Outside the Box – Football on TV: Di Canio attempts to form his first impression while West Ham’s Brady dispels hers

Fascist, egotistical, divisive, authoritarian, plain bonkers; these words are ringing around all our ears right now thanks to a recent media storm it’s been impossible to escape from. No, not the death of a former Prime Minister yesterday, although I can see why you’d think that. Instead it i...

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Outside the Box – Football on TV: Sunderland swap experience for explosive as all eyes focus on Wearside

On the day the new bombastic series of Doctor Who crash landed on to the screens of the BBC, there was the cataclysmic beginnings of a regeneration of a different kind in the otherworldly realms of the North East. That’s right, Martin O’Neill, football’s very own wide-eyed madcap enigma was u...

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Premier League preview (part two)

With only a matter of hours until kick off, we’d better get on with it. So here is the second part of my Premier League preview. Manchester City Key signing: Sergio Aguero The noisy neighbours are fast becoming neighbours from hell for Sir Alex Ferguson. Do not be fooled by the red herring of the...

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Premier League preview (part one)

Not too long now. After whetting our appetites with the intriguing opening weekend of the Championship and the entertaining Community Shield, the time has come for the big boys to leave their Twitter accounts alone and get back to work. At the time of writing there has been an incredible £280 millio...

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Prem Relegation Battle: Could history repeat?

Not since the 2001/02 season have all three promoted sides from the Championship – or indeed the old First Division - survived the following year playing with the big-boys. So, nearly a decade-on could history repeat? Newcastle have adapted the better out of the trio and don’t look out of place in ...

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Fixtures Favour Stoke City's Premier League Survival

According to most of the bookies the three promoted teams from last season are now the deemed to be the favourites to face the drop back into the Championship at the end of the current campaign. It’s certainly not difficult to see why they have arrived at this conclusion. Although their remaining ...

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Blackburn Rovers: Who will replace Ince at Ewood Park?

Paul Ince was regarded as one of the game's best young managers but after just 17 games in charge at Blackburn Rovers the former Manchester United, Liverpool and England ace has been axed. Saturday's 3-0 defeat at Wigan was the club's 11th game without a win and left them just one point off the bott...

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Tottenham or Newcastle: Who would you prefer to go down?

Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United are two of the biggest clubs in the Premiership. However, they currently find themselves in serious trouble at the foot of the table and are in grave danger of becoming the biggest relegation casualties in recent years. Now I know they've only played seven game...

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5058 Premier League– bottom half ge

by : Olly Wright With the current international break and England’s unexpected lifeline, attention has been turned away from the Premier League for a couple of weeks. Club managers often say that they do not like the discontinuity that the extended period of inactivity causes, but this time there...

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2509: Relegation: When the bones lan

by : Antony Melvin “Of course it's down to money, if the Old Firm had any serious aims to stay then they would not have blocked moves to change the circumstances of the structure of Scottish football, be it in the monetary sense or the league structures. They laid the table, now they have to stay a...

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2006: Relegation: A prediction for t

by : Stephen Orford Miraculously, and for the first time in Premiership history no team is certain to be relegated as we enter the final round of Premiership fixtures. Three from four will make the dreaded drop to the Coca Cola Championship for next season, with Norwich City, Crystal Palace, West B...

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1966: Premiership: Only an idiot wou

by : Chris Sherrard It’s a dangerous game, making predictions. I know only too well how easy it can be to be made to look stupid by sticking your neck on the line. The easy path to take is always sit on a nice, cosy fence and watch everyone else fall off. But that wouldn’t be much fun now would it?...

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1928: Premiership: Best relegation b

by : Simon Cole “The team that’s bottom at Christmas always gets relegated.” The myth that’s actually a proven statistic? Maybe not for long. When Bryan Robson took over a West Bromwich Albion team rooted to the foot of the table, he publicly stated he believed his new side could survive. Deep dow...

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1853: Premiership: Huge games for th

by : Alex Kay Where England do look genuinely impressive and bursting with ability is up-front. Despite my earlier irony, Wayne Rooney really is something close to a footballing genius, even if his vocabulary could do with some work. Alongside him, Owen might not be Vanderlei Luxemburgo’s first cho...

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