‘Failure is not an option’ is one of those quotes that I imagine sports psychologists like to use. It has probably been put up in dressing rooms over recent years by so called ‘forward thinking’ coaches. Increasingly though it could well describe the world we live in when it comes football and a few other […]

11 years ago

In this week of Champions League joy for some and crushing disappointment for others, of Gary Neville taking charge of Valencia for the first time, and of Garry Monk losing his job at Swansea, I’d like to talk Burton, Newport and Carlisle. Not everything should be about the Premier League and the Champions League. Let’s […]

11 years ago

The coaching of youngsters is a subject that we in the media constantly discuss and debate. This is partly because there are quite a lot of middle aged journalists around who are seeing their own children go through the system at the moment, but also because we are craving success and willing a golden generation […]

11 years ago

I seem to have spent a lot of the past week discussing gegenpressing/closing down/ defending from the front – delete as applicable depending on what era you grew up in or how long your hipster beard is. In the rush to heap praise, quite rightly, on both Liverpool and Spurs after their weekend wins, one […]

11 years ago

For the last eight years or so one of my jobs has been to ‘host’ the one day international cricket around the country. That’s quite a grand way of saying ‘I tit about on the outfield and they film it and put it on the big screen.’ When you consider that I usually have to […]

11 years ago

So we know Manchester United might not be particularly thrilling at the moment. There’s an argument to say that the gung-ho football associated with the dominant sides of the nineties has been missing for quite a while. Even Sir Alex Ferguson’s final title winning side was lit up by individual moments of brilliance from Robin […]

11 years ago

When I first spoke to JOE.co.uk about writing a column, they did tell me that I could write about anything to do with sport, it didn’t always have to be about football. Football is so dominant and omnipresent that most weeks it is impossible to ignore. However, this week, we are going elsewhere and I […]

11 years ago

Very few things are certain in sport but over recent months, I can guarantee that when Olivier Giroud starts up front for Arsenal there will be fans calling up a phone-in post-match to say Theo Walcott should be up front instead. Equally when Theo Walcott starts up front there will be fans calling up saying […]

11 years ago

The sad news of Howard Kendall’s death broke on Saturday morning and since then the media has quite rightly been full of articles and interviews on Everton’s greatest ever manager. For those of a certain age, we have been able to reminisce about one of the best football teams ever assembled. Such is the nature […]

11 years ago

The England players were grateful for the support of the fans in the City of Manchester Stadium on Saturday night. There were plenty of platitudes being dished out in post-match interviews, even some surprise that despite a desperate Rugby Union World Cup campaign, the sporting public had still come out in force to watch the […]

11 years ago

Premier League managers these days are giving the impression of always being in transit. “It has changed over the last couple of years,” an official at a Premier League club told me recently. “A lot of them feel like they are just passing through.” This might explain why lots of managers, not just the departed Brendan Rodgers, […]

11 years ago

Over the past couple of months we have had several buzz words or phrases to discuss in sport. Or, if you prefer, a bandwagon for us all to jump on. We’ve had ‘philosophy’, we’ve had teams looking to play a ‘positive brand’ of their chosen sport, we’ve had ‘momentum’ (although a bandwagon with momentum should […]

11 years ago

Everything was in place and ready to go. The patterned sheet had been placed in the centre circle. The kids had practised lifting it up and waving it in the air to the strains of Handel. The players were out and warming up, and in half an hour’s time the Champions League group stages would […]

11 years ago

Not long before Anthony Martial ran on to the Old Trafford pitch, skinned Martin Skrtel and spent the rest of the weekend being hyped up as the new Thierry Henry, he was gliding past another Liverpool centre half on the touchline. Rather than leave Mamadou Sakho on his backside as well, the very, very expensive […]

11 years ago

In the last minute of the 1968 Challenge Cup Final, Don Fox stepped up to take a kick in front of the posts to win the Cup for Wakefield against Leeds. He missed and sank on to the sodden turf as the final whistle blew. Eddie Waring up on the Wembley gantry, in a naturalistic […]

11 years ago

The text arrives from the editor: ‘Any chance you could explain what is happening at Manchester United this week?’ he asks. He might as well have said ‘any chance you could explain how to split the atom?’ It is impossible to explain the goings-on at Old Trafford. Nobody really knows how it is all working, […]

11 years ago

Once you accept that most days you are going to be called a bellend and maybe every other day you are going to be accused of ‘lazy journalism’, you can get on with enjoying social media and the debate and discussion found within it. Hence just a few nights ago in a Twitter conversation with […]

11 years ago

At 3.26 on the opening Saturday of the season, a Sunderland supporting friend of mine tweeted ‘Can the season end now?’. They had just conceded a third at Leicester and his mood was not improved by my reply that if the season were to end when he wanted, his side would be relegated. That mood […]

11 years ago

“Can they get to the next level?” “Can this player take them to the next level?” “Are they ready to move to the next level or have they reached their limit?” I have asked those questions a lot over the weekend which, as well as demonstrating a lack of originality on my part, also shows […]

11 years ago