Articles

When analysing modern-day defenders, we look ahead more these days, what do they bring to the table? How good are they with the ball? How do they aid their team in playing further up the pitch? Or do they need to “stop wearing gloves in order to give a frightening impression”, as per Zlatan Ibrahimovic?…

“We cannot replace him” remarked a tearful Pep Guardiola after Sergio Aguero’s final game, a 5 nil thrashing of Everton.   Since then Manchester City have pursued a £125 million deal for Harry Kane which famously fell through and are now many bookies favorites to sign Erling Haaland in the summer.   It’s highly unlikely…

It’s unusual for a player to make an immediate jump from the National League to the Championship, but that’s exactly what Huddersfield Town’s Sorba Thomas did at the start of last year when he joined from Boreham Wood.   Yet whilst the signing was understandably met with little fanfare, the 23-year-old has proven to be…

Since the professionalization of football, the players that are linked to the most dominant part of the field have carved out a niche for themselves in the importance and transcendence of their team: the midfielders.   It was not until 1880 when the inverted pyramid (2-3-5) was born at the University of Cambridge, the first…

As happens across the world, supply chains are determined by natural resources. And football, for as much as we may desire it to be anomalous from the forces that contour the outside world, follows the same pattern.   Hence why an army of scouts descend on the less-heralded pitches of South America and increasingly Africa…