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  • Premier League Predictions: Matchday Six

    The return of the Premier League from the international break elicited several talking points ranging from VAR, season ending injuries and great comebacks. Can Matchday Six live up to last week’s drama?  Aston Villa vs Leeds United PETER POWELL | Credit: POOL/AFP via Getty Images After barely escaping relegation on the last day of last season, few would…

  • Tactical Analysis: Mikel Arteta’s Promising Start to Life at Arsenal

    It’s often considered difficult to consider how a new manager will do at a club, particularly in the case of Mikel Arteta. A coach at Manchester City, the most successful English club of the decade and record breaking point holders, under the tutelage of one of the best managers ever, Pep Guardiola, but Mikel himself…

  • Salomón Rondón – Underestimated at 29, Dominating at 30

    Following an eventful, and in most eyes successful, 2018-19 season with Newcastle, Salomón Rondón entered the summer of 2019 as a player most assumed was set for a long-term return to the Premier League. The Venezuelan may have had up and down years with West Brom in prior years, but under Rafa Benitez he’d found…

  • The Genie or the Lamp?

    Be careful what you wish for at Chelsea. Wishes come true here, but dreams are harder. Storm-clouds of uncertainty circle Stamford Bridge in an almost witch’s familiar- a spell cast upon Chelsea by Roman Abramovich when Chelsea managers are involved. The Genie of Stamford Bridge, who in 2003 granted Chelsea every wish they dreamt of.…

  • Paul Pogba and Mesut Özil: Victims of a Weak Link Sport

    Paul Pogba and Mesut Özil are often held accountable for the struggles of their teams, and it showcases the difficulties we have evaluating individuals in team sports. I’ve been thinking about the situation of Paul Pogba quite a bit recently. He’s been bearing the brunt of criticism in recent weeks for Manchester United’s mediocre results…

  • Roman’s Twelve

    “It always seems impossible until it is done.”
 – Nelson Mandela
 Every blockbuster Hollywood heist film has that gloss of a thrilling, pulsating, nerve vibrating journey from action to resolution in the space of a couple hours.
 Its flow is so simple too; an old genius concocting a master plan to rob a bank of…

  • ‘World Enough And Time’: Maurizio Sarri Joins Chelsea

    Andrew Marvell opened in ‘To His Coy Mistress’: “Had we but world enough and time, 
This coyness, Lady were no crime 
We would sit down and think about which way 
To walk and pass our long love’s day.”
 Chelsea now have a new mistress in Maurizio Sarri, and sadly- although it’s going to be kisses…

  • Scouting World Cup Stars: Miguel Trauco

    While most Peruvian footballers on the national team are born in Lima and Callao, there are a few exceptions. Anderson Santamaría, the central defender born in Tingo María, Huánuco, is one of them. Luis Advíncula was born in Chincha, down in the southwest coast of Peru, but one of the stars of the team was…

  • Belgium’s Golden Generation?

    After Takashi Inui, the Real Betis man, scored and increased the deficit to two goals for Belgium early in the second half, the camera panned to the Red Devils’ manager, Roberto Martinez. Martinez looked unruffled as he was ruminating his next move. Subsequently, he made a double substitution, a move that seldom a manager will…

  • El Fútbol, un proceso no lineal

    El fútbol es un proceso no lineal, posiblemente la derrota de Colombia frente a Japón fue parte de ese proceso, en la vasta soledad de la derrota algunos conciben los errores para confeccionar una nueva Intención Previa, por ejemplo. Ya con nuevos jugadores en el campo, que interactúan de diferente de forma, José Néstor Pékerman…