What Price Success?
Having only made his move to Wigan official at the start of the week, Roberto Martinez has moved quickly to clinch the signing of Jordi Gomez, undoubtedly the star player of Martinez’s 2008/09 Swansea side.
It will be interesting to see how Gomez fares at top-flight level. While I witnessed a quiet performance from the winger during the Swans’ 4-0 drubbing at Reading last September, his touch, grace and …
No Poshovers
The fixtures for the 2009/10 season were, of course, released earlier this week and while most of us probably scanned the list for our respective club’s games against Newcastle, I was keeping an eye out for Peterborough. For reasons that I can’t quite make sense of, the Posh have captured my imagination for a good deal of time and I’ve often made a point of keeping an eye out for …
Another Iberian by the Mumbles?
Paulo Sousa as a player was a true European superstar of the nineties and a pivotal member of Portugal’s dazzling World Youth Championship win in 1991; although as a group, they were surpassed in achievement at full international level by the Scolari line ups of the following decade. It was at club level that the unhurried and dynamic midfielder gained most success, with back to back European Cup wins in …
The Unfortunates of the Second Tier
BS Johnson’s The Unfortunates features a football reporter visiting the City Ground in Nottingham. The title of the book could almost be reinterpreted as a comment on the way Championship sides like Forest are viewed by the media at large: forgotten giants destined to last out their days in the Purgatory of sub-Premier League football.
But there is another side to the story: in truth, the Championship is perhaps Europe’s …