Category Archives: Football

Ha! When I wrote that last football post, I had no idea quite how effective the England team would be in sealing McClaren’s fate. England 2 – 3 Croatia They were absolutely bloody woeful. Out of the starting eleven, Joe … Continue reading →

Steve McClaren’s comedy tenure as England coach is slowly approaching the punchline. He now insists both that England will qualify for Euro 2008 and that he’ll keep his job. Well, well. A bit of bullish confidence on behalf of his … Continue reading →

Sir Alex Ferguson’s position in the Real World has often seemed tenuous in the past, but no more so than several other characters in the rarefied world of top-flight football. His latest outburst, reported in the Observer last week, is … Continue reading →

In his new book “The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable” Nassim Nicholas Taleb discusses a phenomenon of the way we deal with our increasingly complex world. We’re hopeless at predicting major events, but we still analyse those … Continue reading →

We already know that some European police forces have a rather more… let’s say “physical” approach than our own Boys in Blue. So when I heard about the trouble at the Man Utd – Roma match last week, the claims … Continue reading →

When you hear football fans booing their own team, you generally conclude that the team is underperforming quite badly. This is nothing to do with the result; there’s no shame in being thrashed by a much better team if the … Continue reading →

Fifa quota proposal angers Wenger (BBC News) … and you can see why. The customary lack of English (or even British) players in Arsenal’s first-team squad has become something of a standing joke. However, I’m not going to criticise Arsene … Continue reading →

I haven’t written anything substantial about the match-fixing scandal that gripped Italian football for most of the summer. While the trials were underway, I had plenty to write about the World Cup and, to be honest, I couldn’t have kept … Continue reading →