Antonio Valencia is receiving a lot of praise for his forty-minute spell as an emergency right back against Chelsea on Wednesday night. The Ecuadorean was perhaps not the expected choice to fill in for the injured Rafael, with Park Ji-Sung’s famed energy levels and tenacity probably making him a more obvious candidate…

A London club has never won the Champions League but, when the English capital became the first European city to boast three sides in the group stage of the competition this season, the likelihood of its long wait to win the competition ending at last looked to be greater than…

The relationship between football and writing used to extend little beyond the occasional player autobiography – almost always not actually written by the player, but a sympathetic journalist instead – and the enthusiastic but…

Two cup ties, separated by ten days, sum up Everton’s season and, perhaps, the whole of David Moyes’ time in charge. After defeating the holders Chelsea on penalties at Stamford Bridge in their FA Cup fourth round replay, Everton then lost the following home tie against Reading by a…

There have been so many examples recently of footballers behaving badly that BBC 3’s Christmas schedule of sporting clip shows must already be sorted for material. From Ashley Cole opening fire in the Chelsea changing room, to a player in Colombia executing a banana shot with an owl, to a…

Leyton Orient’s hopes of playing at Wembley this season might have ended in pretty emphatic style at the Emirates on Wednesday night, but while Arsenal move on to a quarter-final meeting with Manchester United in a week’s time there might yet be a way for the Os to reach Old…

It’s ten years since Sunderland last finished in the top ten of the Premier League but, even though they have lost their last four games, this season the Wearsiders look to be on course to end that decade-long spell away from the upper half of the table.…

Plenty of Sir Alex Ferguson’s former players have gone into management but of all his former charges the one who has arguably received the least credit for what he has achieved in the dugout is Alex McLeish. After taking Motherwell to second place in the Scottish Premier League in his…

The League Cup celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this year, and the competition has certainly had an eventful history since it was first played in the 1960/61 season. The cup was devised with a midweek format specifically in mind because evening kick-offs allowed the growing number of Football League clubs with…

He’s the bellyflopping, club-hopping centre forward who Newcastle have signed to fill in for the departed Andy Carroll and the injured Shola Ameobi. And at 6ft 2in and 14 stone, Shefki Kuqi will certainly allow Alan Pardew to call upon a physical presence up front again. The former Finland…