My fellow blogger Ben conjured up the unforgettable phrase lantern-jawed bludgeoners to describe Preston front duo Neil Mellor and Jon Parkin recently. Like Falstaff, the immortal character from Henry IV, Parkin gets about the pitch “for a big lad”, although one suspects Ferguson fils may be looking for more mobility after working with comparative whippets at Posh. If family traits follow, then one would expect young Darren to be absent from Big Jon’s death bed scene as was Prince Hal.
All posts tagged Preston
Window of opportunity or pane in the ass? Part 1
To adapt an old joke, when is a transfer window not a transfer window? When it’s ajar.The significance of yesterday’s 5pm deadline for incoming transfers pales when you realise that at all levels the majority of the deals struck were loans and note that, after a week’s hiatus, such deals can continue to be made by Championship clubs until 23rd March.Nevertheless, here’s a quick survey of January’s winners in the second tier.NewcastleWell, this is novel: satisfaction at my club’s mid-season dealings. In recent years we’ve become depressingly accustomed to a chronic failure to address deficiencies and plug holes, but for…
Transient Reputations
If the Championship could for one minute merely be likened to the surface of the world, as opposed to the entirety of the cosmos as Lloyd and I tend to view it, the rupture to its tectonic plates brought about by the crude sackings of Darren Ferguson and Alan Irvine has now been uneasily righted by their re-emergence at Preston and Sheffield Wednesday. Each had engineered a mini-renaissance at their previous clubs and for both Lilywhites and Posh, 2009 will be seen as a folkloric year.Granted, Preston’s tame surrender in the play offs doesn’t compete with unbeaten league and cup…
Debt, Debt, Debt
I wonder what sort of odds you could get on at least one Championship club entering administration before the end of the season? Grim though it may be to speculate, you’d be pretty confident of a return if the current headlines are anything to go by. Only Southampton succumbed last time around, but a cloud of fiscal angst lingers threateningly over a few of our number at the minute. Palace and Watford have both been in the news in the past week, and each club’s fans will be hoping that their cheerless defeats against Doncaster and Newcastle last weekend are…
Television review: Football Focus
Football FocusWednesdays, 7.30pm (Indian time), ESPN StarPresented by John DykesNothing to do with Lawro or Dicko, Football Focus is the moniker adopted by ESPN for their weekly magazine show, a broadcast that is aired throughout the Asian continent. Based in Singapore, the programme chiefly provides a showcase for the channel’s exhaustive coverage of the Premier League (which they call the “EPL”), so mentions for the Championship can be at a premium. However, this week, the panel did discuss one key issue affecting our league, so I thought an appraisal of how the game is presented in Asia would be informative.The…
P Squires: Interesting read, but '...which by train is comfortably further from L...
Lloyd: An enjoyable, snappy piece of writing Will.
Going through Worcester...
Frank Heaven: LR - yes, that's right, with Albion and Wolves being in Staffordshire....
Lanterne Rouge: Great piece Will. Of course country boundary changes do tend to confus...
Eoghan Darbyshire: Quality player, could see he was head and shoulders above the rest of...
