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Five Best Mainstream Football Bloggers Of 2008

It’s 2008: the blogging revolution has been absorbed by the establishment press and propped up as a new ‘form’ of journalism.  Just read Andrew Sullivan’s recent apologist screed on blogs in the Atlantic.  Apparently, the do-it-yourself amateur element is no longer intrinsic to the blog as literary form.  Professionals can do it too.  Blogging has…

Barry Glendenning: Modern Football’s Loving Sceptic

“In most ways I am content not to know such information, and to think of sportswriting not as a real profession but more as an agreeable frame of mind, a way of going about things rather than things you exactly do or know. A reasonable guess is a source of pleasure, since it makes me…

Is Gerrard v Lampard Really England’s Biggest Problem Right Now?

The result read England 3, Belarus 1, with Steven Gerrard on the score sheet, and yet like night following day, the pundits were still assessing Capello’s success in dealing with on one of the most tired clichés in Modern Football — Gerrard v. Lampard. That the two cannot play together has been part of journo…

England Will Always Lose Because Its Players Cannot Adapt

I can’t help but think that the Guardian’s Rob Smyth said it best the other day when he blamed overly-high expectations for England on two things: the mass-marketed ‘Golden Generation’ featuring the usual suspects – Gerrard, Lamps, Becks, Rio, Rooney and so on – and more importantly, on England’s famous 5-1 brutalization of Germany in…

Shoud the transfer window close before the season starts?

Few noticed last week when Juande Ramos called for a shortening of the transfer window, but the nuclear fallout from Monday’s race to the finish seems to support his argument. Prior to Monday, Robinho had been settling in nicely for another season at Real Madrid, Kevin Keegan was sorting out his first proper season in…

Among the Hugs: Is Cuddly MLS Really Turning Violent?

West Hammered: MLS Learns from the Pros While English cynicism used to be a cherished import in the all-too-earnest hinterland of soccer-loving North America, the bile has lost its caché in the past few years. No more, Guardian. Cease and desist, ‘When Saturday Comes’. Your glib asides on the American game, which may have seemed…

Is Sepp Blatter a Marxist?

For all those enraged by the hundreds of millions of pounds in inflated transfer fees flying between the stadia of Europe this summer: there was once a bearded man from a long time ago who proposed that the use-value of a commodity or service should determine its price, not market forces. No, I’m not talking…