Up front: Former Arsenal and England star Alan Smith reveals uncomfortable relationship with Ian Wright in his new book August 30, 2018 Footballers have many habits that set people’s eyes rolling. One is their penchant for releasing ghost-written autobiographies at exceptionally young ages. Wayne Rooney’s “story”, for example, was first published when he was 20 years old. Alan Smith, however, was never the typical footballer, right back to his teenage years when he insisted on taking A-levels [...]
Watford shed revolving-door policy and enjoy best ever start to a season August 30, 2018 In among the multiple English champions in the early Premier League pace-setters, one place above last season’s runaway title-winners Manchester City, is an incongruous name: Watford. With three wins from three fixtures so far, the unfashionable Hornets are enjoying their best start to a top-flight season. Not since 1982-83, when a teenage John Barnes was [...]
Trevor Steven: Jamie Vardy’s England retirement is a mistake but it opens door for exceptional talent Phil Foden August 28, 2018 Tinker, modify and ask how you can improve, by all means, but I don’t think Gareth Southgate should chop and change too much when he names his first England squad of the season on Thursday. The opening match of the new Nations League against Spain on Saturday week and a friendly with Switzerland three days [...]
How Brentford play the transfer market to overachieve in the Championship and turn a profit August 28, 2018 Outside of Staffordshire and west London, Ryan Woods’s move from Brentford to Stoke City on Saturday didn’t cause much of a stir. Here was a talented central midfielder swapping one Championship side for another on loan, with the 24-year-old set to sign for a fee in the region of £7m in January once the transfer [...]
Five things we learned from the Premier League this weekend: Moura the man, Alonso the alternative, Arsenal’s defence shaky and more August 27, 2018 Jose Mourinho’s selection roulette did not pay off tonight. The Manchester United manager made six changes, mixing his squad up to face a familiar-looking Tottenham side. After a first half in which both sides missed countless opportunities, Spurs made their move as Harry Kane and Lucas Moura prompted chants of “you're getting sacked in the [...]
Data breach: West Ham United accidentally exposes hundreds of fans’ email addresses August 24, 2018 West Ham United suffered a data breach yesterday when it accidentally shared hundreds of season ticket-holders’ data with one another. UK data protection watchdog the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is looking into the breach at the club, whose staff’s email blunder resulted in up to 200 supporters seeing each other’s details. Read more: 20,000 Superdrug [...]
Why are Premier League clubs being paid in Bitcoin for their commercial deals with trading platform eToro? August 23, 2018 If 2018 has been the year of football dipping its toe into the world of cryptocurrency, then this week saw some teams go a little deeper into uncharted waters. On Tuesday, seven Premier League clubs including Tottenham and Crystal Palace announced that they had signed commercial partnerships with investment platform eToro. What made these deals [...]
Arsenal v West Ham: Old foes reunited as Unai Emery and Manuel Pellegrini meet again with new clubs August 23, 2018 Familiarity will be in the air at Emirates Stadium on Saturday when West Ham visit Arsenal. Most eyes will be trained on Jack Wilshere, who is set to face the club at which he spent his formative footballing years for the first time since his summer switch from north to east London, while Spanish forward [...]
Motty lends his voice to Football Index’s advertising push August 23, 2018 Match of the Day’s legendary commentator John Motson is lending his voice to a new trading platform dedicated to football. Motson, who has commentated on some of the Premier League and FA Cup’s biggest matches since the late 1960s, will be the face and voice of fresh fintech venture Football Index’s TV and radio adverts. [...]
La Liga to play matches in the US: Why the Premier League will be watching Spanish football’s stateside experiment closely August 22, 2018 The hackneyed joke about Spanish football’s top flight used to be that there was only one fixture worth watching: the bi-annual collision of domestic superpowers Real Madrid and Barcelona. La Liga’s announcement today that it is to stage matches in the United States has rubbished that notion further still – there will be no shortage of [...]
