By Brian Sears  29 April 2016 Leicester need three points from their remaining three games, at most, to be crowned Premier League champions. That is astonishing enough given they were 5,000-1 outsiders last August. But the manner in which they have put themselves in this position is also jaw-dropping. Even with three games to play they have […]

By Tim Rich 29 April 2016 Slaven Bilic will go on to manage “one of the great clubs in world football” after completing his work at the stepping stone of West Ham, according to his compatriot and friend Darijo Srna. Srna, 33, is the captain of Shakhtar Donetsk and has known Bilic – who is […]

By Tim Rich in Kiev 27 April 2016 “I remember my last day in Donetsk,” says Darijo Srna, the captain of Shakhtar, a football club in exile. “It was 16 May 2014. We were told we had to leave quickly. I didn’t take anything from my home. We just took the two cars. My shirts […]

By Brian Sears  15 April 2016 Barring victory for Aston Villa this weekend combined with defeat for Norwich, then Villa’s relegation to the Championship will be confirmed as mathematical fact on Saturday. The seven ‘ever present’ clubs of the Premier League era will be six and we dealt with Villa’s demise here. You don’t need to go […]

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, […]