6 years ago

6 years ago

With the world on lockdown, unless you’re Mason Mount apparently, it is time to weigh up whether we’d rather be quarantined with a Troy Deeney or a Pepe Reina. A Jamie Vardy or a David Luiz Imagine him. Michael Owen. Sat at home now, alone with nothing but his mind-numbingly dull thoughts, refusing to stick […]

6 years ago

This endless slew of coronavirus news almost makes me miss Brexit. Almost. In lieu of an actual mildly entertaining pub quiz intro, this week’s pre-amble will instead just contain valuable advice to help everyone deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. I am neither a voice of authority nor a medical professional, but those guys seem to […]

6 years ago

In the Samuel Beckett play Krapp’s Last Tape, an old man listens to recordings of his younger self, lamenting everything he was. Everything he ever did. How idealistic he used to be and how, back then, there was love and hope and both of those things entwined together. But above all, how foolish that all seemed […]

6 years ago

Loathe as I am to dip my toes into the murky death-threats-on-Twitter waters of combined XIs, this is the one time it actually makes sense We all remember those Arsenal Invincibles so vividly. The O2 emblazoned red and white blurs cruising through the flickering green sea on our TV sets, modern footballers before modern football: […]

6 years ago

The pub, what a concept The public house, or pub, is a British institution. Many people go to the pub habitually for a variety of reasons. If you have a hard day at work, you might go for a drink. If you have a great day at work, a celebratory drink might be in order. […]

6 years ago

Would you consider Big Sam and Jose Mourinho kindred spirits? If you listen to or engage in a conversation about football these days, you might reasonably discern that, for some, a manager’s playing style or philosophy is more important than how often they win. Ernesto Valverde was sacked by Barcelona while top of LaLiga and […]

6 years ago

During the 1961/62 season, in Don Revie’s first campaign as manager of Leeds United, he changed the club kit from traditional royal blue to pristine all-white The style had been glimpsed the season prior, with the Yorkshire club wearing all-white with blue and gold trimmings in a home game against Middlesbrough in September 1960. Much […]

6 years ago

Parasite‘s unprecedented success at the 92nd Academy Awards should be welcomed by all The film opens with the light from a bustling Korean sidestreet sweeping through the window of a basement. The camera pans down, past some still-dirty socks fresh out of the wash, as a young boy sits on his phone, struggling to connect to […]

6 years ago

6 years ago

19 years ago this month Lionel Messi and his family moved into a small apartment near Camp Nou, after a contract was signed on a napkin. Today, he is as close as he has ever been to leaving. Which still isn’t very close at all, but there is a chance. Like squid raining from the […]

6 years ago

6 years ago

On Friday 31, 23:00, the United Kingdom will formally leave the European Union … and immediately enter an 11-month transition period during which things like trade deals, law enforcement, data sharing and security laws, aviation standards laws, access to fishing waters, electricity and gas supplies and the licensing and regulation of medicines will be thrashed out. […]

6 years ago

You might have seen the adverts The Wallace & Gromit style claymations and regular football fans reimagined as a pair of dogs, or birds, waxing lyrical about the magic of the Cup. “The FA Cup will never be finished, mate” goes one. “There’s something special about a cup tie under the lights,” proclaims the other. Well, […]

6 years ago

Manchester United fans must accept the harsh reality of the situation, no matter how traumatic it may seem: They support a normal football team now You might have seen it over the weekend. An image that summed up the current state of degeneration, of ruination, of Manchester United Football Club. Haunting and terrifying in equal […]

6 years ago

Like much of his career the death of Kobe Bryant didn’t just feel improbable. It felt impossible His image will adorn the front page of every newspaper today and the words will remain scarcely believable. Kobe Bryant dead at 41. Kobe Bryant. An athlete for whom life seemed to stumble over itself to make way […]

6 years ago

Enough is enough. Liverpool’s cakewalk to the title must be stopped at all costs I don’t know about you personally, but there was a time when I had the utmost faith in the competitive balance of the Premier League. Sure, the same six teams have finished in the top six places for the last three […]

6 years ago

“How long has Ole been in the job? 18 months!? Is it that long? I don’t think it’s 18 months! Can we find out… find out how long Ole’s been in the job. It’s not 18 months. 16 months… give the man a chance.” At points, it’s hard to tell what Roy Keane actually enjoys […]

6 years ago

Is January the single worst month of the year? It is, isn’t it? Nobody likes January. It is nothing more than December’s hangover, a month where everyone is a) cold, b) poor and worst of all, c) briefly attempting to better themselves as human beings. Scrap it, in my opinion. Make December longer and then […]

6 years ago

A YouGov survey has found that 48% of Brits wouldn’t take a trip to the Moon, with the majority citing a lack of interest and believing there isn’t enough to see or do Congratulations, Britain. We are officially the dullest nation in the entire world. As if there was ever any doubt. Any doubt at […]

6 years ago

Prince Harry could soon be on his way out of the Royal Family with his contract set to expire in the summer and no new deal on the horizon. Sources indicate that The Queen is reluctant to offer the midfield talisman a fresh extension due to the growing influence of his agent, Meghan Markle, who […]

6 years ago

Just like Robot Wars, this battle will be judged on Style, Control, Damage and Aggression Weird isn’t it, that the world is slowly teetering towards some kind of Donald Trump-led nuclear holocaust and yet we’re all more concerned with two Grime MCs very passively-aggressively sipping cups of tea and insulting each other’s mum. But hey, […]

6 years ago

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s job seems less about results and tangible improvement than it is about spin and PR, pretending everything is getting better even as it is clear it’s getting worse “We’re just going to go out there, enjoy it, give our best and see where it takes us,” said Solskjaer before last night’s dismantling […]

6 years ago

A handy explainer for Carlo Ancelotti, or just about anyone, on what this strange, strange football team is actually all about 1. Since 1995, when they won the FA Cup, Everton have spent almost £1 billion on players. Have they won any trophies? Surely they’ve won a trophy since then? No, they have not won […]

6 years ago

The new decade has only just begun and we’re already doomed so let’s take a moment to appreciate the endlessly surreal, hyper-British dining experience that is the Toby Carvery. You know, before it’s too late Walk into a Toby Carvery, any of the chain’s 158 locations dotted up and down the country like chickenpox – […]

6 years ago

Oh, what’s to be done with Arsenal Football Club? The ennui continues. Arsenal’s 3-0 defeat at the bloodied, throbbing hands of Kevin De Bruyne and Manchester City on Sunday was hardly surprising, but even the harshest critics of The Team Formerly Known as The Invincibles will have been taken aback by the manner in which […]

6 years ago

The festive period isn’t as carefree for everyone Mental health charity CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) has launched #YuleSlog, a Twitter campaign encouraging conversation around the particular mental health pressures of Christmas. Whether it’s your packed social calendar, financial pressures, loneliness or that simple, recurrent awkwardness of pretending to be surprised by the shower gel […]

6 years ago

6 years ago

The new Amazon Prime documentary Andy Murray: Resurfacing tells the story of how much one man needs tennis, and how much he doesn’t This is the paradox that exists at the core of Andy Murray, beneath the layers of grit and sediment and granite: tennis is my life and I love tennis but now tennis is […]

6 years ago

Tottenham appointed José Mourinho as their new manager just eleven hours after dismissing Mauricio Pochettino. *Jez from Peep Show voice* And that’s good, is it? What’s good about that? I, for one, am not convinced that replacing one of the most tactically astute and progressive managers in the game with whatever José Mourinho is now […]

6 years ago

A Glenn Whelan, commonly abbreviated to ‘Whelo’, is a rare endangered species of odd-toed ungulates in the family Centraldefensivemidfieldcloggae, which were once numerous across much of Great Britain and Ireland but have now, sadly, all but died out. Indeed, there is now only one known Glenn Whelan remaining in the wild. The last major confirmed […]

6 years ago

6 years ago

6 years ago

If it looks like a watershed moment, sounds like a watershed moment and feels like a watershed moment then… well. It usually is one All three boxes were ticked as Arsenal captain Granit Xhaka was substituted in the 60th minute during the Gunners’ 2-2 draw at home to Crystal Palace. The decision to replace the […]

6 years ago

6 years ago

Congratulations, you’ve made it through another week Despite all this political strife, despite protestors standing on the roof of the tube, despite the staff in Boots being unnecessarily abrupt with you when you pop in on your lunch break. (Yes I can and will hold a grudge, Carol.) You’ve done it. You’ve managed to reach […]

6 years ago

Have you ever been in a pub, and had wanted to leave the pub, but physically couldn’t? It’s not a common occurrence, sure. Wanting to leave the pub. It’s not something that happens all too often in this, the land of pubs, where the pub is a pillar of society, a staple of our entire […]

6 years ago

What did you do this weekend without the Barclays? What did any of us really do? Welcome to the melancholic void that is the international football break, where you find yourself desperately longing for the sweet release of a Burnley Southampton 17:30 kick-off. Or death. Here’s a rough (*extremely accurate) diary of everything that goes through […]

6 years ago

Rich Cooper’s pub quizzes have passed away. RIP u will live on forever. Cant believe it. I wanna run to u. Really cant believe this. @ So then. A new dawn for the JOE Friday Pub Quiz. Will it be better? Impossible to say. Will it be worse? Highly likely. I’m not going to beat […]

7 years ago

Not since last year’s Champions League semi-finals have we seen a more staggering turn of events There was a feverish kind of electricity in the air on the morning of Wednesday, October 9, 2019. It was hard to say exactly what it was, but we felt it ticking away in our neurones and synapses, humming […]

7 years ago

7 years ago

As the world groans in unison at the prospect of 12 (twelve!) full days without molten hot Barclays coursing through our veins like Irn Bru on a hangover, three, possibly four, managers go into the international break with a far more ominous cloud hanging over them In messieurs Solskjaer, Pochettino and Silva the Premier League […]

7 years ago

There they sit, the four dancing horsemen of the apocalypse or the Mount Rushmore of punditry, depending on your own personal preference, arranged around David Jones like he’s the doomsday button in an underground war room They, of course, are the panel deciding whether the earth lives or dies. Carragher, Souness, Mourinho and Keane. Four […]

7 years ago

Kevin De Bruyne has reminded everyone, once again, that he can pass a football like nobody else If you’re one of the few people in the world who doesn’t appreciate the neverending fantasy that is Kevin De Bruyne passing a football then I can’t help you. Just take a look at this. It’s complete mastery […]

7 years ago

It would be patronising to suggest that this will feel like a victory for Sheffield United. It would also just be a blatant lie This was a game in which Chris Wilder’s men went toe-to-toe with the reigning champions of Europe and will be bitterly disappointed that they weren’t the team to tear up the […]

7 years ago

Fifa 20 is out and now previously stable relationships are on the rocks up and down the country Another year, another instalment of the football video game everyone plays because Pro Evo went off the rails a bit after 2008. You know, the one with Cristiano Ronaldo and… er, Michael Owen on the cover. To […]

7 years ago

The Simpsons is obviously quite bad now But! That doesn’t mean you need to stop watching all the old episodes! Nor does it mean you can’t take this quiz. Which is definitely, definitely, definitely, definitely worth doing. If only to eat up five minutes of your pitiful existence on this (dying) orb floating through space […]

7 years ago

They call David Beckham’s free-kick against Greece the ‘goal that shook the world’. It pales in comparison to this Let me be perfectly clear from the off: I have no idea what is going on in the following near-four-minute-long clip from the Japanese anime series Captain Tsubasa, based on the manga comics of the same name. […]

7 years ago

Forget Manchester United, it’s time to talk about another Great British footballing institution You’d forgive Mark Noble for looking a bit leggy these days. After all, he is 32 years of age now and rapidly closing in on 500 career appearances. Well, maybe not rapidly, but at that single speed that Mark Noble seems to […]

7 years ago