One week remains of the English Premier Division season with enough games played and bits and bobs sorted to now announce my ‘team of the campaign’. No, it’s not Manchester City, dominant champions for the third successive year, but an amalgamation of all things great from the best of the EPL over the last ten […]

So my lack of writing on here in recent months has coincided with a new scouting role (you can now keep tabs on my moans and groans more frequently at theheadscout.com) which has meant travelling up and down the country to some of football’s lesser known venues, as well as a few old favourites which […]

A couple of days before the start of the World Cup in Qatar, I read the outcry from some of the news outlets and ‘mostly’ Twitter, including that of pundits and journalists, ex-players and z list celebs, forced by their bosses and spurred by their huge salaries, to be on the plane to Doha, a […]

Whatever you think about this year’s FIFA men’s World Cup in Qatar? There’s now just little more than a month to go until England jet off to the middle east and set target on bringing home the little gold trophy, for the first time since 1966. Personally, I can’t get excited by it… I wouldn’t […]

There’s a fabulous documentary on Amazon Prime at the minute, a couple of years old, which has some incredible unseen fly-on-the-wall footage of Argentina legend Diego Armando Maradona, arguably the greatest footballer who ever lived, during his time at Napoli, and it’s certainly shed a light to me, looking back, not just at how inspiring […]

I was privileged to be at Anfield at the weekend to see two of the best Coaches in the game go head to head, in Manchester City’s Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp of Liverpool, the Premier League has two incredible stand out characters that can deservedly claim to be the world’s best in their position, […]

When asked about a bi-annual World Cup, Paul Merson of all those spoke with most reason for me, saying simply enough, “you can remember the winners of the 1986 World Cup, but you will struggle harder to remember the winners of the 1986 European Cup” a competition diluted in quality and distinction over the years […]

From getting off the train to going home from the game, the final of Euro 2020 might not always be remembered fondly, or for the right reasons, but as days go, the excitement, the anticipation, the atmosphere, the joy of Shaw’s early goal before the disappointment of Saka’s penalty miss, it will go down memorably […]

It wasn’t meant to be for us with red and white painted faces… But UEFA 2020 or 2021, was a huge success from its year long delayed start from the moment it wonderfully echoed the sounds of Pavarotti and Nessun Dorma (from the Giacomo Puccini opera Turandot of course), played to spine tingling effect by […]

I remember my first like yesterday, the 1987 Littlewoods League Cup Final as a Champagne Charlie Nicholas double helped overcome the mighty Liverpool and an early Ian Rush goal in front of 96,000 at Wembley. Arsenal included such names as Steve Williams, Martin Hayes and the late great David Rocastle. Liverpool with Barry Venison, Nigel […]

72 hours of chaos after an announcement on Sunday afternoon that rocked the game into disrepute and football by Tuesday night is back as ‘the peoples game’ again, much loved, all those involved doing the wright thing, in the words of an Arsenal goalscoring legend in his catchy mid-nineties one hit wonder. I was asked […]

To those at UEFA, there is a way where we can give the big teams what they want, but integrate promotion and relegation so that it is not a closed shop. UEFA need to drive a 16 team Super League, two groups of eight with the top four in each reaching a single leg quarter […]

Imagine it’s 2051 and City of Manchesters United play Liverpool Red Toffees in the first North West derby in ten years after the two franchises have been separated, kept-apart in the European Super League group stages and not fortunate enough to reach a final of a competition long dominated by Real Spain and Barcelona Catalans. […]

You might notice I’ve been quiet on here in recent months. Not really having my say on much that goes off, simply because I can’t be bothered. Football since March 2020 has not been the same, but we all still expect the same results, despite professional players playing more now in a shorter space of […]

Last night was certainly a dark night for English football… But not because England were beaten by Denmark at our famous old stadium for only the second ever time, but because nobody was there, nobody really cared, many people perhaps didn’t even know the match was being played. I’m used to my midweek social feeds […]

Dark times right now for people in Britain facing another six months of misery, poverty, uncertainty, virus and death… And whilst the Premier League kicks on and continues regardless due to the huge financial incentives made through global TV the other less fortunate echelons of English football are set to suffer even more than before. […]

So the new season is almost upon us. I’m not so sure if I’m even that excited by it all. Fake fans will no doubt scream through our TV sets of kneeling down players whilst subs and coaches wear masks a million miles apart seated separately spaced out in otherwise empty stands. Martin Tyler telling […]

As the worlds greatest footballer trudged down the tunnel of an empty stadium in Lisbon following the most devastating and humiliating defeat in Barcelona’s Champions League history against Bayern Munich, Lionel Messi must have thought to himself ‘this is it’. Having last won the competition in 2015, Barcelona have slowly fell to worse and worse […]

Great teams and great players are great for one very great reason… They know how to win. For Bayern Munich they have been serial winners not just domestically, but in Europe too, especially since the days of Franz Beckenbauer and Gerd Muller. PSG in many ways are the new kids on the block, dominant in […]

In defence of any team that played in Europe last week, it is impossible to suggest that each could be at full strength, in full pelt and at their best because football, just hasn’t been football since March 2020. Atletico Madrid for example last played on 19th July in La Liga before playing their single […]