It’s been about one month since the transfer window closed and Zenit St. Petersburg’s notoriously open-minded and tolerant supporters alleged planted a fake bomb with Hulk’s picture on it near the club’s training ground. Which is certainly one way to welcome one of your record signings to your club. I hate to say I told [...]

The release of Forbes‘ annual list the most valuable football clubs could not have provided a more suitable backdrop to Saturday’s Battle of the Brands. Because the tilt between Roman’s Rent Boys and Holloway Road Properties PLC is nothing if about the money. There’s no silverware on the line in the London repechage as the league [...]

It’s Thursday and, frankly, it’s tough to concentrate. The Fort McMurray Fury u-12 boys leave tonight for the provincial championships in Grande Prairie and we’ve decided to break up the trip into two legs so the kids won’t travel on the bus all day and then be forced to play a game on Friday night. [...]

It’s derby weekend and there’s really not been much change in the Fleet Street narrative as they’ve derided Arsene Wenger (three league titles and four FA Cups) as arrogant, out of touch and stubborn for his failure to keep ahold of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri and then replace them because, Lord knows, they were [...]

Paul Hayward is usually a target for his saccharine tooth-sucking foppery but he makes an astute point about the changed culture on the pitch reflected in the FA’s Suarez verdict and the criminal charge against John Terry.
Speaking of the West End Rent Boys captain, his performance in the 1-1 draw drew all sorts of predictable [...]

This weekend’s international break serves an anticlimatic end to the fury of the transfer window. There’s no driver’s side window scrums for the wheeler-dealer, no sniping about Arsene Wenger’s various bigotries against Brits, no more trial balloons floated from agents. Now, there’s Euro qualifers and all that really does is:
1. provide a blanket opportunity for Fleet Street to moan about Fabio Capello’s English (coz JT can’t unnerstand [...]

Just one afternoon link that helps provide some perspective and history on Nasri’s move. Ben Lyttleton chronicles how Nasri’s agent Jean-Pierre Bernes has managed to settle an 18-year grudge with Arsene Wenger in engineering the deal with Stockport Massive.
Friday morning
With the barbarians at the gate at Holloway Road, it was inevitable that David Dein, football’s Mephistopheles, [...]

Lots of foolishness in the papers today, particularly about Arsene Wenger’s future and we’ve all heard enough about that on this blog, which has been too Holloway Road heavy over the summer.
Just one link today and it’s the ever-excellent Bobby McMahon’s piece on the impact of new signings on their club. As usual, he’s got [...]

A wonderful retrospective from When Saturday Comes about the expectations of some Arsenalistas, who were unhappy even after we won the league and went undefeated because we lost to Chelsea. I actually remember a couple of these toss  plastics. Winning the Champions League requires a wee bit of good fortune along with talent and depth [...]

Plenty of interest in England’s cosmopolitan and exotic northeast from Fleet Street beardstrokers, where Ian Sherlock sees optimism blossom at the Stadium of Light following a major recruiting drive during the summer. Luke Edwards suggests Sunderland’s busy transfer season has provoked jealousy on the Geordie Shore
Mark Ogden wonders where it went wrong for Federico Macheda.
Gossip
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