More World Cup Games But No More Surprises, (Other Than England Winning Of Course)

Posted: June 19, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, International Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, The World Cup, Tottenham Hotspur
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The first game of the day pitted the wits of Sweden and South Korea against each other.

In what was a fairly mundane 90 minutes of football, Sweden deserved to win purely because they appeared to try and win much harder than the Koreans did.

The goal which did the trick was yet another penalty this time scored by Andreas Granqvist, the Swedish captain. The award of the spot-kick was made after VAR had been consulted and, even then, it still wasn’t totally conclusive. Still, it was given and the match ended 1-0 to Sweden. Read the rest of this entry »

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More World Cup Moments: Serbia And Mexico Win, There’s A Draw For Brazil And We Take A Brief Trip Back To The Premier League For Some Transfer News

Posted: June 19, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, International Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, The World Cup, Tottenham Hotspur
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Nothing very surprising about that headline you may think. Three good teams not losing their opening World Cup games, so what? What’s so unusual about that?

Well, in the case of Serbia, who managed to scrape past Costa Rica 1-0 courtesy of an excellent Aleksandr Kolarov free-kick nothing really, other than they would have been expected to win by a greater margin.

In the case of Brazil there was also nothing spectacular about the fact that they managed to draw with Switzerland. It was, in fact, not such an unexpected result. Read the rest of this entry »

More From The World Cup Including: Wins For France, Denmark And Croatia, While Argentina Draw And Ronaldo Is Way Ahead Of Messi!

Posted: June 18, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, International Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, The World Cup, Tottenham Hotspur
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Well that wasn’t too bad a game. France weren’t very good which should really have given Australia a chance to collect three points. The problem was that The Socceroos, whilst being full of huff and puff for around 70 minutes, also weren’t very good.

First goal went to budding documentary-maker Antoine Griezmann courtesy of VAR, which helped to decide that a foul had been committed in the penalty area and he scored with ease from the spot.

The Aussies then equalised with another penalty confirmed by the VAR team which seemed determined to make up for not being involved even once in the opening game. Read the rest of this entry »

More World Cup Bits & Pieces Including: Ronaldo Finally Starts To Score, Iran Get A Slice Of Luck And So Do Uruguay!

Posted: June 17, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, International Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, The World Cup
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Wouldn’t you just know it? Cristiano Ronaldo, at the ripe old age of 33 has suddenly announced himself on the World Cup stage.

Many “experts” are predicting that this will be the Portuguese’s last appearance in this tournament as he will be 37 by the time the next one comes around.

We don’t agree with the experts. Now, there’s a surprise! Our guess is that Ronaldo also doesn’t agree with them assuming that he listens to them at all!

The shape he is in and his single-mindedness in wanting to be the best means that another four years will have little or no effect on him. He may slow down slightly although, on the evidence of some of the counter-attacking runs he made against Spain, this is unlikely to happen. Read the rest of this entry »

More Bits Of Football Including; The New Season Moving Ever Nearer, The World Cup Beginning And Griezmann Makes A Big Deal About Going Nowhere!

Posted: June 16, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, Premier League, The World Cup, Tottenham Hotspur
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The new Premier League season moved a small step nearer yesterday as the fixtures were announced. This always feels like a hurdle has been…..well…..hurdled, because it is a milestone during the close season which is designed to satisfy two longings.

The first is the millions of fans around the world who are all only a tablet/phone/laptop away from a conversation, friendly or otherwise, with each other. The fixture list will give them something positive to talk about so that they can, temporarily at least, refrain from threatening their club’s management, board, players and each other for a day or two. Read the rest of this entry »

More Football Snippets: Including The World Cup Begins, London Bias From The FA Is Now Beyond A Joke And Anthony Martial Is Not For Sale!

Posted: June 15, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, International Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, Premier League, The World Cup, Tottenham Hotspur
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After all the pomp and circumstance, 2018’s ethics World Cup finally got underway when the hosts met Saudi Arabia in the opening game.

The enigma that is Russia, not only as a football team, but as a country, continues to confound the logic of most sane people. How can a land boasting a population of around 145 million and with such a long history of playing football, a country whose population loves the game, unlike the early days in America, be so poor at actually playing it?

They are currently ranked 70th in the world, only three places above Saudi Arabia! On that basis the result of the opening game was really quite a surprise, particularly when taking into account the fact that the hosts had lost their previous seven. So a 5-0 win was a most welcome start for them. Read the rest of this entry »

More Transfer Bits & Pieces: Including Hearsay, Guesswork And Some Facts!

Posted: June 14, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur, Transfers
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Having already signed Stephan Lichtsteiner on a free transfer Arsenal are now close to finalising deals for both Sokratis Papastathopoulos and, as we mentioned yesterday, Lucas Torreira.

Next up will probably be a goalkeeper to replace Petr Cech who will be 36 next month.

The favourite is the German, Bernd Leno, of Bayer Leverkusen. He will cost around £20 million and would be available as soon as required as he has been left out of the Germany World Cup squad, an indicator of the market in which Arsenal are now forced to conduct business. Read the rest of this entry »

More Transfer Bits & Pieces: Including Anybody Who Is Anybody And Many Bodies Who Aren’t!

Posted: June 13, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur, Transfers
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Apparently Mo Salah has no intention of leaving Liverpool for Real Madrid this summer. Liverpool fans would like to think that this was never his intention but it is being reported that his failed foul on Sergio Ramos, which resulted in Salah himself being injured, has put him off going to the Spanish capital and he is awaiting an apology from Ramos, who hasn’t been in touch since the game.

Call us sceptical if you wish, but we think Salah could be waiting a long time for his apology.

The other interesting aspect of this tale is that Barcelona have supposedly expressed an interest in the player and, although he has said he will not be leaving Liverpool for Madrid, he has not said the same about Barcelona. Read the rest of this entry »

More Transfer Titbits From Some Of Europe’s Bigger Clubs

Posted: June 12, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur, Transfers
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Where does all that money keep coming from? Reports from Madrid are now suggesting that Real are prepared to offer Cristiano Ronaldo £28.5 million per year to stay at the club, something which he was probably always intending to do but we all know how he likes to play his little games at the end of every season.

He is actually reaching the stage of his career where he has to be careful with his annual shenanigans because, at 33 and getting older, there will come a time when he will pretend to throw his toys out of the pram and Real Madrid will run a truck over them! Read the rest of this entry »

More Bits & Pieces: England’s Dream, China Still Calling And A Knighthood For The Wrong Man

Posted: June 11, 2018 in Arsenal, Chelsea, England, Football, International Football, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Opinion, Premier League, Tottenham Hotspur
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According to the headline of an article in The Guardian, Gareth Southgate wants “young, hungry England to dream of winning the World Cup”

Well, we have news for you Gareth, they do! The problem is that dreams, particularly that one, rarely come true!

In fairness, the reporter actually quotes Southgate as saying he has no problem with the players believing they can win the World Cup, which is slightly different and just goes to show that members of the press often submit articles which then have the headline added or edited by somebody else. Read the rest of this entry »

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