Football

By Brian Sears 31 October 2014 The Manchester derby on Sunday reminds us how the pendulum has swung to the blue side of the city in recent years, and the graphic below charts the dramatic change over time. Manchester City have only been in the same division as United for 17 of the past 22 […]

By Brian Sears 24 October 2014 The two Premier League clubs with the most draws so far this season meet this weekend when Sunderland (five draws in eight league matches) host Arsenal (ditto). Ten places separate those two clubs, with Arsenal in seventh and Sunderland in 17th before the weekend’s action starts. And three points […]

By Brian Sears 16 October 2014 When the Premier League resumes on Saturday after the international break it will do so at the Etihad Stadium as Manchester City hope to close the gap on leaders Chelsea. City will play in the only fixture of the weekend where two current top-10 sides meet each other, against […]

By Sportingintelligence 15 October 2014 Spanish giants Barcelona are among the sporting organisations contributing to a charity auction in aid of the late, great Bobby Robson, a former manager of the Catalan club as well as a former manager of the England football team. As Barca have detailed on their own website, the club have […]

By Brian Sears 3 October 2014 Arsenal’s away record against other ‘top’ Premier League teams has become a source of major concern in recent seasons. For the purposes of this article, ‘top’ is defined as any club that has finished in the top five in any given season. And the Gunners really have been woeful […]

By Brian Sears 26 September 2014 The Premier League season is already 50 games old (of 380), or 13.2 per cent the way through. Early days, yes, but one statistic that already looks odd is the amount of away wins so far, 18 of them against only 14 so far at home. Eighteen games have […]

By Brian Sears 19 September 2014 Chelsea’s four wins from four Premier League games so far give them the only 100 per cent record this season. In winning their first four games, they become only the 16th team in 23 PL seasons to do so. On four of the 15 previous occasions, it has been […]

. Match-fixing at the highest level in Turkish football has eroded all trust in the Turkish domestic game. As a report on this website detailed in March (click here to read), Fenerbahçe and others have been proved to be involved in the systematic fixing of games, with those involved including club presidents, senior officials, coaches and […]

By Brian Sears 12 September 2014 It may all change when Louis Van Gaal finally unleashes his new-look starting XI against QPR at Old Trafford on Sunday but his starting XIs so far in this nascent Premier League season have been among the youngest in the division and among those with the most English players […]

* By Ian Herbert 5 September 2014 Why didn’t Manchester City buy Radamel Falcao? It’s one of the unexplained mysteries of the transfer market. They admire him. They would have leapt at the chance of buying him last summer. And now they go into the season with only three strikers, after letting Alvaro Negredo leave […]