding you with science, briefly, but the ball incorporates compressed polyethylene layers which store energy from impact and release it at launch. This is A Good Thing.

And, apparently, Jay Bothroyd is a fan. Which is nice.

Best for... belting the ball bloody hard. The Seitiro pings off your foot and moves through the air, responding to well-hit shots by gliding whichever way you want it to, as opposed to whichever way it feels like or in accordance with the wind. It’s on the more expensive side, but it will reward good technique – as Sergio Aguero has already shown.

Mitre Tensile
Football League and SPL
At first glance the Mitre Tensile looks a little ‘plasticky’ (not our favourite word, admittedly), but we found it to be very reliable. It’s extremely light, with the reduction in stitching optimising power and reducing drag on the ball. In other words, when you smash the Tensile it goes faster than before, which is always a good thing, unless you’re a goalkeeper with the reactions of roadkill.

The choice of the Football League and the Scottish Premier looks, in the best possible way, like the b*st*rd child of R2-D2 and a fridge. It does, however, come in different colours and designs according to your supported team – nice and simply, red for Swindon, green for Plymouth. Essentially, then it’s a sort of iFootball.

This makes it arguably the prettiest of the balls on offer (we cater for every audience here), although that depends on your liking of 21st-century aesthetics combined with emotional bonding sensibilities. What?

Pedants may argue it’s a little on the grey side for visibility, but pedants always argue. That's what they do.

Best for... tiki-taka. No, really: this may be a Football League ball, but Barcelona would love it. Being so smooth, the Tensile glides naturally on wet or dry surfaces, and therefore allows quick passing play, especially because it’s so light. It’s cheaper but with potential – like many a Football League player, then.

Adidas Finale 11
Champions League
The official ball for the premier club competition this season looks like something out of Mario Kart, but it is, in every way, a real football.

It being relatively heavy, shots with the Adidas Finale 11 stay hit; an older participant in our kickabout said that the pentagonally-panelled plaything “still feels like a proper leather football”. And this despite a brand new texture, not unlike a series of dimples, which provides better control and swerve.

It certainly feels less slippery as a result. Keepers will love this ball: it’s easy to grip and handle, especially in comparison to one-skin balls such as the Jabulani, and thermal bonding replacing traditional stitching means it travels along a more predictable trajectory. That is to say, this ball goes where you hit it. If you miss, it’s probably your fault. Sorry.

Best for... important games and the high-end market. Being the official Champions League ball, the Finale 11 is quite expensive, but for the extra money you get proven quality – FIFA gave the ball its highest rating for weight, water uptake, shape and size retention. It does get filthy, mind, and quickly: don’t expect those fancy stars to stay bright for long unless you love a good clean.

Umbro Neo Pro
FA Cup
It being the official ball of the FA Cup, you might expect the Umbro Neo Pro to be unpredictable; able to surprise you at any time. Which, when you think about it, isn’t ideal.

No, on the contrary it’s completely predictable – and what more could you want from a football? The Neo Pro is FIFA-approved and also used by the England team, but again, that doesn’t mean it falls to pieces under pressure.

We found that you can pass very accurately with this ball, and also that it’s easy to control – thanks, apparently, to a "3D-effect" Japanese microfibre with a tri-ply lining system and it being cut by laser technology. Obviously. It being quite light, too, heading is a dream, at least if you keep your eyes open.

The yellow and blue hi-vis is being used in the FA Cup from the First Round Proper until the red and white ball comes into use for the Sixth Round and semi-finals. A new design will be commissioned for the final.

Best for... those with less to spend. The Neo Pro is a reliable football – a good, solid all-rounder that can be easily played with at any level – but can generally be found for half the price of the Premier League or Champions League footballs.

Premier Ratings: Muamba goes all Cruyff and Aguero sets a marker

2011-08-16T08:00:00Z

FourFourTwo.com editor Gary Parkinson rates the 18 teams fortunate enough to play a Premier League match this weekend...

WOLVES 8 Hadn't beaten Blackburn in six but such records may tumble this season. A Roger Johnson-marshalled defence blunted Blackburn's attacks, their front four used the ball better than the hosts, and Wolves deservedly came from behind to win.

BOLTON 8 Tenacious in the tackle and adventurous going forward, Wanderers weathered early QPR pressure before exposing the hosts' inadequacies. You know you're in trouble when Fabrice Muamba completes a Cruyff turn on the edge of his own box.

MANCHESTER CITY 7 Although it took them the best part of an hour to click into gear, once they did things started to look hugely ominous for their title rivals. If Sergio Aguero’s impact on City’s season mirrors that he made on its first match, then the viewing public is in for a treat.

SUNDERLAND 7 Could easily have collapsed under early pressure but Bruce's old guard, bolstered by the Andy Carroll-owning Wes Brown, came back strongly. Seb Larsson's goal was a peach but Steve Bruce will see this as a point won by the team.

WEST BROM 7 Just as last season at Old Trafford, West Brom frustrated the Red Devils. Shane Long impressed on his debut and Roy Hodgson can count his team somewhat unlucky in the manner of their defeat.

MAN UNITED 6 Injuries may have rejuvenated the defence rather quicker than Sir Alex may have liked but the main problems were at the other end. United were tidy but lacked penetration, managing only one shot on target.

FULHAM 6 Now seven games unbeaten having only conceded one goal, Fulham should have done better against a rustier side with domestic problems but were unlucky to face a genuinely great goalkeeper with a point to prove.

CHELSEA 6 The Andre Villas-Boas era started with a goalless draw but Chelsea will be pleased with the promising display of Fernando Torres and a second-half domination that saw them rack up 20 shots on goal.

WIGAN 6 Better than last season's opener, but what isn't? Roberto Martinez praised the inventive Victor Moses while internally cursing £4m keeper Ali Al-Habsi, who gifted Norwich an equaliser they probably didn't quite deserved. Two points dropped.

SWANSEA 5 A relatively heavy defeat, but still one from which many positives can be gleamed. Aside from completing more passes than any other side over the Premier League’s opening weekend (486), there were also impressive displays from keeper Michel Vorm and fullback Angel Rangel. Finding a cutting edge is a must, but there are still 37 matches to play...

LIVERPOOL 5 A team in transition, Liverpool cruised the first half but lost the plot thereafter, pinging it at the head of Andy Carroll. Luis Suarez impressed but Charlie Adam disappeared while Stewart Downing flitted and flickered.

STOKE 5 No shame in being outplayed by Chelsea, but Stoke's policy of containment saw them yield two-thirds of possession to the visitors, with Kenwyne Jones so isolated he was communicating via pigeon post.

NORWICH 5 Far from overwhelmed, but Wigan will be in the sights of anyone hoping to stay up. Wes Hoolahan was gifted a goal by Ali Al-Habsi, but they'll have to manage more than two shots on target in such open games.

ARSENAL 4 Gervinho worked the wings well before his daft expulsion but Arsenal were easily marshalled by Fabio Coloccini and Steven Taylor. That must be a worry for a team losing one or two of its prime movers. At least they got a clean sheet.

NEWCASTLE 4 Barton brouhaha aside, Alan Pardew will be disappointed that Newcastle couldn't take advantage of a prone Arsenal. New signings Demba Ba, Yoann Cabaye and Gabriel Obertan underimpressed as the Mags managed one shot on target.

BLACKBURN 4 Many have predicted disaster for Rovers this season. One defeat isn't it, but it's a bad start to lose at home to potential relegation rivals. Mauro Formica's goal offers hope but Steve Kean needs defenders – and stability.

ASTON VILLA 4 It's rarely good news when your goalkeeper gets the attention. Shay Given impressed and Charles NZogbia did his flitty-about thing but Villa only had one shot on target. Alex McLeish has a way to go before fans are appeased.

QPR 2 Harsh, perhaps, after a reasonable first half-hour, but once behind the West Londoners collapsed quicker than the Eurozone. With far better teams to face yet, their system's over-reliance on Adel Taarabt may cost them as much as their owners' parsimony.

HEROES & VILLAINS Ruddy-cheeked keepers and Charlie Adam's yo-yo

Heroes & Villains: Spike, Joey and Jessie

2011-08-15T11:33:00Z

James Maw is back on the beat bringing you the best and worst of this weekend's Premier League action

HEROES

Asmir Begovic
Although Chelsea’s Fernando Torres was rather charitably handed the Man of the Match award after not looking utterly hapless for the first time in about 12 months, Stoke’s Bosnian net-tender was surely the star of Sunday’s stalemate.

The 24-year-old put in a performance so good he even went to the effort of making a spectacular save from a shot that was offside and not going in anyway. He also saved each of the seven second-half shots on target that actually would’ve counted, which seems somewhat more worthwhile…

Charlie Adam
The Scot pulled more strings than a professional yo-yoer during the first half of Liverpool’s draw with Sunderland, even if he did fade a tad as the game wore on. Being able to hit the heights for the whole 90 minutes rather than just in fits and starts is quite possibly the difference between being a star for Blackpool and a star for Liverpool, and finding a way of improving the 25-year-old’s staying power will be one of Kenny Dalglish’s priorities in the coming months.

Wes Brown 
The Manchester United old-boy enjoyed a debut that went a long way to proving that not being able to hold down a place at Old Trafford does not a bad player make, helping new club Sunderland pinch what many will have seen as an unlikely point from their trip to Liverpool. With the defensive problems facing Sir Alex Ferguson in the coming weeks, the Scot will perhaps wish he still had Brown at his disposal.

  Mick McCarthy (and Wolves)
 Wolverhampton Wanderers were just a whisker from dropping through the Premier League's trap door 12 weeks back, and most pundits had the Molineux Men down as relegation contenders once again. Yet an opening day win at Ewood Park on Saturday could set the tone for a slightly more comfortable campaign. The permanent signing of Jamie O’Hara looks a shrewd piece of business, while the capture of assured centre-back Roger Johnson has the potential to be one of the deals of the summer.

Coming from behind to win is always a sign of impressive resilience – though they'll hope not to wait seven weeks for their second league win, as they had to last term. Plus, this week's 'stupid answer to a relatively sensible question' award goes to the man from Yorkshireland. When asked how big a player midfielder Matt Jarvis would be for his side this season, Slick Mick replied "about 5 ft 8in, like last season."

It's like Spike Milligan never left us...

Gary Cahill
The Sheffield-born defender has this summer been linked with Tottenham, Man City, Liverpool and Arsenal but, while it is understood Bolton may be keen to sell to free up funds to reinvest in other areas, Owen Coyle will be glad business has, as of yet, been slow.

As always, Cahill led from the back as the Bolton burst out of the blocks with an arguably unfairly emphatic 4-0 victory at Loftus Road. The England centre-back showed the way he likes to play football – encouraged, presumably, by Coyle – by joining in with an attack and elegantly bending the opener past ruddy-cheeked gloveman Paddy Kenny from fully 20 yards.

Coyle is still seeking strikers; in the absence of Daniel Sturridge and Johan Elmander, many wondered how Wanderers would score goals. The answer appears to be "a centre-back, an own-goal, a deflected shot and one from a bloke who's scored three goals in three years".

VILLAINS

Newcastle United & Arsenal 
These two served up a dog of a match so wretched you'd have it put down, were it genuinely canine. On the face of it, a draw wasn't a terrible result for either side, but the attacking display of both teams will be cause for concern for their respective managers.  Moreover, the managers may worry about the lack of discipline that saw one player sent off and two more escape a similar fate. And perhaps unsurprisingly, given his history and the events of the summer, Joey Barton was the centre of all the controversy. 

If there's anything more stupid than one of your midfielders rising to Barton's bait and lashing out at the Newcastle man, it's allowing it to happen twice in successive seasons.  Arsenal's Abou Diaby was dismissed for lashing out at the Magpies' tweeter-in-chief back in February, but you sense Arsene Wenger may not have reminded his side not to allow themselves to be wound-up by the Scouse scamp. Not least when Alex Song stamped – or rather stood – on his opponent following a midfield tussle in Saturday evening's re-match at St James'. Arsenal were lucky to escape without going down to 10 on that occasion, but that luck was to run out half an hour later.

 When Joey Barton (yes, him again) reacted with fury to what he perceived to be a dive in the penalty area by the Gunners debutant Gervinho, all hell broke loose. The former Manchester City midfielder dragged the Ivorian to his feet, leading to a melee involving 10 or 12 players, during which the Arsenal forward threw an 'open-handed punch' (or slap, as it's more commonly known) at his accuser.

 Barton tumbled to the deck in a particularly hypocritical fashion and was perhaps a tad lucky to not be sent for an early bath for the combination of grappling and 'attempting to deceive an official'.

Indeed, Arsenal could in theory complain that they should have been awarded a penalty, given Barton’s manhandling of Gervinho occurred in the 18-yard box. Newcastle would, of course, claim a free-kick should have been awarded for the ‘dive’, which of course Arsenal would dismiss as a natural tumble, given the nick the forward received from Chieck Tiote. The whole thing could just go on and on for the rest of time until only cockroaches and the FA’s appeal panel remain...

 Regardless, Gervinho should have known better than to plant his hand in an opponent's face and that, combined with the ‘dive’, was probably enough to warrant his dismissal one way or another. And at the end of the piece, given Song and Barton both had a lucky escape, perhaps some kind of ugly justice was done.

 Speaking after the game, Alan Pardew explained that he felt Barton was 'calm' throughout the match. As calm as Clapham Junction at about nine o'clock last Monday night, perhaps...

De Gea-bashing bandwagoners
While there’s no question Manchester United’s rookie keeper should have done better in dealing with Shane Long’s relatively tame first half strike, there’s also no question he deserves better than the semi-hammering he has taken in this morning’s papers.

“United’s calamity keeper spared again” roars the Sun, while the Mirror refers to the 20-year-old as ‘dodgy De Gea’, with reports elsewhere highlighting how uncomfortable he looked when being elbowed in the head, the big Jessie…

QPR’s owners 
Starting your first Premier League season in 15 with a defeat is one thing, but getting under way with a comprehensive home gubbing to a side who finished 13th last season and have two of their best players missing is quite another.

Yet it’s hard to not have sympathy for Hoops boss Neil Warnock, who has been particularly hamstrung by the dithering behind the scenes at the West London club. The protracted sale of the Shepherd’s Bush side has seen a chronic lack of investment from the multitude of sugar daddies filling the Loftus Road directors’ box, and that has left Warnock with a back four who look more likely to trouble Derby County’s record for most goals conceded in the Premier League than the division’s upper reaches.

Then there’s the ticket prices – oh lord, the ticket prices. Despite Saturday’s game being the Rs' first top-flight fixture in a decade and a half, there were 3,000 empty seats, seats that may well have been full had the average ticket not cost £47.

Fortunately for Hoops fans it seems as though a takeover may be completed in the coming days; they'll just have to hope the damage hasn’t already been done.

Kieran Richardson
It’s OK, this one's about football. The ever-popular midfielder-come-defender-come… wherever it is he plays nowadays had a particularly inauspicious start to the new season.

The former Manchester United man conceded an early penalty for a foul on Luis Suarez, and was then fortunate on two counts; firstly that he wasn’t red-carded for hauling down the Liverpool forward with no other defender around to deny the Uruguayan a clear shot at goal, and secondly that the former Ajax star spurned the chance to give the Reds an early lead from the resultant spot-kick.

Still, Richardson was punished minutes later, when his lack of positional awareness saw Suarez ghost in to nod Liverpool in front. Richardson somehow managed to both play Suarez onside and give the Liverpool forward acres of space to head a Charlie Adam free-kick past Simon Mignolet and into the net.

The stars (and FFT) predict who'll do what in this season's Premier League

2011-08-12T12:25:00Z

Jeff Stelling
Sky Sports' beating heart and pulsing brain

The title race will be closer than last season, but Manchester United have already struck a real psychological blow by beating City in the manner they did at Wembley on Sunday. City might bear the scars of that for a while.

United have certainly bought well and their younger players – Smalling, Nani, Hernandez, the Da Silva twins – will all have learnt and improved too. They would certainly be my tip for the title.
City will be up there again, and exactly how they do may depend on how well Aguero slots in, but I see them finishing second. I think Liverpool's feelgood factor could see them finish third and we saw glimpses at the end of last season of how much of a handful Luis Suarez is going to be for opposition defences. I don’t necessarily think Chelsea and Arsenal are that much, if any stronger than last season.

There are a few question marks around Chelsea, the new manager is very inexperienced – so can he achieve the same success as somebody like Carlo Ancelotti? They’ll also need Fernando Torres to score some goals, and I’m not entirely convinced he will. But they still have a solid look about them and we’ll see more of Ramires this season. They should have enough know-how to pip Arsenal to fourth.

Everybody knows the kind of players Arsenal need to buy – solid defensive players, and it’s almost like Arsene Wenger c*cks a snook at them by going out and signing Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. He’s undoubtedly a fantastic prospect, but he’s the last thing they need at the moment. God knows what Arsenal fans must make of that. I’m a big fan of Arsene Wenger, but I’m left scratching my head at times.

I’ll also be interested to see how Tottenham get on. I know they haven’t really strengthened but if Ledley King and Gareth Bale can stay fit and they keep Luka Modric they could do well. I can’t imagine Jermain Defoe struggling as badly as he did last season and I can see Harry’s team having a good year.
I’ve got a funny feeling Norwich might do OK too. They’ve always scored goals – last season they scored in 20 of their 23 away games – and it’ll be interesting to see if Grant Holt can do it at the top level.

But it’s hard to see their fellow promotees QPR surviving. DJ Campbell and Jay Bothroy will get a modicum of goals, but it’ll be a bit of a miracle if Neil Warnock keeps them up. I think Blackburn will go down too – I just don’t think the owners have a real grip on reality. Wigan, meanwhile, can’t keep scraping out of it forever.
If you asked me to put money on somebody to win the Golden Boot I’d go with Suarez – I was really impressed with him last season, he’ll get great service and I think he’ll work well with Andy Carroll.

1. Man United 2. Man City 3. Liverpool 4. Chelsea
Relegated: QPR, Blackburn, Wigan Athletic
Top scorer: Luis Suarez (Liverpool)

Jeff was talking on behalf of Soccer Saturday Super 6, the free-to-enter online predictor game, with a double jackpot of £200,000 on Saturday 13 August.

Michael Cox (@Zonal_Marking)
Editor, ZonalMarking.net

Manchester United have strengthened and will improve on last year. Manchester City will maintain a challenge but they draw too many games. Chelsea will take a while to get used to Andre Villas-Boas's methods and be a bit predictable. And Arsenal will do the same as ever...

I think Tottenham might surprise people and push on a bit, but not into the top four. I also fancy Wolves to be better than last year - they've got Roger Johnson in, and they'll keep more clean sheets. I think Bolton might be a surprise name to be involved in the relegation fight: they've lost some key attacking players. As for top scorer, I'll go for Robin van Persie, though for an outside bet, maybe Jermain Defoe...

1. Man United 2. Man City 3. Chelsea 4. Arsenal
Relegated: Norwich, Blackburn, QPR
Top Scorer: Robin van Perise (Arsenal)

Michael Cox runs ZonalMarking.net, a website about formations, tactics, and anything else deemed geeky enough for inclusion.

Mark Lawrenson
BBC, Daily Mirror

Manchester United have the best manager, a team able to deal with all different competitions, strong competition for places, a good balance of youth and experience, hunger and a real winning mentality. Apart from that they’ve got no chance.

I’d say Manchester City second (under the proviso the dynamic of the dressing room is right), Chelsea third, Liverpool fourth and Arsenal fifth. Not being in Europe is a massive boost for Liverpool in terms of getting back into the top four.

At the other end, it’s almost impossible for Norwich and Swansea to be able to attract the kind of players that are going to help you stay in the league.

Blackburn also worry me. Players now just want to leave, I’m not sure what the owners are doing. I they'll regret sacking Sam Allardyce, no disrespect to Steve Kean. He could well be the first manager sacked: the owners have dropped him right in it. Once you start selling players without giving the manager the budget to buy you the kind of quality to keep you in the Premier League, he’s got no chance.

Top scorer’s a far more difficult one. I’d probably go with Wayne Rooney. Javier Hernandez had a really good season last year, but it will be a bit more difficult this year, because people will understand how he plays now.

I think Wolves will have a good season. They play for the manager, he knows what he’s doing, Roger Johnson’s been a good signing for him and Mick’s got a little bit more competition for places up front and in midfield.

What were they, 15 minutes away from relegation? I don’t think that will be a problem this season. I think they’ll be well clear of it.

You can’t keep selling your best players, as Aston Villa have done of late. I know they’ve signed Darren Bent, but they’ve taken away his supply line. The other problem for Alex McLeish is he’s come from the enemy, so if he makes a bad start that’s going to be a real problem. They might finish just short of half-way.

I think everybody is going to love watching Sergio Aguero. And I’m quite looking forward to seeing David de Gea, purely because balls come into the area in the Premier League completely differently than they do in La Liga. I’m sure he’ll be really, really good, but it’ll be interesting to see his approach.

1. Man United 2. Man City 3. Chelsea 4. Liverpool
Relegated: Norwich, Swansea, Blackburn
Top scorer: Wayne Rooney (Manchester United)

Mark was talking about the forthcoming season at the Kinect Sports for Xbox 360 football event at the Sports Café, Central London

James Maw (@JamesMawFFT)
FourFourTwo's online features editor

It's hard to look beyond Manchester United as champions, although if Carlos Tevez ends up staying at Manchester City they'll have a good shout. City will have to settle for being runners-up, followed by Chelsea then Liverpool. At the other end, assuming nothing massive changes, will be QPR, Swansea and Blackburn.

I'm not convinced Aston Villa will have a particularly good season, but given everything will be going through Darren Bent, he'll be a good shout for the Golden Boot. I've got a nagging feeling that Spurs may start slowly, particularly now they'll be playing catch-up in terms of games played and starting up at Old Trafford. Let's see how they react to that. Across North London, it'll be interesting to see how Arsenal fit in Gervinho, and more specifically what his arrival means for Theo Walcott.

I don't think Newcastle will do as badly as many others are suggesting. They're not the only side to lose players this summer, and they've brought in a few interesting-looking signings and hopefully Hatem Ben Arfa will be back from his latest knock sooner rather than later. They won't get near that top six from last season, but if they hit the ground running I think they could still finish in the top eight.

It pains me to say it, but Roberto Martinez could be the first manager in trouble if Wigan are struggling again, which doesn't exactly look unlikely given they've lost Charles N'Zogbia and not replaced him.

1. Man United 2. Man City 3. Chelsea 4. Liverpool
Relegated: QPR, Swansea, Blackburn
Top Scorer: Darren Bent (Aston Villa)

James Maw is FourFourTwo's online features editor and resident grumbly mumbler.

Charlotte Jackson (@CharLouJackson)
Sky Sports presenter

Manchester United are team to beat and have strengthened their squad and with good young players in Phil Jones, Ashley Young and David de Gea. Manchester City may need to replace Carlos Tevez, but they have the money to do so.

With Chelsea in transition with a new manager, Arsenal losing players, Spurs having made no signings and Liverpool having a few new players to bed in I think City will grind out wins and improve on last season's league position.

Chelsea still have an old squad, and a manager who's unknown in the Premier League – but they still have enough quality and experience to get third.

It's always tough for the side that comes up via the play-offs and I don't think it will be any different for Swansea. Despite being considered one of the richest clubs, QPR haven't made any significant signings and you always sense things could go wonky there. All the promoted sides will try and play the right way but with Norwich also not making any real proven Premier League signings I think they will struggle to get the goals to keep them up.

Rooney will be top scorer; he's due a good season. You have to think United will be the most consistently attacking side and with Hernandez injured for the start of the season, I'm going with Rooney.

1. Man United 2. Man City 3. Chelsea 4. Liverpool
Relegated: Swansea, QPR, Norwich
Top Scorer: Wayne Rooney (Manchester United)

Charlotte Jackson is a Sky Sports and Al Jazeera presenter and 71 Degrees North co-host - charlottejackson.tv

Luke Moore (@LukeyMoore)
Football Ramble-r

Top Four, in order, will be Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Liverpool. Bottom three, not in order: Wigan, Blackburn and Swansea. Top scorer will be Manchester City's Sergio Aguero – the man is an all round superstar. Wonderful technique, superb speed and the nous to play a bit further forward than Carlos Tevez and cause absolute havoc. Just need to make sure Roberto Mancini doesn't tinker with him too much and that he gets enough games.

I think Fulham could have a decent season under Martin Jol as well; he's an astute manager with experience of doing pretty well in this division (something that's often overlooked), and has made a decent signing in John Arne Riise. If you look at the players they have at their disposal, they can easily challenge for a European place if they keep them fit: Mark Schwarzer, Brede Hangeland, Riise, Danny Murphy, Damien Duff, Clint Dempsey, Bobby Zamora.

Other business: Liverpool will be back to their old self and have a say in where the title goes this season. They play Chelsea in their last home game, and that could be huge.

Luke Moore is a member of The Football Ramble, an award-winning podcast released every Wednesday

Louis Massarella (@MassarellaFFT)
FourFourTwo commissioning editor

I can see Manchester City winning the title. Bonkers, I know. Especially after the Community Shield lesson (if that matters). But I think last season’s Champions League final is key. Manchester United were so far behind Barcelona, and what do they really have to prove by winning another Premier League title? Winning another Champions League is the only thing that can really reaffirm Fergie’s greatness. City, on the other hand, will have the hunger of winning their first league crown for ages. If Mario Balotelli stays fit and focused, if they can hold firm at centre-back and if Mancini can stop being so Italian and go for it a bit more (they have the players, after all), they can win it. Three big ifs, though...

People are getting carried away about Liverpool. Sure, there'll be a feelgood factor, but they have a lot of new players to bed in, and the majority of the new signings are unproven for any team used to anything above mid-table. Chelsea are still strong but needed to freshen up more in terms of personnel and tactics, and I'm not sure Andre Villas-Boas will be brave enough to risk upsetting all the big egos. Arsenal have been written off, but will have a point to prove. Still loads of clout going forward, Aaron Ramsey could be an adequate replacement for Cesc. They'll still be Champions League material if they sign a decent centre-back by the end of August. Why oh why did Wenger not sign Shay Given, though?!

Blackburn have sold Phil Jones, Jermaine Jones has gone back to Germany after loan spell and Chris Samba might have gone by the end of the month. And they’ve signed... Er... No, me either. Swansea will be well organised, have a plan and momentum. I'm just not sure they have the players to stay up (especially now QPR have signed a couple of decent strikers). The Toon, well, they’re always a crisis waiting to happen and have sold Kevin Nolan, Jose Enrique and could also lose Joey Barton. The players they have signed will also need time to bed in. The crowd’s anxiety, as usual, will get through to players and manager.

1. Man City 2. Man Utd 3. Chelsea 4. Arsenal
Relegated: Blackburn, Newcastle, Swansea
Top scorer: Luis Suarez (Liverpool)

Louis has worked for FourFourTwo for as long as anybody can remember

Kevin Coleman (@BPFootball)
Co-Editor, BackPageFootball.com

I've seen many people suggesting that it'll be another runaway title for Manchester United, but I firmly believe Manchester City can push them all the way. Given the amazing strength in depth up front and the quality in midfield, City have the ability to win the title.

However, I've a feeling it'll be one year too early for Mancini's men – given it's their first year having to tackle the busy Premier League/Champions League schedule, which takes a while to get used to. If Mancini can loosen the reins in some way and let the players express themselves, there'll only be a handful of points in it at the end of the season.

United have strengthened impressively this summer, not flaffing about and waiting for things to happen but going out and splashing the cash. They have the best wide players in the league, and with the quality of strikers and the possibility of Wesley Sneijder to complement them, it's really theirs to lose going into the start of the season.

It's easy to rule out Arsenal, seeing as they're about to sell Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri, but if Wenger can buy well this month it'll be foolish to write them off making the top four this season. Unfortunately for them, Liverpool have been busy this summer and have focused on their weaknesses – unlike Arsenal so far.

If Liverpool can keep Andy Carroll fit there's no question that he'll score goals. Liverpool now seem to have quality in numbers, and with the midfield that they have at the minute – with a solid enough back four – they have the goods to get back into the top four this season at the expense of Arsenal.

As for relegation, it's not an easy one to predict this year, given the quality of the sides coming up into the Premier League. I think QPR will be safe, and Swansea won't be too far behind them. Swansea may surprise a few this season, a la Blackpool last year, but I think they have the quality to sustain a decent performance throughout the season and survive the season. Norwich have some decent players but overall I don't think they have the quality to achieve anything more than a survival fight, and I expect them to be one of the three going down.

Wigan have done well to survive over the last couple of seasons, and were very lucky to beat the drop last season. Having sold one of their key players, Charles N'Zogbia, Wigan may fall further into the relegation battle and this year I don't think they can escape – especially if they replicate last season's poor form.

The last relegation position will probably be a final-day decider, but looking at Blackburn I just don't think they have the quality or the confidence to rise about last season's 15th place. With Phil Jones sold and Chris Samba possibly following him out the club, they've been severely dented and will be sucked in to a relegation battle with the likes of Wolves and Swansea, who should be safe.

Top scorer? Tough question this year, with a lot of quality candidates. Wayne Rooney will be there or thereabouts as he is every year, as will Luis Suarez, Andy Carroll, Darren Bent, Carlos Tevez if he stays and Fernando Torres, who I think will explode this season. But my nod goes to Javier Hernandez, who I think is one of the most natural goalscorers there is anywhere in Europe at the minute. If he plays, even if it's only a matter of coming off the bench, he'll score goals.

1. Man Utd 2. Man City 3. Chelsea 4. Liverpool
Relegated: Norwich, Wigan, Blackburn
Top Scorer: Javier Hernandez (Man United)

BackPageFootball.com provides a variety of football articles from a number of different people, be they young journalists or armchair fans.

Robbie Savage (@RobbieSavage8)
BBC Radio Five Live, Daily Mirror, etc

Champions will be Man United, without any doubts. I think City will push them close this year. For the top four I’m going for United, City, Chelsea, Liverpool; I think Arsenal will slip out. For relegation, I’m going to go for Swansea, Blackburn and QPR. For other strugglers, you’ve got to look at Norwich, and possibly Villa: McLeish has done well for Birmingham, but he’s going to be under massive pressure.

Wayne Rooney will be top scorer, but I'm looking forward to watching Adel Taarabt. I think he’ll surprise people, I think he'll struggle. In the Championship he looked like a was a world-beater but it's going to be a big season for him to show people if he can do it in the Premier League. He struggled at Spurs, so let's see how good he really is. You can’t be that good in the Championship and fail in the Premier League.

1. Man United 2. Man City 3. Chelsea 4. Liverpool
Relegated: Swansea, Blackburn, QPR
Top scorer: Wayne Rooney (Man United)

Robbie Savage was launching npower’s Club 72 interactive website. How many of the 72 Football League stadiums have you visited?

Gary Parkinson (@GaryParkinson)
FourFourTwo.com editor

For the thick end of two decades, barring an interregnum imposed by Jose Mourinho's Chelsea, it has been a surprise if Manchester United aren't champions. No alarms this year, either. Alex Ferguson has once again bought players who improve the strength of the team and depth of the squad without threatening the structure of the club, including laying the groundwork for the medium-term replacement of the Vidic/Ferdinand defensive axis. Their only problem is in goal, where they must hope David de Gea is more of a Pepe Reina than a Ricardo.

Noisy neighbours Manchester City will hope to have Fergie banging on the wall but the domestic din will taper off. From spring Roberto Mancini may focus more on the Champions League, and he may be right to; City have the players to win any one-off, but not many of them have the experience and belief necessary to get the uglier wins in less glamorous fixtures.

For that reason, I think Chelsea will finish runners-up. As the Stamford Bridge old guard gird their loins for one last job, you can imagine them grinding past City in the league (and possibly Europe) – as long as they don't lose faith in the new manager, as they seem to have done with his predecessors.

Fourth place is up for grabs, as is thankfully becoming the norm. After doing what they do best – buying young forwards, selling maturing assets, ignoring defensive crises – Arsenal will score and concede with pleasing regularity; if he can stay fit, Robin van Persie's a good Golden Boot bet. Spurs will be up the right end, as long as Harry Redknapp doesn't lie back and think of England, and Everton will make their annual organised charge from just slightly too far back. To their chagrin, neighbours Liverpool look to have the squad, management, ownership and Europe-free fixture list to push on; their development may be measured by how long they stay in the title race.

Down at the tradesmen's exit, it could be a disastrous season for Lancashire. Blackburn seem in disarray under new management, Wigan can't survive forever on Roberto Martinez's top-flight average of 1.06 points per game, and Bolton face a tough start without their two best players (three if Gary Cahill goes). This season's Big Clubs Facing Trouble could be Newcastle and Villa, while the three promoted sides will face some soul-searching if it goes wrong: billionaire-backed QPR have spent nothing, Norwich may get vertigo and Swansea's passing patterns may not bedazzle the country's elite. But they'll offer some surprises, and that's a good thing, right?

1. Man United 2. Chelsea 3. Man City 4. Liverpool
Relegated: Blackburn, Wigan, Norwich

Gary Parkinson is FourFourTwo.com editor and guitar-slinging festival-botherer.

Jon Champion
ESPN football commentator

Manchester United will win the Premier League again, followed in descending order by Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal.

QPR will be relegated unless there’s a radical change in ownership. It would be very easy to say Swansea and Norwich will join them, but Wigan, Blackburn and, if they get off to a bad start, Newcastle could also be in for a tricky season.

1. Man United 2. Man City 3. Chelsea 4. Arsenal
Relegated: QPR, Norwich, Swansea
Top scorer: Robin van Persie (Arsenal)

ESPN football commentator Jon Champion will be previewing each weekend's Premier League action here for FourFourTwo at Champion's League

Huw Davies (@weekspotblog)
FourFourTwo staff writer

It may be said every year, but the new Premier League season looks like being one of the most unpredictable yet – top and bottom. It’s hard to see anyone doing a Lady Godiva and streaking away with the title; Manchester United are favourites as ever, but they have to adapt to a changing squad. That includes a talented but inexperienced goalkeeper who will have less of a nerve-settling aura about him than the departed Edwin van der Sar. Ashley Young and Phil Jones – and also Tom Cleverley, returning from an accomplished loan spell at Wigan – appear ready to slot right into an otherwise settled team, however, and a 20th title looks likely.

Likely, but not guaranteed. Chelsea and Manchester City will be hacking away at United’s ladder with money-made machetes. Teams will especially fear Chelsea as Andre Villas-Boas is something of an unknown quantity: no English side has ever faced one of his outfits. Tactical change will be gradual rather than dramatic, but if they can overcome Stoke at the Britannia in their first game, expect a flying start from then on.

Sergio Aguero is a fantastic signing for Man City, and few other changes were needed in a solid squad. They often relied on a bit of spark from Carlos Tevez and David Silva last season, though, and they’ll need the pair on form and interested throughout the season.

Liverpool will pip Arsenal to fourth, no doubt. But if he keeps fit, Robin van Persie could be a good shout for the Golden Boot. Top scorers always need the service, so it’d be a big surprise if it wasn’t someone from the top five, and one player who will receive plenty of service, with the ability to create his own goals, is Luis Suarez. The Golden Boot should be his.

Down at the bottom, all three of the promoted teams have weak areas that can be exploited, but QPR look in the biggest trouble, being unable to build much on their Championship-winning team.

For the first time in years, everyone's tipping Blackburn for the drop – and they're right to. With an unproven, under-pressure manager having to handle his clueless owners asking him to buy Lionel Messi for £5 and a bargain bucket, he’ll have too much on his plate to lead his team to good results, and is a strong bet for the first managerial casualty too (depending on the situation at QPR).

Wigan may well join Rovers in the Championship. Roberto Martinez has a good team spirit going that helped the Latics to pull safety out of the bag last term, but you have to question the squad's quality at front and back. There are serious concerns over their defence, and with Charles N’Zogbia gone they need someone to step up and help Hugo Rodallega carry the goals burden.

Elsewhere, Aguero will be one to watch, but keep an eye on Edin Dzeko too. He has the talent to justify his stupendous transfer fee, and with some pre-season goals under his belt, the confidence too.

For a surprise package, in the exciting Chung-Yong Lee’s enforced absence through injury, look no further than Aaron Ramsey. With a run of games he could be prove himself to be as crucial to Arsenal’s midfield as Jack Wilshere. Don’t pin too many hopes on either Jordan Henderson or Charlie Adam though: they may find it hard to hold down a place in Liverpool’s midfield.

One final prediction: Darren Bent to score an England hat-trick by this time next year. You heard it here first (ish).

1. Man United 2. Chelsea 3. Man City 4. Liverpool
Relegated: QPR, Blackburn, Wigan
Top Scorer: Luis Suarez (Liverpool)

Huw Davies is FourFourTwo's staff writer and the office blame-magnet.

------------------------------------
In brief: Twitter predictions

Daniel Taylor (@DTguardian)
Guardian football writer, author of Deep into the Forest, This is the One and Squeaky Bum Time
1. Man United 2. Man City 3. Chelsea 4. Liverpool
Relegated: Swansea, QPR, Blackburn
Top scorer: Wayne Rooney (Man United)

Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC)
MSNBC's "Morning Joe" news anchor
1. Chelsea 2. Man United 3. Man City 4. Liverpool
Relegated: Swansea, West Brom, Wigan
Top scorer: Wayne Rooney (Man United)

Guillem Balague (@GuillemBalague)
Sky Sports, AS, The Times, Five Live, Talksport, GuillemBalague.com
1. Man City 2. Man United 3. Chelsea 4. Liverpool
Relegated: QPR, Norwich, Wolves
Top Scorer: Luis Suarez (Liverpool)

Chris O'Dowd (@BigBoyler)
Actor (The IT Crowd, Bridesmaids, The Boat That Rocked, etc)
1. Liverpool 2. Man United 3. Man City 4. Chelsea
Relegated: Swansea, Norwich, Blackburn.
Top Scorer: Wayne Rooney (Manchester United)

Oliver Kay (@OliverKayTimes)
Football Correspondent for The Times
1. Man United 2. Man City 3. Chelsea 4. Arsenal
Relegated: Blackburn, Norwich, QPR
Top scorer: Wayne Rooney (Man United)

Weekender: Riots, billionaires and Mr Brightside

2011-08-12T11:18:00Z

1. Rioting threatens stately Villa home
Aston Villa will be glad their game at Fulham has the go-ahead despite the rioting. They wouldn’t want to start their season next weekend against Blackburn at Villa Park: in each of their first league games after the 1981 Brixton riot, the 1985 Broadwater Farm riot and the 1990 Poll Tax riot, they lost 2-1 at home. On the other hand, social unrest brings the best out of Norwich, Shrewsbury, Portsmouth and Hartlepool, who won their first league games after each of those three riots.

2. Winning isn’t everything for Norwich & Wigan
Norwich needn't fret if they lose their opener at Wigan. The Canaries lost at home to Watford on the first day of last term, before bouncing back to gain promotion. This came 12 months after the Norfolk outfit were infamously gubbed 7-1 at home by Colchester, whoe manager Paul Lambert switched sides and led them to the title. Wigan, meanwhile, avoided the drop last season having started with a 4-0 home humping by Blackpool, who ended up relegated. In fact, the Latics have won just one of their six Premier League openers – in 2009/10, when they mustered their lowest top-flight points haul. Perhaps they’ll both try to lose.

3. Not everything comes to those who wait
If Aston Villa boss Alex McLeish shakes hands with Fulham skipper Aaron Hughes at Craven Cottage tomorrow, he may do so with a twinge of jealousy. On Wednesday, Hughes finally broke his international scoring duck on his 77th appearance – the same number of caps Big Eck got without ever troubling the scoresheet. You could argue it's a defender thing – Arne Friedrich bagged his first goal for Germany on his 77th appearance, which happened to be a World Cup quarter-final, while Fabio Cannavaro waited until cap 78 – but perhaps nobody has been more patient than Greece anchorman Theo Zagorakis, who scored on his 101st international outing.

4. What's eating Neil Warnock?
With Ian Holloway away there's a Premier League vacancy for a chirpy soundbite-machine, and Neil Warnock may fancy his chances. However, unlike Blackpool's Mr Brightside, the Yorkshireman has tended toward the irascible during his ill-fated one-season top-flight campaigns. In 1992 his Notts County side were relegated after selling star strikers Paul Rideout and Tommy Johnson to help fund a Meadow Lane revamp, and in 2006 his beloved Sheffield United went down amid acrimony and court cases over the Carlos Tevez transfer and a limp Liverpool line-up at drop-dodging Fulham. Our prediction for this season's bugbear: skinflint billionaires.

5. Baggies know best
If you want a scoreline tip, speak to a West Midlander. Analysis of the data from Sky Sports' weekly Super 6 predictor game shows that West Brom fans were the most accurate tipsters in the Premier League, followed by Birmingham and Wolves. West Ham fans were the most misguided, with tips from Fulham and Newcastle fans also to be ignored.

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The return of football heralded the end of all civilisation – but for once it wasn’t the people’s game to blame for the world’s ills. Huzzah!

The Football League kicked off last Friday evening, with newly-relegated Blackpool triumphing over not-so-newly-relegated Hull City in a match that failed to raise the pulse. But things cranked up a notch on Saturday, with Southampton dispatching Leeds in a highly-impressive 3-1 victory, big-spending Leicester scraping a narrow 1-0 win at Coventry, and Brighton coming from behind to win their first competitive game at the Amex Community Stadium 2-1 against Doncaster.

In League One, Phil Brown went from orange to red, and then maybe green, as his Preston side were humbled 4-2 at home to Colchester, while there was frustration for the Football League’s new boys, with late goals seeing Wimbledon defeated by Bristol Rovers and Crawley held by Port Vale.

There was still time for Sam Allardyce’s West Ham all-stars to be defeated by Cardiff, before Manchesters United and City did battle in what we’re obliged to call the ‘traditional season curtain raiser’ at Wembley. City blustered into a two-goal lead, only to let it slip, with Nani turning the game on its head with two goals in a 3-2 win for the Premier League champions. And to think people claim City are losing their identity...

While the League Cup was partly interrupted by flatscreen-pilfering scrotes, there was still time for Premier League ejectees Derby, Hull, Portsmouth and Blackpool to be sent packing by lower-league ragamuffins Shrewsbury, Macclesfield, Barnet and Sheffield Wednesday.

Don’t let the world get you down – football’s back.

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Sporting chance can bring the community together
Football found itself in an unusual position this week. Where there is public disorder our game has frequently been cited as the cause rather than the cure, but at the Nottingham derby – covered by FourFourTwo for a feature in the next issue – there was a pleasing glimpse of the potential for football to bring society together.

The game might not have gone ahead, with rioting around the country and an arson attack on a police station less than two miles from the City Ground, but the good folk of Nottingham were determined to have their first derby for 17 years. Expressing vocal disgust at the malcontents and joining for chants celebrating their fair city, the united fans gave a powerful demonstration of the power of football to do good.

This is neither the time nor place to go into the sociological reasons for the unrest, but suffice it to say that sport has always provided an escape route from deprivation, be it in a Brazilian favela or a British inner-city sink estate. Almost every documentary filmed about the urban underclass features the boxing-club owner giving the kids "somewhere to spend that energy" or the football club coach giving them "something to keep them off the streets". Pity, then, that the recent cuts have seen the closure of so many similar social schemes.

Pity also that the undoubted gentrification of the professional game has taken it far from the reach of many in the new generation. Nobody wants a return to the bad old days but there's little doubt that identifying with your local team helps social cohesion. It's harder to smash your town up when you've travelled the country singing its praises.
– Gary Parkinson, FourFourTwo.com editor

We're busily transferring 15 years of FFT interviews to our online archive. Among the 400 we've uploaded so far:

"How do people find the time to Twitter?"
– Web exclusive, Jun 2010: Jeff Stelling

"Coming from Bath, I supported Manchester United"
– Boy's A Bit Special, May 2007: Scott Sinclair

"I shouldn’t say this, but the atmosphere at White Hart Lane is very good"
– Q&A, Mar 2011: Samir Nasri

This Weekender was brought to you by James Maw, Gary Parkinson, Gregg Davies, Huw Davies, Chris Mayer, Scott Simpkin and fishfingers 'n' beans

Weekender: Tweets, Wombles, stalking horses and balls

2011-08-05T09:32:00Z

1. Pride comes before...
After waiting 35 years for a trophy, Man City are chasing their second in three months against their neighbours in the Community Shield. Victory would doubtless be heralded as a new (blue) moon rising and evidence of City's title credentials – and indeed on 19 occasions the Shield winners have gone on to win the league, while 1978 winners Nottingham Forest and 1980 winners Liverpool went one better by winning the European Cup. But there's a warning from history: the 1937 League champions won the Shield and promptly got themselves relegated in 1938. The team? Manchester City...

2. Wombles start bright and early
Perhaps the most eagerly anticipated match of the weekend will come at Kingsmeadow, where AFC Wimbledon host Bristol Rovers in their first match in the Football League (or the first since their return, depending on how you look at it). The omens are good for the Dons, as they have won their first match in eight of the nine seasons since their re-birth, going on to complete five promotions. And winning on the first day doesn't hurt: all four English champions last season won their opening fixtures.

3. Bring out the Branston (again)
If making your first appearance for a new club is a real buzz, there can’t be many bigger footballing thrill-seekers than Guy Branston. Despite never playing a game for first club Leicester City, Branston has since gone on to debut for 15 different clubs in a career spanning 14 years – (deep breath) Rushden & Diamonds, Colchester, Plymouth, Lincoln, Rotherham, Wycombe, Peterborough, Sheffield Wednesday, Oldham, Rochdale, Northampton, Notts County, Kettering, Burton Albion and Torquay United. And on Saturday afternoon, he’s set to make it 16 when new club Bradford City host Aldershot.

4. Fewer subs, fewer balls, more homers
While the reduction in the number of substitutes permitted in Football League matches made headlines (and curiously seemed to boil Rohan Ricketts’ pee), you may have missed the other changes to the rulebook. From the start of 2012/13, managers in the Championship will be required to hold the UEFA A Licence and be working towards their UEFA Pro Licence within three years of their appointment, while managers in Leagues 1 and 2 must hold the UEFA B Licence. Meanwhile, the number of home-grown players clubs must include in their matchday squad is up from four out of 18 to six out of 16. The League have also banned the 'multi-ball' system to prevent any underhand shenanigans from ballboys.

5. Border raiders blunted
One of many proud Scots managing Premier League teams, Steve Kean this week brought his compatriot David Goodwillie south to score goals for Blackburn. But if the striker is to reach double figures he'll have to exceed every Scot in the last half-decade: No son of the saltire has reached 10 Premier League goals since 2003-04, when a certain striker bagged 11 before moving to Blackburn himself. Can you name him? Answer at the bottom of the blog...

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Tough job, footballer. Being an economic migrant, you have to go where the work is, even if it's Manchester. After Carlos Tevez's earlier claim that the city only has two restaurants, Mario Balotelli showed his usual tact this week by saying "I am not happy in Manchester. I do not like the city... it is not to my tastes." Get down to the Lowry, lad, soak up some culture. It'll do you good.

Also on a northern charm offensive this week was Joey Barton. Never backward at coming forward, the Scouser continued to wage Twitter terror on Newcastle and was made available on a free transfer, although the two parties are now edging closer together on the settee of reconciliation. Barton's subsequent quotes from Georges Orwell and Washington – see, Mario, annotated footnotes maketh the thesis – weren't enough to prevent Newcastle issuing new contractual stipulations forbidding any players from discussing club matters on Twitter, on pain of strong tutting.

Rather more productively on everyone's favourite social news network – are you one of the 112,000 following FFT on there? – Stockport polled their fans on which striker to buy. Ignoring the inevitable japesters suggesting Leo Messi, the Hatters will now chase Fleetwood Town striker George Donnelly.

On the field, the UK's early starters had a mixed week. Hearts beat Paksi, Fulham beat RNK Split and Stoke won at Hajduk Split to reach the Europa League play-off round, where they'll be joined by Spurs, Celtic, Birmingham – and Rangers, beaten by Malmo in the Champions League qualifiers.

If the Gers were bemoaning their luck, at least they're not Bolton, whose thin squad has suffered two broken legs in a week. Perhaps the weary Wanderers are overtired: in an unseasonal story, Sven-Göran Eriksson and various England players have already started parping on about needing a winter break. We're sure the clubs would agree: it'd be an excellent opportunity to cram in another tour of Asia or America.

Manhattan transfers, margaritas, Becks & Red Bulls
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Charity might not begin at home
And so to the Shield, the "traditional curtain-raiser" which has gone through a number of changes. Originally professionals against amateurs, then contested between the champions of the Football League and Southern League, only settling to League champions v FA Cup winners in 1930 – and even since changing regularly, sporadically featuring England, an FA XI and even the Second Division champions. It didn't even settle at Wembley until 1974.

It'll be uprooted again next year, too, when the Olympic football tournament will be occupying the national stadium – plus the Millennium, Old Trafford, St James' Park, Hampden and the Ricoh Arena. So football chiefs will be looking around for somewhere to host it, a neutral place big enough to cope. How about China?

Like it or not, it's no secret that English football has long(ingly) been looking east at the burgeoning market there. Top teams tour; most have partners; some own local clubs outright. The EPL audience in East Asia is huge, lucrative and largely untapped; no wonder it was one of the destinations mooted for the controversial Game 39.

Quietly, there's already an official Premier League competition held out east – the biennial Asia Trophy, won this summer by Chelsea, one of 14 different EPL clubs to have taken part in it over the last decade. More would be welcomed.

It's not like Asia hasn't already hosted such one-offs: Club World Cup forerunner the Intercontinental Cup was held in Japan, then the boom economy, every year for the final quarter of the last century. And this very weekend, Internazionale and AC Milan contest the Italian Super Cup in Beijing.

The Italian and Spanish leagues have already experimented with altered kick-off times designed to catch the oriental market – and so did the English in 2005, when Li Tie's struggling Everton took on Sun Jihai's mid-table Man City in an 11.15am kick-off watched by something like half a billion Chinese. The next step, as already taken by the Serie A suits, is to take the game to the audience. It'll be interesting to see if England follows, initially as an Olympic-forced one-off but quite conceivably as the Premier League's stalking horse.

There will be objections, from John Bull traditionalists to those inside the FA who'd rather like to chip away at the national stadium debt. But with Community Shield proceeds going to charities nominated by 140 clubs, who's to argue with a plan which could be enormously successful?
– Gary Parkinson, FourFourTwo.com editor

We're uploading 15 years of FFT interviews. Among the 400 up so far:

"To be in the elite league, you can't be a normal character"
– Web Exclusive, Mar 2011: Joey Barton

"I’m Superman, man. I don’t give away my weaknesses"
– Boy’s A Bit Special, Sep 2003: Wayne Routledge

"Why doesn't Becks buy Rotherham? Posh could shop at Meadowhall..."
– Sing When You're Winning, May 2009: Chuckle Brothers

This Weekender was brought to you by James Maw, Gary Parkinson, Gregg Davies, Huw Davies, Lee Wilson, Ben Atkinson, Josh Robbins and Paul Dickov – the last Scot to reach double figures in the top flight

Meet the unreal Sepp Blatter

2011-08-02T16:18:00Z

In this month's FourFourTwo we interview five of the finest fakes on Twitter, from Berbatov to Blatter. This week on FourFourTwo.com we'll bring you the full interviews – starting with FIFA chief Sepp Blatter, as portrayed by Texan photocopier service specialist Zach Woosley...

FFT: When did you decide to make the fake Sepp account? And why?
Zach: It started as a joke, around the 2010 World Cup I believe. The level of frustration with Sepp Blatter ranges from comical remarks to outright anger. I thought it would be fun to make comments about him through an environment like Twitter. It started out as a joke; then people started paying attention to it and follow it, which surprised me because it was just me having fun.

FFT: So are you a big football fan or did you see an opportunity because people find Blatter particularly interesting?
Zach: Oh no, I’m a big soccer fan. Here in the US I blog about soccer for SBNation.com, so I’m very much into the sport.

FFT: So what do you do as a job? And how much time do you dedicate to the Blatter account?
Zach: My real job in life is working in a copy machine servicing company. It’s usually one of those things were I don’t devote a ton of time to it, I’ll be on twitter a lot. So I’ll look for a story that involves Sepp Blatter and if I see he says something about it I'll spend a few minutes trying to say a few funny things. If I get bored, sometimes I’ll jump on Twitter and see what people are saying about it – search his name and if people are making fun of him or blaming him it’s fun to respond to active people.

FFT: Do you feel a responsibility to update every so often or is it whenever the mood takes you?
Zach: I try to say something at least once every couple of days. The key to Twitter is to remain interesting. If you disappear people lose interest and it’s not fun anymore, but if people feel you're interacting with them and they might get a response… Twitter is cool in the sense that the bigger the account gets the more followers it gets, the more followers it gets the more fun it is to get retweeted or be talked to by bigger accounts. Part of its fun is that if people enjoy it and get a laugh out of it, then for me I feel responsible to make sure that it's active.

FFT: With that in mind do you ever feel nervous about having to impress? You could argue you’re a comedian, in a way…
Zach: Yeah, I sometimes try to be offensive in a comedic way: I've been making a few comments about members of the World Cup. I have a great respect for everyone in soccer but if Sepp Blatter could really say something then what might he say? There's pressure to be funny and to entertain and it's lucky that I seem to be decent at it because people are laughing and following so obviously I’m doing something right.

But I do worry. I’ll sit there, and I’ll work on a tweet and think "Is this funny? Are people gonna like it?" It's a nice feeling when people react to it. When they don’t, you think "Maybe that wasn’t so funny, let’s try something else."

FFT: Do you feel like it's trying to get inside Blatter’s mind? Is it important to set it up so it's feasibly said by Blatter? What’s that balance between the ridiculous and the believable?
Zach: Yeah, sometimes you just wanna be ridiculous because you wanna get a point across, For the most part, I’d like to think there’s a level of comedic realism to it: the idea that you could say "I can see him saying that… how great would it be if he did?"

FFT: Has anyone ever thought you were the real Blatter?
Zach: When I started the account it was actually called @FIFASepp, and I'd get angry tweets from people calling you names and expressing exactly how they felt about Blatter. So at first – and even sometimes now – you’ll get someone tweeting at the account and you’ll say "Do they realise it's fake?" I think they're probably being funny, but sometimes the written format is tougher.

FFT: When people thought you were the real Blatter, was it drawing a lot of hate and ranting?
Zach: Yeah! The interesting thing was you’d get reactions from everyone: American fans, English fans, others… I get tweets that have to be translated. But that’s the one element that has kind of gone away since the name change. Every once in a while, you can mess a little bit with people who may have thought that it was a real person but I think it's made the account better becoming fake: people take it less seriously and I think it allows them to relax and have more fun with it.

FFT: Have you had any criticism since people realised you were fake? Sometimes parody accounts get abuse for taking the mick…
Zach: Even though I'm sure at some level there are things that he has done that have benefited and helped the game, everything negative has changed everybody's opinion about him that he's almost the perfect guy to parody. Going after somebody that is universally disliked, you don’t have to deal with people who would be upset.

The only thing I've had is an automated email from Twitter: your name's been reported, you could be impersonating a real person, and you have x amount of days to change the name to something else and we will let the account continue. So I made the change and haven’t had a single word since. I think they realise the parody is a part of the Twitter world, as long as you're acting and not trying to portray yourself as that person.

FFT: What do you think Sepp would make of the account himself?
Zach: I'd like to think that if he did he'd have a laugh and realise that people were having fun. Then again you never know, he's so universally disliked that it's hard to put yourself in that position, where virtually everything said and written about you is negative. But I’d like to think that maybe he sees it and gets a kick out of it because that would make it even more worthwhile – not that I'm trying to please SB, but if you're gonna parody somebody you'd hope to do it in a way that they might appreciate.

FFT: Is there one tweet you are especially proud of? Or indeed any you regret?
Zach: I don’t think there’s anything I really regretted because I've been careful never to try to personally attack anyone. Even when I'm picking on somebody who has said something to the account I'm always trying to make it funny – I don’t want people to get the idea that it is spiteful or mean.

FFT: What do you make of the other fake football twitter accounts? Do you ever communicate with the people behind them? Or have any views on them?
Zach: Occasionally you'll run into them – they'll tweet me and I’ll tweet back – but in a lot of cases I'm not impressed by them: I don’t think they're that funny. Then again, it’s a personal thing: if you really don’t like the person, and your expectation is to go out there and make them sound rude or disgusting, not everybody may agree with that but that’s your right to do so. In the end, I'm trying to entertain people. Because I'm not making money or getting fans, the fact you guys are talking to me about it cracks me up! It's cool, but I'm doing it for fun – it's growing well beyond anything I thought it would ever be.

FFT: Some fakes are just too crude. What does make a successful parody?
Zach: Some people like that humor and that works, but in the more public format that’s not generally creative: anyone can curse or say something offensive, but to say something funny without having to resort to dropping foul language or saying disgusting things requires a higher level of creativity.

Also I think it’s a matter of being consistent, making sure that you're keeping it updated and responding. I've seen some which never seem to interact with people. But you know that’s what people need do to make it seem real – it makes it seem alive. I think that would increase the popularity of it. One of the best ones going is the fake Dimitar Berbatov. They’re interacting with people, saying things that are absurd, but it's not like a shock guy. It's just being funny and you can look into it and see the person saying that, or like to think that’s how they would act.

FEATURE, Mon 1 Aug: Meet the unreal Dimitar Berbatov

FFT: What was it like starting up for you? Is it a slow process? Drawing followers or does it roll quite quickly?
Zach: It’s kinda slow, you start it but there’s so much going on on Twitter – that’s the funny thing about it. I use Twitter primarily for following soccer, for my writing; you get focused into that little world and you don’t really expand beyond that.
I've found that the best way is to follow people that you know, or talk to, that tweet a lot and are active, who people follow. And you hope that maybe they will follow you or retweet something you say.

That’s the key: you've gotta get noticed – I've been helped immensely by several football writers here in America especially, who have caught onto the account and retweeted it and all it takes is a couple big accounts with a lot of followers to catch one of your good tweets and send it out to their followers and that helps get it going. You’ll be taking your time and then all of a sudden it picks up. Once a couple of big-name accounts retweet or someone writes about you, then it starts picking up steam real quick.

FFT: One last question: What does the future hold for the Fake Sepp Blatter?
Zach: That’s the only thing about Fake Sepp that’s bad: once he leaves FIFA, he’s already said he thinks there’s going to be a lot of turmoil. I think at that point the account starts to lose a little of its potential because as long as he is at the head of FIFA then he’s in the news and he’s relevant. The time it really gets fun is when major events are going on. I’d like to hopefully make it through maybe one more World Cup...

For more from the fake Tweeters – including exclusive portraits of the men behind the accounts – see the September issue of FourFourTwo magazine

Meet the unreal Dimitar Berbatov

2011-08-01T16:26:00Z

In this month's FourFourTwo we interview five of the finest fakes on Twitter, from Berbatov to Blatter. This week on FourFourTwo.com we'll bring you the full interviews – starting with everyone's favourite languid Bulgarian, Dimitar Berbatov, as created by designers Adam Bright (27) and Joe Burke (25)...

Q: When did you decide to make the account and how did it come about?
Adam: We thought the Phil Brown Twitter account was brilliant when we first read it, and then towards the end it was just him swearing… So we thought "It’s a good idea, why don’t we do one?" Also, we’re both United fans, we both like Berbatov, and we both thought he’s so easy to satirise.
Joe: He’s never in the press or getting things wrong.
Adam: So we just thought we’d do a silly one. It was the Phil Brown one that inspired us initially.

Q: It was always going to be Berbatov? There weren’t any other temptations?
Adam: It was so off the cuff. One of us just went "Let’s do it," the other said "Alright then" and we just did it. We got our Head of Innovation, who’s really prolific on Twitter, to repost it, and a friend of mine who's also really big in social media planning reposted it. We got a couple of hundred [followers] straight away.

Q: So it kick-started quickly...
Adam: To be honest we only wanted to see if we could get a thousand. It was more like an experiment and then it just snowballed really. I think when it first really kicked on was when The Sun or The Mirror did a Top 10 and it just kicked off. Now we’re on nearly 40,000 and as soon as you tweet there’s so many retweets.

Q: You could say you’re comedians; is there a kind of stage fright?
Adam: Recently we haven’t tweeted as much because it’s getting a lot harder as we go on. I think we’ve set quite a good standard of what the tweets are like and I think they are quite good, and we can’t really go back on that. We use all brands which fit in with Berbatov: what car would he drive?
Joe: My favourite thing about him is that he’ll never ever, ever talk about football.

Q: How many people do you get thinking you’re real?
Joe: About 50%.
Adam: I think more than that. I think most people don’t really get Twitter, so they just assume and think everyone is official.
Joe: They start worshipping for a while and you see the tweets begging for a retweet and then the next day they’re "I found out you’re a fake". They get really annoyed.
Adam: Loads of them are foreign, so I think that’s how it gets lost in translation.

Q: Had any requests from people who think you're real?
Adam: We get the odd one but it’s mainly retweets. We don’t really read many of the retweets, we don’t really get time, we just see how many retweets it gets. We love following how many followers there are though. When it was getting to 30,000 we sacked off half a day trying to get retweets and people to follow us.
Joe: You can look at the start when you’ve got like 500 followers to see who was actually following you, which is quite interesting because there were people like Will Carling and there were a load of cricketers as well. They were loving it.

Q: Have you had any complaints? Unlike most fake Twitter accounts, you don't have a disclaimer…
Adam: Our MD tried to play a prank on us; he pretended there was a letter from Man United threatening legal action, but we rumbled him quite quickly. And no, we haven’t had anything apart from that.
Joe: Ferguson was talking about us, saying about how no Man United players were Twitter.
Adam: Literally the day after we got put in The Sun, a Man United press release said their players do not use social media. I think they don’t mind now, but at the time they were pretty much "No one’s allowed to use it".

Q: It’s interesting that Twitter haven’t been in touch.
Adam: The first thing we did was to say we don’t want it to be slanderous. It's just a really obvious satire and not really about football. Even if Berbatov saw it and read it we’d hope he’d find it quite funny and obviously a joke. And if anyone does believe it’s real, it’s a bit silly.

Q: What do you think he’d make of it?
Joe: I don’t know because I don’t know anything about Dimitar Berbatov.
Adam: We’ve seen these pictures of him but then I’ve seen other ones and I’m thinking he looks a bit like a chav. I think he’s actually a bit of a Bulgarian chav.
Joe: The only bit of his character I’ve ever seen is when he did the Godfather impression and he seemed a bit timid at the time. I honestly do, even though I’m a big Man United fan, we both are, I can’t remember an interview with him.
Joe: In all of them he’s an enigma, isn’t he?

Q: If lots of people think it's real, you're kind of raising his profile...
Adam: We’ve had a few people in pubs tell us about Berbatov on Twitter, and we’re like "That’s us!".

Q: What makes a successful parody account? Are there rules you’ve got to follow?
Joe: Don’t oversaturate it. Don’t over-tweet. We created our tweets quite nicely and we didn’t flood it too much.
Adam: There’s a few people we follow who you don’t bother reading most of the stuff – you stream through it all. But then there’s one or two people that you will just look at it, whatever it is, because it’s always something quite good. Hopefully we want to be quite a good tweet. It was one every other day but now we do it like two a week because we’re quite busy at the moment. We also try and link it with what’s going on as well and whenever the season ends he always goes away for a month or two because we always he’s say going yachting. For the royal wedding, it was the Chelsea game that weekend he tweeted "Oh good, I’m in London for the royal wedding".

Q: Are there any that you think don’t get it right?
Adam: Most of them, the majority. Some of them don’t work: all they do is tweet loads, and they just mention other footballers. Even the Phil Brown one… it’s funny to think that Phil Brown swears all the time and he's always in a dressing gown or something like that, that’s funny, but that's as far is it went really.

Q: Would you ever consider doing another one?
Joe: The only other one we put any thought into was a grumpy teenager in our office who never spoke – but that would obviously only be funny in our office.
Adam: There are so many fake football Twitters, I don’t know if you could just start over again: if you took any popular player, there’d probably be a fake one already. I’d quite like to do another one like [Masterchef judge] John Torode or somebody like that – just someone who’s a weird character with some underlying clashes.

Q: Which fake Twitter accounts do you really like?
Joe: Big Sam.
Adam: I’ve only really seen a few of them but I honestly don’t think any are as good as ours. Joe: Someone referenced Big Sam and Berbatov the other day when they were talking to their friend about starting one up. And he was like, “Who shall I choose?” He picked Demba Ba. I mean, why? I think El-Hadji Diouf would be funny to read, a total a**hole.
Adam: You can’t take someone who’s too popular or famous. I think Berbatov worked because he’s at a massive club and was a big transfer but he’s not a massive character and isn’t in the press a lot, so I think people are kind of interested. I think it’s quite seductive and people really buy into it. I think it needs to be someone who’s not too prolific. Like a Rio Ferdinand one I don’t think would work – he’s a bit of a plonker anyway.

Q: How important is it do you think to strike that balance between absurdity and realism? Do you think people have to think that really could be him or could you to an extent write anything and people think it’s funny because it’s Berbatov saying it?
Adam: I don’t think we’ve ever really gone for realism at all. We’ve always gone for it being slightly plausible. We think about maintaining the character, we don’t really care if people think it’s not real. We more want people to think it’s a funny Twitter account.

Q: Do you feel a responsibility to do it often?
Adam: We were forcing ourselves to do it every other day because we had so many followers but I think now it’s just when the opportunity presents itself or when something pops into our heads. It’s getting hard to make it funny.

Q: So what does the future hold?
Adam: I think it’d have to be right to continue it. Plus whatever is right for the satire, stick to that: we don’t want something that doesn’t really feel right when you think up something. It takes up your time and there's all the pressure of making it funny. I think if he went to Tottenham or somewhere like that, I don’t think we’d bother to be honest.
Joe: I’d love it if he went to Paris and he’d literally drop all his English heritage and start again.

Q: Start wearing a beret and cycling round?
Adam: Yeah! "This is what I’ve always dreamed of. I hate England…"

For more from the fake Tweeters – including exclusive portraits of the men behind the accounts – see the September issue of FourFourTwo magazine

Aguero: "I want to be a WAG"

2011-07-29T13:10:00Z

Argentine star and new Manchester City signing Sergio 'Kun' Aguero speaks to FourFourTwo back in January 2010 about his ambitions...

"What would I be if I wasn't a footballer?" Sergio Aguero bites his lip and pauses. Then a huge grin spreads across his face. "A footballer's wife."

There is a burst of laughter from the packed room on Madrid's Gran Via, the Spanish capital's equivalent of Oxford Street. Time to pull on a Versace number, slip into some Jimmy Choos and whack on the make-up? To hook a Gucci handbag over one arm and take a professional footballer on the other? "Well," says Aguero as the giggles die down, "footballers' wives do have a good life, don't they?"

It is the last question FourFourTwo puts to Sergio 'Kun' Aguero and it is the first really clear glimpse of the mischief that characterises him, as if a mask has slipped. Until now, he has been softly spoken, quiet, almost imperceptible in his whispering Argentinian accent. Yet it is fitting too and not totally unexpected. There is something appropriate about Aguero's nickname coming from Kum Kum, the naughty Japanese cartoon caveman.

There's little doubt that Aguero enjoys playing to the crowd, both on and off the pitch. He's not fond of interviews, true, but look at his cameo with Argentinian band Los Leales; witness the mischievous smile, the glow, before and after the interview.

Although his responses are cautious, there's a sparkle in Aguero's eye. There is also a grain of truth in the response – about the way that football has engulfed his life. For the man whose father-in-law is Diego Maradona, football has always been his calling. The youngest of seven brothers, he recalls Saturdays spent playing five matches with five different neighbourhood teams. "At the age of 12, I would spend the day crossing Buenos Aires. At noon, I'd play the first game, the next one would be at 3.30, and then there'd be a game at five, another at 6.15 and the last one at eight."

"I couldn't live without a ball," he told El Pais. "I played for the love of the game. I was born to gambetear, to dribble. It's dribbling that gives me life." So perhaps it's not surprising he should stick to what he knows. Can't be a footballer? Be a footballer's wife. Can't be a footballer's wife? Be an agent.

As the tape is switched off and the microphone unhooked, Aguero is released. He stretches, flashes a smile at his agent and jokes that, actually, that wouldn't be bad either. Getting paid to watch football, letting others do the work and taking 20 percent? Job's a good 'un.

Surely not as good as actually playing the game, though. Definitely not as good as playing it like Aguero does.

At 21, he is, as he repeatedly insists, just a "chico", a kid. It is a pertinent reminder – one that makes his rise even more remarkable and is driven home when he names Carlos Tevez as a boyhood hero. Because Aguero is some kid: a kid with a kid of his own. A kid with six years' professional experience, having broken Maradona's Argentinian record by making his league debut at 15 years and 35 days of age, who has already racked up more than 120 league games for Atletico Madrid and scored nearly 50 goals. One with the potential to become the world's best player.

Aguero's son, Maradona's grandson...he could be useful

The question now is whether he will have to leave his current club to reach that summit. Or rather, when. It may hurt Atletico Madrid fans but Aguero is too big for them. If, as he admits, he wants to be recognised as the best in the world... well, he'll surely have to go elsewhere.

Just ask Didier Drogba, who after Atletico's 2-2 Champions League draw with Chelsea – a game in which Aguero came from the bench to score both goals, remarked: "The only word I can use to describe Aguero is spectacular. I don't want to disrespect Atletico but great players end up at great clubs."

Better still, ask Fernando Torres, the last great player to leave the Calderon and never look back. Those who insist that Aguero's form has dipped – and in the opening weeks it had – would be well advised to recall Torres. The rut he found himself in had a name: Atletico Madrid. Analyse Aguero's symptoms and the diagnosis is the same: a team that has had nine coaches in six years, a club with no stability and no continuity, frustration, a lack of fitness. At Anfield, Torres has become arguably the planet's best striker; move on and, he believes, Aguero could too.

"Aguero is growing quicker than Atletico Madrid," Torres said in March, "and there will come a time when he realises he has to leave." With Atletico out of Europe and lurching from crisis to crisis, that time may have already arrived.

According to Atletico's owner Miguel Angel Gil Marin, Chelsea offered £42m for Aguero in the summer and although Stamford Bridge sources insist there was no formal bid, there is no denying their interest. Alex Ferguson admitted that he looked at Aguero but decided that at €60m – the value of his buy-out clause – he was too expensive. As Carlo Ancelotti acknowledges. "Every big club has looked at him."

Chelsea could do a lot worse than look at him again right now. Ban looming, this winter window is a last chance. Aguero could be the perfect foil for Drogba, scorer of two goals against Atletico in the Champions League. After the game, Ancelotti was asked if he would like to see the game's outstanding players together. As Chelsea's press officer buried his head in his hands, Ancelotti smiled. "Yes," he said. "Very much. I think Aguero could play with Drogba very well, for sure." Drogba agreed.

Aguero evades Chelsea, not for the last time

If Chelsea must move swiftly, other Premier League clubs can wait. They may find Atletico receptive, too. President Enrique Cerezo has expressed his pride at resisting bids but chief exec Gil Marin claims that, €300m in debt, the club are "paying" for not selling Aguero before. The player too would welcome an approach. More importantly, Aguero is a phenomenal player. Like every Argentinian kid, he has been dubbed the New Maradona. But with an *rse the size of the Calderon, bulging thighs and low balance, with the ability to roll challenges and accelerate away in tight spaces, there is actually more of Brazilian striker Romario about him. Except that Aguero's game is more energetic, more powerful, more athletic. This is a man who can jump – 60cm from stationary; who scores headers as well as volleys.

Aguero is targetman and playmaker rolled into one. In the hole? He has played much of the last two years as Atletico's most advanced player, ahead of Diego Forlan, providing an outlet for the long ball – scampering into space to collect or withstanding challenges to bring the ball down and others into play. Or, indeed, going it alone as he did on the occasion when he single-handedly destroyed Barcelona 4-2 in March 2008, with two stunning solo goals and two assists.

It was the perfect illustration of a talent he says is "natural". It was as if his whole game had been wrapped into one 90-minute package. "His cut-backs, dribbling and chips are works of art," lauded one newspaper, "Kun is a virtuososo who's worth the entrance fee. He destroys his opponents with pace and strength, spilling creativity, ingenuity and pure talent all over the pitch."

In 2007-08 he was Spain's Player of the Year, scoring 20 and dragging Atletico into the Champions League for the first time in over a decade. That 2008-09 – when he scored 17 and played a key role in Forlan winning the European Golden Boot – was seen as a disappointment merely illustrated how high the bar had been raised.

In short, Aguero is the kind of forward who, given the right conditions and the right support, can do everything with anyone. Drogba says he could play with Aguero. Torres already has. And so could Wayne Rooney, Michael Owen or Dimitar Berbatov; Robin van Persie, Eduardo or Andrey Arshavin; Emmanuel Adebayor, Craig Bellamy and his friend Carlos Tevez.

The question is, could he – would he – do it in the Premier League? Although he admits he watches games, he's reluctant to be drawn. In fact, FFT is warned to avoid the subject. There's interest from Italy too, with Maradona reportedly advising his son-in-law to head for Inter Milan.

"C'mere, you..."

But Aguero sees no reason why he shouldn't succeed. The doubts have been dispatched before: going to England should prove no greater than the leap from Argentina to Spain days after his 18th birthday. Has he got the talent, the temperament, the consistency, and the strength to grace the Premier League? Listening to him, it's clear Aguero believes the answers are yes, yes, yes, and yes. As for the pressure, what pressure? The day he arrived in Madrid it took him 15 minutes to walk the 100 metres to his car, having a son with Maradona's daughter has seen the paparazzi follow his every move and the sports pages crank up the expectations, yet he remains unmoved. "Besides, you should see the way fans react in Argentina!" he laughs.

As for his age, that is, he says, an advantage. "Clubs prefer a young player than someone who's 26 or 27. They know that someone who's 19, 20, 21 comes with a better state of mind and in better shape. A 27-year-old turns up thinking, 'Well, I played there, and there'; he's done it. Young players are learning all the time and progressing – they're more adaptable."

Coming to Europe, alone and unprepared, Aguero certainly adapted. "It was hard. It's a new life, a new league, a new country, without your family," he says, "but you get used to it and you grow stronger." Physically and mentally. He admits that Atletico obliged him to fight and defend, whereas in Argentina he just jogged back. He has become a more competitive player.

"Players in England are bigger," he admits "In Argentina, you dribbled and you got away; in Europe, the defenders are beasts. You beat one and there's another on top of you. Against Madrid in my first season, Fabio Cannavaro booted me about but that's life. And if I get hit, what am I going to say? If they hit you, you take it." He might be short but he is a tough little b*st*rd. "If I score goals in the air," he says, "it's because I've got a hard head and I don't mind getting in there."

This is a man – a kid – who could adapt to everything that English football has to throw at him. And if there's one aspect of English football you know he can take in his stride as he grins and disappears onto Madrid's busiest shopping street, it's the WAG culture. Whether his wife can is another matter entirely.

Interview: Simon Talbot. From the January 2010 issue of FourFourTwo. Subscribe!

The world-famous Season Preview: Bigger and better than ever

2011-07-28T18:26:00Z

What's that smell in the air? It's excitement. Because the new season is upon us, and nothing says "new season" like the legendary, world-famous FourFourTwo Season Preview.

Since its introduction in 1998, the Season Preview has marked the beginning of a new campaign – with all its hopes and fears. And this supplement – which comes exclusively with the September issue of FourFourTwo – is bigger than ever, a whopping great 132-pager that knocks all others into a cheap party hat.

So what's in it? We analyse and rate (or slate) every single team from the Premier League to the Blue Square Premier plus the SPL – and, for the first time, look at the top six European Leagues: Spain, Italy, Germany, France, Portugal and Holland. There are stats and fixtures, key men and fans' views, and a rather unfortunate comparison of Newcastle United to a person who died after we went to print. Oops.

AND IN CASE THAT'S NOT ENOUGH...

Think you can play a bit? We can make you better. Pre-season is a key time to improve your game, which is what our Performance section – in the magazine and online – is specifically designed to do.

So we've splashed out ANOTHER 36 pages on Your Ultimate Pre-Season Training Guide. In it we explain why pre-season is important, what the shortcuts to match fitness are and how to play like Real Madrid.

We also spend time with Swindon boss Paolo di Canio and Everton's highly-rated youngster Jack Rodwell, in addition to a host of backroom experts dispensing their wisdom. And there's a full six-week training guide designed to revamp your body, mind and technique. Players of the world, you have nothing to lose but your beer-guts...

(Please note, the Performance supplement is only available in the UK & Republic of Ireland. Sorry, other folks.)

These supplements were brought to you with the help of Andrew Cole, Mark Walters, Teddy Sheringham, Craig Burley, Pat Nevin, Rob Lee, Michael Thomas, Frank Lebeouf, Gianfranco Zola, Alfred Galustian, Jack Rodwell, Mayur Ranchordas, Richard Nugent, Simon Bitcon, Chris Hughton, Arsene Wenger, Iain Dowie, Jon Goodman, Callum Kennedy and Paolo di Canio

Try the digital version of FourFourTwo (or buy the paper one)

Rooney & Hernandez, swapsies, fakes and Tasered players

2011-07-28T17:46:00Z

The new season is upon us and we're so excited that we're talking about everything at once. We look at past, present and future with an exclusive insight into the deadliest strike partnership in the Premier League, English football hopes and the wonder of sticker albums – in addition to a comprehensive preview of the new term and a complete pre-season training guide to get you ready for another year of the beautiful game.

Try the digital version (or buy the paper one)

Wayne Rooney and Javier Hernandez played a key role in Manchester United winning their record 19th league title last season. We talk exclusively to United’s No.10 ahead of an important year for the Red Devils and England as well as finding out from those closest to him what made Chicharito such an instant success in England.

Elsewhere, we look at the future of English football, which suffered another setback this summer with a poor performance at the Under-21 European Championships, and investigate whether there's any hope for the Three Lions.

The past is just as important as the future at FFT and we take a trip down memory lane to look at the history of a favourite football pastime: sticker albums. We discuss 125 years of collecting and swapping – and no, of course we don't pass up the opportunity to reprint some photos that players might wish we wouldn't...

We also explore one of football’s greatest mysteries: the Second Season Syndrome. Just how can a team do so well one year, only to fail so dramatically the next?

And we reveal the faces behind the best of Twitter’s football fakes, finding out why they chose to parody some of football’s biggest names.

This month's victim answering your questions in One-on-One is former Liverpool gaffer Rafa Benitez. What did he say at half-time in Istanbul? What was his relationship with Fergie really like? And what on Earth made him grow a goatee?

It's hard to imagine how much football has been changed by the backpass rule... until you watch an unedited game from before it. We examine how the rule turned goalkeepers into footballers and pick out the keepers who are just as good with their feet as they are between the sticks.

And as usual there's loads of questions answered by the magazine that brings you the access, insight and intelligence that no other football mag possesses. What would be the Perfect Season? What has Terry Venables learned from football? How would football clubs cut costs stupidly? How has our dressing-room mole The Player seen footballers abuse their fame? Is Scott Sinclair rather excited about returning to Stamford Bridge with Swansea? And who's that player being Tasered?

All this and much much more in the ultimate football magazine, weighing in at near-200 pages. And that's not including the Season Preview and Performance Pre-Season Training supplements, about which there's more information here....

The September issue of FourFourTwo was brought to you with the help of Rafael Benitez, Dietmar Hamann, Jim Fleeting, Ian Cathro, Mark Lomax, Ian Murray, Phil Neville, Terry Venables, Paul Ferris, Mark Hudson, Lloyd Sam, Matt Spring, Charlie MacDonald, Steve Bull, Jay Tabb, Jamie Carragher, Marco Materazzi, Michel Salgado, Wayne Rooney, Gabriel Lopez, Carlos Padilla, Ricardo La Volpe, Tomas Balcazar, Guillermo Ochoa, Javier Hernandez, Gordon Strachan, Danny Mills, Phil Ball, Tony Carr, Richard Scudamore, Ged Roddy, Greg Clarke, Gareth Southgate, Michael Ricketts, George Burley, Tom Bates, Graeme Murty, Ed Smith, Matt Holland, Scott Sinclair, Rob Jovanovic, Deco, Alvaro Recoba, Andy Puddicombe, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Sebastian Larsson, Jordan Henderson, Frank Lampard, Gary Speed, Bobby Zamora, Gus Poyet and lots of coffee.

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'El maestro' Tabarez teaches his Copa rivals a tactical lesson

2011-07-25T15:56:00Z

Most managers who had just taken a country of only 3.5 million people to the World Cup semi-finals at the age of 63 would have called it a day - they would have assumed the only way was down.

But Oscar Tabarez’ decision to continue was vindicated completely by Sunday night’s Copa America victory in Buenos Aires.

Uruguay are now the most successful side in Copa America history, and barring a 48 minute spell against Argentina, they rarely looked troubled as they marched to their 15th continental crown.

Their opening draw against Peru may have been seen as a shock, but in the context of the tournament, with Sergio Markarian (a Uruguayan) leading his side to third place in the Copa, it stands up as a reasonable result.

Having had his first involvement with the national set-up in 1983 as manager of the under-20 side, Tabarez’ long term plan following a poor 1980s for ‘la celeste’ is finally starting to reap its rewards, and the system has produced some excellent younger players to blend with the talented older generation.

'El maestro' stays cool as those around him go thoroughly potty

It is easy to see how he earned the nickname ‘el maestro’ (the teacher), his masterful approach to the all-round development of Uruguayan football as an overseer has been an enormous factor in propelling the tiny nation back to the upper echelons of world football. Similarly, this tournament has served to exhibit his superlative skills as a touchline manager.

The previously mentioned difficult 48 minutes followed Diego Perez’ red card in the quarter-final against the hosts. A first half dismissal should have all but condemned any side up against such big tournament favourites, but the key was surviving until half-time, once Tabarez had his players in the dressing room there would be a chance for him to re-arrange his side to cope with the numerical disadvantage.

Of course, he was helped in this instance by being up against a coach with all of the tactical nous of a watermelon, but once his side prevailed on penalties against Argentina, Uruguay themselves became tournament favourites and went on to triumph in emphatic fashion.

Boasting a delicate blend of defensive play, ‘garra charrúa’ (the indigenous sprit/fight) and some world-class attacking players, Tabarez formed a team that was effective and also tactically flexible.

There are so few sides in world football that could so seamlessly switch between a back four and back three in the way that the Uruguayans have done in their last two major tournaments, and the credit for this must be attributed to ‘the teacher’ as well as the players who could adapt so readily.

The key to the side was always its defence and industry: even in the final, only two attacking players started the game, and of the midfield four, two were defensive midfielders and another a full-back shunted forwards. Conceding just three goals in their six tournament games, Tabarez relied on the superstar forwards at his disposal to provide their goals and they did so, if not quite as spectacularly as their 2010 campaign in South Africa.

His tactical masterstroke in the final against Paraguay was the high pressing on opposing playmaker Nestor Ortigoza, who had been a dangerous player for the ‘albirroja’ in their earlier fixtures.

By harrying and hampering the San Lorenzo midfielder, Uruguay stifled the Paraguayans’ ability to play and after going 2-0 up, they never looked back.

Another key factor was the bigger pitch at ‘el Monumental’ in Buenos Aires, which meant Paraguay’s narrow and defensive gameplan was partially undone by the larger areas the players had to cover, very different to the small provincial grounds in Cordoba and Salta where it had proved easier to sit tight in the face of attack.

Few could argue that Uruguay didn’t deserve this Copa America win, and fewer could have argued that runners-up Paraguay did deserve to.

They finished the competition without winning a game in 90 or even 120 minutes and typified the defensive mindsets that teams have adopted throughout this tournament.

While it may be remembered for Brazil and Argentina’s underachievers, or Venezuela and Peru coming to the fore, the 2011 Copa America should be remembered for a historic Uruguay victory where ‘el maestro’ taught his opposing managers a tactical lesson.

Copa America's final two upstaged by fairytale semi-finalists

2011-07-21T19:16:00Z

As Uruguay and Paraguay face off on Sunday night, both sides will know that even if they win, neither are likely to be the enduring story of this Copa America.

It’s a shame, and quite unjust, but what has happened elsewhere has simply been more remarkable. In Peru and Venezuela, the tournament has had two of the least likely semi-finalists of all time.

Unlike Venezuela, Peru can lay claim to at least some footballing history. They’ve been to the World Cup finals four times, even getting to the quarter-final stage in 1970. Since 1982 though, they’ve not qualified for a FIFA competition, and have rarely made an impact in the Copa.

However, tragedy has played its part. In the 1987 Allianza Lima air disaster, 43 players, coaches and staff of one of Peru’s top sides were killed, and much of a promising generation was wiped out. Coupled with various other domestic issues, the mid-80s to mid-90s were a bleak time for Peruvian football.

Their next success at a major tournament was a semi-final appearance in 1997 when the Copa America was held in neighbouring Bolivia. Having beaten eight-man Argentina in the quarter-finals, it was then Peru’s turn to implode in the semis, losing 7-0 to eventual champions Brazil.

An unfancied Peru line-up against Brazil in the 1997 Copa semis

Their performances this time round have been down to a degree of tactical mastery shown by wily coach Sergio Markarian, as well as the blessing in disguise of having Pizarro and Farfan – two of their stars – injured. This encourage them to adopt a more defensive system, which has been key to their progress and has created one of the tightest defences in international football.

Yet Venezuela have been an even bigger surprise than the ‘Blanquirroja’.

Ranked 69th in the world and with few star names, they came through a tough group unbeaten, and it was far from the display of ‘anti-football’ you may expect from a more limited side.

In fact, of the four semi-finalists, they had received the fewest cards, and far from parking the proverbial bus, they’d also scored more goals than any of the other sides in the last four.

In a nation where baseball far outstrips soccer as the most popular sport, it is no surprise that there is little tradition of success on the football field. Indeed, prior to the 2011 Copa America, they’d never qualified for a World Cup and had only won a single Copa America match, with a CA goal difference of -112.

Venezuela's Manuel Seijas celebrates the quarter-final win over Chile

In this year’s edition, they have managed to make the world sit up and take notice with their buccaneering brand of football. Based around counter-attacking and set pieces, they had by far the best chances in the first half of the semi-final against Paraguay, despite completing only 44 passes – less than a third of their opponents’ total.

This was a great example of their percentage football, and it’s been very effective; marvellously directed by Cesar Farias who has impressed many onlookers, and not just due to his nice coats and leather gloves.

While it may be of little solace to Uruguay or Paraguay that their victory may slip under the radar, it’s quite something that these underdog stories may even be more memorable than the woeful displays by the continent’s big two.

Peru may previously have been better known in Europe for its llamas than its left-backs, but their successful campaign shows the increasing strength and depth of South American football.

Similarly, whereas Venezuela’s greatest claim to fame is probably being home to the world’s tallest waterfall, it’s at the Copa America that they have made perhaps the most unexpected splash, but it has been a very welcome one.

Cult of the idol and chronic mismanagement prevent Argentine success

2011-07-19T15:59:00Z

There was a delicious irony in Carlos Tevez’ penalty miss in Argentina’s shoot-out defeat to Uruguay on Saturday.

‘El Apache’ or ‘Carlitos’, call him what you want, the ongoing saga surrounding him in recent months has been symptomatic of the problems running deep through the veins of Argentine football.

For a player who was categorically “not in [the] plans” of manager Sergio Batista just two months ago to line up in the starting XI for the tournament curtain raiser against Bolivia on July 1 confirmed many people’s thoughts on the Argentina boss.

He was not the first, and he won’t be the last – but he caved in to external pressure to include the Manchester City forward.

‘El jugador del pueblo’ (the people’s player) was included by a manager who had, in the previous week, said that he did not need Tevez.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that Carlos Tevez is by far the most popular player in Argentina. His rags-to-riches story twinned with years of success at the country’s best-supported club – Boca Juniors - has seen him become a working-class idol and national hero, the like of which hasn’t been seen since ‘El Diego’ himself.

Hero or not, in the months approaching the tournament, coach Batista made it clear the Manchester City forward was not in his plans “for football reasons”.

Tevez and Batista in (marginally) happier times...

He confidently declared that Messi was his “number 9” and that he also had Diego Milito and Gonzalo Higuain for that position.

But this all seems to be patently false: Tevez wasn’t even being used in that role.

The former Manchester United man had also been vocal in support of former boss Diego Maradona ahead of Batista, and declared himself ‘injured’ for a friendly match against Brazil, only to turn out for Manchester City just two days later. It was suggested that their differences were more personal than professional.

When the decision was made to bring Tevez back into the fold, Batista claimed that he had “cleared the air with Carlitos”, but why the need to clear the air if the disagreements were football-related.

Batista’s lying on this topic has not gone unnoticed, and if it were simply a case of flagrant populism then it might be less damaging.

The truth is that the pressure exerted on him from AFA boss Julio Grondona has lead to the inclusion of Tevez, and it’s Grondona’s immovable and repugnant influence that is to blame for the general state of the Argentine national team.

Grondona has been in his role as AFA president since 1979. You may not recognise the name, but you may recognise some of his quotes. He recently demanded that the English return the Falkland Islands in exchange for a vote in the selection process for the 2018 World Cup.

Going further back, he declared: "I do not believe a Jew can ever be a referee at this level. It's hard work and, you know, Jews don't like hard work."

Plenty of blame for Argentina’s exit will rest on the shoulders of manager Sergio Batista, and with reason, for being tactically poor and a shoddy man-manager sees that he should leave his post.

Fortunately for him, Grondona prides himself on having never sacked a manager, so he is safe in his job despite the utter failure at the Copa America.

Grondona - always game for a laugh...

That is if you deem the host nation, with the best player in the world on their side and a ludicrously favourable draw, being knocked out in the quarter finals having only beaten a Costa Rican under-23 side as a failure.

Batista doesn’t, and has said as much this week.

His predecessor, Diego Maradona, left the post at the end of his contract in the wake of their 2010 World Cup elimination.

A popular man manager, but with the tactical knowledge of a lampshade, the real question should be how he got the job in the first place, given his failure with every team he managed previously.

However, as with ‘Carlitos’, Maradona’s popularity was the key, and when he put himself in the frame for the job, Grondona found himself in a win-win situation.

Had Maradona succeeded, Grondona could count the pesos and take credit for what on the face of it looked a bold decision. Had Maradona fallen short, Grondona could portray him as an unstable individual and distance himself from the failure. Of course, the latter proved to be the reality.

While Maradona is even more revered than Tevez, the point is that this idolatry is still causing damage to the national game.

The deification of these individuals is bordering on the obscene, but while excessive, it seems harsh to criticise members of the public for having a role model, a hero.

Instead, it is the way that the authorities (and not just in football) use people’s emotional attachment to these stars to partake in cynically-built, populist policy decisions, that is the issue.

Even on a basic level, pandering to the whim of the football fan can never be a successful way to run a major organization.

Henry Kissinger once said: “Leaders are responsible not for running public opinion polls, but for the consequences of their actions.”

It’s there that Batista and Grondona have failed. Weak through the fear of criticism; abject failure has resulted, but neither have faced the consequences.

South America stunned as quarterfinal favourites all crash out of Copa

2011-07-18T08:16:00Z

With the tournament’s most fancied sides having stumbled through to the quarter-finals, it was expected that they would learn their lessons and finally saunter stylishly into the last four.

Indeed, in Argentina and Brazil’s respective final group stage matches, two disappointing campaigns had already looked to be on an upward curve.

However in two nights of unthinkable results, the favourite for each quarter final found themselves out of the competition, leaving South America stunned.

Among the sides to exit the competition, an alarming profligacy in front of goal has been an inescapable theme; Gonzalo Higuaín, Neymar and Humberto Suazo being the principle exponents.

Impatience in breaking teams down has been another obvious flaw, but it points towards a more general feature of this tournament - the defensive attitudes of the so-called ‘weaker’ sides.

Of the four winning quarter-finalists, it could be argued that at least three are there having adopted an overly defensively mindset throughout the tournament.

From a pragmatic point of view it is completely understandable - where a side lacks the technical ability of a rival, it would be hopelessly naïve to attempt to outplay them. Greece’s triumph at Euro 2004 is possibly the most notable example of a somewhat limited side triumphing through this approach in recent years, but it seems likely now that this Copa America may be won in similar fashion.

Similarly, the very format of the competition encourages such an attitude, with eight of the twelve sides qualifying for the knock-out stages, it places a perhaps lamentable early emphasis on not losing, rather than winning.

While Venezuela and Peru have found their way to the semi-finals with a largely defensive system in place, their swashbuckling counter-attacking play has also attracted the neutral fan. Venezuela, in fact, have opened the scoring in each of their games in the tournament - bar their goalless draw with Brazil.

Paraguay, on the other hand, boast the bizarre record of being in the semi-finals without winning a game yet. In their last eight internationals the Paraguayans have won just two in ninety minutes - but their penalty shoot-out victory over Brazil will not have been any less sweet because of this record, nor the fact their opponents amazingly failed to convert any of their four spot-kicks.

Uruguay have disappointed many observers by not impressing as they did in the World Cup last year, but have made it to the semi finals despite a disappointing third place finish in their group.

In their knock-out tie against Rioplatense rivals Argentina, they were fortunate enough to come up against a side devoid of ideas that despite having a personnel advantage for a large period – with Uruguay’s Diego Perez sent off after just 38 minutes, failed to make it count.

Seeing the ‘big two’ both crash out may not be good for sponsors and organisers but both the hosts and the holders failed to live up to their reputations in any way.

Argentina only managed to win one game in the entire competition, and that was against a Costa Rica under-23 side that had been drafted in at the last minute with little preparation.

Brazil have also been mightily disappointing, but had made little secret of their intention to use this summer’s tournament as a stage in their World Cup 2014 development. Argentina have no such claims to hide behind.

Seemingly every pre-competition declaration from Sergio Batista has since seen a backtrack that in the eyes of many has left his position untenable.

Certainly, ‘Checho’ doesn’t seem keen to leave his position, claiming the campaign “has not been a failure” despite him guiding the most talented squad in the tournament through a pathetic campaign in front of their own fans.

The semi-finals may have an unfamiliar appearance, but it demonstrates the perpetual improvement of the perceived ‘lesser’ nations of CONMEBOL football.

So even though the sides that are out of the competition may be talking about looking towards the next World Cup in 2014, just qualifying for the tournament in Brazil looks set to be harder than ever.

Quarter-final results:
Colombia 0-2 Peru (a.e.t.)
Argentina 1-1 Uruguay (4-5 pens)
Brazil 0-0 Paraguay (0-2 pens)
Chile 1-2 Venezuela

Different shade of yellow: Why Brazil 2011 aren’t what the world is used to

2011-07-14T14:58:00Z

English football apologists sometimes talk of the pressure of history weighing heavily on the shoulders of the current squad, preventing them from playing with any freedom or even happiness.

Now, imagine trying to play for Brazil.

The five-times world champions are not only the most successful side in the history of FIFA competitions, but they have the added pressure of joga bonito on their minds; the desire, the need, to play in the ‘samba’ style.

The fluid football of the 1970s Brazil sides is the stuff of legend. In fact, although some argue it’s the stuff of myth - looked back upon through the balmy eyes of history as something much more beautiful than it was – this reputation is well-established and well-deserved.

Crouch's attempts to fit in with the Brazil team were a failure...

Either way, the Brazillians have never tried to address any erroneous belief and when the fairly negative Dunga was dismissed following his stint as manager of the national team, onlookers squealed with joy. The era of pragmatism over futebol was over, they said.

Mano Menezes’ stewardship though, has been barely more spectacular than that of his predecessor. Menezes has the significant pressure of a home World Cup in 2014 – a tournament at which winning is the only option for Brazil - and this perhaps helps explain their disappointing early displays in the Copa America.

With the immense expectation of glory in three years time, the planning has already started, and the Copa this summer was an important step in the process. The inclusion of Santos starlets Neymar and Ganso and Sao Paulo’s Lucas Moura – who has featured as a substitute in every match so far - may appear in some ways premature, but there is a commitment to giving the ‘next generation’ an extended run in the seleção so that they are ready for the main event.

This has been to the detriment of the current tournament campaign. Despite also featuring a host of experienced players, there has been an obvious impatience about the side, who appear to panic when they aren’t winning matches, even if they are playing well.

This was a feature of all three group games and something they must work on. Against perceived weaker sides – and that encompasses most of the world – it will be vital to rely on their quality and wait for that opening; a policy they haven’t always stuck to of late.

Much like Argentine boss Sergio Batista, Menezes struggled to get his team playing in the right fashion in those earlier games and was roundly criticised by his country’s press.

The team that drew with Venezuela and Paraguay was a side with no identity, and struggling in the shadow of former glories. The team that survived a couple of scares against Ecuador was more prepared, and they ended up winning comfortably.

Once more like Batista, the importance of making the right changes was evident.

The decision to play Maicon ahead of European champion Dani Alves was a masterstroke, with the Inter full-back by far the best player on the park against Ecuador. And by tweaking Ganso’s role, he was able to squeeze more creativity from the young playmaker.

Although what is on display at this year’s Copa America is not a vintage Brazil side, it’s not really meant to be. At least, not for another three years.

That will be when Mano Menezes and his side are judged, and they have a lot to live up to.

Savaged Messi finally on song as Argentina breathe again

2011-07-12T14:02:00Z

While he may have been criticised for not partaking in the national anthem, Lionel Messi was certainly on song in his new role, as Argentina finally clicked into gear.

With his own employment and Argentina’s Copa America hopes left hanging by a thread, Sergio Batista finally made the vital changes the whole of Argentina had been screaming for.

Out went Ezequiel Lavezzi, who had run into one too many blind alleys. Out went Carlos Tevez, who despite being particularly popular with the general public, divided opinion within the squad. Also out was Éver Banega, who in truth had played very well bar the inexplicable gaffe that cost Argentina a goal against Bolivia.

In came Sergio Agüero – the man responsible for changing Argentina’s opening game, Angel Di Maria to provide width, and Gonzalo Higuain to provide a centre-forward figure.

Dispensing with the Barcelona project he’d been so open about copying, Batista changed his shape to the only one he’s ever had success with - the 4-2-1-3 he used to win Olympic gold in 2008. Batista though, wasn’t the story from this game.

Lionel Messi, despite being the best player on the planet, is still unloved in his homeland. Having never played league football in his native country, there was never a chance for local fans to get attached to him, or even for opposition fans to see his ability first-hand.

Similar to the attitude of Brazilians, Argentines want to see players doing well in their own league rewarded with a place in the national team; any player that moves to Europe is instantly significantly less interesting to them.

Carlos Tevez is ‘el jugador del pueblo’ (the player of the people) for a variety of reasons. Not only did he play for, and bring great success to, the best-supported club in the country in Boca Juniors, but his tough background means that he will always be a role model.

Messi moved to Barcelona aged 13 and therefore this emotional attachment never developed, and when the chips are down - as they have been in the first week of this Copa America - it’s Messi that is savaged by the Argentine media and public.

Despite being the most dangerous player in the first two Albiceleste games, he was criticised for not singing the national anthem, while Carlos Tevez’ selfish - and sometimes brainless - play escaped criticism entirely.

Against Costa Rica in a match that would ultimately decide their fate, the diminutive Barcelona forward simply excelled.

It was a performance of constant and genuine danger, and with so many other attacking players alongside him, he created, and created, and created until his team-mates could spurn no more chances and eventually went ahead on the brink of half time.

How he didn’t score himself may baffle him slightly, but the sheer number and quality of Messi’s final balls in Cordoba was incredible.

But Messi wasn’t the only one to impress. Fernando Gago may face an uncertain future at club level but his contribution was excellent.

Despite missing a host of good chances, Gonzalo Higuain provided the attacking figurehead Argentina had been so lacking in the tournament.

Finding themselves in a similar predicament, Brazil should now be expected to start Fred as the spearhead of their attack, and as far as playmaking goes, Paulo Henrique Ganso would do well to play half as well as Messi in this fixture.

It is probably important to note that this Costa Rican side are not exactly world-beaters, and there will certainly be tougher tests to come. Any flaws will now have to emerge at the quarter-final stage, where the hosts will meet one of Chile, Peru and Uruguay.

The important thing for Batista though, is that he’s got his team through the group stage. But he knows that if Messi continues conducting with Mozartian genius, then the players will finally all be singing from the same hymn sheet.

Meet the Croatian Cruyff

2011-07-12T09:00:00Z

Back in July 2008, FourFourTwo introduced a Balkan schemer by the name of Luka Modric. In the light of current transfer rumours, what he had to say then is very interesting – not least the words, "big, fat contract"...

Luka Modric doesn’t look like Johan Cruyff. Not in the flesh, not straight on, not when his hair is dry and slightly bouffant. And yet the comparisons are unmistakable. In profile, when sweat has dampened his mop flat to his skull, there is something of the Dutchman in his face, but it is more than that. It is the spirit that he conveys, impishly intelligent on the field and with a capacity for caustic observation off it. He’s not short of confidence, and has underlined the Cruyff comparison by asking to wear the number 14 shirt at Spurs next season. 

This had promised to be the transfer soap opera of the summer. Barcelona and Arsenal had expressed an interest in the Dinamo Zagreb playmaker, and he met Newcastle officials in April. Four days after being wined and dined by Dennis Wise, though, Modric had signed for Spurs in a £16million deal. 

“One day I saw an interview with Niko Kranjcar in the newspaper,” says Modric. “He was joking about my possible transfer. I had said a few days before that I dreamed of playing in Spain, but he said I had to go to England because they pay the best money. I know people will not believe me, but money was not the reason I came to England. I didn’t think about money at all. Of course, I’m very happy with my big fat contract, but the most important thing for me was to play in a big club in the top league; everybody at Dinamo knew that. Everything has turned out great. Dinamo are satisfied and I’m happy.” 

Central to this happiness was Tottenham’s much-criticised chairman Daniel Levy. “He’s a straightforward man,” explains Modric. “Our talks were easy. It was a big thing that he came to see me in Zagreb; that told me how keen Tottenham were. I always knew that this was my last season in Croatia and  I wanted to find a new club before the Euros. Chelsea was one of the options, but I was linked with Barcelona, Milan, Newcastle and some clubs in Russia… Every day there were new rumours and I didn’t want to be under pressure, because I knew that Dinamo and [my agents] the Mamic brothers would find the best solution for me. Clearly they did.  

“I always dreamed about Barcelona. They are my favourite club, but I didn’t go to Spain. I have no regrets: I’ve chosen a very good club and I’m sure I’ll enjoy playing for Tottenham. The main reason I chose Spurs was Juande Ramos. He asked me to go to London, so I did. I have a really high  opinion of him, and after the Euros we’ll sit down and talk plans for next season.”

LATEST NEWS: Follow the breaking transfer stories here.

 It is the European Championships that now dominates Modric’s thinking. Drawn with Germany, Austria and Poland in  arguably the simplest first-round group, Croatia had seemed a viable outside bet to win the tournament, but the injury to former Dinamo team-mate Eduardo (or ‘Dudu’, as he’s known in Croatia), their top scorer in qualifying with 10 goals, has diminished their chances. “It will be hard without Dudu,” he says. “He was our strength in qualifying. He was like a machine with his goals.

 “I saw him break his leg on TV – it was horrible. I was afraid for him, not just for his career but for his health. He’s a big friend. We spent a lot of time together in Zagreb. I tried to call him straight away, but of course it was impossible. I talked to him after his operation and he was optimistic. We have to be focused and not whinge because we are without him. We have class players like Ivan Klasnic, Igor Budan, Mladen Petric and Bosko Balaban who can take his place.”

 Before the qualifier in Zagreb in 2006, Modric was scathing about England. “They’ve got some great players, and if you go by their names they’re one of the best sides in football,” he said. “But I wasn’t excited by them at the World Cup.” So while he has learnt diplomacy in the intervening 18 months, when he dismisses suggestions that the draw has been kind to Croatia, it is probably because he means it. 

“It’s a hard group,” he says. “Everybody says Germany and Croatia are favourites, but it will be hard to go through to the next phase. Our task is to go as far as we can, but you never know. I am an optimist, but Poland will be hard to beat and you must not forget Austria. Every host is always hard to beat.” 

Their first game, against the hosts in Vienna, is likely to be key and, given Austria’s reputation for physicality, it should give Spurs fans an immediate indication of whether their new waif-like creator will be able to cope with the physical demands of the Premier League. Although he is given the luxury of being an out-and-out playmaker for Dinamo, with Croatia he has defensive responsibilities, and it’s his ability to  combine that with supreme vision and touch that makes him such an exciting prospect.  

As Kranjcar said, Modric hasn’t struggled in previous battles with the likes of Gerrard and Lampard; the question is whether  he can extend that over a season. Still, £16million on a player who’s potentially the new Cruyff seems a worthwhile gamble.

From the July 2008 issue of FourFourTwo. Subscribe!

Going through changes: Fortune favouring the brave at Copa America

2011-07-11T16:14:00Z

A lot has been said about the early rounds of this year’s Copa America, most of it criticism of the lack of goals thus far.

It’s barely necessary to remind people that such a dearth is inevitable at this early stage of the competition. You only need to look back to last summer’s showpiece in South Africa to see that it’s far from unusual for the early stages of a major tournament to be similarly characterised by overly-tense affairs.

It’s an inevitability of tournament football that sides are massively fearful of losing their first game, as doing so would leave them with a mountain to climb as far as knock-out stage qualification is concerned.

In addition, thanks to seedings, the first fixture of a group is quite often a mismatch, and nobody could criticise the minnows for setting out to frustrate their more illustrious opponents by sitting deep.

The theory at this level is the same as in the third round of the FA Cup, only instead of seeing Manchester United toil on a boggy pitch against Halifax Town, it is Argentina against Bolivia, or Venezuela against Brazil.

When these sides set out primarily to defend, perhaps looking to nick a goal on the counter-attack or from a set piece, it’s merely a natural attempt to bridge the gulf in quality between the sides, and not something that should be vilified.

What happened to Argentina (twice) and Brazil was that they succeeded when it came to dominating play, but then failed to find the breakthrough. They both had chances throughout their opening games and didn’t take them, this is what led to the panicked play on the field. Off the field though, is where the direction and substitutions can swing a game, but that’s not how it turned out.

In the first two fixtures of this Copa, Batista’s changes have been mindless. He has attempted to shoe-horn players into a system that is clearly not working and by refusing to make the necessary changes, he has put Argentina’s quarter-final qualification in jeopardy, something utterly thinkable just over a week ago.

The only change Batista had made between the opening draw versus Bolivia and the second game against Colombia was to bring in Pablo Zabaleta for young left-back Marcos Rojo. This was despite the obvious problems caused by the midfield being too reserved and playing two central attackers as wide-men.

Contrast this with Claudio Borghi’s game-changing alterations as Chile came from behind to beat Mexico.

Once more, it was a well-fancied team struggling against underdogs who were playing with plenty of men behind the ball. Disaster struck for the Chileans when Mexico got a goal from a set-piece to put themselves in front. Chile were not only struggling to get the goal they’d deserved but they now needed two, fortunately, Borghi had a plan B.

Unlike some other coaches in this tournament and others, Borghi was not overwhelmed by the fear of his team losing their opening match. Instead, he continued in the fearless vein of previous boss Marcelo Bielsa and brought on striker Esteban Paredes for wing-back Beausejour.

The change in shape that accompanied this removed Mexico’s numerical advantage in defence, which ultimately proved the telling factor as Chile scored two and won the game.

In Chile’s second game of the tournament against equally well-fancied Uruguay, both managers were left happy with their pro-active approach.

The celeste brought in Sebastian Coates at centre half for the shaky Victorino, while replacing one of their standout performers for the first game – Nicolas Lodeiro – with Porto left-back Alvaro Pereira.

Replacing a playmaking midfielder with a defensive-minded player may not be a popular choice with neutrals or even some fans, but knowing Chile’s strength, Oscar Tabarez opted for the work rate and industry of Pereira and was rewarded with the opening goal.

Young defender Coates came into the side and was exceptional too, keeping the usually excellent Humberto Suazo very quiet, and doing a better job of dealing with Alexis Sanchez than many have in recent months.

Trailing 1-0 and being continually pinned back, it was Chile’s turn to roll the dice. Borghi introduced Valdivia, the Palmeiras playmaker, with the hope that his renown passing ability would help them keep possession and possibly create the chance they needed.

Once more, fortune favoured the brave. Valdivia’s wizardry left a couple of Uruguayan statues in his wake as he set Alexis Sanchez through on goal, and the Udinese (for now) starlet finished brilliantly.

Hernan Dario Gomez of Colombia can also take plaudits for starting Carlos Sanchez for the clash with Argentina. Having a player behind the midfield to nullify the intention of Batista’s well-publicised ‘false 9’ position gave his side a valuable point and virtually guarantees the cafeteros a quarter-final berth.

With a crunch game coming up against a Costa Rica team needing just a draw, hosts Argentina will need to show more patience and craft. Perhaps it’s time to make a change, abandon the Barcelona imitation and let the quality of the players shine through…

In matters of style, swim with the current; In matters of principle, stand like a rock - former US president Thomas Jefferson

While Batista is dedicated to trying to swim with the Barcelona current, his standing like a rock in the defence of these same principles could cost him his job.

Underdogs & overreactions: what do the opening days of Copa America tell us?

2011-07-05T15:11:00Z

Vexing:   The best adjective to describe what has happened in the first round of games in the 2011 Copa America.   

The curious sequence of events commenced late on Friday night, as Argentina - the hosts and favourites - shaped up to brush aside footballing minnows and mountain-dwellers Bolivia in La Plata.

While most had predicted a four or five goal victory for the Albiceleste, it was more a case of them being at sixes and sevens, as a disjointed side failed to provide much to write home about in a scrappy 1-1 draw against their northern neighbours.   

In truth, it could have been even worse. While Bolivia’s goal was principally down to a piece of defending as inexplicable as it was bad – Ever Banega simply losing all control of his legs and neglecting to clear a hopeful flick off the line – the ‘verde’ had a wonderful chance to make it 2-0 through Marcelo Moreno, a goal that probably would have sent the host nation to their most embarrassing result since, well, since they last played Bolivia, actually...  

Sergio Aguero’s stunning equaliser may have saved some embarrassment for ‘Checho’ Batista’s side, but the result was still presented as if it had been a defeat by the local media, whose reaction was as excessive as it was predictable.   

Shaking off the tournament favourites tag was never going to be easy, not least with the pressure of 18 trophyless years weighing down on their shoulders, and this is only magnified by sensationalist sports dailies, from where it is consumed, and then regurgitated by the masses.   

There’s no respite either, for Sergio Batista, the Argentine coach. This blog has dealt previously with his forthright ambition of building a side based on Barcelona, and this has given him some issues in the wake of Friday’s performance.  

A display with all the fluidity of a breezeblock was more catastrophic than it was Catalan, with a midfield trio which had previously been touted as ‘too defensive’ turning out to be just that. But Batista has since shown little if any willingness to change it.   

By setting out his stall in such an ambitious manner, he’s given his would-be critics in the media the rope with which to hang him. His best, and possibly only hope of survival and frantically engineering himself some breathing space would be by getting a result against Colombia.  

But winning against a side that puts ten men behind the ball isn’t easy – just ask the countless teams who have tried and failed to do so in recent years.

It has become a regular feature of major tournaments for minnows facing a giant of the world game to put everything between the ball and their goal in the hope of holding out and possibly even nicking something at the other end.  

There is nothing wrong with this.   Really, the top teams need to be prepared for it, and play in a way that enables them to overcome it. In the same way that Jose Mourinho deployed Pepe, a defender, in midfield to attempt to deal with Lionel Messi in the spate of 2011 ‘clasicos’, Argentina should perhaps have played a more attacking players against a side they knew would look to sit back.  

But they weren’t the first team to make such a mistake, and they won’t be the last. Indeed, Brazil followed suit two days later.  

Brazil came up against a Venezuela side playing in a similar withdrawn fashion, and a disjointed display from A Selecao meant that they too could only take a point from their opening group stage fixture.   

It has to be said that the Samba Boys created more chances than Argentina did, but the man-of-the-moment, Neymar spurned at least two excellent opportunities and Alexandre Pato nigh on annihilated the cross bar with a right-footed cruise missile.

  The reaction in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo on Sunday was much the same as in Argentina on Friday - an emotion half-way between disappointment and embarrassment that in both cases fails to acknowledge how far some of their lesser-heralded South American nations have come.   Uruguay had the benefit of seeing these shocks, and didn’t underestimate Peru, but the ‘Rojiblanca’ showed more verve and attacking intent than either the Venezuelans or the Bolivians.

Like the the opening day surprise packages, Peru took the lead. This wasn’t like Rojas’ Bolivia goal – fortuitous and vaguely comical – it was as impeccably timed an attacking run as you could hope to see, followed by a composed finish from Jose Paolo Guererro.   

Fresh from a third place in the World Cup last summer, Uruguay didn’t take it lying down, and they fought well, dominating possession and eventually also taking a draw from their first game of the Copa.  

Even much-fancied Chile had a serious scare, they exerted total domination over a massively under-strength Mexico, yet trailed. Fortunately for Claudio Borghi and his men, they managed to do what the big guns hadn’t and turn the game on its head. Mexico weren’t as defensive as some of the other sides and, regrettably perhaps, their swashbuckling spirit was part of their undoing.  

With the three favourites faltering early on in the competition, there are several possible conclusions to draw.

It could be that these nations are simply overhyped, it could be that the ‘smaller sides’ are underrated and ill-appreciated, or it may have just been a classic start to a tournament, with defensive blunders and upsets (remember Senegal beating France at the 2002 World Cup, anyone?).

The important thing to remember is that nobody is out yet, one of these sides will probably go on to win the tournament, and then we’ll see the same journalists that call for blood now, lauding the genius of it all in a months time. Vexing.

Where are all the black managers?

2011-07-01T15:00:00Z

A quarter of professional players are non-white, so why are there only two black managers at the 92 League clubs? Reporter Richard Woodall puts some serious questions to the big names.

It’s a statistic that just won’t go away. The number of black managers in football simply isn't rising.

Four years ago, only two out of the 92 League managers were black – and the situation hasn’t changed. Charlton’s Chris Powell and newly-appointed Birmingham boss Chris Hughton are the only non-white gaffers in the Premier and Football Leagues – staggeringly inconsistent considering 25% of current players are black.

One idea is to follow American football's ‘Rooney Rule’. Introduced in 2003, this anti-discriminatory legislation – named not after Manchester United striker Wayne but Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney, who chaired the NFL's diversity committee – requires clubs to interview ethnic-minority candidates for senior jobs.

Under the Rooney Rule, unless assistant coaches have contract clauses guaranteeing them promotion to chief coach when the incumbent leaves, clubs must interview at least one Black or Hispanic candidate. And this is no paper tiger: when the Detroit Lions flouted it in 2003, the club was fined $200,000 by the authorities. As a result, the percentage of African-American NFL coaches jumped from 6% to 22%.

But would a similar thing work in the Premier and Football League? British football has made great efforts to kick racism out of the stands and the dressing rooms, but what of the dug-outs and boardrooms? Are directors around the country inherently racist, or is it that the small number of black managers who have been given jobs have not produced the results expected?

Staffordshire University academics recently polled 1,000 fans, players, referees and officials. More than 50% thought racism existed in club boardrooms, while 82% said managers were given jobs based on their reputation in the media.

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Hughton and Powell: rarities

Earlier this year, Notts County parted company with Paul Ince. In his first managerial role, the former Manchester United and England midfielder successfully led Macclesfield Town – seven points adrift in 92nd place – to safety before further success with Milton Keynes Dons.

When he took over at Blackburn Rovers in June 2008, he broke new ground as the first black British manager in the Premier League. He only served six months in the job at Ewood Park before fans called for his head and he was dismissed.

Ince – who was also the first black player to captain England – believes he would have found his pathway into management easier were it not for the colour of his skin.

“I’ve got enough experience in the game, and worked under some of the greatest managers," says Ince, a stalwart for bosses including Sir Alex Ferguson and Terry Venables.

"No disrespect to Macclesfield, but I end up sometimes questioning why I had to go to the lowest team in the Football League to start my managerial career.” Strong words, but Ince's former team-mates Gareth Southgate and Roy Keane cut their teeth at a higher level, with Middlesbrough and Sunderland respectively.

Ince thinks it will take more than success for himself and others like Chris Powell and Chris Hughton for inherent racism to be kicked out of touch.

“Racism in football is never going to go away," he says. "I’d hate to think that in the 21st century we don’t want a manager in football because he is black.

“But we need to look at the number of black footballers who have left the game and not been managers but rather pursued a media career – Les Ferdinand and Andy Cole, for example. You wonder why this is.”

Paul Ince during his ill-fated Blackburn tenure

The numbers game is enlightening. Although Tony Collins became the first black manager, blazing a trail at Rochdale in the 1960s, he remained an anomaly until the 1990s when he was followed by Keith Alexander at Lincoln, and later Peterborough.

And although Hope Powell – currently managing England at the Women’s World Cup – is the first black head coach of any England football team, her appointment in 1998 has not been the start of a bigger trend.

Former England and Aston Villa defender Earl Barrett says he nearly left the game when he retired in 1999, precisely because of the lack of opportunity for black managers.

Barrett – who currently coaches the under-14s at Stoke and is project manager for football’s equality and inclusion campaign ‘Kick It Out’ – will complete his UEFA A coaching badges this summer and admits he would love to be in the managerial hot-seat one day.

“I wasn’t sure whether to go into coaching when I finished playing, so I did a sports science degree before deciding to give it another go," he explains. "At one time, though, I didn't even consider it for lack of opportunity. There was a pathway to management but it was full of obstacles for black ex-players.

"I definitely think we have a racist mentality when it comes to black managers. Even if I don’t become a manager, at least I’ve made the way for others by attempting to break the cycle.

Barrett notes, though, that he's not the first to try. “Keith Alexander was a trailblazer for black coaches. He was very successful – but didn’t get a shot at a top club. A quarter of players are from black and ethnic minorities and yet we don’t see that reflected in management.”

Earl Barrett in his playing days

What do the power-brokers of English football think of the situation? Brendon Batson MBE is currently an FA consultant on race equality.

“There are issues with regards to black coaches which need to be addressed," says Batson, a groundbreaking player as one of West Brom’s ground-breaking ‘Three Degrees’ alongside Laurie Cunningham and Cyrille Regis in the 1970s.

“We’ve had more black managers in previous years than at present but at the moment there are not many. There’s no easy answer to the problem. We know the numbers do not lie.”

To help correct those numbers, the NFL introduced the Rooney Rule – and it's worth noting that even before its introduction 6% of NFL coaches were black, which would equate to five and a half Premier and Football League managers rather than the current two. (If we take the 22% figure, that would be 20 black managers.)

But do the FA have any plans to introduce a similar rule here? Spokesman Matt Phillips remains tight-lipped. “The FA is aiming to inspire more coaches from black and ethnic minority communities and we are committed to working with the relevant football authorities to take this forward.

“Both Noel Blake [England U19s coach] and Hope Powell have carved out excellent careers as national coaches in the England set-up and the next step is to generate a new wave of coaches that can follow in their footsteps by gaining qualifications and experience across all levels of the game.”

Hope Powell CBE – a shining but rare example

However, Charlton’s Chris Powell – who broke into management this year at Charlton, for whom he played nearly 300 times in three separate spells – is philosophical about the influence he has as a black manager.

“Obviously I have to do well because the be-all and end all is about good results. I need to produce. It's tough to be one of the only black managers – you feel a bit like a martyr. Clearly the percentage of black players is not reflected in management.”

Even so, Powell disagrees with Ince over whether a playing career should influence how far up the scale you start as a manager: “I don’t think your playing career should really have any bearing on it. If you’re good enough, you get an opportunity to manage and coach.”

Peter Coates, owner of Stoke City – where Chris Kamara had a brief managerial spell in 1998 – acknowledges the dearth of minority coaches but doesn't think it's down to prejudice: “There are so few black managers but at Stoke there is no racism – we hold black and white coaches in the highest regard.

“I don’t know a huge amount about the Rooney Rule but I think clubs would need to think long and hard before introducing something like that. I don't believe that there exists prejudice towards black managers in the game. Football management is very pressurised – whatever the colour of your skin.”

Ince disagrees. “We’ve managed to stamp out racist abuse dished out to players but the next step is to get more black managers into the game. It’s not the FA that can change it – it’s the people running our clubs.”

As such, Ince is in favour of the FA introducing its own Rooney Rule: “Without a doubt I would be in support of that – look what it has done for the NFL.”

Ince is backed up by Professional Footballers’ Association chief executive Gordon Taylor. “The issue of black managers is the next glass ceiling to address,” says Taylor. “We admit we need to look at the situation. Guys like Cyrille Regis, Les Ferdinand and Luther Blissett were hoping for positions in the game and they haven’t yet got them.

“We are giving serious considering to the Rooney Rule at the moment. It’s proven very successful in the USA and we are looking to bring Dan Rooney over to the UK to speak about his experiences of it.

"Something like this in English football would need the support of all the clubs. There's always going to be an issue with positive discrimination but with the number of black managers so low, something needs to change. The current situation is not fair.”

Regis, Blissett and Ferdinand – capped but not appointed

Former Watford, AC Milan and England striker Blissett retired from the game in 1994 and is still waiting for his first taste of professional management. He managed non-league Chesham United for a year in 2006 and his most recent job was coaching the under-16s at Stevenage last season.

Blissett is damning of thre prevailing attitudes in football boardrooms.

“Football club owners are always looking for reasons to talk about experience but you can’t get experience without the opportunity. I’ve applied for many jobs over the years and been told I don’t have enough experience.

“I just think I’m wasting my time now. Sometimes when I’ve applied, I’ve not even had the courtesy of a reply. The reason for the lack of managers is simple – there is racism.

“But I don't think this is just related to football – if you look about in society you can see this. People in charge of football clubs just turn to the same people again and again.”

Former West Brom striker Cyrille Regis MBE thinks change will come, albeit gradually. Regis notched 82 goals in 237 appearances for the Baggies and won the FA Cup with Coventry in 1987. He hasn't gone into management and is now a football agent.

“It’s a gradual process,” he says. “Black football players weren’t suddenly accepted. Getting more black managers will be a gradual sea-change. It takes time for race to cross both blue and white collar boundaries.”

Darren Moore, who won promotion to the Premier League four times with West Brom (twice), Bradford and Derby before becoming an international for Jamaica, also backed a Rooney Rule.

Moore – now club captain at League Two side Burton Albion – is currently taking his UEFA coaching badges with a view to management, and he hopes more black players will follow him.

“You can look at this issue in a number of ways," he says. "I think introducing the Rooney Rule would work. There are such a lot of black coaches in the game and more and more of them are taking coaching badges.

“It was good when Paul Ince highlighted the lack of black managers – it means more black players are starting to be switched on about the low number of managers.”

Moore gets a gong from PFA chairman Clarke Carlisle

Richard Bevan, chief executive of the League Managers Association, said any move to enforce new regulations would need substantial support.

“If we felt black coaches were supportive of the Rooney Rule, the LMA would back it," he pledges. “It’s disappointing we don’t have more black managers. Alongside the PFA, the LMA supports the black coaches' forum to help bring more managers into the game.

“Things haven't progressed as they should have done because there is no career pathway for black coaches at the moment. But we are pushing for more black players to get their qualifications.

"At the moment we have 23% of black players enrolled on coaching courses. As a result, black coaches will be getting more interviews.”

It's an interesting figure: if 23% of coaching-course candidates are black, that much more closely reflects the ethnic make-up of current players. If those proportions are reflected in the interviewees shortlisted for jobs, whether by a Rooney Rule or simple mathematical averages, it should result in a larger number of black managers.

There's still a long way to go, on both sides of the Atlantic. It's worth noting that at the time the Rooney Rule was introduced, 70% of NFL players were black. In that context, while having 23% non-white coaches is much better than 6%, it's still barely reflective of the sport's ethnic make-up.

Interviews – whether or not achieved via a Rooney Rule – are one thing; appointments are an entirely different matter. For British football to be in such a position in 2011 is staggering. The sport awaits a new generation of aspiring black managers and coaches. The jury is out and is in no hurry to return yet.

From the manager you love, to the 25 teams you hate - via the Matrix

2011-06-29T08:28:00Z

As the August issue of FourFourTwo hits the shelves, Jamie Dickenson explains why you should buy it...

What drives the King of Catalonia? We delve deep into the genius of Pep Guardiola to bring you an exclusive insight into the workings of the Nou Camp boss.

How has the Barcelona manager developed arguably the greatest club side in history? Will he ever coach in the Premier League? We speak to those close to him for the ultimate lowdown on the man FourFourTwo.com voters ranked the best manager in the world right now.

Elsewhere, we uncover the 25 most hated teams of all time. No one liked them, they didn’t care – and from catenaccio-crazy Inter in the 1960s to modern-day moneysplashers Crawley Town, they’re all here.

We also bring you the story behind Paul Lambert’s rapid rise to the top. The Norwich boss explains the back-to-back promotions in his own words.

And now for something completely different: we take a step out of the ordinary to bring you a One-on-One interview with eccentric Italian defender Marco Materazzi. The Matrix answers readers’ questions on that infamous Zidane headbutt, winning the World Cup and making Jose Mourinho cry.

FourFourTwo also reveals the craziest man in football: Lutz Pfannensteil. The German goalkeeper has served time in a brutal Singapore prison, been brought back to life and played for teams in all six continents (including Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang). He reveals all.

We discuss the Financial Fair Flay regulations set to drastically change the nature of the European club game from 2013-2014. How will your club be affected?

And Ajax’s ‘Toekomst’ Academy is uncovered in the first of our features on youth development. The technologically acute centre hopes to put the Amsterdam club back in the upper echelons of this brave new budgeted world. It looks a bit nifty, too.

The August issue of FourFourTwo contains exclusive interviews with... Faye White, Dwight Yorke, Wesley Sneijder, Christian Eriksen, Lee Dixon, Xavi, John Barnes, Marco Materazzi, Nathan Dyer, Michael Carrick, Kieran Gibbs, Juanma Lillo, Izale McLeod, Frank de Boer, Jesper Blomqvist, Carlo Mazzone, Carles Naval, Antonio Cassano, Jan Olde Riekerink, Adrian Lewis, John Sheridan, Nicky Butt, Paul Robinson, Charly Rexach, Lee Tomlin, Sergio Batista, David Endt, Graeme Swann, Peter Shilton, Andrew Cole, Sergio Busquets, Matt Holland, Ben Griffin, Geoff Hurst, Joe Hart, Mitch Day, Manuel Estiarte, Lee Peltier, Paul Lambert, Lutz Pfannenstiel, Michel Salgado, Sven Goran Eriksson, Josep Guardiola’s sister and Michael ‘Baby Merch’ Duberry.

Euro 96: Remembering how to enjoy football

2011-06-24T09:30:00Z

To complete our week marking the 15th anniversary of Euro 96, here's a piece from Jonathan Wilson looking back at a summer which wasn't always halcyon, but was eventually unforgettable

There are times when the myths are truer than the facts. Euro 96 has become, in the popular imagination, a halcyon time.

The sun shone, Des smiled, Gazza grinned, Shearer scored, England sparkled, and hardly anybody beat each other up. Britpop and Britart were at their peak; a deeply unpopular government was palpably in its death-throes; England played football of unimagined tactical sophistication, and Britain suddenly seemed an exciting, vibrant place to be. That was the golden summer, to which nothing else has ever quite lived up.

Or at least that is how posterity recalls it. Who now remembers that England actually played well in, at most, two and a half games? Who now remembers the goal the Spaniard Julio Salinas had ruled out (incorrectly) for offside in the quarter-final?

Who remembers, even, that the morning England beat Scotland, just five hours before Gary McAllister missed that penalty and Paul Gascoigne scored that goal, an IRA bomb exploded in Manchester, injuring over 200? Who remembers the violence that followed the semi-final and the Russian student stabbed, presumed German?

Certainly when Euro 96 began there was no reason to believe it would be a glorious summer. England were in disgrace. After the ‘dentist’s chair’ incident in a Hong Kong nightclub, a pre-tournament trip to China slunk further into disrepute when £5,000 of damage was caused to a Cathay Pacific plane on the way home.

INTERVIEW One-on-One, Oct 2004: Steve McManaman – "I had a 13-hour flight with no TV or table 'cos Gazza had broken them"

After the heights of Italia 90, a desperate Euro 92 had been followed by failure even to qualify for the 1994 World Cup. England, admittedly, went into the tournament unbeaten since a 3-1 defeat to Brazil the previous summer, but a 3-0 win over Hungary in their last Wembley warm-up had done little to erase the memory of turgid draws against Croatia and Portugal and a 1-0 win over Bulgaria.

If there was optimism ahead of the opening game against Switzerland, it had little foundation, a fact that was brutally exposed in a 1-1 draw, even if Alan Shearer did bring to an end an international goal drought stretching back 1,088 minutes over 21 months.

“I was under a lot of pressure for that game,” Shearer recalls. “Terry Venables had said to me that I was his first choice for the tournament, but you know as a forward that it’s your job to score goals. I always wonder what might have happened if I hadn’t got that goal.”

FEATURE Euro 96: Terry Venables – "Shearer had his critics but you can never leave a player like that out, and he proved me right"

There was little else, though, to quicken the blood, and although the handball decision against Stuart Pearce that handed Switzerland the 84th-minute penalty from which Kubilay Turkyilmaz equalised was harsh, it was hard to argue that England deserved better.

“Football came home all right,” wrote Martin Samuel in The Sun. “But as often happens when you’ve been away for so long, the garden was overgrown with weeds, the pipes had burst and ants had invaded the kitchen.”

It got worse as Teddy Sheringham, Jamie Redknapp and Sol Campbell were pictured drinking beer at 2am in Faces nightclub in Ilford. Venables blamed the press. “There are a few that seem like traitors to us,” he said. “They’re turning the public against the players, which can turn against them in the stadium. If there’s an advantage to being at home, we aren’t taking it, are we?”

PRESSED INTO ACTION
There's nothing like a spat with the press to focus the mind. Not that England started particularly well against Scotland. Switzerland’s Chapuisat had commented that when Paul Gascoigne didn’t play, England didn’t play, but at that stage the continued indulgence of the Rangers midfielder, his bleached hair only emphasising the redness of his puffing cheeks, seemed born either of sentimentality or desperation.

And then Venables brought on Redknapp for Pearce. England, for the only time in the tournament, switched to 3-5-2, and Gary Neville crossed for Alan Shearer to score. Even then it could all have gone wrong had Gary McAllister converted his penalty, but the ball moved a fraction in his run up and his shot struck Seaman’s elbow.

Seconds later Darren Anderton knocked a ball inside to Gascoigne, he flicked it over Colin Hendrie and smashed a brilliant volley past Andy Goram. As he lay back and Teddy Sheringham squirted water into his mouth, the dentist’s chair was transformed from disgrace into ironic celebration. In the space of a minute, the mood was changed, not just of that particular match, but of the entire tournament.

Still, what followed was extraordinary. Yes, Holland were riven by internal divisions, highlighted at a barbecue at which a photographer had snapped the squad sitting in racially discrete groups. Yes, Edgar Davids had been sent home after saying that the Holland manager Guus Hiddink “should not put his head in the ass of some players”.

Yes, Holland had such a spell of superiority towards the end of the first half that Barry Davies commented that half-time couldn’t come soon enough. But none of that should obscure just how good England were. “The Boys Done Gouda,” screamed The Sun as everybody proclaimed England’s 4-1 win as their greatest since 1966.

“Even if they stumble at the next hurdle, or the one after that,” wrote Richard Williams in The Guardian, “at least Terry Venables and his team have given us a night we never expected and shall never forget.” That remains true. Since then, only the 5-1 triumph over Germany in Munich has come close.

But it wasn’t just the performance; it was the atmosphere. In The Times, Rob Hughes, presumably consciously invoking the Dutch problems with race, wrote of “orange shirts dotted among the English white defied the efforts of the organisers to separate human beings according to their colours”.

RALLYING TO THE FLAG
After all the fears of hooliganism, this had become a collective festival, as everybody sang along with Skinner and Baddiel. In The Guardian, Matthew Engel wondered whether the feelgood factor might even save the Prime Minister John Major’s sinking regime.

“In England, this most private of countries, the national football team’s success or otherwise ought not to effect any adult for very long at all,” Engel noted. “But… there does seem to be something fearfully illogical about the English just at the moment.” It was that same loosening of the emotional shackles, it could be argued, that led the following summer to the saccharine outpourings that followed the death of Diana.

In the stadia at least, the feeling endured through the penalty shoot-out victory over Spain and the penalty shoot-out defeat to Germany. England were lucky in the former, unlucky in the latter, yet the more important thing was the sense of carnival, something that pervaded despite the tabloid press’s insistence on filtering everything through the lens of past wars.

“The match cannot be separated from the atmosphere,” wrote Engel after the Spain game, and so dealt with the arguments of those who pointed out that without the suspended Paul Ince, England’s play was a tad disjointed.

“It was a sensational occasion," continued Engel. "It was also an almost wholly pleasant and enjoyable one… The vast majority of the crowd did not think it was VE Day or the Armada; they thought it was a football match and they loved it… Suddenly the world seemed fresh and new again.

"Now it was England’s turn to wave the flag. This new cult of St George… seems more agreeable than the old union-jackmanship that used to accompany the England football team.” Given that it was only a little over a year since an England friendly in the Republic of Ireland at Lansdowne Road had been abandoned amid rioting, this was a remarkable change.

Even the Germans noticed it. “It surprised us how warm the English people have been,” said Thomas Schneider, a leader of Fan Projekt, a liaison group for German supporters. “The cliché of the English is of being reserved and cool, of not liking to mix, but it just hasn’t been true for us. That has set a tone which has made the German fans very celebratory, not really aggressive at all.”

It helped, perhaps, that the Britpop-influenced anthem of the tournament accepted failure as the natural state of the fan: “we’ve seen it all before…. England’s gonna throw it away/ Gonna blow it away…” And England did throw it away, not just on the field, but very nearly off it.

FEATURE Euro 96: David Baddiel – "What England fans normally feel is 'We’re going to lose, but we hope we’ll do well anyway'"

In the aftermath of the semi-final, police baton-charged 2000 rioting fans in Trafalgar Square as cars were set on fire. Two German tourists were attacked in Basingstoke. There were riots in Bradford. Three hundred fans rampaged through the streets of Bedford, looting. And, worst of all, in Portslade, east Sussex, 45 minutes after Andreas Moller had converted the winning penalty, a Russian student was stabbed in the neck because his attackers thought him German.

After all the friendliness it was a reversion to type. The bleakness after the semi was rooted less in the defeat than in the sense the legacy had been squandered. It was not. A then record of 26.2 million had watched the semi-final. People who had never watched the game before had become enraptured by it. Euro 96 was the final stage of a process that had taken in the fanzine movement, the Taylor Report and the Premier League.

League attendances had been growing from the low of 1985-86, when the average was 8,130, to 10,186 in 1992-1993, the first season of the Premiership, but that growth was slowing. Euro 96 gave them another fillip, to 11,190 in 1996-97, and onwards as stadia grew to permit greater and greater attendances.

It is now standard that during major tournaments, the nation stops to watch England play. The cross of St George is commonplace and, while events in Marseille in 1998 or Vaduz in 2003 suggest the battle is far from won, the mood at England games now is far more Euro 96 than what went before.

“Football’s been underrated for what it can do if we get it right,” said Venables. “We’ve witnessed, even for a brief moment, how we can be in unity and what a wonderful feeling it is again. We’ve forgotten what that feeling was like.” Euro 96 gave us a couple of the indelible moments of English football, but more importantly, it made us remember that feeling again. Beside that, the details barely matter.

FEATURE Euro 96: England's Glory
VIDEO LIST The best goals of Euro 96
FEATURE Euro 96: Scotland the brave
VIDEO LIST The best players of Euro 96
FEATURE Euro 96: Watching with the fans

Meanwhile, from the web's best football interview archive...

INTERVIEW One-on-One, Oct 2004: Steve McManaman
"I had a 13-hour flight with no TV or table 'cos Gazza had broken them"
INTERVIEW Ask a Silly Question, Mar 2009: Teddy Sheringham
"If they wanted to clone me, it'd be interesting to see the reaction"
INTERVIEW Perfect XI, Sep 2006: Tony Adams
"There’s an art to making things look easy; that’s why I've picked him"
INTERVIEW One-on-One, Sep 2005: Paul Gascoigne
"I trained with Goram every day, so I knew how to beat him"

Euro 96: I was there - Tel, Platt, Des, Sammer, Baddiel...

2011-06-23T09:30:00Z

Continuing our series marking 15 years since Euro 96. In summer 2008, FourFourTwo asked several of the key figures for their memories. Read on...

The Manager: Terry Venables
"I wanted to do something different at Euro 96. I knew it was going to be a football festival and I wanted to give our fans something to be proud of. England hadn’t lost too many matches at Wembley over the years and I thought we had what it took to be successful no matter who we met.

We were lucky in that the team was packed full of leaders both on and off the pitch. We had the likes of David Seaman, Tony Adams, Paul Ince, Gazza – these were players who you could look to when things weren’t going your way. Even the younger guys like Gary Neville were really confident individuals.

We were determined to play a passing game, and if you’re going to play that way then you need players to want the ball and demand it in all sorts of situations – that’s exactly what we had. With Steve McManaman and Darren Anderton, we also had two skilful players who weren’t scared to run at defenders. They were terrific throughout the tournament. A lot was made of our problems on the left-hand side of midfield before the tournament started but Anderton really solved our problems out there.

From a personal perspective, the time before Euro 96 was really important. I had an idea about how we were going to play and I discussed it with Tony Adams and David Platt, who was in Italy at the time, before the tournament to make sure the players were up for it and knew what we trying to achieve.

With no qualifying matches it was helpful that we didn’t have to win games in the run-up because it gave us a great chance to experiment and try out different personnel and formations. Funnily enough our record before the competition was excellent and the more games we won the more confident we became.

Alan Shearer had his critics before the start because he had had something of a barren spell – but there was no doubt in my mind he should play, because he’s the sort who can win a game. He was, quite simply, a goalscorer. You can never leave a player like that out, and he proved me right.

The Shearer goal apart, the first game against the Swiss, which was played on a very hot day at Wembley was a bit of a disappointment but then we really started to play. We all remember the Holland game but we played some great football in the second half against Scotland and played just as well, if not better, in the semi-finals against Germany.

After qualifying for the quarter-final, people always remember that we were lucky against Spain, but I don’t believe it. We might have had a poor first half – they scored a goal that was ruled out, incorrectly as it turned out, for offside – but I would have backed us to get back into the game anyway, and in the second half and extra-time we more than matched a very good side.

People also say that we never do too well at penalties but we scored nine in a row, four against Spain and five against Germany so I don’t think that’s a fair criticism either.

Going in to the Germany game you could sense there was a real confidence, although the experienced players made sure that there was never any complacency. Even when the referee blew for full time at the end of extra-time against the Germans, I was confident we would be OK. I knew it was going to be difficult – after all, how many teams beat Germany in a penalty shoot-out? But I also knew our first five penalty takers were excellent.

When Gareth [Southgate] missed, it felt a little bit like death must do. It was awful. It was definitely the lowest point of my career – that was my chance to win a trophy for my country in front of our fans. I think we would have beaten the Czech Republic had we gone through to the final, but that’s football.

I achieved a lot as manager, but looking back it’s Euro 96 that makes me most proud. I think we made a lot of people happy with what we achieved that summer."

The England Star: David Platt
“We went into Euro 96 full of expectation. The run-up to the tournament gave Terry Venables the chance to experiment with different players and formations and, as a result, we were extremely well-prepared.

Playing at home was obviously a huge advantage – you’re familiar with the hotels, the language, the food, so you don’t have to think about all the little details you do when you’re overseas. Playing every game at Wembley in front of massive crowds also gave us a huge lift in the early games when things weren’t going too well.

Everyone talks about the game against Holland but from a personal perspective it was the Spain match in the quarter-finals that made me start to think we could go all the way. They were possibly the better side on the day but after we went through on penalties you started to believe that maybe we could do it.

Ironically, I would say our best performance was against Germany in the semi-finals. Both sides were under a huge amount of pressure but we played as well in that match as we did in the semi-final against them in the 1990 World Cup, although sadly we ended up with the same result.

The penalty I took in the shootout ended up being the last time I kicked a ball in an England shirt – but although I went into the tournament thinking this could possibly be my last, I wasn’t thinking about it that night. I was a penalty taker so I put myself up for it; it was just a case of doing what I had done, time and again.

In the end it wasn’t to be, but we got so close to winning a major tournament – closer than I think a lot of England teams are going to get for a long time.”

The Presenter: Des Lynam
“It was the first time Ruud Gullit had really done any television and he’d go on to coin the phrase ‘sexy football’ but when he turned up on the first day, he got out of his chauffeur-driven Mercedes, took one look at the BBC bus that we travelled everywhere in and said ‘What's this sh*t?’ I thought ‘Christ, we’re going to have a tough time with this one’, but he turned out to be a great bloke.

As I later discovered, the BBC always beat ITV but that summer we won hands down, even winning a BAFTA for our coverage. It was my most gruelling time in broadcasting as I also did the Olympics and Wimbledon that summer, but the football was such fun that it almost didn’t feel like a job.

At football tournaments you always felt that you were the nation’s agent in a sense, and I felt extra responsibility this time as we were the hosts. I’ve always felt that I know what the viewer is thinking – it’s a sort of arrogance, really – which is what prompted the one-liners, things like ‘Shouldn’t you be at work?’

When England went out, I said 'There we are. No use crying for what might have been. Not for more than a couple of years, anyway.' Somebody described it as my ‘Kennedy’ moment. I don’t know about that, but it was my job to sum up the mood of the nation.

Arthur Smith later wrote a TV programme about Euro 96 called My Summer With Des and dug out some clips of me – which was a great compliment. They got me to record a few new lines too, but they weren’t nearly as good as the originals!”

The Journalist: Henry Winter
“When it comes to England, journalists reflect the mood of the nation, and the mood of the nation was one of euphoria at Euro 96, so the press got caught up in it, some more than others, with some newspapers running football headlines front page and back.

I think there was a sense of euphoria because on the whole we liked the players and wanted them to do well. That said, Gareth Southgate was the only player who spoke to us – perhaps that’s why he wasn’t criticised too much after he missed the decisive penalty – because a lot of the others were hacked off after the reaction to the Cathay Pacific incident.

I tend to think that increased England’s chances of winning. Although Venables was always very good with us, I’m sure he used negative press in his team talks, where he said ‘go and prove those buggers wrong’.

Shearer, in particular, took an absolute battering from the press in the build-up because he wasn’t scoring, but when it really mattered, he delivered, particularly in the 4-1 win against Holland. We played the opposition’s press on the day of the game, but we didn’t do too well as they had Seedorf’s dad playing for them! On the night, though, everything just clicked. The better England play, the easier my job is. All journalists do is hold a mirror up to the drama, the colour and the occasion, so that was one of the easier reports to write.

In terms of the effect on English football, Italia 90 really changed things in terms of the creation of the Premier League and showing it could flourish in the corporate age – Euro 96 was a catalyst for even further development of the game in this country.”

The Celebrity: David Baddiel
“Ian Broudie of the Lightning Seeds was asked to come up with an England song for the tournament and he contacted me and Frank because of Fantasy Football. Originally, I wasn’t sure because I couldn’t sing but Frank said it didn’t matter because most fans can’t sing – I could represent all of them!

I remember saying that we shouldn’t write a song that says we’re going to win, because what England fans normally feel is that we’re going to lose but we hope we’ll do well anyway. Perhaps that’s why it had the impact it did.

We went to present the song to Terry Venables and the players and as they were listening, nobody said anything apart from Venables, who sat there tapping his keys on his leg. When the song finished, he said it was ‘a real key-tapper’. We later heard that before one of the games, Gazza refused to get off the coach until the song had finished and he made everyone else sit there too.

It was the only song to go to No.1 in the UK charts three times. It went down to No.3 after the Switzerland game, where we didn’t play very well, but went back to No.1 after the Scotland game. After that game, everyone was on a high when the PA played Three Lions and the whole stadium started singing. That’s probably the greatest moment of my life.

The worst thing to happen to Three Lions was that the Germans started singing it before every game and it even got to No.17 in the German charts. Frank and I were invited to sing it in Germany a few years later, so we turned up wearing England shirts. We were told to take them off but refused.”

The Fan: Mark Perryman
“I went to every England game but the most extraordinary experience was going to Germany-Italy, because it gave me a sense of what an international tournament was all about. In London, it was just England, England, England, which was fine, but you didn’t feel you were a part of an international tournament. In Manchester the pubs around Old Trafford were full of Germans and when the teams came out, a huge banner was unveiled across the Stretford End which read ‘The Peterborough Azzurri welcome the Azzurri’.

In other cities, they organised festivals and campsites where all the fans of the different countries congregated and it was these sorts of things that made me want to be at World Cups and European Championships – I’ve been to every one since.

From an English point of view I think there are three things that have become so important 12 years on. One was the St George’s Cross. Secondly, we acquired a new national anthem. I don’t think Three Lions is the greatest tune, but whenever England play and they put it on the PA system, the whole place completely erupts.

The third thing is that the England-Scotland game had importance way beyond football because it began the process of Scotland having a referendum over devolution – which happened a year later. At Euro 96, it was so obvious that we were two completely separate nations.

When Gordon Brown waxes lyrical about the return of the Home Nations and the Union Jack, he really is on a different planet to those people who got to see those games at Wembley and Hampden Park.”

The German: Matthias Sammer
“Even today, a smile crosses my face as soon as I hear 'Football’s coming home...'. There was very much the feeling we were in the motherland of football. The enthusiasm was amazing, and although in the end people didn’t like us too much because we beat England, it’s still a highlight of my career.

At Euro 96, we didn’t have the best German team. The ones in 1992 and 1994 had better players, but having lost to Denmark in the final and Bulgaria in the quarter-finals respectively, there was a real determination to go all the way.

There were sides with better individuals and Italy – who had the best tactics – went out in the group stages. What we had was a great team spirit. Players like Mehmet Scholl and Oliver Bierhoff didn’t play every game, Jurgen Klinsmann was injured for some games, Thomas Helmer, Jurgen Kohler and Stefan Kuntz missed the final. But we knew there wouldn’t be many more tournaments for most of us – we had, let’s say, a mature team – so we were determined to overcome any problems.

Take the game against Croatia. We lost Klinsmann through injury, Suker scored to make it 1-1, but we still came back to win. Or beating England at Wembley in the semi-finals – a real task, I can tell you. Anderton hit the post, Gascoigne almost won it... It was a great game against a great team and we only didn’t lose because we wanted the win so desperately.

What people don’t know is that there was also one ‘scandal’ surrounding the German team, with complaints about us going in the sauna without bathing trunks. It obviously wasn’t en vogue to go in naked, as we did…"

FEATURE Euro 96: England's Glory
FEATURE Euro 96: Scotland the brave
FEATURE Euro 96: Watching with the fans
VIDEO LIST The 10 best goals of Euro 96

Meanwhile, from the web's best football interview archive...

Euro 96: Scotland the brave

2011-06-22T10:03:00Z

It's 15 years since Euro 96, and here's more from FourFourTwo's contemporary coverage. Thanks to England's demolition of the Dutch, Scotland were in the last eight for 16 minutes – and Olivia Blair was with the Tartan Army at Villa Park

How typical of the theatrical nature of football, with all its plots and sub-plots. The massed ranks of the Tartan Army on the 5.18pm from Birmingham New Street to Villa Park had been clapping their hands because they hated the English; at 8.47pm they were clapping because they loved the English – only to be forced to revert to type because of the splayed legs of an English goalkeeper and the deftness of a Dutch touch.

If football was merely fiction, not a matter of life and death, then Villa Park on 17 June was the stage for a blockbuster. There was irony that Scotland’s fate should as usual lie elsewhere, this time in the hands of an Auld Enemy who had so comprehensively slain them at Wembley; and drama too, the ebb and flow of the game dictated by the events unfolding 100 miles to the south, leaving those watching elated, and finally deflated, in that cruel manner that is so unique to football.

To recap: Scotland, having drawn 0-0 with Holland and lost 2-0 to England, were playing their third (and what most expected to be their final) game of Euro 96. They needed to win 2-0 against Switzerland and hope that the English would beat the Dutch 3-0 in order for both the home nations to go through to the quarter-finals. Possible, yes; likely, no, given that the Scots hadn’t got beyond the first-round stage of any finals in nine attempts.

"We will continue to play with great industry against the Swiss and just see what happens," Craig Brown had said after the defeat by England, ever cautious, ever canny.
Some of the players were blunter in their optimism. Goalkeeper Andy Goram, later to make his third world-class save in as many matchers when he clawed away a header from Kubilay Turkyilmaz (left free when Colin Hendry turned centre-forward in a frantic last 10 minutes), said: "Two-nil? Nae bother, I’m playing up front." Goram had been scoring from swerving 12-yard free-kicks in training, but desperate as Scotland were to end their goal drought, he didn’t get to take any set-pieces.

Training, the day before the Swiss game

No, the better solution was for Brown to play his trump card. Ally McCoist had found few scraps to feed on during the 24 minutes he’d been given against England, but according to Brown the 33-year-old striker had been "training like a beast all week". He still needed three bites of the cherry, however, Swiss keeper Marco Pascolo flailing out a hand and a left leg to deny the Rangers striker two certain goals within the first six minutes.

It was typical McCoist that he made amends eight minutes before half-time with the hardest chance of the lot, playing a give-and-go with Gary McAllister and striking a sweet, rising right-foot shot from 22 yards past Pascolo, to register Scotland’s first championship-finals goal in exactly four years. If it was emotional to watch McCoist racing straight into the arms of Brown, imagine what Brown himself thought. "I suddenly found myself out on the touchline," he said later, "but I don’t really know how I got there."

"C'm'ere Brownie ya big gorgeous..."

Talk about Bravehearts. Goram was commanding, Hendry majestic, McAllister and John Collins so assured in midfield, passing their way out of trouble in neat triangles, Tosh McKinlay and Tommy Boyd marauding down the left, McCoist and Gordon Durie so focused. In particular, man of the match Stuart McCall stood out, tackling tiressly, the epitome of Scotland’s spirit and organisation.

And the Tartan Army, fervent as ever, played an even bigger than customary role. "Get intae them" and "All we are saying is give us a goal" they roared as the news filtered through of England’s first goal against the Dutch. And then, as the second, third and fourth goals went in at Wembley, the crescendo from the terraces told the story. 'We knew from the punters’ reactions that we were through at one point," admitted Goram.

Can it possibly be true...?

For 16 magic, mind-boggling minutes, so they were. And just before Patrick Kluivert slipped the ball through David Seaman’s legs to send Scotland homewards to think again, the prospect of meeting France at Anfield in the second quarter-final crossed thousands of minds. Then it was gone again as quickly as it had come. It had been too good to be true.

As the players did their lap of honour, McAllister in tears, the sobering thought occurred that a team which scores just one goal in four-and-a-half hours of football can't really expect to succeed. But that’s what’s so uncanny about Scotland. They did succeed, in lifting the tournament because they lifted themselves: a team lacking the stars of the past, but with enough spirit to more than make up for it.

Coisty waves farewell

If you’d have been in Stratford in the wee hours of the next morning you’d have seen the same spirit still very much in evidence. Or heard it, anyway. Long after the players had been debriefed and awarded their caps, the strains of Flower of Scotland echoed from The Old Tramway pub – and the noise wasn’t coming from the Tartan Army. There was sadness, but still hope. "Och, it was terrible," said Durie as the players packed their bags to catch the 12.30pm flight back to Glasgow the next day, "but we’ll be back". McCoist was even more upbeat: "We’ll be back and we’ll be world-beaters."

Last out of their Stratford hotel, but by no means least, was manager Brown, to whom total respect is due: his quiet dignity inspired players and fans alike. "Mind now, nothing fancy son," Bob Shankly had said to a certain young midfielder when Bill’s brother was Dundee manager in the early 1960s. Brown obviously heeded the advice. But Scotland still delighted us.

FEATURE Euro 96: England's Glory
FEATURE Euro 96: Watching with the fans
VIDEO LIST The 10 best goals of Euro 96

From the web's best football interview archive...

INTERVIEW Ask a Silly Question, Mar 2009: Teddy Sheringham
"If they wanted to clone me, it'd be interesting to see the reaction"
INTERVIEW Perfect XI, Sep 2006: Tony Adams
"There’s an art to making things look easy – that’s why I've picked him"
INTERVIEW One-on-One, Sep 2005: Paul Gascoigne
"I trained with Goram every day, so I knew how to beat him"

Euro 96: Watching with the fans

2011-06-21T09:30:00Z

It was the first major tournament on these isles in 30 years: you may recall that football was "coming home". The then FourFourTwo editor Paul Simpson set out to watch it with the fans…

Can't cross. Can’t take a free-kick to save their lives. Always giving away free-kicks just outside the box. Can’t get a corner in the box and away from the keeper. This isn’t an assassination of any particular footballer, just an all-too-accurate description of too many of the teams who competed in the football fest that was Euro 96.

Somehow, by the end, it didn’t really matter. But for too much of the time fans watched games which were littered with mistakes which would have made any Endsleigh League Third Division coach wince.

Turkey v Croatia in Group D, which was my first in-the-flesh experience of Euro 96, was just such an encounter. Not for the first time, the fans were more impressive than the players. Some 19,000 Turkish fans and 700 Croats filled the City Ground with noise and banners (one of the Turks’ banners wished all the best to "Queen Elizabeth II, symbol of the British nation and to all good English gentleman").

They were briefly united when Queen’s We Will Rock You came over the PA and they all sang the chorus together. The Croats were so taken with the chorus that they sang it over and over in their fake American accents throughout the game. But then they’re a musical bunch: one of their squad is called Elvis Brajkovic, presumably named after the man who gave us Hound Dog and There’s No Room To Rhumba In A Sports Car.

The teams came out and the tension dropped. The Turks started brightly and faded, the Croats started dimly and faded. Zvonimir Boban got caught in possession more often in one game than some cat burglars do in their entire careers. The Turkish fans whistled whenever the Croats got the ball, but when the Turks got the ball, the Croats remained resolutely silent.

The Croats settled the issue in the 81st minute. Elvis didn’t come off the bench, not even to wiggle his hips, possibly because the Croats were still singing Queen songs. And that, as they say, is about as good as it gets. Both sides have excuses: the weather is foul (metal walls of water sweep across the pitch in the second half) and their eardrums were probably punctured by the non-stop whistling of 19,000 Turkish fans for 92 minutes.

Balkan celebrations (Simmo not pictured)

The weather soon improved but the football took a little longer to warm up, as did some of the fans. At St James’ Park for the Bulgaria-Romania derby I think I heard the Romanian fans cheer once, but they were drowned out by the sounds of the journalist next to me twiddling her thumbs.

Crosses continued to be ludicrously over-hit (it wasn’t just Steve McManaman who didn’t get many good crosses in) and free-kicks in allegedly dangerous positions continued to get ballooned over the bar. The only player who seemed to have a handle on how to strike a dead ball was Trifon Ivanov, who struck the ball so well you couldn’t help but wonder how accurate he’d be if he bothered to open both eyes when he was kicking the ball. With one eye half-closed and the other swivelling apparently on a separate axis both to his other eye and the rest of his head, Ivanov tried (successfully) to patrol the Bulgarian penalty area like a disgruntled werewolf.

His hairstyle helped. He looked as if he’d tried to save money by agreeing to have his hair cut by the first-year intake at the local hairdressers’ college in Vienna, where he plays his club football. But at least he hadn’t fallen for the Kevin Keegan Head Over Heels mid-1970s bubble-perm which too many of his team-mates, including Krassimir Balakov, obviously considered the height of fashion. The bubble-perm count when the Czechs took the field against the Russians was even higher.

Ivanov rubs Stoichkov's head, possibly for luck

You expect such patent unsophistication from eastern Europeans but the bubble perm also appears enduringly popular in Germany – possibly because of King Kev’s halcyon days at Hamburg. There was Andreas Moller, allegedly a flair player, who when he came out of the tunnel against the Czechs, bore a striking facial resemblance to Sir Cliff when he was forever failing to win the Eurovision Song Contest. Moller is a very cool talent who can't help the fact that he looks very uncool indeed. After banging away the winning penalty against England in the semi-final, he tried to impersonate Gazza’s crazed, celebratory strut but he simply ended up looking like Rowan Atkinson doing Mr Bean.

Moller, like many of his team-mates (particularly those who play for Bayern Munich), was rather too fond of falling over for my taste. And anyone who criticises the refereeing standards at Euro 96 should remember that because of the gamesmanship of some teams (the Germans were by no means the worst), referees were forced to make twice as many decisions as they needed to.

Hristo Stoichkov, who can swear at referees in more European languages than any other international footballer, was booked in his first game for suggesting that a Spanish player should be booked. This policy was then quietly dropped, possibly because the referee in the Spain v France game realised he might have to book all 10 Spanish players, all of whom were always suggesting that every time they went for a header they’d been elbowed by the nearest French player. At least that’s how I interpreted the continuous elbow gestures of the Spanish players, though it’s always possible that they were signalling to the team chief that they wanted Chicken Tonight again for dinner.

The inevitable result? More errors. And there were some wonderful errors in Euro 96: the Romanian goal that wasn’t, the Czech penalty that wasn’t, the German golden goal which was offside, the Spanish offside goal that was probably onside, the Stoichkov onside goal against Spain that was declared offside… The worst refereeing was in the Germany v Croatia quarter-final where the Swedish referee appeared to have forgotten the law banning violent conduct, possibly because the Swedes have studiously avoided any violent conduct for the last 400 years with their policy of complete neutrality.

So, as the tournament wore on, the refereeing grew worse and the crosses failed to get any better. As, sadly, did the Turks. I was particularly disappointed watching Hakan Sukur, to whom I paid particular attention against Portugal. My notes on ‘the Bull’ read as follows: "Hakan gesticulates to team-mate to move… Hakan shoots over the top... Hakan plays useless ball on the edge of box... Hakan penalised for tugging... Hakan is frowning again... Hakan mumbles an apology after missing a sitter."

Sukur spots a pen-wielding journalist

He wasn’t alone in his crisis of confidence. The rest of his team were suffering from the same inferiority complex, frustrating those like Graeme Souness who’d hoped they’d do more than just turn up and get stuffed. "I’ve been banging on about that for 18 months," he said, the day after their first defeat, while he was on the phone from Glasgow airport. "They’ve just got to believe in themselves."

But the Turks weren’t the only ones to face a crisis of confidence. The English had, within a few days of the Swiss game, sunk into a gloom from which only a victory against the Scots would lift them. I watched the Swiss game in my new local in Shepperton with two new-found drinking partners, Danny and Tom, who hailed from Terry Venables’ neck of the woods in Dagenham. ("We went to the same school as Tony Adams," Tom informed me proudly after his fifth pint of Guinness.)

Danny was the more voluble of the two and, before kick-off, had stood at the bar and declaimed: "I’m looking for a good performance from England today. I think it’ll be 2-0. And it will be a very strong and classy performance." Two hours, seven pints of Guinness and one peach schnapps later, he stood in the same spot trying to order a round and saying over and over: "I’m gutted. Absolutely gutted. Gutted. Gutted. Gutted."

The nation remained gutted until Shearer and Gazza gave us the tonic we needed. But nothing could prepare us for the Holland game. I watched that in a pub too – a Dutch one called De Hems, off Shaftesbury Avenue. Before the game the Dutch fans were sitting around drinking Oranjeboom and wearing T-shirts saying that Princess Diana was screwing up, they were in our pub and were going to win the Cup (they’d made them themselves, they told me proudly, when I asked).

That certainly was the pre-tournament expectation but upstairs I watched with a crowd of Dutch fans as the goals kept going in. At 3-0, a Dutch fan was sober enough to say that if England scored another, they were out. And then it happened. By this time, the whole experience was beginning to feel thoroughly unreal. Exhilaration isn’t one of the emotions with which you’re supposed to watch England. No, there’s all those other -ations: desperation, frustration, devastation, but a state of exhilaration bordering on rapture? Absolutely not.

I thought at this point of standing on my chair and shouting: "Johan Cruyff, Ruud Gullit, Vincent van Gogh, your boys have taken a hell of a beating!" but the Dutch fans were being so nice. Here they were, 4-0 down, going out of Euro 96, and were they laying waste to Central London? No, they were contenting themselves with aiming the occasional swear word at Paul Gascoigne and saying "Two pints of Oranjeboom please barman" in their mother tongue.

Dutch fans patiently wait to celebrate

Then Kluivert scored and they were back in. The Dutch woman next to me was complaining: "We don’t deserve to go through. We’re not good enough." I advised her not to be so silly, that the English had been celebrating undeserved victories for years and there was no need to feel guilty about it.

England 4 Holland 1 was the biggest shock of Euro 96 but there were plenty of after-tremors. Like the Czechs beating the Italians. I was especially surprised by that because I was listening to the last few minutes on Capital Gold on the way back from Turkey v Portugal. When Casiraghi went clean through, bloody Jonathan Pearce ran through every vowel in the alphabet and invented a few new ones, thereby convincing me the Italians had equalised. Eventually, after 30 seconds of vowel sounds, he gasped: "Missed!"

But the quarter-finalists were, Czechs apart, sadly predictable. I knew Spain were going to lose because I had touched an Orange ball on my TV screen the night before at the behest of Uri Geller – even though as I did so I wondered: if orange is such a powerful colour, how come the Dutch lost 4-1?

The least surprising part of the run-up to the semis came when Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan declared soccer war on Jerry. Fortunately he was dragged from the cockpit by his boss David Montgomery moments before he could lead a squadron of Lancasters on a dawn raid on Bayern Munich.

I wanted the Czechs to reach the final because all the commentators so obviously didn’t. Kevin Keegan liked the French, he made that very clear when they played Spain. But then the French, against Spain, played some fluent flowing football and threw away a 1-0 lead in the last five minutes. Now which Premier League team does that remind you of?

Berger consoles Djorkaeff after the French go out

The Czechs went through on penalties and so, after a lot of hope and grief, did the Germans. Everybody says penalty shoot-outs are a lottery. Not when you’re playing the Germans. There are few certainties in life. One is that life will eventually end. Another is that everyone hates Jeremy Beadle. And a third is that Germany will win a penalty shoot-out.

For England, the worry is that our destiny in international tournaments is to finish fourth after losing to the Germans on penalties, just as the Scots are destined to go out unluckily in the first round. So in 2002, Gareth Southgate will emulate Psycho and score from the spot but some other poor bugger will miss.

I went to Wembley on that last Sunday hoping that the Germans might blow the final by falling foul of the curse of the sixes: they’d lost the World Cup Final in 1966, lost the European Championships to the Czechs in 1976, and lost the World Cup final to Argentina in 1986. Could they break this 30-year-old curse?

A young Paul Simps… no, only joking

Stupid question. They weren’t the best German side I’d ever seen but it’s a mark of their quality that they won the thing without really having to play out of their skins. England pushed them but couldn’t make the pressure tell. And the Czechs, who has less pressure but created more clear-cut chances than the English, had them worried for a while.

So what, after all that, did Euro 96 prove? That England are no longer a joke, neither are Scottish goalkeepers (try telling the one about the Romanian goalie instead), that FIFA still haven’t got the referring right, and that a disturbing number of European football fans know the words to We Will Rock You.

And just think how good the 1988 World Cup could be if a few of the players could cross the ball to one of their colleagues and get a free-kick on target. Still, as David Pleat said on Radio 5: "There’s seven trees to every person in this city." No, I don’t know what he was on about either.

FEATURE Euro 96: England's Glory – FourFourTwo's contemporary reaction

See FourFourTwo.com every day this week for more features on Euro 96. And peruse the web's best football interview archive...

INTERVIEW Perfect XI, Sep 2006: Tony Adams – "There’s an art to making things look easy – that’s why I've picked him"
INTERVIEW One-on-One, Sep 2005: Paul Gascoigne – "I trained with Goram every day, so I knew how to beat him"

Euro 96: England's Glory – FourFourTwo's contemporary reaction

2011-06-20T09:30:00Z

It's 15 years since Euro 96, so we thought we'd spend a week looking back at the last major tournament held on these shores, with the help of FourFourTwo's unparalleled archive. For instance, in the first issue after Euro 96, FFT's founding editor Karen Buchanan's leading article summed up the mood of the English...

In May, the idea of waiting up for football to come home seemed ridiculous. England would stagger in at 3am, smelling of alcohol and kebabs, and produce a wilted bunch of flowers by way of an apology. Meantime, in a state of worried anticipation, I would have called friends, family, the police and finally, fearing the worst, the hospital. Yeah, right: why overload the system with another few weeks of hurt tacked onto the previous 30 years?

By eight minutes past 10 on Wednesday 26 June [when England beat Holland 4-1] I was glad I’d decided to hang on in there. I could list the superlatives that described my emotions at that moment but it would be quicker to photocopy the pages of Roget’s Thesaurus. What a game!

And what a championship. Prior to 8 June my indifference to the England side (borne out of the last six years of unspectacular monotony) was matched only by the ferocity of the tabloids’ condemnation of them. England expects... er, nothing, actually. Although a goal would be nice.

The official England team song underlined the apathy inherent in every England fan. Sure, we could hope, but realistically there were 30 years of clichés to deal with first. Just as the Scots are gallant losers, so England are the unlucky labourers. Ha! Just ask a Dutchman who wears the clogs in European football now!

What clues were there to the Tangoing on one of the best nights Wembley has ever seen? Certainly not the dull performance 10 days before against the Swiss. My own lethargy was matched only by that of the players and – lock me up in the Towers of Wembley for saying so – I started willing the Swiss to gain the equaliser they so deserved. (For their plucky show, of course.) The Swiss looked fitter, brighter; hell, they even had the impudence to look technically better than us. England, for much of the second half, looked as though Uri Geller had put them in a trance.

The gentlemen of the press busied themselves asking rhetorical questions about whether the players’ allegedly high intake of alcohol had had a detrimental effect on their performance. The Sun had said "The only thing we’ll win is the Men Behaving Badly trophy for drunken also-rans". Sadly the Mirror scooped them again, clinching that award for their own horrendously OTT anti-German campaign a few weeks later.

Before the championship the tabloids condemned El Tel, the squad, the beers, the tactics, the secret pictures of Paul Ince having a beer at a friend's barbecue (ooh, shocker, Ince in unwinding-with-pals exclusive!), Gazza’s birthday celebrations (tabloid hacks never get drunk on their birthdays; everyone needs a night off), the beers… alright, there were quite a few beers. But the age-old ‘them and us’ confrontations between rabid press and tired and emotional players left me cold. Here we go, here we go, here we go. Again. Boring, boring England. Boring, boring tabloids.

Eventually, of course, those same tabloids were forced to overdose on humble pie: The Mirror ran a front-page apology to Paul Gascoigne the Monday after the victory over Scotland – and ran a campaign to rid the world of Harry Harris.

But the big question remains: in the days between the Swiss and Dutch matches did Venables threaten death, spice the players’ food with cocaine or bring in a crack squad of 12-year-olds to show them how to trap a ball? Or had he shown cunning over and above the call of duty? Like a rambler facing a savage bear and remembering that the best survival technique is to pretend to be dead, had Venables told his team to play dead in order that the trap he planned to spring on the Dutch would have an even greater element of surprise?

Whatever; three days after the Scotland game England turned the Orangemen distinctly green and an entire nation got repetitive strain injury from leaping up and down in front of the telly to celebrate yet another goal. Don’t know about the trophy, but the smiles were coming home. Having given footy to the world and got it back with knobs on, finally we could play them at their own game.

Oops! Three steps forward, two steps back, Spain was a scrappy affair; penalties a tense relief from the nailbiting but nonetheless disappointing tedium of the preceding 120 minutes. Once again we were up against a technically better side; once again we showed our battling spirit. To be fair, with Tony Adams injured and Ince suspended, England really weren’t in a position to play from the back, but Holland still moved back one place in the memory banks.

The build-up to the semi-final against Germany was everything you’d have expected– and less. Having sent a reporter behind "enemy lines" and declared "soccer war" on Germany, the Mirror was forced to retreat as it realised the country wanted to look forward to the game, not hark back to the past. And what a game!

Gone are the imperialist days of England Expects. Thank God. The pure joy with which most people, including the tabloids, celebrated England’s semi-final fling rather than slumping into recriminations about what might have been, suggests that instead of "England Expects", "England is bloody grateful to have seen such a thrilling, brilliant game of football".

And to have found heroes again. To be proud of our team. And not just for their ‘indefatigable British Bulldog spirit’. The words silky, skills and England suddenly didn’t look out of place in the same sentence. Euro 96 both confirmed our prejudices – Seaman is in the top five keepers in the world – and turned them on their head. Pearce was a hero again, Shearer finished as top scorer. We discovered Gareth Southgate. And discovered that, as well as being an extremely competent defender, and as well as being the only defender we had who really understood the word distribution, he had bottle.

So we lost. So what? We only just lost. We had a feast of football and fun. And, actually, we were really rather good.

FEATURE Euro 96: Scotland the brave
FEATURE Euro 96: Watching with the fans
VIDEO LIST The 10 best goals of Euro 96

Meanwhile, from the web's best football interview archive...

INTERVIEW Ask a Silly Question, Mar 2009: Teddy Sheringham
"If they wanted to clone me, it'd be interesting to see the reaction"
INTERVIEW Perfect XI, Sep 2006: Tony Adams
"There’s an art to making things look easy; that’s why I've picked him"
INTERVIEW One-on-One, Sep 2005: Paul Gascoigne
"I trained with Goram every day, so I knew how to beat him"

Report Card: Tottenham, West Brom, West Ham, Wigan & Wolves

2011-06-03T07:30:00Z

We wrap up a week of 'rating and slating' on FourFourTwo.com with a look at the five teams ranked lowest when it comes to that darned alphabet. Our ratings are a reflection of pre-season expectations and the campaign as a whole - not just the Premier League...

Tottenham Hotspur
League position: 5th - W16 D14 L8 F55 A46 Pts62
FA Cup: Fourth Round
Carling Cup: Third Round
Champions League: Quarter-finalists
RATING: C

Had you approached any realistic Tottenham fan at the start of the season with the offer of a Champions League quarter-final and a fifth placed finish in the Premier League, they would probably have accepted it as a more than adequate campaign.

Few would’ve had Harry Redknapp’s side down as likely winners of Group A when they were drawn alongside FC Twente, Werder Bremen and holders Inter - but thanks largely to a commendable if naïve commitment to attacking football, they topped the group with 11 points. Even if the manner of their dismantling at the hands of Real Madrid in the quarterfinals served as a reminder of how far they are from the very top, highly impressive wins at home to Inter and away to AC Milan will live long in the memory.

Yet, despite making a considerable splash during their first dip in Michel Platini‘s big fancy swimming pool, this season should be considered one of missed opportunities on the domestic front. They were eliminated from both cups in humiliating fashion, while a string of disappointing home results in the spring cost them any chance of taking the race for a top four spot to the wire.

While only Wigan left White Hart Lane with three points, the Lilywhites drew nine home matches, including clashes with West Ham, West Brom and Blackpool during the run-in. In fact, Redknapp’s men took just 11 points from ten matches against the bottom five, twelve fewer than Manchester City managed in the same fixtures. It’s not a stretch to conclude this is where Spurs fell short - and William Gallas and Rafael van der Vaart have said as much themselves.

While Harry Redknapp was quick to dismiss fans’ concerns by reasoning that catching City was a nigh-on impossible task given the clubs’ respective budgets, Yaya Toure’s alleged gargantuan wages weren’t what stopped Spurs scoring a goal in 180 minutes against a West Ham side who finished bottom, and merely bettering last season’s points total by one would’ve seen them finish joint-second.

The club are already feeling the first effects of failing to return to European football’s top table next term, with the likes of Luka Modric, Gareth Bale and Sandro being linked with moves away from N17. While it’s questionable whether Redknapp’s apathetic claim that this season was “as good as it’s gonna get” will encourage his stars that their long-term futures lie at White Hart Lane, his evident popularity with those regularly involved in the first team should see most commit to the club for at least another 12 months - which ‘appily for ‘arry is about how long he‘ll be planning to hang around himself…

STAR MAN Luka Modric. While Gareth Bale and Rafael van der Vaart hogged the headlines (and the above picture), the 5ft7 schemer was the man who really made Tottenham tick. They simply must hold onto him.

Words: James Maw

West Bromwich Albion
League position: 11th - W12 D11 L15 F56 A71 Pts47
FA Cup: Third round
League Cup: Quarter-finals
RATING: B-

West Bromwich Albion supporters are well versed in the art of success followed by failure, having seesawed to and from the top tier on four occasions since 2001/02. So avoiding relegation with so much to spare will have been particularly pleasing, despite having to dispose of their manager halfway through.

Roberto Di Matteo had guided Albion out of the Championship at the first attempt, but fans could be forgiven expecting yet another tale of woe among the big boys as champions Chelsea welcomed them back with a 6-0 drubbing.

But the former Blue had other ideas, as his side embarked on an eight-match unbeaten run over September and October. A 3-2 victory at Arsenal preceded a 2-2 draw at Manchester United – with the Baggies the only team to pick up anything at Old Trafford all season – and progression to the last eight of the League Cup, all done in the style you would expect from the Italian.

All appeared rosy in the West Midlands, but the storm clouds were circling as West Brom’s fortunes took a dramatic turn for the worse. A 4-1 win at Everton was a rare highlight as the Baggies lost 13 of 18 games in all competitions, with a 3-0 loss at Manchester City in early February proving the straw that broke Di Matteo’s back, with results steadily conspiring against the Italian.

Two places, and two points, above the relegation zone after 25 games played; supporters had seen this all before. Yet few would have predicted what was to follow. Roy Hodgson, fresh from his humiliating ousting at Anfield, took the reins just in time to see them take a 3-0 half-time lead against West Ham… only to draw 3-3.

But that collapse would be as stressful as it would get for the Hawthorns faithful, as Woy’s structured and disciplined approach – which had worked wonders for Fulham – began to have a similar effect on Albion.

The Baggies were beaten just twice in their final 13 outings to comfortably finish eight points clear of danger. And having blown a three-goal lead in the opening game of the Hodgson era, West Brom ended the season by coming from 3-0 down to draw at Newcastle.

The challenge now is to replicate that mid-table finish, which alone should breed confidence among supporters – so used to struggling at the foot of the top division. Keeping top scorer Peter Odemwingie will go a long way to achieving that goal, as well as strengthening in defence. Gareth McAuley has already arrived from Ipswich, while hot prospect Craig Dawson, who spent the season on loan at former club Rochdale in League One, awaits the opportunity to prove his worth at the highest level.

STAR MAN Peter Odemwingie. The Nigerian’s 15 league goals played no small part in the club preserving their top-flight status – 25 of the Baggies’ 47 points came from games in which he found the back of the net.

Words: Gregg Davies

West Ham United
League position: 20th – W7 D12 L19 F43 A70 Pts33
FA Cup: Quarter-finals
League Cup: Semi-finals
RATING: F

After surviving the drop last season, West Ham succumbed to AvramGrant-itis: having a nice cup run but finishing the season relegated.

No doubt reaching the FA Cup quarter-finals and the League Cup semis were two massive achievements, but with nothing coming at the end of either journey, all each campaign did was distract from the league battle and deprive an injury-wracked squad of rest time. While the cup runs did bring some happy moments for the fans - not least a freak thumping of Manchester United in the League Cup - ultimately, they will have been small comfort to fans still fondly remembering glory days.

West Ham should have stayed up. Indeed, they were doing just that in March, but one point from their last eight fixtures condemned them to the Championship. In contrast, survivors Wigan took 12 in the same period.

There were some bad ventures in the transfer market. Winston Reid may be young and have a World Cup goal to his name, rare in New Zealand, but he was never going to live up to a £4 million fee. Pablo Barrera, with the same pricetag, never looked the part. Then came the loans. Victor Obinna was fast but lacking in direction, Robbie Keane seemed unmotivated and Wayne Bridge endured a nightmare debut against Arsenal, at fault for all three of the Gunners’ goals. And when you’re paying an overweight striker £1.5 million just to leave you alone, as happened with Benni McCarthy, you have to question whether the club’s finances were being prudently handled.

But West Ham had bad luck, too. Gary O’Neil performed well before he was Reo-Cokered and Thomas Hitzlsperger, out with a thigh injury, didn’t make his bow until February, leading fans to wonder ‘What if?’ as he marked his first two appearances by setting up two goals and scoring a stunner himself.

At least Demba Ba was a superb acquisition. The Senegalese forward scored more goals in his 12 appearances than any other West Ham player managed all season. What happens to him now remains to be seen.

In short, West Ham had the players to avoid the drop – but not the manager. The only question was whether more blame should fall on Avram Grant, a leader so uninspiring he famously left a rabble-rousing team-talk to captain Scott Parker, or the board for appointing then sticking with him.

But West Ham will be back – most likely next season, if Sam Allardyce can work his magic.

STAR MAN Scott Parker. Who else? Hammer of the Year for a third season running, his stock has risen indescribably, even if his one-man crusade against relegation did eventually fail.

Words: Huey Davies

Wigan Athletic
League position: 16th – W9 D15 L14 F40 A61 Pts 42
FA Cup: Fourth Round
League Cup: Quarter-finals
RATING: C-

Complete with record-breaking signings, a snazzy new kit and a raft of weaker-looking teams to keep them off the bottom, Wigan must have had relatively high hopes for the 2010/11 season. Yet things looked less rosy going into the final seven games, as the Latics sat rock bottom of the league with five away games to come.

What had happened? Most of all, Wigan lacked consistency: terrific results (a smash ‘n’ grab 2-2 draw with Arsenal) were followed by dire displays (a terrible showing in a 1-0 loss to Newcastle), and dire displays (a 6-0 home hammering from Chelsea) were followed by terrific results (a 1-0 win at Tottenham). This was a team that won its first back-to-back league matches under Martinez after nearly two years in charge, in the final two games of the season.

On the plus side, James McCarthy, signed from Hamilton, proved what a rising star he is – not to be confused with James McArthur, signed from Hamilton, who didn’t.

Ali Al-Habsi was an inspired signing on loan from Bolton, pulling off a string of unlikely saves throughout the season to keep his team in the hunt. With the Omani keeper on top form, Wigan weren’t as porous at the back as last season, yet they lacked a serious and reliable threat upfront, too often relying upon Charles Nzogbia to dig them out of a hole. For an attacking side, albeit not a great one, Wigan rarely troubled the net – in fact, only Birmingham scored fewer goals. Part of this, of course, was down to the failure of Mauro Boselli, Wigan’s record signing at £6.5m, who failed to score in the league and was shipped off to Genoa on loan.

Ultimately, Wigan pulled it out of the bag at the very end, most memorably with an incredible comeback against West Ham, dooming the Hammers to relegation.

That second half demonstrated the Latics’ strong will. Roberto Martinez is obviously handy with a half-time team talk: across the season, his charges gained eight points from losing or drawing positions in the second half. Indeed, half of Rodallega’s goals under Martinez have come in the 15 minutes after the break – there’s definitely something in the oranges.

Is mere survival a success? Yes. But they don’t appear to be improving. Perhaps this last gasp escape will act as a kick up the backside...

STAR MAN Charles N'Zogbia. Goalkeeper Ali Al-Habsi was superb, but had it not been for the French wide-man's four goals in three matches at the end of the season, Wigan would be down.

Words: Huey Davies

Wolverhampton Wanderers
League position: 17th place - W11 D7 L20 F46 A66 40pts
FA Cup: Fourth Round
League Cup: Fourth Round
Grade: C-

Although understandably celebrated as joyfully as any cup win, Survival Sunday was the finale to a season on which Wolves have to improve. They finished two places lower than last year's 15th, they were in the drop zone after 28 of the 38 rounds and didn't notch consecutive league victories until May – but that timing says a lot for their bottle.

Although Mick McCarthy may not have the most talented squad in the top flight, few managers can call upon so many who will – to use Mick's words – "put a shift in". They beat Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool, in addition to beating local rivals West Brom, Aston Villa and Birmingham, and not just through scrapping.

After the dour 2009/10 vintage, this season Wolves became far more expansive – literally: no team put more crosses in. Although they lost and conceded more than the previous term, they also collected more wins, points and goals. Kevin Doyle, Steven Fletcher, Matt Jarvis, Jamie O'Hara and Stephen Hunt give them the firepower, but McCarthy needs to improve the players behind them.

If Wolves are to leap up the table, it won't be by throwing money at the transfer market. Since promotion in 2009 they've spent relatively little, with the £6.5m fees for Kevin Doyle and then Steven Fletcher accompanied by three or four £2-3m signings per summer.

Even so, McCarthy has had the most success by astutely plucking lower-league players with the ability to make the step up: Jarvis (signed from Gillingham), Kevin Foley (Luton) and George Elokobi (Colchester) have all featured in the Premier League more regularly than, say, Jelle van Damme (a £2.5m signing from Anderlecht last summer who was back in Belgium by Christmas).

McCarthy obviously has good feelers in the Football League and he may need them again if Jarvis is bought by a bigger club. But don't expect Mick to throw all the incoming cash at one player; he's far more likely to strengthen the squad, and may even have a ready-made replacement in Michael Kightly – signed from Grays, excellent in the Championship, injured almost ever since.

This cash-careful philosophy sits well at Wolves. The club is financially secure and well-run – debt-free, and only the big earners Arsenal and Manchester United spend a lower percentage of turnover on wages – and owner Steve Morgan believes Wolves can establish themselves in the top flight without risking the lot. He was right this season, but only just.

Within 24 hours of surviving relegation the club commenced a 12-month £16 million redevelopment of the Stan Cullis Stand into a two-tier affair. That will only tweak the capacity up from 29,000 to 31,000 but there are further options which would raise capacity to 36,000 and then even to 50,000. Whether these expansions are affordable or desirable will depend on the level Wolves are playing at, but in an economy conspicuously underpinned by borrowing and leveraging – in football as elsewhere – it's good to see a club retain both ambition and sense.

STAR MAN Matt Jarvis. An obvious choice for a reason. The former Surrey breaststroke champion helped Wolves find pleasing width and deserved his England call-up.

Words: Gary Parkinson

Report Card: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Birmingham, Blackburn & Blackpool
Report Card: Bolton, Chelsea, Everton, Fulham & Liverpool
Report Card: Man City, Man Utd, Newcastle, Stoke & Sunderland

Report Card: Man City, Man Utd, Newcastle Utd, Stoke City & Sunderland

2011-06-02T11:30:00Z

It's time for the third installment of FourFourTwo.com's Premier League report cards. Today we look at four teams who had a very good season, and one who did alright for six months or so... Our ratings are a reflection of pre-season expectations and the campaign as a whole - not just the Premier League.

Manchester City
League position: 3rd - W21 D8 L9 F60 A33 Pts71
FA Cup: Winners
League Cup: Third Round
Europa League: Last 16
RATING: A

Having narrowly missed out on Champions League football a year ago, the task for Manchester City’s expensively-assembled squad was straightforward. So to have pipped Arsenal to third spot as well as ending the club’s 35-year wait for a trophy represents a job particularly well done for Roberto Mancini’s men.

The Blues’ lavish spending showed no signs of slowing two years on from Sheik Mansour’s acquisition of the club, with Mancini handed more than £100 million to bring in Yaya Toure, David Silva, James Milner, Mario Balotelli, Aleksandar Kolarov and Jerome Boateng.

But it was the ‘new’ arrival who had cost nothing, Joe Hart – back from a beneficial loan spell at Birmingham – who stole the show in City’s opening day stalemate at Spurs, with a midfield three comprising of Yaya Toure, Gareth Barry and Nigel de Jong raising eyebrows among fans expecting flowing football from their galaxy of stars.

A 3-0 drubbing of Liverpool helped allay some of those fears, but the Blues continued to splutter in the early stages of the season, losing at Sunderland before being held at home by Blackburn.

However, victory over Chelsea at Eastlands reaffirmed their belief that they could mount a serious challenge at the top of the table, as back-to-back defeats to Arsenal and Wolves in October proved merely a blip as the Blues embarked on a run of just two losses in 16 league games from November to February.

A strong end to the campaign – winning seven of their final 10 matches – coupled with Arsenal’s implosion means that Mancini’s men won’t even have to negotiate what would likely have been a tricky two-legged play-off tie to reach the lucrative Champions League group stage.

City were able to make their home a fortress, losing just twice there all season and conceding 12 league goals – as many as champions Manchester United, although they netted 15 fewer than their neighbours on their own patch.

But the Blues were often left to rely on talisman Carlos Tevez – who scored 19 times in 25 games at one stage – as Mario Balotelli and particularly Edin Dzeko, a £27 million arrival from Wolfsburg in January, struggled to shine.

Whether or not the Argentine remains in Manchester this summer could prove pivotal to City’s hopes of continued progression both domestically and abroad next term, but even if he moves on Mancini will have the resources available to try and find an able replacement.

STAR MAN Yaya Toure. A defensive linchpin for Barcelona, the gangly Ivorian was allowed to advance further forward and scored an unlikely 12 goals, including two winners at Wembley to end City’s long wait for a trophy triumph

Words: Gregg Davies

Manchester United
League position: 1st, W23 D11 L4 F78 A37 80pts
FA Cup: Semi-finalists
League Cup: Quarter-finalists
Champions League: Finalists
RATING: A

So much is written about Manchester United that it's hard to avoid cliché. Everybody with a pulse will know that they've won their 19th league title. Any sentient football fan sentient a decade ago (or internet-connected this year) will know that this means Sir Alex Ferguson has finally and fully knocked Liverpool off their perch by overtaking the Anfield outfit's number of league titles – although in truth Liverpool have been down the pecking order for the thick end of the last two decades.

Liverpool fans will still wave their five-starred flags to celebrate their continental superiority. It's in some ways a quibbling caveat but it's important not just to the Merseysiders; while seldom neglecting to mop up trophies at home, Ferguson's main focus has long been Europe.

It's therefore interesting to ask what was behind his smile at the end of his side's latest final-hurdle humbling by Barcelona. As he strode onto the Wembley pitch to gracefully congratulate his vanquishers, Ferguson was beaming. Undoubtedly it masked his own disappointment, but perhaps it was genuine pleasure at the level of football he'd just witnessed, a domination that he will well recognise from his own side's march to their latest league triumph.

Those who claim this is a poor United side are simply professional quibblers. Ferguson shuffled his pack excellently, and their home record was quite simply astonishing. They won 26 of 29 games at Old Trafford, losing none, averaging well north of two goals per game. There are justified reasons for United fans to complain about ticket hikes, but poor performance isn't among them.

United battered all visitors with a relentless fluidity they found harder to replicate on the road – Blackpool won as many league trips as the champions – but they only lost five times in 28 away games, and only the successive losses at Stamford Bridge and Anfield in early March will have really stung. (They were particularly obdurate in Europe, conceding just four goals in 12 games before the final.)

The trips that hurt the most may have been the ones at neutral Wembley. Barcelona are obviously far in advance of all others, but losing the FA Cup Semi-Final to noisy neighbours Manchester City may have Ferguson checking the rear-view mirror. The Blues ended the season qualifying automatically for the Champions League and are certainly the coming force.

Wayne Rooney was absent in the FA Cup semi but by that time he could have been playing in blue. City's huge wealth hung over United like a fist during October's ugly contract-renegotiation shenanigans, when it looked like he might be making another controversial move. United made it worth his while to stay at the club but Ferguson will know he won't be given a wage budget to match City's. In replacing players like Edwin van der Sar, Paul Scholes and possibly Dimitar Berbatov and the creaking Rio Ferdinand, he'll have to find younger men whose hunger matches his own. It seems a tall order but few will back against him doing it.

STAR MAN Javier Hernandez. This was supposed to be the year he settled into England, but his boundless enthusiasm and Solskjaer-esque finishing saw him relegate record signing (and leading scorer) Berbatov to the bench. What's that about hungry young players?

Words: Gary Parkinson

Newcastle United
League position: 12th – W11 D13 L14 F56 A57 Pts 46
FA Cup: Third Round
League Cup: Fourth Round
RATING: B-

It is a truth universally acknowledged that Newcastle fans have high expectations. But after a humbling relegation to the Championship, even the Toon Army were content with mid-table respectability in their return to the top flight.

Things didn’t look as positive after the graceless sacking of Chris Hughton in December. Faring adequately after a successful promotion season, the almost universally popular former Spurs No.2 found himself cut adrift after a largely inconsequential defeat to West Bromwich Albion. Yet, however unmerited, his dismissal and Alan Pardew’s subsequent appointment proved not to be disastrous.

Pardew led Newcastle to a more than respectable league finish; one that bordered on the miraculous once Andy Carroll was sold in the dying minutes of the January transfer window with no time to find an adequate replacement.

Bizarrely, Newcastle still scored plenty; their average of 1.47 goals per game was higher than any team besides Manchester City and the traditional Big Four.

Shola Ameobi, Peter Lovenkrands and Leon Best conspired to net 18 times between them, more than useful in the circumstances, while Kevin Nolan contributed 12 from midfield. Admittedly, Shefki Kuqi was an unneeded panic signing and Nile Ranger – he of the 23 sub appearances but only one start (and no goals either) – could only look threatening when holding a gun, but things could have been significantly worse.

There were also losses at the other end to be dealt with, with regular No.1 Steve Harper injured for much of the season. Though there would be no harm in firming up the defence with a small portion of that £35 million ‘replacement for Carroll’ kitty, Jose Enrique and a revitalised Fabricio Coloccini put in assured performances, the former doing enough to stir links with Liverpool.

Joey Barton vastly matured - when he wasn’t declaring himself the country’s best midfielder since Stanley Slicedbread, and Hatem Ben Arfa looked a quality signing before his season was cut brutally short. Cheik Tiote, too, was superb when he wasn’t jaundiced, his Premier League record-equalling total of 14 yellow cards helping Newcastle to a league-topping tally of bookings.

There was the odd embarrassment: namely, four-goal defeats to Stoke and Bolton, not to mention five bookings in the opening five games for James Perch, woefully out of his depth, and the fact they paid Sol Campbell a wage for a year only for the veteran defender to play less than nine hours of competitive football. But an especially enjoyable 5-1 demolition of fierce rivals Sunderland, plus an ego-boosting 6-0 thrashing of Aston Villa and that legendary made-for-DVD comeback against Arsenal, won’t be forgotten.

And with ready money to spend after some shrewd business acumen / sheer bloody luck over the Carroll transfer, next year could be even better.

STAR MAN Kevin Nolan – his leadership was crucial during the rockier periods, and at times he looked to be Newcastle’s only goal threat

Words: Huw Davies

Stoke City
League position: 13th - W13 D7 L18 F46 A48 Pts46
FA Cup: Runners-up
League Cup: Fourth round
RATING: B+

Although ending the season in 13th place in the Premier League represented Stoke’s worst finish since their return to the ‘big time’ in 2008, this season was almost certainly the most successful the club has enjoyed since the mid-70s.

This was, of course, thanks to the Potters’ run to the first FA Cup Final of their 148-year history. And while they didn’t have to overcome any of the big guns to get there, their path was not the most straightforward. They faced tricky-looking trips to Cardiff and Wolves, followed by a quarter-final tie with a West Ham side who at that point, for once, were actually in form.

With those hurdles successfully cleared, Bolton lay in wait in the Wembley semi-final. Most pundits were predicting a closely-fought match between two groups of players desperate for a rare shot at glory, yet it would ultimately prove to be the most one-sided FA Cup semi since 1939. A masterful display caught everybody - not least a shell-shocked Bolton - by surprise. The 5-0 score-line was a fair reflection of the gulf between the two teams on the day, and the performance did a lot to dispel a few common and startlingly persistent misconceptions about this Stoke side.

Despite the perceived wisdom that they are solely a ‘long ball’ side reliant on set-pieces, the Potters’ two key players - both in the semi-final and over the course of the season - have been fleet-footed, technically-gifted wingers. With Jermaine Pennant working the right flank and Matthew Etherington bombing down the left, Tony Pulis’ side have added an extra dimension to their play. As Stoke fans are quick to point out with their ironic chants, they no longer only score from throw-ins.

This made it all the more baffling that they appeared to revert to type in the final against Manchester City, creating little from open play and rarely giving the opposition defence much to think about as they were defeated 1-0 thanks to a second half goal from Yaya Toure.

Despite the defeat, the Potters won a place in next season’s Europa League, meaning they will play in competitive European competition for the first time in over 30 years. Who knows, should the unlikely happen and Barcelona finish third place in their Champions League group, we could be about to see whether Messi and co. really could do it on a wet and windy midweek evening at the Britannia…

STAR MAN Matthew Etherington. The Cornish wide-man just edges out Pennant. The biggest shame was that he wasn’t fully fit for the FA Cup Final.

Words: James Maw

SUNDERLAND
League position: 10th - W12 D11 L15 F45 A56 47pts
FA Cup: Third Round
League Cup: Third Round
RATING: C

When Sunderland sold Darren Bent to Aston Villa in mid-January, wise men said that it was a good deal for the Mackems. Bent had submitted a transfer request, £18 million (and rising) was a good price, there was time to sign a replacement and Steve Bruce had other options already on board anyway.

Wise men were wrong. Although Sunderland won their next game (at Blackpool), they got one point from the next 27, plummeting from Europe-chasing sixth place to just five points above the drop zone.

At the heart of the bad run was a lack of goals. Asamoah Gyan had purple patches but also went six weeks without scoring on three separate occasions, Manchester United loanee Danny Welbeck seemed the heir apparent to Bent but missed swathes of the season through injury, while Fraizer Campbell also spent almost all the season on the treatment table.

While Bent banged in nine in 16 games for Villa (and two in two for England), over the season only Wigan, Birmingham and West Ham scored fewer league goals than Sunderland's 45 – and that figure would have been much lower without the four against Wigan and three against Blackburn, West Ham and Chelsea away.

That last game was perhaps the result of the season, although Newcastle will point with glee to a 5-1 derby win at St James' Park. Sunderland got a soupçon of schadenfreude in revenge when Gyan's 94th-minute leveller denied the neighbours a double, and the Mackems nipped above the Mags on the last day to retain local bragging rights.

The question is whether that's enough for Sunderland. Their fans will tell you all day that they're a huge club, and with a billionaire chairman and a famous manager they should be aiming higher than parochial one-upmanship. A cup run wouldn't go amiss either: their fans watched them limp out of the League Cup at the second hurdle to West Ham and embarrass themselves in the FA Cup Third Round against third-tier Notts County.

Bruce will say he's taking the club in the right direction – their finishing position of 10th was their best in a decade – but they need to be chasing a top-eight place as a matter of course rather than an occasional fancy. One of the most hurtful things about Bent's move was that at the time Villa were 11 places below Sunderland, yet still perceived by many (including Bent) to be a bigger club. Bruce needs more consistency and determination from his men to prove Bent wrong.

STAR MAN Phil Bardsley The right-back would happily have joined Blackpool last summer if they'd matched his wages. Instead he buckled down, playing at left-back when necessary, and broke into the Scotland set-up. Sunderland need more like him.

Words: Gary Parkinson

Report Card: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Birmingham, Blackburn & Blackpool
Report Card: Bolton, Chelsea, Everton, Fulham & Liverpool
Report Card: Tottenham, West Brom, West Ham, Wigan & Wolves

From Brazil to Stockport via Scotland, pace and 1993

2011-06-01T10:17:00Z

The Samba Kings are dead; long live the Samba Kings. That’s the main focus of the new July issue of FourFourTwo, out in all good stores – and some distinctly average ones – from today.

What’s happened to Brazil? As if the continuing chaos over their staging of the 2014 World Cup wasn’t enough, all the on-pitch legends have retired or slunk back to the homeland. From politicians to the new national team boss, we ask the experts whether this is the end, or simply a new beginning. Plus, we have a cheeky word with Kaka and his young replacement Ganso, and predict the Seleçao World Cup team of 2014.

Are you sad that the season’s ended? Well, wipe away those tears as we preview the summer of football: from the Copa America in Argentina to the under-21 Euros in Denmark, it’s all kicking off. But while we look forward we also look back, choosing our Men of the Season. We have interviews with Scotty Parker, Rafa van der Vaart and the man who won our online poll to find the Premier League’s best ever overseas centre-back...

Pace: the final frontier. If there’s one attribute valued above any other in the modern game, it’s pace, and we found out why – it turns out it’s more complicated than “Run, Forrest, run...”

In 1993, England fans asked themselves “Do I not like that?” as the Three Lions failed to qualify for the World Cup under Graham Taylor. Now, FFT uncovers the making of incredible documentary The Impossible Job. Find out who hated starring in it and who claimed not to know he was being filmed, in our inside story: it’s even more fascinating than the film itself.

Scotland, Scolari and...Stockport? All three get their time in the sun in our summery new issue, for very different reasons. Big Phil Scolari answers your questions in a hilarious One-on-One, and unveils his Gene Hackman impression. We explore a crazy year north of the border which has seen everything from meerkats to gun-toting mascots. Then we’re off to Stockport, to see how the fans have taken that sinking feeling as they drop out of the Football League.

All this and more in the July issue of FourFourTwo, brought to you by Graham Taylor, Stuart Pearce, Andres Iniesta, Phil Scolari, Kevin Keegan, Nemanja Vidic, Mauro Silva, Carlos Alberto Torres, Luis Fabiano, Mario Zagallo, Rafael van der Vaart, Nuri Sahin, Lee Dixon, Socrates, Ganso, Arjan de Zeeuw, Tony Daley, Marcelo Dijan, Kaka, Zico, Mano Manezes, Kasper Schmeichel, Theo Walcott, David Platt, Carlos Alberto Parreira, Don Howe, Scott Parker, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Mauro Galvao, Careca, Phil Neal, Jonathan Wilson, Chris Hughton, Nani, Mo Farah, Pat Nevin, Paul Parker, Cerezo, Julio Olarticoechea, Paul Turnbull, Rivelino, Darren Campbell, Eric Harrison, Angel di Maria, Michel Salgado, Jose Cardozo, Patrick Vieira, Marta and a Woking-supporting candidate for the title of Miss England.

Peruse or purchase the new FFT digitally

Report Card: Bolton Wanderers, Chelsea, Everton, Fulham & Liverpool

2011-06-01T09:00:00Z

We continue our analysis of the Premier League season with a look at five more sides - all of whom seem to have largely had a 'season of two halves'...

Bolton Wanderers
League position: 14th - W12 D10 L16 F52 A56 Pts46
FA Cup: Semi-finalists
League Cup: Third round
RATING:B-

For a team who'd spent all but four weeks of the season in the top half, finishing 14th was a cruel – not to mention expensive – blow. But Bolton's season was blown apart at Wembley by the most humiliating FA Cup semi-final defeat since World War Two. Before then they'd won plaudits for their combination of short passing and muscularity, not to mention Owen Coyle's ceaseless commitment to attacking football.

Coyle's 4-4-2 system depends heavily upon its central midfielders – in particular Stuart Holden, a force of nature stoppable only by Johnny Evans's studs rupturing his cruciate in March. Since then a thin squad has struggled, with Holden's sidekick Fabrice Muamba forced to limp along despite groin problems due to a lack of alternatives in a thin squad: chief back-up Mark Davies underwent ankle surgery, and Coyle ended up employing top scorer Johan Elmander as a willing but makeweight midfielder. Elmander's evisceration at Wembley by the Stoke midfield was key to the Cup capitulation, and a soul-wrenching reminder for the eternally upbeat Coyle that not all situations can be improved by throwing attackers at the problem.

Still, let's not be too downbeat. That attacking philosophy reaps dividends: Wanderers scored more goals per game than in any top-flight season since 1961/62, had one of the best home records in the division (effectively ending Arsenal's title charge, for instance, with a typically determined late goal) and the fans are coming back in numbers after the desperate disenchantments of the Gary Megson era – even if the often gung-ho football leaves the team alarmingly open at the back.

Popular as he is, Coyle has a big summer ahead. The squad needs depth but he will also need to replace key personnel. Elmander is leaving on a free and loanee Daniel Sturridge will return to Chelsea, leaving ageing war-horse Kevin Davies helped only by bit-part Croatian Ivan Klasnic. The midfield needs bolstering and at the back, Bolton are expected to lose ball-playing centre-half Gary Cahill, the England man whose club manager advised him in January to wait until summer before seeking a move to a bigger stage. His transfer fee should help Bolton build a squad in the manager's image. That should make Wanderers ones to watch next season – at either end.

STAR MAN Stuart Holden. Indefatigable and creative, the Aberdeen-born American is Coyle's key capture so far.

Words: Gary Parkinson

Chelsea
League position: 2nd, W21 D8 L9 F69 A33 Pts71
FA Cup: Fourth round
League Cup: Third round
Champions League: Quarter-finals
RATING: C-

Fresh from winning a Premier League and FA Cup double in his first season at Stamford Bridge, Carlo Ancelotti set his sights on the trophy he was specifically brought in to win. However, a second successive failure in Europe combined with a stop-start defence of their league title leaves Chelsea looking for a fifth new boss since 2007.

The Blues had won their third Premier League crown in style, rounding off a season in which they netted 103 goals with an 8-0 whopping of Wigan. And their defence could not have got off to a better start, hitting both West Brom and Wigan for six, as the Blues sat four points clear at the summit after the opening five games, scoring 21 times in the process.

But having taken full advantage of a kind opening quintet of fixtures, Chelsea fell at the first half-challenging hurdle by losing at Manchester City, and after a 2-0 defeat at Anfield in November a “bad moment” for the Blues would begin to feel more like Groundhog Day.

Chelsea’s strongest XI could dispose of almost anyone. But the departures of Joe Cole, Deco, Michael Ballack and – most importantly – Ricardo Carvalho had left them desperately short of reserves. With Frank Lampard, John Terry, Alex and Michael Essien all sidelined, it proved too tall an order to overcome.

A woeful 3-0 home defeat to Sunderland was the nadir in a dire run of form that saw them win just two out of 11 league games from November to January, forcing Roman Abramovich to dig deep, very deep.

More than £75 million changed hands as David Luiz and Fernando Torres arrived to breathe new life into the Blues’ ailing campaign. But the Spanish marksman’s arrival would only make matters worse as he struggled in unfamiliar systems while his manager manically scratched around to find a winning one.

Ancelotti appeared doomed following Chelsea’s Champions League exit to Manchester United, in which the Italian twice deployed the desperately out-of-form front-man. So it is to both his and his team’s credit that they then finished the season as strongly as they did.

The Blues reduced United’s 15-point lead in March to the point where they would have usurped Sir Alex Ferguson’s side with victory at Old Trafford in May, leaving many of the opinion that Ancelotti deserved another crack, rather than the sack immediately after the final day defeat at Everton.

Another new manager will again be backed by Abramovich, with ‘age’ now a buzzword among Blues’ fans as Chelsea’s talismen approach their use-by dates. The futures of Didier Drogba and Nicolas Anelka will determine how proactive the club are in their search for strikers, as Torres prepares to take centre-stage.

STAR MAN Ashley Cole. Consistently lung-busting displays from the left-back reinforced the view that he remains the world’s best in his position.

Words: Gregg Davies

Everton
League position: 7th - W13 D15 L10 F51 A45 Pts54
FA Cup: Fifth round
League Cup: Third round
RATING: D

A few years ago, Everton had a reputation for being a side who would alternate between a good season and an awful one. These days they seem to do things by half - struggling in the first half of the season before coming good around January. And 2010/11 didn’t buck that recent trend.

The Toffees spent Christmas in 14th position in the Premier League, yet finished the season a respectable seventh. This was remarkably similar to last season, when it was 15th and eighth at the same stages. It’s tempting to suggest David Moyes would accept what seems the natural progression of 13th then sixth next year, but the reality is he’d probably rather do without the early-season stress.

Ironically, two of the highlights of Everton’s league season came in that first half of the campaign; a 2-0 home win over city rivals Liverpool and an incredible 3-3 draw at home to Manchester United - a match in which the Toffees had trailed 3-1 going into injury time, only to be saved by late (and even later) goals from Tim Cahill and Mikel Arteta.

While their league campaign generally went from despair to relative joy, their experiences in the cups were quite the opposite. Having knocked holders Chelsea out of the FA Cup at Stamford Bridge, Everton succumbed to a shock defeat at home to Championship Reading in the next round, while they followed an 5-1 League Cup mauling of Huddersfield with a penalty shoot-out defeat at Brentford.

Everton’s financial battles are perhaps best underlined by their forward line. With Yakubu farmed out to Leicester, the goalscoring burden was left on the shoulders of Louis Saha - a player sadly perennially plagued by injury, and Jermaine Beckford - before this season untried at Premier League level. The former arrived for a ’nominal fee’, the latter on a free transfer. Both impressed in patches, but ultimately only mustered 15 goals between them.

The sad reality for the Goodison Park club is that it will be almost impossible for the Toffees to compete with the top five or six clubs in the Premier League under their current financial constraints. While the fans will therefore reflect on a job eventually well done in the league, they will surely see their cup exits as two good opportunities missed.

STAR MAN Leighton Baines. Curiously omitted from the PFA’s team of the season, Baines was perhaps the stand-out fullback of the entire Premier League. Everton will hope his roots at the club are deep enough to prevent him being unearthed by a Champions League side.

Words: James Maw

Fulham
League position: 8th – W11 D16 L11 F49 A43 Pts49
FA Cup: Fifth round
League Cup: Third round
RATING: C+

It’s a good thing that ‘a game of two halves’ hasn’t become a footballing cliché, because there’s no better way of summarising Fulham’s season...

Going into Christmas, the Cottagers were in the relegation zone, having won just two of their 18 matches – fewer than any other team, leaving them with just 16 points.

But it wasn't the defeats which were to blame for this feeble haul, rather the draws. The West Londoners tied an incredible 10 of those first 18 matches. Single points began to look like opportunities lost, and for draw merchants Fulham – who finished the season with 16, more than any team in the last four campaigns – it became the innocent habit couldn't kick, the glass of wine with dinner that becomes a drinking problem.

The cause was easy to identify: Mark Hughes lacked a goalgrabbing striker. To lose both Bobby Zamora and Andy Johnson to injury for large parts of the season was deeply unlucky.

But there was little in the way of back-up. Eidur Gudjohnsen, a square peg happily on loan from the round-hole of Stoke, put himself about and Moussa Dembele had looked a more than useful signing, but three goals for the Belgian in nearly 32 hours of football – two of which came in one game against Wolves – were scant return for his efforts.

The fact that perennial loanee Eddie Johnson made 10 substandard substitute appearances, more than doubling his Premier League tally since arriving at Craven Cottage in 2007, was a testament to their lack of cover upfront.

In the end, it came down to Texan talisman Clint Dempsey to put the ball in the back of the net, and he duly obliged.

Equally important was the solid centre-back pairing of Aaron Hughes and Brede Hangeland, as everpresent as the famous cottage and immovable as the infamous Michael Jackson statue (Hughes missed just 16 minutes all season; Hangeland, one match against Sunderland).

The signs for next season are positive for Fulham, even if for them it starts in just a few weeks. They’ll be looking to go one better than their last Europa League campaign, a 19-game epic which ended in a final defeat to Atletico Madrid.

This time they qualified via the Fair Play league, meaning any plans Mark Hughes had for an extended summer holiday will have to be shelved. Still, the Welshman has little complain about, and another top-half finish is a more than realistic aim - although if the morning's papers are to be believed he could yet be a target for Aston Villa.

STAR MAN Clint Dempsey. As reliable as he is likeable, it’s amazing ‘Deuce’ isn’t more highly sought after by 'bigger' clubs.

Words: Huw Davies

Liverpool
League position: 6th W17 D7 L14 F59 A44 Pts
FA Cup: Third round
League Cup: Third round
Europa League: Last 16
RATING: C-

If this really were an academic report card, it would remark that the student had a very poor autumn term and underachieved as if distracted (were there problems at home?) before rallying remarkably after Christmas; the pupil's intelligence and dedication during spring term raised hopes of much better results, only to see them dashed by poor performance in the end-of-year exams.

This truly was a season of two halves for Liverpool (sound familiar?), pivoting on the replacement of Roy Hodgson with Kenny Dalglish. By last summer Rafa Benitez had disillusioned enough fans to make his position untenable, but Hodgson never gained the widespread support he needed, especially with a club legend ready and obviously (if respectfully) willing to step in. Liverpool have a more voluble fanbase than most clubs; they did well to help oust the hated Hicks and Gillett, but some soon trained their gaze on the gaffer.

The noise emanating from social media was matched by the op-ed columns of a dozen former Reds who pored over every disappointing show under Hodgson. By January, with swathes of the Kop openly chanting for Dalglish, it simply made sense to turn mutiny into unity; the new board (who arrived after Hodgson) did it with a comparatively graceful clean break, a rare example of true mutual consent.

Dalglish's calm public assurance was bolstered in private by his first appointment, former Chelsea and West Ham coach Steve Clarke. The canny Scots surprised tacticians by resurrecting the three-defender formation, delighted traditionalists by giving several youngsters their chance, and amazed analysts by making matchwinners from previously exasperating underperformers like Maxi Rodriguez and Raul Meireles.

Such secondary lights led the way due to an absence of the box-office stars. Steven Gerrard played only five league games for Dalglish before injury ended his season, while Fernando Torres featured four times under the new man before Chelsea's £50 million offer proved too high to refuse. Although some would argue Newcastle played it cannily to then get £35 million for Andy Carroll, the big No.9 has the potential to be well worth it – and is five years younger than the Spaniard. With the immediately impressive Luis Suarez (just turned 24) also arriving for £22.5 million, Liverpool may have got their forward line for the next five years for little more than they recouped for a fading star who has subsequently struggled at Stamford Bridge.

As ever, Anfield hosts big expectations and big questions. An absence of continental competition might help – Liverpool played 14 games in an undistinguished Europa League campaign and only won three after August – but concentrating on the league brings its own pressures. Many fans are expecting Liverpool to challenge for the title next term, but even over the course of a season Dalglish's average of 1.83 points per game would be enough to crack the top three in only one of the last eight seasons – even leaving aside the increased pressure of being among frontrunners instead of tiptoeing through the chasing pack. For King Kenny, the job is just beginning – but at least the fans are looking on admiringly.

STAR MAN Dirk Kuyt. In a season that threatened to go off the rails, the Dutchman's high workrate and consistent performances were a welcome boost, and a hat-trick against Manchester United means he's unlikely to ever need to buy a pint in the city again...

Words: Gary Parkinson

Report Card: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Birmingham, Blackburn & Blackpool
Report Card: Man City, Man Utd, Newcastle, Stoke & Sunderland
Report Card: Tottenham, West Brom, West Ham, Wigan & Wolves

Report Card: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Birmingham, Blackburn & Blackpool

2011-05-31T10:53:00Z

With the 2010/11 season now done and dusted, FourFourTwo.com assesses the campaigns of the Premier League's 20 clubs, starting with Arsenal, Aston Villa, Birmingham, Blackburn and Blackpool. Our ratings are a reflection of pre-season expectations and the campaign as a whole - not just the league...

Arsenal
League position: 4th – W19 D11 L8 F72 A43 Pts68
FA Cup: Quarter-finalists
League Cup: Runners-up
Champions League: Last 16
RATING: D

How bad can a season really be, for a team that finishes in the top four, reaches a cup final and is only eliminated from the Champions League by arguably the best team ever?

In the case of Arsenal, disastrous.

Much was made of the Gunners hopes of winning an unheralded Quadruple back in February, but this was perhaps premature given there were still months remaining and very little room for slip-ups. After all, Blackpool were second in the table after the first round of matches and nobody claimed they had a reasonable shot at Champions League qualification…

Arsenal didn’t have the complete team needed to win the Premier League or Champions League. This was more evident this season than in any of their previous six trophyless campaigns. Points were dropped, chances were spurned and any hope of winning a trophy was blown in a fashion quickly becoming painfully familiar for Gunners fans.

What Arsenal lacked most was heart. While Manchester United’s winning mentality helped them stumble through mucky patches smelling of roses, Arsenal’s heads dropped as soon as they lost that League Cup Final to Birmingham (indeed, Jack Wilshere said as much in June’s edition of FourFourTwo).

There were few happy memories in a season to forget: a derby defeat to Tottenham having led 2-0 at home was especially galling.

But it wasn’t all bad. Wilshere went from an emerging young talent to a key player at just 19, and even if his defensive partners rarely threatened to show him up, Johan Djourou came on leaps and bounds at the back. For all the talk of Wenger needing to sign a quality ‘keeper, too, 21-year-old Wojciech Szczesny showed true promise.

Arsenal also won more away games than any other side in the Premier League - thanks in no small part to 11 away goals from Robin van Persie, so perhaps making the Emirates more like a fortress and less like a bouncy castle could be the key to success on the league front next term.

And maybe it was a season of excruciating bad luck. They were inches away from beating Barcelona; and could well have claimed the League Cup but for an unfortunate mix-up between Szczesny and Laurent Koscielny.

That, however, is what football is all about. Arsenal may need one or two summer additions, but with a relatively young squad perhaps what they really need is time to learn and gel as a unit, rather than an overhaul.

STAR MAN Jack Wilshere. If Cesc Fabregas does leave the Emirates Stadium, the Englishman is already equipped to take his place.

Words: Huw Davies

Aston Villa
League position: 9th - W12 D12 L14 F48 A59 Pts48
FA Cup: Fifth round
League Cup: Quarter-finalists
Europa League: Play-off round
RATING: D-

Having finished each of the previous three Premier League seasons in sixth place, Aston Villa headed into 2010/11 rightly expecting another year of rubbing shoulders with the top flight's big guns. Yet what they endured was a season peppered with uncertainty, inconsistency and an unexpected flirt with the drop.

Their cause was not aided by the upheaval of Martin O’Neill’s departure from the club less than a week before the start of the season, which appeared to pull the metaphorical rug from under the team and leave them without any real leadership or direction. The low point came on the second weekend of the league season, when Villa were obliterated 6-0 at Newcastle, with the farce continuing four days later with elimination from the Europa League at the hands of Rapid Vienna.

The malaise wasn’t halted by the appointment of Gerard Houllier as O’Neill’s permanent successor, with the Frenchman refusing to terminate his contract with the French FA early, meaning the club were forced to wait a further two weeks before their new man finally took the helm. This waiting period didn’t much impress Houllier’s new public, nor did attempting to shrug off a 3-0 humbling at Anfield by stating; "If I have got to lose 3-0, I would prefer it to be to them as I like Liverpool."

It took the club record signing of England striker Darren Bent to galvanise the club, both on and off the pitch. His nine goals in 16 Premier League matches were worth nine points and helped Villa avoid being too deeply embroiled in the relegation quagmire in the final weeks of the season.

A strong end to the season - their final eight matches garnered 15 points and included back-to-back wins over Arsenal and Liverpool despite Houllier missing the run-in after falling ill - saw the Midlanders wind-up in a surprisingly high ninth place, a finish that shouldn‘t be allowed to paper over the cracks of a disappointing campaign.

While there may be plenty about which to be positive going forwards - most notably a batch of vastly talented youngsters who displayed impressive maturity and application when thrown into the deep end in the earlier part of the season - there are some big questions to be answered, most pertinently around the management of the club. With Brad Friedel and Ashley Young very possibly heading for the exit in the coming weeks, the manager is likely to have a rebuilding job on his hands... whoever he may be.

STAR MAN Stewart Downing. Perhaps the only Villa player to really impress on a consistent basis this term, Downing has more than rebuilt his reputation by becoming an unexpected talisman at Villa Park.

Words: James Maw

Birmingham City
League position: 18th - W8 D15 L15 F37 A58 Pts39
FA Cup: Quarter-finalists
League Cup: Winners
RATING: D-

The 2010/11 season was very much one of contrasts for Birmingham City. Barely three months after the high of winning their first major trophy in 48 years, came the far more familiar experience of relegation from the Premier League - their third in six seasons.

Things had started relatively well for Alex McLeish’s side - an undefeated start saw Brum sat in fifth place after four matches - though they quickly slid down to 15th, a position around which they would float for the rest of the season. Indeed, Birmingham were relegated having spent just three weeks of the season in the bottom three prior to the final day.

As it became obvious the side wouldn’t be making a splash in the league, more emphasis was placed on the Carling Cup. A quarter-final victory over arch-rivals Aston Villa in December delighted fans and left them dreaming of a first trip to the new Wembley Stadium. That dream came true thanks to a semi-final victory over West Ham, although the same fans must’ve wondered whether they will still in the land of nod when Obafemi Martins’ pounced to seal a sensational victory in the final against a much-fancied and trophy-starved Arsenal.

Yet even the highs of Wembley couldn’t inspire the team enough to pull themselves away from the relegation scrap. Their struggles were not helped by the injury suffered by last season’s star man, defender Scott Dann. With Dann in the side, Birmingham conceded just 24 goals in the 18 Premier League matches (1.33 per game), without him they shipped 34 in 20 (1.7 per game) - the statistics tell their own story. Suddenly a team who didn’t score many goals but were defensively sound were struggling at both ends of the pitch.

With five games to go, Birmingham were sat in 15th place, and with a five point buffer between themselves and the drop zone. Yet those final five matches saw the Blues secure just one point - in a home draw with fellow-strugglers Wolves - and suffer humiliating defeats away to Liverpool (5-0) and at home to a Fulham side left with nothing to play for (2-0). Wigan's win at Stoke left them needing a win at White Hart Lane on the final day, which they were unable to muster.

Winning the Carling Cup may take the edge off, but this season will likely be remembered more for the bad than the good - at least in the shorter term.

STAR MAN Stephen Carr. Relegation was perhaps more cruel on Carr than most. The full-back rebuilding his career after being thrown on the scrapheap has been one of the game’s more remarkable stories of recent years, and that determination and desire should serve Birmingham well in next season’s promotion push.

Words: James Maw

Blackburn Rovers
League position: 15th - W11 D10 L17 F46 A59 Pts43
FA Cup: Fourth round
League Cup: Third round
RATING: D

As the 2010/11 campaign approached its half-way mark, another solid if unspectacular season appeared to be heading Blackburn Rovers’ way under Sam Allardyce. However, off-field upheaval would transpire to leave their Premier League status in serious jeopardy and immediate future far from crystal clear.

Defeat to rivals Bolton in mid-December left Blackburn 13th in the standings (a win over Wanderers would have lifted them as high as sixth), five points clear of the drop zone, having won six and lost eight of their opening 17 matches.

But the club’s new Indian owners Venky’s had other ideas. A month after completing their £23 million takeover, they chose to turf both Big Sam and his assistant Neil McDonald out on their respective ears, deeming their style of football not conducive to their plans, with a 7-1 drubbing at Old Trafford hardly helping the sacked duo‘s cause.

In came first team coach Steve Kean, previously assistant manager to Chris Coleman at Fulham, Real Sociedad and Coventry, whose initial managerial press conferences involved fielding questions on the possible arrivals of Ronaldinho and David Beckham rather than tactics and team selections.

Rovers looked more pantomime than Premier League, a division Blackburn looked increasingly unlikely to be in come the summer as results failed to take a significant turn for the better.

Despite wins over a yet-to-be-transformed Liverpool and West Brom (twice), a 10-match winless run from February to April left many tipping them to suffer the drop as they continued their descent with no solution seemingly in sight.

Martin Olsson’s drive against Bolton ultimately proved the turning point, as Rovers went the final four games of the season unbeaten. Draws with West Ham and Manchester United kept their heads above water going into D-Day at Molineux, where they would take a 3-0 half-time lead before almost blowing it.

Although Kean’s credentials remain under scrutiny, the character his side showed in the closing weeks of the campaign will have offered hope that he can build a team capable of delivering the displays desired by Venky’s – given the necessary backing.

Keeping hold of coveted defensive duo Christopher Samba and Phil Jones will be key to Kean’s plans, as the Scot seeks fresh faces in attack after Jason Roberts and Nikola Kalinic managed just five league goals apiece while Benjani and Mame Diouf – on loan from Manchester United – scored a meagre three.

STAR MAN David ‘Junior’ Hoilett. Often a substitute under Allardyce, the Canadian has been a revelation under Kean, using his trickery and pace to terrorise defences as well as weighing in with five league goals.

Words: Gregg Davies

Blackpool
League position: 19th - W10 D9 L19 F55 A78 Pts39
FA Cup: Third round
League Cup: Second round
RATING: C+

The Seasiders’ tangerine dream may have ended as many had predicted – with an instant return from whence they came – but fewer would have foreseen the unrelenting entertainment they provided along the way.

Ian Holloway’s men had reached the promised land of the Premier League via thrilling play-off victories over Nottingham Forest and Cardiff, and although they themselves would have half-expected to be heading straight back down to the Championship, they were determined to do it playing their way.

Blackpool started their first top-flight season since 1971 where they had left off at the City Ground and Wembley, winning 4-0 away at Wigan as their swashbuckling 4-3-3 setup not only left the Latics lampooned.

In both league encounters, Manchester United had to come from behind to see off the Seasiders, Liverpool were slain not once but twice, Spurs were disposed of at Bloomfield Road, as were Bolton, 4-3 in a repeat of the 1953 FA Cup Final on the same day of the 2011 showpiece.

But their free-scoring nature at one end sadly could not be matched by a stubbornness not to concede at the other, which would ultimately prove their undoing over the course of a 38-game campaign.

The final chapter of the season at Old Trafford epitomised their rollercoaster ride of a season as a whole; a superb Charlie Adam free-kick and well-worked second to give them the lead at the home of the champions being cancelled out by some haphazard defending and galling own goal from captain Ian Evatt.

Not one of the six sides who finished directly above Blackpool in the table could match their 55 top-flight goals, while they scored the same amount on home soil as Spurs did at White Hart Lane (30) who finished fifth.

But only West Brom (71) and bottom-dwellers West Ham (70) came anywhere close to matching the 78 goals that flew in at the wrong end. And it was Blackpool’s inability to hold on to draws that arguably led to their downfall, as a naivety to continue pouring forward in search of victory left them exposed – something both Blackburn and Aston Villa gleefully exploited by snatching last-gasp winners to deny the Seasiders a share of the spoils.

STAR MAN Charlie Adam - the central figure to Blackpool’s thrilling season with a dozen league goals. One in each of the final three games of the season took the Seasiders’ survival fight down to the wire.

Words: Gregg Davies

Report Card: Bolton, Chelsea, Everton, Fulham & Liverpool
Report Card: Man City, Man Utd, Newcastle, Stoke & Sunderland
Report Card: Tottenham, West Brom, West Ham, Wigan & Wolves

Weekender: Better than a date with a supermodel

2011-05-27T10:45:00Z

1. Wembley final? The President's out, then...
Suspected West Ham fan Barack Obama will be out of the country by the Champions League final, but it can't be good news for him that the showpiece is at Wembley. As Champions editor Paul Simpson notes, no US President in office during a Wembley European Cup final has left the White House voluntarily. Wembley's first European final was in May 1963 (Milan 2-1 Benfica), six months before JFK was shot; his successor LBJ had already announced by the 1968 final (Manchester United 4-1 Benfica) that he wouldn't seek re-election. By 1971 (Ajax 2-0 Panathinaikos) Richard Nixon was in charge, but he quit in 1974 to avoid impeachment. Jimmy Carter (1978, Liverpool 1-0 Bruges) and the elder George Bush (1992, Barcelona 1-0 Sampdoria) both lost their bids for re-election. Perhaps Obama will be free to visit Upton Park sooner than he thinks.

2. Out of the way, Gisele, the game’s on...
Ahead of this weekend’s Champions League final, a new survey has revealed that over 50% of men would pass up a romantic rendezvous with a supermodel in order to see their team win the ‘cup with the big ears.’ Other events given second billing to the continental showdown include meeting a girlfriend’s parents, attending a mate’s stag do, and poor old mum’s birthday. FourFourTwo.com will be bringing you live coverage of the final from 19:00BST tomorrow, although if any supermodels are reading, that's very much open to negotiation...

3. Help us help you go away
With summer upon us, you might be trying to tie in a foreign trip with a football match. FourFourTwo's Travel section offers an excellent guide to destinations worldwide – but we want to make it better. So do us a favour and spend two minutes – no more, honest – answering a few questions on our survey. There's no hard sell and no need to leave your details, just half a dozen easy queries. It'll help us to help you.
TRAVEL In-depth guide to dozens of destinations

4. Not just a league, and not just for champions
Back when it was the European Cup, teams only qualified if they were champions (or holders). Since 1997/98, the competition has included non-champions – and in the 13 subsequent seasons six teams have won without having been national champions (or holders: nobody has retained Big Ears since Milan in 1990). In 1999 Manchester United became the first non-champion Champions League champions, followed by Real (2000), Milan (2003 and 2007), Liverpool (2005) and Barcelona (2009). Will Fergie's men make it seven-all on aggregate, or will Barcelona make the trophy live up to at least half its name?

5. The football never ends...
This might be the last Weekender before the summer but the football's not finished. There's bags to come, and all on the telly. There's the Copa America, the Women's World Cup and a number of increasingly interesting domestic leagues, from MLS to the J-League and plenty in between. And that's not to mention the Beach Soccer World Cup, your club's pre-season friendlies and even the Island Games, where the likes of Greenland and the Falkland Islands descend upon the Isle of Wight for a kickabout. All these competitions and more are previewed in the new edition of FourFourTwo, out next Wednesday... because we never, ever sleep.

Win smart kit for your football team
Kit your side out with some fresh threads: 15 outfield jerseys and one goalkeeper (plus shorts and socks!) Follow the link…
See all competitions

Very rarely does an afternoon’s football live up to its build-up – particularly when Sky Sports are involved – but last Sunday was different. In the space of less than two hours, four of the five embroiled in 'Survival Sunday’ had spent time both above and below the red line, with only Blackburn able to get the cigars out as their match wore on.

Rovers only needed a point and by half-time they were three up at Molineux, leaving Wolves joining Wigan in the drop zone below Birmingham and Blackpool – at that stage both drawing – by virtue of their inferior goal difference. The quartet, all tied at half-time on the allegedly magic 40-point total, switched places several times throughout the season’s final 45 minutes.

Blackpool took the lead at Old Trafford, only for brutal reality to impinge with Man United coming back to win 4-2. Birmingham fell behind at Tottenham but equalised through the talismanic Craig Gardner with barely 10 minutes to play. Almost simultaneously, Wigan took the lead at Stoke, leaving Wolves and Blackpool facing the drop. But Wolves saved themselves – just – with goals from Jamie O’Hara and Stephen Hunt improving their goal difference enough to leapfrog Birmingham.

Back at White Hart Lane, Alex McLeish’s side were curiously slow to react to their predicament, nervously knocking short passes across their back four and taking their sweet time over throw-ins; possibly they didn’t realise they had to score for three or four minutes after the watching world had twigged. Suddenly it was kitchen sink time, and with the Blues stretched, Roman Pavlyuchenko struck in the dying seconds to secure a win for Tottenham, safety for Wigan and Wolves and a place in the second tier for the Carling Cup winners.

Birmingham’s board were quick to announce McLeish’s previous successes would earn the manager another crack of the whip next term, despite a disappointing end to this campaign. The same could not be said for Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, whose henchman Ron Gourlay did away with last term's Double-winner Carlo Ancelotti in a Goodison corridor minutes after the post-match press conference.

Man City confirmed third place above Arsenal, while Spurs finished fifth for the third time in six seasons – impressive, if a comedown from last season's top-four finish. The tabloid-friendly Harry Redknapp is now the bookies’ favourite to take over at Chelsea; it’s easy to understand why he'd switch to Stamford Bridge – he wouldn't have Daniel Levy’s strict hold on the purse-strings – but he’s certainly not the continent-conquering coach Roman Abramovich desires.

No, if experience of lifting European football’s most coveted trophy is what the Russian is after, then there is a man far more qualified, and far more readily available. A man who has twice won the competition, as well as domestic titles and cups in Italy and England, yet is still left looking for a job. That man’s name? Carlo Ancelo….oh, right. Never mind.

Six departures in post-season La Liga manager massacre
Read now >>

Mazzarri out then back in as Napoli summit meeting brings peace
Read now >>

Fairy tales ready to be written in Holland
Read now >>

Kun kicks off new end-of-season crisis at Atlético
Read now >>

Excuse me Mr Platini, I've been thinking again
And so to the climax of the season, the increasingly inaccurately-named Champions League (three of whose semi-finalists hadn't won their league the previous season). But what if it was restricted to just the bona-fide champions of each country? Obviously that genie is well out of its bottle, but it's just a thought, and sometimes it's nice to think.

There are 52 UEFA countries with leagues, so it'd only take an eight-team preliminary round to leave 48 teams – enough 12 four-team groups, with winners and the four best runners-up going into the usual round of 16. That way more teams – all champions – get the extended involvement (and guaranteed income) so apparently indispensible to the modern competition.

Meanwhile, the exclusion of several Big Teams would give a tremendous shot in the arm to the secondary continental competition, the much-maligned Europa League. It's been successfully streamlined over the last couple of years – abandoning the bizarre five-team groups and switching, funnily enough, to 12 four-team groups – but it's still often seen as Little League compared to Platini's premium party, into which most of Europe's finest are safely invited year on year.

Imagine how much more interest there would be in the Europa League if it involved the continent's secondary, rather than being restricted to the tertiary, quaternary or even quinary teams. You want big names? This season's tournament would have included Manchester United, Real Madrid, Roma, Lyon, Celtic, Ajax, Fenerbahce and Schalke – enough to light up any tournament, and that's not to mention third-placed teams like Arsenal, Milan and Valencia.

With bigger names like that on board, the Europa League would soon cease to be the poisoned chalice so many teams openly consider it to be. TV interest would soar, meaning so would prize money. And that's a word all big teams understand, because to some it may mean more than being, well, champions.

Just a thought, a passing thought.
– Gary Parkinson, FourFourTwo.com editor

"He’d do a Cruyff turn and before you knew it, he’d be gone"
– Perfect XI, Sep 2005: Ryan Giggs

"You need fresh eggs, which aren’t easy to find, and a good mascarpone..."
– One-on-One, Dec 2006: Paolo di Canio

"Of course I can go out...I just have to be prepared for the consequences"
– Q&A, Aug 2007: Ronaldo

This Weekender was brought to you by James Maw, Gary Parkinson, Gregg Davies, Huw Davies, Paul Simpson, Charlie Skillen and unusual punctuality

The Premier League's 10 greatest final day relegation dramas

2011-05-20T15:01:00Z

With 'Survival Sunday' looming, Vithushan Ehantharajah and David Jamieson look back on some of the Premier League's most memorable final day relegation tussles...

1992/93 - Oldham survive as Eagles Gunned-down at Highbury

Oldham Athletic needed to beat visiting side Southampton and keep everything crossed that Palace would lose at Arsenal. Even then goal difference would be the decider. Half way through the second half, Oldham were four-one up with Palace trailing 2-0 at dear old Highbury. Quaint little Mexican waves started lapping Boundary Park until Matt Le Tissier cranked the tension back up to 11 by completing his hat-trick in the 85th minute. However Palace’s margin of loss meant Oldham stayed up by two goals and the Latics’ Gunnar Halle was spared a life haunted by a glaring miss with Saints’ goalkeeper Tim Flowers like a rabbit in headlights.

1993/94 - Blades' Bridge of sighs as Toffees avoid sticky moment

Needing a win to survive, Everton found themselves 2-1 down to Wimbledon at half-time, meaning Sheffield United – who were on level terms away at Chelsea – were clear of the drop zone. However a storming second half comeback from the Merseysiders, and a late Mark Stein winner for Chelsea, meant the Blades were relegated from the top-flight. Graham Stuart grabbed the winner for The Toffees, but it was Barry Horne’s 30-yard screamer that got the survival ball rolling…

1996/97 - Middlesbrough pay the price for calling in sick

Earlier in the season, Middlesbrough were docked three points for pulling out of a match against Blackburn, after they reported that 23 of their players were absent through illness or injury. Going into the last game they found themselves in a three-way battle against the drop with Sunderland and Coventry City. Sunderland’s two point cushion over the other two meant their fate was in their hands as they faced Wimbledon. Boro and the Sky Blues needed three points against Leeds United and Tottenham Hotspur, respectively, and then for their counterparts to slip up. Would those deducted points prove crucial to Boro’s fate? Well yes, yes they would - Coventry won at White Hart Lane and survived at the last…

1997/98 - Bolton make it a treble as Everton do it again

Bolton Wanderers, who had gained promotion to the Premier League alongside Crystal Palace and Barnsley, were looking to avoid joining the pair in relegation straight back to the second tier – and they needed to beat Chelsea at Stamford Bridge to do it. A draw would be enough, as long as Everton didn’t beat Coventry City at Goodison Park. Everton’s superior goal-difference meant a draw, coupled with a Bolton loss, would be enough for them…

1998/99 - Saints march on as Charlton make swift exit

The Saints had a man named Marian to thank for their final day escape from relegation in 1999. Southampton had spent almost the entire season in the relegation zone but could survive by beating Everton at the Dell - anything less, combined with a Charlton win at home to Sheffield Wednesday, would see Charlton stay up at the Saints’ expense. As it turned out Charlton lost 1-0, but two goals from Marian Pahars, weeks after a crucial equalizer against Blackburn, sent the Little Latvian well on his way to the cult hero status he now enjoys with Saints fans. The Addicks returned to the second tier after just 10 months in the top flight.

1999/00 - End of the road for the Crazy Gang

Wimbledon were perched precariously above the drop-zone on goal difference going into the final day, but a win at already-safe Southampton would make them likewise, as would at least matching Bradford’s result at home to Liverpool. So, with their fate in their own hands and their relegation-rivals facing Champions League hopefuls, Wimbledon, their fans and their transistor-radio-carrying fans’ travelled down to the south-coast. Wimbledon were under pressure almost immediately from kick-off and, as the fans with the radios glued to their ears would have communicated to them, things weren’t going to plan up at the Valley Parade either…

2002/03 - Big Sam dusts off his dancing shoes

With a superior goal difference, Bolton were in control of theirs and West Ham’s destiny as the 2002/03 season drew to a close. A win against Middlesbrough at home would relegate the Hammers, whose only hope was to beat Birmingham and pray that Bolton drew or lost. In the event Bolton did beat Middlesbrough, rendering West Ham’s draw at St Andrews immaterial, and West Ham paid for a woeful season that saw them occupy a relegation place for all but a few weeks. Sam Allardyce famously celebrated by performaing a cringe-worthy dad-dance with Jay-Jay Okocha at the final whistle...

Allardyce (right) in his dancing shoes (Jay Jay Okocha not pictured...)

2004/05 - Canaries choke as Portsmouth put their feet up

For the first time in the Premier League’s history, the final weekend saw all three of the teams in the drop zone still in with a chance of survival. Four teams were in danger – Norwich, Southampton, Crystal Palace & West Brom – with a Norwich win putting the other three to bed. West Bromwich Albion were deemed the least likeliest to survive, having been bottom at Christmas and needing a home win over Portsmouth (who weren't keen on doing rivals Saints a favour), coupled with dropped points from the other three to be safe. The Baggies won 2-0 and, thanks to defeats for Norwich (6-0 at Fulham), Southampton (2-1 to Manchester United) and Palace's draw at Charlton, they became the first side in the Premier League era to avoid the drop having been bottom at Christmas.

2006/07 - Carlos Tevez makes Neil Warnock's head explode...

West Ham, Wigan and Sheffield United battled it out to avoid the last remaining relegation place on the final day of the season, with all eyes on Bramall Lane for the showdown between the latter two. Only a win would keep Wigan up, while Sheffield United could settle for a draw. Elsewhere, West Ham traveled to Old Trafford, needing a point to secure their Premier League spot for the next season, having escaped a points’ deduction after being found guilty or irregularities over the ownership of Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez, much to the annoyance of Sheffield United boss Neil Warnock. We’ll just leave it there, shall we…?

2007/08 - Goal gluts can't save Royals & Brum as Fulham survive

Fulham, Reading and Birmingham all knew a win would have seen them safe, so long as the other two dropped points. Being a point behind the other two put Birmingham at a disadvantage but they had marginally better goal difference. Fulham in turn had marginally better goal difference than Reading so it was they who sat just outside the relegation zone come the final day. Cue media pundits tying themselves in knots discussing the various permutations and illustrating them with fancy computer graphics. In the end, they all won - Birmingham 4-1 against Blackburn and Reading 4-0 at Derby - but Fulham's narrow 1-0 victory at Portsmouth was just enough to see them survive.

Football clubs need to excite and entice... or die

2011-05-20T14:07:00Z

As the Premier League's 'Survival Sunday' looms, FourFourTwo.com editor Gary Parkinson salutes the unpredictable...

For once, the Skyperbole may be justified. With a five-way last-day showdown to avoid the two remaining relegation places from the Premier League, there hasn't been a grand finale like it in decades. A more interesting top-flight season than most – a wide-open battle to avoid three relegation spaces (no sub-30pt whipping boys this term), an intriguing race for third to fifth and a fluid midtable between them – has kept the table pleasingly unstratified, entering the last round with only two teams who know for sure which position they'll finish in (three if we assume Chelsea won't lose their current 12-goal advantage over Man City).

Clubs will be feverishly hoping the excitement lasts long enough to tempt cards from wallets this month as they nervously wonder how many fans will be back next season. A Football Supporters' Federation survey out this week warns that 15% of EPL season ticket holders won't renew this summer – a higher churn rate than any of the Football League divisions, with little of the old complacency that others will fill the void.

Former steadfast ever-presents are downgrading to ticket-picking selectiveness; those who went a few times a season are falling out of the habit and finding it increasingly difficult to justify the expenditure. Times are hard, the recession is biting and the all-in matchday cost is rocketing: the FSF cites an 18% inflation rate on last year – astonishing considering the country-wide cutbacks, public and private.

Meanwhile the clubs are making no such cutbacks. As David Conn revealed in The Guardian this week, they're making record incomes – and yet still lost close to half a billion pounds last year. Although broadcast rights are still the main revenue stream for most, they need to hear the turnstiles clicking and the club-shop tills ringing.

But with decreasing spending power and increasingly selective attendance, clubs are finding they won't get bums on seats without winning hearts and minds. With ever more competition for their attention, an increasing number of fans aren't prepared to put up with low-quality entertainment. They need to have faith in the club's future, belief that they will get bang for their buck. The FSF found that 28% of Manchester United season ticket holders and 22% at Arsenal say they won't renew, but that's mainly in protest at (further) price hikes; Aston Villa's 27% refusal rate is surely more to do with a perceived lack of value for money.

No doubt some of these survey responses are a steam-vent for those who will end up renewing anyway; the summer will inevitably work its annual magic and encourage the encroachment of that eternal interloper we call "hope" into the hearts of all fans. But to be tempted to buy these top-dollar tickets, would-be "customers" need to be convinced that they'll see a good match, not a dour attempt to grind out a 1-0 win.

It's not inconceivable that managers, while always "result-oriented", will bear this in mind. Sam Allardyce lost his Blackburn job apparently because the owners wanted sexier football; five months later the home fans watched their visitors play keep-ball while the hosts settled for a draw. Meanwhile 30 miles up the road Blackpool and Bolton fans watched their teams share a seven-goal thriller.

Managers Ian Holloway and Owen Coyle share a unflinching commitment to attacking football. Perhaps not uncoincidentally, Bolton’s average attendances are higher than at any point since they were in Europe, while thousands of Tangerine fans have renewed their season tickets without even waiting to see what level of football they’ll be watching. The Seasiders have won praise this season for their commitment to attacking and it would surely benefit football if it works – and more teams adopt it next term.

Maybe then next season would be even more unpredictable than this. No bad thing.

Weekender: Karaoke, cheeks and Zorro

2011-05-20T12:48:00Z

1. The Tangerine dream: Party like it's 2002
Should Blackpool stay up this season, it will be only the second time in 22 years that none of the three newly-promoted teams have been relegated at the first time of asking (the other being 2002, when Fulham, Blackburn and Bolton survived). While West Brom and Newcastle sit comfortably in mid-table, Blackpool’s bright start has faded considerably – but they're still hopeful of emulating Hull's last-day 2009 escape, coincidentally against a similarly depleted Manchester United side. Just pray that Ian Holloway doesn't find a pitchside microphone...

2. Survival Sunday? Pah! How about Supervivencia Sábado?
If you thought the Premier League relegation battle was tight, try France and Spain. With two games left in Ligue 1, three points separate 12th and 18th. AS Monaco occupy the final unclaimed relegation place, seven years after gracing the Champions League final; they're only six points behind 10th-placed Montepellier, whom they face this weekend. With one game left, La Liga's even tighter: 13th-placed Mallorca are just two points ahead of 18th-placed Zaragoza, meaning a five-way fight for the final drop-spot. Now, what's French and Spanish for squeaky bum?
LA LIGA LOCA Read Tim Stannard's guide to the weekend in Spain

3. European Tour 2011/12 – calling at Doncaster, Coventry…
Of the five Premier League teams still bracing against relegation, two Championship contenders could be consoled by continental competition next season. Birmingham's League Cup win guarantees them Europa League football, while Blackpool could also have a crack at the Champions League’s uglier sister via the Fair Play League, should Fulham rack up a red card or four against Arsenal. Crystal Palace and Ipswich managed the relegation/qualification combo in 1998 and 2002 respectively, while Dunfermline followed suit in 2007 having lost the Scottish FA Cup final to Champions League-bound Celtic.

4. Paolo Di Canio could've been Zorro
The new man at the County Ground could've been more swords than Swindon. He told us in his exclusive One-on-One that as a boy he successfully auditioned for a Zorro TV programme but his family couldn't afford the necessary photoshoot. Perhaps it's for the best: "Managers had to be patient with me because they knew I had talent even though I could break their balls. As an actor, with my personality, who would have stood by me?"
ARCHIVE Read hundreds of interviews from FFT's 17 years

5. Get your mitts on the Champions League final programme
Next Saturday night you'll doubtless be settling down to enjoy the Champions League final coverage live on FourFourTwo.com (of course). You can further immerse yourself in the occasion with the official programme, made by our friends and yours over at Champions magazine. As you'd expect it's crammed with interviews and analysis – and if you order it today (Friday), it's guaranteed to be on your doormat by next Saturday.
ORDER IT "Programmes! Get yer programmes!"

Win smart kit for your football team
Kit your side out with some fresh threads: 15 outfield jerseys and one goalkeeper (plus shorts and socks!) Follow the link…
See all competitions

The two Manchester clubs winning trophies on Saturday sent Sunday’s papers into a predictable spin. Very predictable: bar the News of the World, which went for a not at all dated "Mad For It", most chose the same headline: "City, United". Yes, we get the ‘pun’, but Manchester is more divided than ever. Manchester City’s first trophy win since Liam Gallagher and Curly Watts were in short trousers is widely expected to be just the start: with Roberto Mancini’s side now favourites to seal third place in the Premier League and thus be parachuted into next season’s Champions League groups, the gap is certainly closing.

Still, they’ve got a hell of a long way to go to match their neighbours' trophy cabinet. Manchester United sealed league title No.19 with a 1-1 draw at Blackburn; on the same day their fans were forced to remove the "ticker banner" mocking their neighbours' trophy drought, they were finally given the right to point out their numerical superiority over their even fiercer rivals Liverpool.

Far below the waves, West Ham succumbed spectacularly if unsurprisingly to relegation with a topsy-turvy 3-2 defeat at Wigan. Charming Karren Brady requested use of the DW Stadium boardroom to dismiss Avram Grant before the post-match tears had dried on emotional young scrapper Mark Noble’s cheek. The Latics will look to avoid their own doom on a five-way ‘Survival Sunday’ – as will Birmingham, Blackpool, Wolves and Blackburn.

Coming the other way will be Swansea or Reading, who reached the Championship play-off final in style. The Swans saw off spirited Nottingham Forest 3-1 – a result sealed by Darren Pratley’s spectacular last-gasp 60-yarder, while the Royals inflicted a second successive 3-0 home humbling on Cardiff. There was also play-off success for Huddersfield – who eventually beat Bournemouth on penalties after a 4-4 aggregate draw, and Peterborough – who overcame a 3-2 first leg deficit to beat MK Dons 4-3 on aggregate. There's goals in them thar thrills.

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Football clubs need to excite and entice – or die
For once, the Skyperbole may be justified: an unusually interesting top-flight season has kept the table pleasingly unstratified, with 18 teams still unsure where they'll finish. Clubs will hope the excitement lasts long enough to tempt the punters back next term: A Football Supporters' Federation survey out this week warns that 15% of EPL season ticket holders won't renew this summer. Times are hard, the recession is biting and the all-in matchday cost is rocketing: the FSF cites an 18% inflation rate on last year – astonishing considering the country-wide cutbacks, public and private.

Meanwhile the clubs are making no such cutbacks. As David Conn revealed in The Guardian this week, they're making record incomes – and yet still lost close to half a billion pounds last year. Although broadcast rights are still the main revenue stream for most, they need to hear the turnstiles clicking and the club-shop tills ringing.

But an increasing number of fans aren't prepared to put up with low-quality entertainment. They need to have faith in the club's future, belief that they will get bang for their buck. The FSF found that 28% of Manchester United season ticket holders and 22% at Arsenal say they won't renew, but that's mainly in protest at (further) price hikes; Aston Villa's 27% refusal rate is surely more to do with a perceived lack of value for money.

Maybe then next season would be even more unpredictable than this. No bad thing.
– Gary Parkinson, FourFourTwo.com editor. Read the full feature here

"I start every game angry and get angrier"
– One-on-One, Oct 2009, Mick McCarthy

"How many Barcelona players have I got? That’s too many"
– Perfect XI, Apr 2010: David Villa

"The lads implied there was something sexual about me and the ostrich"
– Ask A Silly Question, Sep 2010: Charlie Nicholas

This Weekender was brought to you by James Maw, Gary Parkinson, Gregg Davies, Huw Davies, Vithushan Ehantharajah, Ross Quayle and glaring at the goalkeeper

The highly improbable last day scenario-concocting Premier Preview

2011-05-20T12:40:00Z

So it’s come to this: each team has played 37 matches, 3,330 minutes of football and run the distance to the moon and back (probably), and it all rests to a final-frame shootout.

The league title is wrapped up, and the battle between Spurs and Liverpool for the final Europa League spot so hotly contested that even the teams themselves don’t care.

There’s no surprise, then, that the focus is firmly on the relegation dogfight. Again, it would be even better if actual dogs were involved, but what can you do?

Aston Villa v Liverpool

But before we tackle all the fascinating relegation possibilities – and the BBC are going to have great fun on Sunday analysing every potential outcome – there’s this fixture, involving a team who have already made themselves safe. That’s right: Liverpool.

Is fifth place, which looked like a distant s***-edged star some months ago, still beyond them? It seems not: one dropped point from Spurs would be enough if the Reds can win here. Sadly Gerard Houllier is unlikely to manage the Villa against his former club, but his 2001 UEFA Cup Final hero Gary McAllister will deputise to keep the Liverpool connection... connected.

What won’t happen: Heskey hits a hat-trick past his old side to take his Premier League tally to an astonishing 112, with all three assists coming from ex-Red and now permanent benchwarmer Stephen Warnock. Neil Warnock will play in the Prem before he does again

What will happen: A fully fit Villa put up a fight, but Liverpool take the three points and a Europa League spot

Bolton v Manchester City

The season can’t end fast enough for Bolton, not only winless in four but pointless as well. From sitting in sixth earlier in the campaign, they’re now 10th and could, unbelievably, finish 14th if results don’t go their way on Sunday.

That’d be a great shame for a small squad well led by relative perennially be-shorted Owen Coyle.

In injury news, Sam Ricketts is on the sidelines for Bolton while Jerome Boateng and Shay Given sit out for City. Expect an emergency loan keeper on the bench.

What won’t happen: An emergency loan keeper – it was a joke! A funny, funny joke! Because they did it last year, remember?

What will happen: Citeh put Arsenal under immense pressure for third with a win at the Wanderers

Everton v Chelsea

Little to play for but pride here, with Chelsea all but guaranteed of second – it’ll take a 13-goal swing for Manchester City to change that – and Everton assured of seventh with a point.

It’s a good thing, really, that Stoke have claimed that European spot through the FA Cup because you could argue, across the season, that in all competitions they’ve earned it more than Everton, who would normally have qualified through finishing in the top seven.

Fellaini misses out for Everton with a strained afro (almost as strained as that joke), while Chelsea are fit and fancy-free.

What won’t happen: David Moyes to keep waiting for the Manchester United job that’s supposed to be coming his way – he’s like Prince Charles, only with other avenues open to him.

What will happen: A Salomon Kalou double and big away win

Fulham v Arsenal

Seventh isn’t beyond Fulham, incredible given they were in the relegation zone and a mere point off the bottom at the turn of the year. It’s like Lazarus II: The Revengening.

There’s no way Arsenal want to play an extra two legs before the Champions League, so they’ll put everything into winning this to finish third.

The problem is they’re without a lot of players thanks to injury: Nasri and Fabregas will be sorely missed, but no more than Djourou and Koscielny at the back, as it means Seb ‘offside trap - pah!’ Squillaci will have to play again.

In contrast, Fulham lose only Damien Duff to an injury known in Latin as Crockedis Inevitabilis.

What won’t happen: The Wenger v Hughes Handshake Debacle descends into a full-on brawl

What will happen: Fulham snatch a draw to sink a woeful Arsenal to fourth

Manchester United v Blackpool (Sky Sports 1 & HD1)

The mist of demented paranoia circling this game is so thick you could bottle it.

No, Ian Holloway, the Premier League is not against you. No, Ian Holloway, it is not conspiring to get your team relegated. No, Ian Holloway, you are not funny. You are very, very annoying.

Will Manchester United field a second string? How long is a piece of their second string? And will Ferguson ever retire? All this, and more, in the next ten years...

What won’t happen: Gabriel Obertan, who will start, to look unduly impressive

What will happen: Unbelievably for a team with a better away record than a team in sixth place, Blackpool haven’t won on the road in 2011 – but somehow, against a weakened United side, they do it here. Bring on the conspiracy theories...

Newcastle v West Brom

It’s a good thing Newcastle have one of the highest average attendances in the top flight this season, or fans might be tempted to go elsewhere on this exciting final day; there’s bugger all to keep them here.

This match is so pointless, with so little riding on it, that even recounting the injury list seems a waste of time. But if you must know, Dorrans and Ibanez are unavailable for the Baggies, and Newcastle are without Nolan, Perch, Best, Gosling, Harper and Williamson. And Ben Arfa, obviously. He’s dead.

What won’t happen: West Brom continue their resurgence with a final away victory to confuse Roy Hodgson further, who swears he keeps telling them not to win

What will happen: Draw

Stoke v Wigan (Sky Sports 1 Red Button & Online)

After a good few results for Martinez’s men, pundits are convinced Wigan will stay up, but it’s not as simple as that.

Sure, they don’t even have to get a point to leapfrog two teams and climb out of the relegation zone – but you never want your destiny to be out of your hands. Unless, of course, you believe in a deity or deities, in which case it’s quite a fundamental core of your belief-system and to be honest, there are enough of you to suggest you’re quite happy to have your destiny out of your hands.

So...yes. Anyway, Wigan could win and go down, lose and stay up, but whatever happens, they don’t look capable of making serious progress under their Spanish manager.

A win against a Stoke side that hasn’t lost at home in 2011 might go some way to disproving that theory, even if the Potters are minus bullish strikers Fuller and Sidibe and arguably still demoralised after the FA Cup final. Sod’s Law dictates Wigan will probably have a stormer, win, but go down anyway.

What won’t happen: Wigan fans’ spirits to be particularly damaged by the news that 85-year-old reserve team keeper Mike Pollitt is out injured

What will happen: Absolutely, honestly no idea. It’s just too close. Stoke are obdurate opponents but have one eye downcast and the other on Europe already; Wigan want it more but don’t have the firepower. Even if we go with the cop-out of a draw, anything could happen. Toss a coin (we’ll give your our prediction for this one at the end to keep the suspense at optimum levels…)

Tottenham v Birmingham (Sky Sports 2 & HD2, Absolute Radio)

Speaking of coin tosses, if you were wondering whether statistically unlikely Premier League stalemates are settled in such a fashion – they’re not.

The last resort is instead a play-off at a neutral venue. God alone knows how they settle it in the event of THREE teams finishing tied on points, goal difference and goals scored, but we assume it‘d involved some kind of triangular pitch surrounded by fire somewhere near the centre of the earth.

Here’s how it could feasibly – ish – happen so that Birmingham and Wigan would have to enter a play-off.

i) Wigan lose 1-0 to Stoke. OK, that’s possible – likely, even.
ii) Blackpool lose to Manchester United by three goals or more. Also possible.
iii) Birmingham lose this game at White Hart Lane 6-3.

What? It could happen!

What won’t happen: That scenario

What will happen: McLeish gives his Blue boys the kick up the *rse they need, and they take a victory against a Spurs team with their eye off the ball. ‘Arry, avoiding fifth, isn’t too bothered

West Ham v Sunderland

The Hammers to go out on a high? Kevin Keen to be given a five-year contract? West Ham to come straight back up next season?

Yes; no; it depends on the manager. In the short term, Sunderland still having no fit strikers will definitely help.

What won’t happen: Sunderland wrap up their 101st Premier League win (that’s ever, mind, not this season)

What will happen: Home win

Wolves v Blackburn

It’s an odd one: like life itself, this game could mean everything or nothing, depending on results elsewhere.

One thing’s for certain: as exhilarating as all the permutations could make it, the game itself will not be an end-to-end stomper.

Nelsen, Grella, Edwards, Zubar and Mouyokolo miss out for various teams - none of them Barcelona.

What won’t happen: Blackburn take their first away win of 2011; Wolves beat Rovers for the first time in seven attempts

What will happen: One for the purists: a battling but dour draw

So what does this all mean? With Blackpool and Birmingham winning, and Wolves and Blackburn drawing, it essentially comes down to Wigan needing to win at Stoke.

And - drum roll please…

They won’t. Wolves and Wigan to drop, Birmingham and Blackpool to survive.

Heroes & Villains: Champagne, confusion and pop psychology

2011-05-16T14:23:00Z

HEROES

Sir Alex Ferguson
And so the ‘worst Manchester United team in years’ are champions of English football with a game to spare – not bad going for a team some pundits were tipping to finish outside the top two.

Although Ferguson’s team maybe have coughed and spluttered over the line with a scrappy 1-1 draw at Blackburn, there’s no question that United are deserving champions over the course of the season having been the only team in the Premier League to consistently grind out results over the last 10 months.

Given the saturation of the Premier League (and the adulation of Manchester United) it's hard to praise Ferguson without repetition, but let's give credit where it's unquestionably due. He has yet again managed to build a team capable of sustained success; although some of the bigger names are getting on, youngsters like Fabio, Rafael, Chris Smalling and Javier Hernandez are likely to continue improving.

And he continues to come up with managerial masterstrokes – his handling of Wayne Rooney’s autumnal strop and his utilisation of Ryan Giggs in central midfield being just two to mention as he finally managed to officially knock Liverpool off their perch with the 19th title.

On Saturday’s Match of the Day, Alan Hansen – the man whose analysis of a Manchester United "crisis" in 2002 produced the memorable perch quote – stated that any of the current top four would have won this season’s Premier League had the Scot been at the helm. You could probably add Liverpool and Tottenham.

The biggest challenge is successfully defending a title, as Ferguson well knows having won 12 in 19 seasons, half of which were successful defences. Given his squad’s mix of youth, experience and relentless desire – wonder where they get the latter from? – title No.20 is certainly well within their capabilities.

Charles N'Zogbia
With just under an hour played of Sunday’s ‘plummet meeting’ between Wigan and West Ham at the DW Stadium, the Latics were staring down the barrel. Enter Charles N’Zogbia, whose superb 25-yard free-kick dragged Roberto Martinez’s side back into the game and completely transformed the atmosphere in a stadium that, to be blunt, rarely rocks.

Connor Sammon put Wigan level within 11 minutes and from that point on it was anybody’s game. Wigan’s greater composure saw them succeed where West Ham – and particularly Carlton Cole – failed by putting the ball in the net for a third time, thanks again to N’Zogbia.

How Birmingham, the team most likely to suffer should Wigan escape the drop, must rue not agreeing to the French wideman’s wage demands after agreeing a transfer fee last summer. Had that deal been completed, it’s hard to imagine Blues being in danger – or Wigan still being in touch.

Steven Fletcher
After a season of struggle, Wolves have come good at exactly the right time – and Fletcher has led the revival. The Scotland striker has scored five goals in five matches which have seen Mick McCarthy’s side pick up the eight points that have propelled them out of the relegation zone. His latest was the crucial second in a win at Sunderland which leaves Wolves certain of safety should they beat Blackburn next weekend.

Blackpool (all of 'em)
Saturday’s 4-3 win over Bolton encapsulated Blackpool’s season – thrilling, watchable football in which defensive frailties are weighed against a willingness to attack that hovers in the borderlands between enthusiasm and naivety. It may not be quite enough: they may need a win at Old Trafford to survive. That’s not impossible, of course – West Ham were in the same position in 2007, but while Carlos Tevez's goal beat a demob-happy Manchester United side, Blackpool will face players pushing for a place in the Champions League final.

Although the Tangerines have at times been a joy to watch, and have exceeded the expectations of most just by still being alive on the final day, you sense we may be about to bid them farewell; however, few impartial observers could complain if Ian Holloway's men escape the drop on goals scored.

Ledley King
Where would Spurs be had King been fit all season? Quite possibly in roughly the same position – after all, their problems have mainly been at the other end. But there’s no doubting the calming presence of their skipper would’ve given Spurs a far better chance of returning to the Champions League. Quite what the future holds for the defender, lord knows – but he didn’t look to be suffering at all as he inspired Spurs to an unexpected and welcome victory at Anfield which puts Spurs back in the driving seat for a Europa League berth.

Brede Hangeland
Having played exactly like a man who’d been bed-bound with a stomach virus for a week against Liverpool last Monday, the Norway centre half repaid Mark Hughes and the travelling faithful by scoring twice as the Cottagers beat Birmingham on their last away jaunt of the season. If only they could do it more often: Fulham haven't won more than three away league games in a season since 2004/05.

Darren Bent
Two brilliantly taken – and dare we say it, typically Darren Bent – goals helped Villa to a much-welcome win at Arsenal that finally ensured the West Midlands side’s Premier League place for next season.

VILLAINS

The West Ham board
The say a bad workman blames his tools. Given there seems to be no bigger tool – at least in terms of managing Premier League teams to relegation – than Avram Grant, it seems logical that the blame for West Ham's farcical season should rest not with the man mopping in the dugout but the bunch of publicity-hungry quote-machines haplessly running the club: David Sullivan, David Gold and Karren Brady.

Grant is, it has to be said, not a great football manager. Having failed to inspire all but the merest fight into Portsmouth last season, it’s hardly surprising that he was unable to instil the necessary fighting spirit into West Ham. A glance at the back page of a Hammers programme makes you wonder how exactly this pathetic campaign has come to pass. The Upton Park squad is far from the weakest in the Premier League, and Grant was given money to strengthen it further in January.

But a more notable transfer-window arrival than Gary O'Neil or Demba Ba was intense speculation over the manager's future. Before Saturday 17 January's home game with Arsenal, the tabloid talk about the imminent appointment of Martin O'Neill was so loud that Grant's throwing of a scarf into the crowd was widely seen as his final act at the club. O'Neill baulked at the premature publicity and ruled himself out, leaving the board saddled with a dead man walking, and the constant noises-off have done nothing of benefit to West Ham.

If it wasn't paper talk (fed by "well-placed sources" to pet journos) about Grant's potential successors, it was the unseemly (and unpopular) land-grab for the Olympic Stadium, which rumbled unhelpfully on through an unsuccessful spring. Then, three weeks ago, Sullivan weighed in with pompous pop-psychology by announcing that big names would be sold if the club went down – an unveiled threat unlikely to unite fans, players and manager into a concerted team effort.

West Ham will be back, of course. Scott Parker, Matt Upson, Rob Green, Thomas Hitzelsperger and Demba Ba may leave this summer, but they’ll behind a group of youngsters – James Tomkins, Zavon Hines, Jordan Spence, Freddie Sears, Junior Stanislas and Jack Collison – with fine potential to succeed in the ever-open Championship.

The key will be leadership, and not just on the field (presumably in the ever-willing form of Mark Noble): Hammers fans must hope the owners finally find a man who can bring it to Upton Park – and leave him to do the job without constant undermining from the sidelines.

Birmingham City
All Blues needed to secure Premier League safety was three points at St Andrew's against a Fulham side that have been consistently unsuccessful away for six seasons and had just been gubbed 5-2 by Liverpool. But rather than concentrate on the fundamentals – like passing, tackling, marking and actually moving about a bit – the Blues opted to play like statues in a 2-0 defeat that sent their fans facing a few sleepless nights before their final-day clash with Tottenham. Curiously, goal difference means that Birmingham could win and still go down, or lose and still stay up. Expect TV close-ups of confused faces staring into mobile phones…

Sebastien Squillaci
It’s hard not to assume some relationship between Arsenal’s failure to win trophies and their inability to play a simple offside trap – not least because when they employed perennial arm-lofters Dixon, Adams, Bould and Winterburn the Gunners reeked of trophy polish and stale champagne (although that was just the Monday morning odour of Paul Merson).

Sadly those days are long gone, and when Kyle Walker dinked a perfectly weighted ball to Darren Bent to give Villa an early lead at the Emirates it was Sebastien Squillaci who had been caught day-dreaming to round off what can only be described as a ruddy awful first season in English football.

Blackburn Rovers (late doors)
With Birmingham and Blackpool facing tough last-day trips to White Hart Lane and Old Trafford, it's perhaps unlikely that Blackburn will be relegated. But if they are, they will rue the last five minutes of Saturday’s 1-1 home draw with Manchester United.

With the game level in the dying minutes and United preparing to pop their corks, Rovers sat back and watched the visitors play half-arsed keep-balls across their back four, rather than pressing and attempting to seal three points that would fully secure safety. Is this the brave new world of "good football" for which Sam Allardyce was sacrificed? Some may find it a bit churlish to suggest it would be funny if Blackburn went down by one point...

Weekender: Fairy tales and dangling swords

2011-05-13T12:34:00Z

1. Don't wish for a fairytale start
While romantics may hope Stoke break the deadlock to bring the FA Cup Final to life, an early Potters strike could have the opposite effect: if Pulis's men score first, it's usually game over. This season, sturdy Stoke have been the second-best Premier League team at maintaining a lead: they've gone in front 13 times, won nine of them and never lost. Meanwhile, Man City are the second-worst team in the Premier League at coming from behind – having gained just four points from losing positions this season.

2. Tales of two Cities usually end up blue
Saturday's FA Cup Final will be only the third to feature two teams called City – and on both previous occasions the Manchester blues have lifted the trophy. In 1955/56 they beat Birmingham 3-1, and in 1968/69 they battled to a 1-0 victory over Leicester. This could be a good omen for City… er, Manchester City, that is.

3. The FA Cup programme could be on your phone
Off to Wembley this weekend? Pick up a programme – not just as a memento but as an interactive peek behind the scenes and the beginning of a revolution in football programmes. Smartphone users can access a range of FATV videos via five QR codes printed in the programme. The videos will include Manchester City and Stoke City tunnel cams from the semi-finals, match highlights (from 6pm), highlights of this year's Road to Wembley and classic FA Cup goals.
SEE THE PROGRAMME Digital version available here

4. Ben Foster has an easy life
Champions League winner (and former milkman) Javier Zanetti joined the 1,000-game club this week. Zanetti's 1,000 matches average out to one every 13.79 days throughout his 37 years – which means he's been playing far more regularly than tiredy-tiredy England retiree Ben Foster, who has only managed a match every 49.36 days, yet still feels the need to pack in international football to 'focus on playing for Birmingham'.
FEATURE Milkman Zanetti delivers the goods for the thousandth time

5. Shrews make a very unShrewd move
Shrewsbury may have missed automatic promotion thanks to an officiating blunder (see last Friday's Weekender), but if they fail in the play-offs they could only have themselves to blame. In Saturday's semi-final they face Torquay, to whom they loaned Jake Robinson in January – without a clause to say he couldn't face his parent club. Sure enough, when Town travelled to Plainmoor in March he bagged two in a 5-0 whitewash.

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Prepare the perch. As if it hadn't already happened when he used the phrase in 2002, Sir Alex Ferguson is about to lead Manchester United to the top of English football's mathematical pecking order by going one better than Liverpool's 18 top-flight titles. The leaders swept aside champions Chelsea as they have all bar one of their Old Trafford visitors this season; their 52 points from 18 home games would see them in seventh even if they hadn't turned up for a single away game.

On this occasion, Sky's wet dream – 1st v 2nd in the season's final fortnight – ended after 36 seconds when Javier Hernandez scored; United utterly dominated the first half and Nemanja Vidic's set-piece header rendered Frank Lampard's consolation irrelevant. While Liverpool make Kenny Dalglish's job permanent and Man City trust Roberto Mancini to build on this season's successful bid for Champions League qualification, Chelsea will doubtless change things again in the summer with another manager installed under Roman Abramovich's Sword of Damocles; there's no chance of the Stamford Bridge hierarchy giving a manager six seasons to win the league title, as United did for Ferguson before he racked up 12 in the 19 seasons of the Premier League.

How the powers that be could do with such successful leadership. In a Parliamentary enquiry into exactly how badly football is run in England, former FA chairman Lord Triesman alleged that four FIFA members sought "bribes" from England's 2018 bid, bringing furious denials from FIFA and the appointment of legal eagles by the FA itself.

While we're dealing with the distasteful, Celtic boss Neil Lennon was punched on the touchline by a Hearts fan whose face was helpfully pixellated by most media outlets. Well, the assailant deserves that level of privacy.

Moving shudderingly back to matters on the field, the world's oldest league completed its regular season with the usual cheers and tears. QPR were confirmed as champions by the FA not docking them points, with Southampton (promoted from the third division) and Chesterfield (champions of the fourth) also celebrating; on the other hand, Bristol Rovers and Dagenham & Redbridge dropped into the basement while Lincoln dropped out of the league. We can't all be winners , but we should applaud those who are.

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Scottish football's dark day
We Scots complain that our league doesn’t get the headlines – unless it's something negative. And so it goes again. After seeing our referees go on strike and a manager be sent parcel bombs in the post, now we watch that same manager have to deal with a thug running into the technical area and attacking him.

How much is too much for Neil Lennon? After last month's parcel bomb and this week's suspicious package, thought to contain a bullet, do the perpetrators simply want to scare Lennon out of Celtic, or do they want something far more sinister?

If Lennon walked out to preserve his safety, no one would blame him. But by the same token, in that event we should all just give up and go home. Football is meant to be an escape from work and family commitments, but too many bring religion and sectarianism into it. It’s important to remember football is just a game.

Some say he doesn’t help himself with his conduct. I don't buy into that. How do you justify death threats and parcel bombs because someone is passionate about their football team? Maybe Lennon does play to the crowd to an extent, certainly more than his Parkhead predecessors. But then so does Jose Mourinho, wherever he’s gone.

It’s disappointing that in a week filled with tributes and testimonials for an Old Firm manager who leaves his post after years of service to the club, his city rival can't enjoy the same sort of respect – even if Lennon’s a comparative rookie.

This nasty affair will continue on for days and may even overshadow the culmination of whoever wins the league following this weekend’s programme of matches. But in truth, when this season’s over, we’ll be glad to see the back of it. Not least Neil Lennon.
– Craig Anderson, from our Scottish blog Fitba' Focus. Read the full feature here

"At school I was a centre-forward with pace"
– One-on-One, Apr 2010: Jamie Carragher

"When I was growing up we won f**k all"
– Sing When You're Winning, Mar 2010: Liam Gallagher

"You're only a proper Graham if you spell it with an 'h'"
– Ask A Silly Question, Jul 2009: Graham Taylor

This Weekender was brought to you by James Maw, Gary Parkinson, Gregg Davies, Huw Davies, Ian Perkins, Ross Quayle, Craig Anderson and Shaka Hislop's hot dog