Football

By Brian Sears  1 April 2016 Leicester’s next assignment en route to a possible extraordinary coronation as champions of England is at home to Southampton on Sunday. It often seems as if flagging up a particular stat jinxes it*, but the Foxes have played 39 different opponents during their Premier League years and they have won more points […]

By Nick Harris                                            26 March 2016 Goodbye to The Independent as a newspaper, published on paper for the final time on Saturday. It’s been inevitable for some time. It won’t be the last paper […]

By Brian Sears  18 March 2016 St James’ Park hosts a north-east derby of particular significance this weekend as the outcome will swing the relegation scrap. Newcastle and Sunderland are both in the bottom four, respectively nine and eight points adrift of Swansea heading into the weekend. If Rafa Benitez can guide his charges to victory then they and […]

By Brian Sears  11 March 2016 The Premier League is in its 24th season since the 1992-93 breakaway in English football. Forty-seven different clubs have played in it since then. That’s more than half of the 92 clubs in the four professional divisions. It’s become a majority experience. Mobility continues to be a feature of England’s […]

By Tim Walters 7 March 2016 The recent election of Gianni Infantino and adoption of a package of minor reforms has done little to reassure those who closely follow FIFA that football’s international governing body is about to fundamentally change its ways. Indeed, much about Infantino himself gives ample cause for concern that this is […]

Screen Break By Martin Kelner 7 March 2016 I used to live between Chepstow and Monmouth on the B4293 (I didn’t actually live on the road, I had a small house). The point is the road was unlit, so when I was out in the car at night I frequently encountered rabbits caught in the headlights, […]

By Brian Sears  4 March 2016 For the last 20 completed seasons the Premier League has had 20 teams and been played over 38 rounds. The eventual champions in all 20 of those seasons have been the club with the most points or second-most points from the first 28 games. The table below gives full details by […]

By Alex Stewart 29 February 2016 TRANSFER deadline day this year was its usual mixture of hype, desperation and the occasional genuinely interesting deal. And of course, for me, abuse. For the last three deadline days I have been part of the BBC’s live blogging effort, offering a Football Manager perspective on the day’s comings […]

By James Montague 24 February 2016 They were a penalty kick away from one of the greatest fairytales in sport. Bahrain, a tiny island kingdom in the Persian Gulf, had made it through to the inter-continental play-off, against New Zealand, for a spot at the 2010 World Cup finals. Despite their size – qualification would […]

Part of Sportingintelligence’s guide to the 2016 FIFA presidential election: HOME PAGE here . By Bonita Mersiades                   ANALYSIS 22 February 2016 In all the brouhaha surrounding the campaign for the FIFA Presidency, there has been little attention to the reforms that the FIFA Congress will be asked […]