Hamish Mackay @hamish-mackay ?

The plight of Bill Kenwright, Robert Earl and Jon Woods is representative of many English owners. They bought in to Everton at a time when their wealth was, proportionate to the other owners, relatively impressive. Both Woods and Kenwright were born in Liverpool and grew up supporting Everton. And, like many English owners, their financial [...]

The second tier of European club competition, the Europa League, used to be a respected tournament, how times have changed. The insulting chant ‘Thursday night, Channel 5,’ says as much about the Europa League’s reputation as it does about Channel 5’s – neither organisation comes out in an especially positive light. What if, however, UEFA [...]

The idea that, culturally, football has reached a stage where it is totally acceptable to leave one club for another in search of money is an objectionable one. What appears to be universally accepted though is that players will move clubs in order to win trophies. At what point did it become customary to ditch [...]

La Liga may well be able to boast the two finest teams in world football, as well as a selection of the most talented individuals, but when it comes to the financial side of the game the Spanish league is flagging almost as badly as the country’s economy. The Premier League, by contrast, has, despite [...]

Both FIFA and UEFA have an obligation to safeguard the future of football. The European governing body’s plan to regulate the spending of its constituency members is an admirable, and necessary, step. There are other areas though where UEFA could potentially step in to regulate certain parts of the sport. For example, player transfers. It is [...]

Forming opinions of players based solely on watching the highlights of games is a dangerous business. In a sport where statistics are used as the basis for empirical arguments in an ever increasing trend, it is difficult to form an opinion of a player without having watched them play full games on a regular basis. Statistics [...]

Last season Arsenal conceded 49 goals in the Premier League. That’s more than any other side in the top four, and the second highest number conceded by a top eight team. To have conceded ten goals against Man Utd, four against Spurs, three against Chelsea and two against Man City is a pretty poor effort. [...]

I understand that Olympic football technically classifies itself as amateur. In order to facilitate this, the rule of only having three players over the age of 23 is enforced. However, although these players may not be getting paid for their troubles it is impossible to deny that they are professional footballers. So, why not go [...]

With Juventus suggesting today that Arsenal’s price for van Persie is too high, reports coming out of Arsenal’s training camp yesterday that they would be happy to keep him until January and Roberto Mancini complaining that Brian Marwood is making no headway with the situation Arsenal fans could feasibly expect to face a season in [...]

It’s only natural that after investing huge sums of money in their players, clubs are prepared to offer a little patience. However, it doesn’t last forever. The supporters are normally fractious before the manager and if a player goes through a season of constantly be groaned at by the crowd then that is a reasonable indication [...]

Malaysia, China, Indonesia, Japan; Premier League clubs are touring the Far East with an increasing regularity. Arsenal are currently in the middle of a tour that has seen them play against a Malaysia 11, and will pit them against Kitchee FC in Hong Kong and Manchester City in an exhibition match in Beijing. Both Manchester [...]

When Roberto Di Matteo replaced Andre Villas-Boas he totally changed the way in which Chelsea went about their football. To say that his style was uncomplicated would be an understatement. Apart from the rather impressive dismantling of Tottenham and QPR, Di Matteo’s team had something of a ‘win-at-all-costs’ mentality. The onus was most certainly on [...]

To suggest that the manner in which Mark Hughes executed his survival plan for Queens Park Rangers was both calculated and expected is laughable. Losses to Wolves, Fulham, Blackburn and Bolton left the west London club with what appeared an impossible task. Having lost to all three teams who would eventually be relegated, Hughes’ men [...]

The manner in which Tony Pulis’ Stoke have established themselves in the Premier League hasn’t been to everybody’s taste, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be lauded for what is undoubtedly an impressive achievement. After his reappointment in 2006, Pulis and Stoke earned automatic promotion to England’s top flight on the final day of the [...]

Pre Ryan Shawcross, Aaron Ramsey was an incredibly exciting prospect for Arsenal fans. Stolen from under the noses of Manchester United for a very reasonable £5m, Ramsey went from strength to strength in Arsenal’s team. He displayed a pleasing level of ability in almost every aspect of the central midfielder’s role – a quite remarkable [...]

Luka Modric’s behaviour towards Spurs has been ill advised, immature and totally disrespectful, but it hasn’t been surprising. That so much financial and emotional faith and resources are invested into these players appears to make little difference to their moral compasses. For all of Levy and Tottenham’s supposed fury at the Croatian’s recent absences from training [...]

The plight of Bill Kenwright, Robert Earl and Jon Woods is representative of many English owners. They bought in to Everton at a time when their wealth was, proportionate to the other owners, relatively impressive. Both Woods and Kenwright were born in Liverpool and grew up supporting Everton. And, like many English owners, their financial [...]

Brendan Rodgers’ transfer activity hasn’t quite been the immediate catalyst for a reinvigorated fan base that many thought it would be. Then again, there hasn’t been much value in the market and without shifting certain players first it seems unlikely that Liverpool will be spending big any time soon. However, one move that the former [...]

There must be a certain element of schadenfreude for fans of rival teams as they notice that as soon as Arsenal develop a young, brilliant player who doesn’t have intentions of ever leaving the club he ends up with a stress fracture in his ankle that causes him to miss an entire season, and possibly [...]

Despite reported interest from Lokomotiv Moscow in Manchester City striker Emmanuel Adebayor, the Togolese forward’s much-vaunted move to Tottenham Hotspur appears the most likely conclusion to a nomadic post-Arsenal spell. That he was signed by Manchester City for £25m was surprising enough, that his wages are reported to be in the region of £170k per [...]