How can selling Wembley be described as a betrayal? The idiots who massively overspent in building a stadium nobody outside of London really wanted cannot be accused of selling the soul of football, as some people have put it.
Wembley never was and never will be the “soul of football”. That title belongs to grounds such as Old Trafford, Anfield, Goodison Park and Stamford Bridge. In the past it would have included Highbury, Main Road, Roker Park and others too numerous to mention. (more…)
The Antonio Conte saga goes on. No decision has yet been announced by either the man himself or Chelsea as to what his immediate future holds. The fact that everybody else already knows doesn’t appear to have occurred to either of the two parties. Or maybe it has and that is why they can’t be bothered announcing anything.
Anyway Conte, when he does leave/get fired in the very near future, won’t be rushing into a new job. He has decided to take a sabbatical at Chelsea’s expense.
This is because, contrary to popular belief, he won’t be swapping jobs with Maurizio Sarri, who may end up at Stamford Bridge but will be replaced by Carlo Ancelotti. No, Conte is more likely to take over Ancelotti’s bar stool for a period so he can see how the land lies. (more…)
Arsenal’s powers-that-be who are, apparently, Ivan Gazidis, Sven Mislintat and Raul Sanllehi and not, as we thought, Arséne Wenger, have decided that Unai Emery is the man to succeed the one we naturally assumed was God at the club.
Unai, (no relation to Dick as far as we are aware), brings with him a wealth of experience in winning the Europa league, having done so three times with Sevilla, so Arsenal could really have done with him last season
Apparently he likes to do things in threes as he finished third in La Liga on three occasions when with Valencia behind guess which other two? Yes, you’re probably right. (more…)
José Mourinho will point to a second placed finish in the Premier League and, no doubt, try and spin this as progress on last year’s sixth place. Taken in isolation he is right, there has been a slight improvement in league performance.
What must also be taken into account is that the only other team to improve on last season were Manchester City and we all know what they did! In fact, of the top six, United and City were the only two to improve on last season’s eventual league position.
Chelsea went from first to fifth, Arsenal went from fifth to sixth, Tottenham Hotspur went from second to third and Liverpool remained static in fourth. So the fact that United managed to climb into second can be put down, in part, to the failure of the others to improve or even maintain their previous season’s form. (more…)
Football supporters of the top clubs these days are about as patient as a five-year-old on Christmas Eve.
Back in the seventies, when Mancheser United were relegated to the second division there were disappointed shrugs and sighs of resignation but little else.
It had been coming for a while and, when it finally happened in 1974, nobody was really surprised and the optimism of Tommy Docherty in predicting that the club would bounce straight back to the first division was infectious. (more…)
And so to the final day of our troll through the Premier League managers. We have now considered the futures of fourteen of the poor souls and decided that most of them will continue to collect their relatively easy money for another few months at least.
If not, they will leave their current employ to be appointed by another clueless club who will continue paying them an absolute fortune for very little, if any, return. West Ham and Everton seem like good candidates for out of work managers to be interviewing!
Another example of the recycling trend is about to occur in West London. We have just been reading that serial failure Steve McClaren is to be announced as their new manager by serial losers QPR. This will change the perception of neither the club nor the manager! (more…)
It’s day 3 of our look through the Premier League clubs and who will be retaining the services of their manager for next season.
Up to now we have decided, either through fact or fiction-which-may-become-fact, that three of the ten we have considered will be leaving for pastures new. So who will be joining Arséne Wenger, Antonio Conte and Claude Puel in seeking alternative employment? (more…)
Following on from our article yesterday where we began our look at which managers will stay with their clubs for next season, today we continue through the alphabet with the next five.
Crystal Palace
Roy Hodgson
Mr Roy has pulled several rabbits out of the hat this season and has actually had Palace reasonably safe from relegation for quite a while. He is now at an age where he won’t want to be moving around the country too much although, in fairness, he has been at that age for about ten years! (more…)
(The back of Arséne Wenger – a view for which, despite his success, many Arsenal fans had been praying for quite a while)!
Arsenal
Arséne Wenger
Our bet is that he will stand down and let somebody else have a go! Seriously though, it is now a month since Wenger made his long overdue announcement hat he is leaving his job at the end of the season and the club are, apparently, no nearer appointing a successor.
Whilst we appreciate that they have time on their side they don’t really have time on their side. Everything is relative and it is a fairly safe assumption that the new manager, whoever he may be, will want a full pre-season with the squad. (more…)
Yesterday we looked at the Liverpool and Manchester City managers, Jürgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola. Today it is the turn of Manchester United’s José Mourinho and Tottenham Hotspur’s Mauricio Pochettino.
Can they beat scores of 27/30 and 26/30? Let’s see!
Manchester United – JOSÉ MOURINHO
Man-management
José has famously fallen out with players at Real Madrid and Chelsea which suggests that this category is not his strongest. He has also fallen out with other managers, physios and probably his wife on occasion, but those have not affected results or his future whereas the ones with the players almost certainly have! (more…)
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 