Jack Holmes revisits the January transfer and looks at two teams who got their recruitment spot on, and two who failed to deliver.
Manchester United
Love to Hate: The Bloody Red Rivalry of Liverpool and Manchester United
Catherine Lloyd picks apart the fierce rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester United.
#6th Place – Where Do Manchester United Go From Here?
After finishing 2018-19 with a 6th place league finish and defeat at home to Cardiff on the final day of the season, Manchester United are seemingly floundering once again – despite the Solskjaer’s medium-lived honeymoon phase. Sport writer Rhodri Evans takes a diagnostic look at the club.
Monthly Misery: perfect recipe for raging reds
‘It’s getting tickly now – squeaky-bum time, I call it.’ It was 2003 when Sir Alex Ferguson unloaded this gem of a phrase onto the footballing world. Taken to by giggly commentators and pundits ever since, squeaky-bum time has found its neat little perch in the bookshelf of football jargon, picked out whenever big games […]
Sport Editorial: North Korean olive branch?
A barbed, stinging, and ultimately entertaining war of words ensued between Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte over the Christmas period. Mourinho, a predictable culprit, teased Antonio Conte in responding to his “clown” jibe – the Manchester United manager later arguing with a Machiavellian sincerity that it was not aimed at the Italian. Conte, up until […]
3-4-3 in the Premier League: how it has usurped orthodox formation
A rsenal’s 3-0 defeat of Chelsea back in September last year turned out to be one of the most significant matches of the season. Not only did it cause Antonio Conte to revert back to a 3-4-3 system similar to that he employed at Juventus, but the following success of this formation set a precedent […]
Legends not Myths: Paul Scholes
Following their recent retirements, fans and the media alike spent hours discussing who was better – Frank Lampard or Steven Gerrard? As this familiar debate continued to take place, the greatest English midfielder of his generation was – as he had often been during his international career – pushed to one side and ignored. Paul […]
Ben Assirati’s team-by-team Premier League season review
As we come to the end of a historic league season, it is worth taking a look back at each individual team to rate their season as a whole, complete with the ups and downs. These are my personal ratings, sorry if you disagree! Leicester – 10 – The fairytale champions, and their success was not […]
Louis Van Gaal: Dutch master or cheap imitation?
Let’s face it: it’s easy to take shots at Louis Van Gaal. The man came into Manchester United with the promise of correcting Moyes’s mistakes, but he’s amassed less points this season than the oft-berated Moyes did in his year’s tenure. The Dutchman was only able to guide a club with a long history of […]
Was Van Gaal the right choice at United?
David Moyes’ managerial train wreck at Old Trafford culminated in at least one universal agreement; there will never be another Alex Ferguson. In fact, his attempt to emulate the legacy of his predecessor provided eery similarities to his Spanish press conferences. Cringe-worthy, lacking in conviction and overwhelmingly painful to watch. The focus behind the scenes at Manchester United had ultimately […]