… Oh, Xavi. What a player he is, even now, aged 34 and with 250,000 miles on that refined dashboard clock. In fact there was something agreeably warm and nostalgic about seeing that familiar keep-ball trinity, Xavi, Andrés Iniesta and Lionel Messi once again in action against an English team. Although, with this in mind, […]
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Ferguson the Universal Constant – A Barca Fan’s Perspective
It was the first time I was to watch a complete Barcelona game. A live Barcelona game. I couldn’t sit still – the excitement more energizing than any sugar rush. As a nine-year old, I was still some way from truly grasping the intricacies of football; from truly enjoying the art that permeates through the […]
Arsenal and Manchester City: the key Champions League lessons
Forget all the nonsense being written across the tabloids…. This by Michael Cox is what clubs and their fans should be concentrating on. Playing a more ‘English’ style can cause problems … Bayern are a more powerful side than Barcelona, but they had no answer to Arsenal’s extremely forceful start at the Emirates, seemingly unable to deal with […]
Arsenal 0 Bayern 2 (Arse2mouse)
When you come up against a bully, they best thing you can do is give him a swift punch in the nose.* Tonight, Arsenal faced the biggest bully in Europe and gave him a proper jab to the proboscis. But this German bully recovered, with a little help from the referee, and proceeded to give […]
Özil is Arsenal’s luxury item struggling with everyday use
…Everyone had a view on Özil’s Champions League performance in the 2-0 last-16 first-leg defeat on Wednesday, and how it had slumped from the high point of the sublime trick that won the penalty in the eighth minute from the Bayern defender Jérôme Boateng. After the miss, Özil stumbled in a daze for a period that Arsène Wenger put […]
The Fan and the Footballing Spectacle
Stoppage time: where you’ll find frank assessments and comments of footballing states-of-affairs and philosophies. Find yourself tired of listening to football pundits saying the same thing over and over again? We take a different stance, talk about issues that may just be beneath the surface. Yeah, saying exactly the same things, but in different words. Visit […]
Dortmund 0 Arsenal 1
Tactical Analysis Jürgen Klopp was keen to highlight the difference in style between Dortmund and Arsenal when interviewed by English journalists earlier this week. “[Arsène Wenger] likes having the ball, playing football, passes … it’s like an orchestra,” the Dortmund manager said. “But it’s a silent song, yeah? I like heavy metal.” With that analysis in mind, this […]
Tactics: David Moyes is making mark at Manchester United
The most obvious feature of David Moyes’s coaching philosophy is his emphasis upon width – asking his central midfielders to spread the play, and encouraging the full-backs forward to create overloads with the wide midfielders. This was an unspectacular performance from Manchester United but suggested Moyes’s players are becoming familiar with their duties. At Everton, Moyes created the […]
Wenger – How I plan European away games
As Arsenal prepare to jet off to Germany for the crucial Group F fixture against Borussia Dortmund, Arsène Wenger has given us an insight into how he structures a Champions League away trip. The Gunners have travelled to various parts of Europe for Champions League matches in each of the past 16 seasons, and the […]
Nations League?
Uefa explores internationals shake-up with Nations League plan From ESPN…The plans, revealed in Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet, remain vague but there is a “concrete proposal” to introduce the concept, which may see teams separated into divisions based on their seeding and then competing for promotion and relegation. The season would, theoretically, be played out over ten matchdays […]
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