By Tony Attwood As I have said many times, football in England doesn’t do leadership. Nor, perhaps coincidentally, does football in Scotland. England’s Premier League clubs are about to have a day of discussion about what happens next and certainly, at this moment it is not clear where this is going to go. The reason, …
by Tony Attwood An opinion poll by Opinium shows that 60% of the UK population disapprove of the way the government has handled testing for Covid-19. The survey also shows that more people think the UK has done worse in handling the pandemic than France, Spain, Italy, Japan, Sweden, China, Australia, South Korea and Germany. …
By Sir Hardly Anyone There is no football, the clubs are arguing about how it can be brought back, many players are worried about the arrangement, TV stations are putting the pressure on, the ghost game concept has been questioned in terms of crowds gathering… Meanwhile away from football crowds have been gathering for picnics …
by Tony Attwood In the post earlier today (Restart is floundering as clubs, players, medics and league argue) I suggested that one factor that might cause a problem with the re-start of football is the incessant arguing that is combined by an element of bullying, as the various interested parties debate what to do about …
by Tony Attwood There could have been a swift and simple agreement early on through playing the remaining league games on neutral territory such as in Cyprus, but once that idea broke down, it has indeed been downhill all the way. After that the idea of playing on a set of neutral venues nominated around …
By Sir Hardly Anyone It has been many a long year since the broadcasters, blogs and newspapers had a big positive story about Arsenal, but today there is one. Which is why they have studiously ignored it. But I have to thank GoonerNews.com for pointing me to Football Talent Scout – on this occasion and …
By Tony Attwood Under UK law organisations that handle money have to have accounts, and those accounts have to be tied up once a year, and passed to Revenue and Customs, who, if they feel a bit uppity, can ask all sorts of questions. If everything is felt to be fine, then either tax is …
By Tony Attwood Last night an Arsenal event happened. Not one that you will read about from journalists with their endless tittle and tattle; it was far more important than that. Also not one with shouting about why Arsenal are not buying players, how they’ve got everything wrong financially, where the money has gone or …
by Sir Hardly Anyone. The German League is up and running again, and so is the Sprout which has the rights to show their games. The current deal says BT can show five games a week, but it seems likely that they will negotiate a change to that, as the ghost games come thick and …
It is not something that we read about very often but the issue of stress is one that is at the heart of playing football at a professional level. Just as actors, musicians, TV presenters and others may or may not feel nerves upon getting up on the stage or in front of the cameras, …
By Tony Attwood It was almost four years ago that I wrote on this blog that “we have just been told that Manchester City has launched an investigation into links between [the paedophile Barry] Bennell and the club. Meanwhile Crewe Alexandra’s most famous employee, ex-manager and director of football, Dario Gradi, denied any knowledge that …
v By Christophe Jost Football has a fundamental problem of leadership for one very simple reason: all of its “leaders” have vested interests, which are very clearly defined. And yet at the same time, each of the different entities that is trying to have a say in the future of football, knows that they are …
By Tony Attwood There are signs that football journalists, and indeed their employers, the newspapers, radio and TV stations, are getting edgy. In the last couple of days, for example, the Guardian has published an article headlined “Premier League critics should recognise football cannot wait forever” and then Gary Neville accused Premier League of “failing …
By Dr Billy “the Dog” McGraw, senior psychologist at the University Hospital of the North Circular Road. The notion that Arsenal need to be warned that there could be huge losses ahead is one of the more bizarre stories that has emerged from the British national press of late, but that is what the Daily …
By Tony Attwood There is an article in the Guardian which says “Whether football returns in June or September, or later even than that, it will be a long time before it is played in stadiums packed with crowds of tens of thousands, without players having to undertake complex social distancing measures. Normal isn’t coming …
By Christophe Jost So the Bundesliga and the DFL have presented a broad concept to restart, addressing health issues, security, training concepts, finances, etc. all set out in a 41 page document. My opinion, based on what I am reading, is that they have done a very thorough job looking at most aspects if not …
By Tony Attwood Now either you can think that this is another story that is being hidden from British football fans and others interested in corruption by the British media, or you may think that the British media take the view that British supporters are just not interested in fraud issues relating to Fifa. You …
by Sir Hardly Anyone Yes this is looking like becoming the all time record transfer window for Arsenal – in fact it is getting so back the media are going to rename it the transfer garage door. It can still slam shut after it is all over but without the danger of breaking glass. We …
By Tony Attwood One of the fundamental parts of the Premier League’s plan, rather oddly named ‘Project Restart’, (why does it need a name, and if it does, why not just “Resuming the fixture list”?) is that the matches would be played (or as the journalists now say in a desperate attempt to get their …
By Sir Hardly Anyone When the phrase such as “The mistakes made by Arsenal in the transfer market over the past decade-and-a-half are well documented” pops up on the internet we all know what will happen. Soon site after site after site will copy it and use it. And we know that because that is …
By Tony Attwood The football industry, which consists of the clubs, the players, the non-playing staff, and the businesses and industry that get an economic boost from it, want football back, because it’s their living, their way of life, and in many cases, it makes a profit. By and large the fans want it …
By Tony Attwood On 27 April we broke the story that Cyprus could be considered as a location for running the remainder of the Premer League season, as it is still not possible to play the rest of the season in England – and probably won’t be for a while. We’ve given a few more …
By Tony Attwood As you may have noticed in passing, on 30 April, in the morning, I wrote a piece under the headline The Fifa / PSG / Swiss corruption cases are major news in Europe. But not in the UK. Why? About seven hours later the Guardian covered what at first I took to …
by Sir Hardly Anyone There is no telling when football is going to start again (although talk today among the chattering journalists is not so much about this season being abandoned but whether next season is playable) but the “reportedly” gang are still at it. In our last run down we found 63 players who …
By Tony Attwood According to that pack of jokers known as Football London, “Analysis from the Arsenal Supporters Trust yesterday said that the club could face a loss of up to £144 million if games resume behind closed doors and that, for the first time in their history, they may have to use a £50million …
