Philip-Wroe @philip-wroe ?

On Friday, Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini stated that ‘at the moment we are not ready to play for the title.’ Mancini has always been careful to manage expectations at a club where the guillotine is never far away but his suggestion that Sergio Aguero and Samir Nasri were needed to raise City to a level [...]

In recent years, Arsenal have developed a reputation for crumbling. At the business end of the season, everything falls apart. Last season was perhaps the finest example so far. After suffering defeat to Birmingham City in the Carling Cup final, they swiftly exited the Champions League at the hands of Barcelona and the FA Cup at [...]

Tottenham Hotspur is a well-run football club. The solidity of their finances is a source of pride for the supporters. They hold a position at the business end of the Premiership and have done so without racking up mountains of debt. However, they may have reached a fork in the road. In order to continue progressing, [...]

Transfer rumours are infinite, some of them materialise from thin air and the majority of them disappear before they’ve really had time to grow. A tiny percentage are actually based in truth. Whether they are dismissed out of hand by those alleged to be involved or are just too far-fetched or tenuous to ever really be [...]

Football FanCast is bringing Blankety Blank to the Premier League. Each week we’ll pick one of the hottest headlines from the back pages of the newspapers and it will be up to you to fill in the blanks. This week, Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson has finally acknowledged that newly-rich neighbours City pose a genuine [...]

There is a rare beast in North London, a creature seen so scarcely its very existence has been questioned. Its name is the Tottenham Hotspur home-grown player. First team sightings are so few they can be counted on the fingers of one hand in recent years. We are not talking here about players who fit the [...]

Arsene Wenger loves to complain, and he loves to suggest that the world is conspiring against his young guns. Year on year his gripes seem to increase and this pre-season is no exception. Arsenal’s tour of China and Malaysia has been peppered with outbursts. First Xavi, then the issue of Manchester City’s stadium-naming rights and [...]

One is suave, languid and graceful. The other is short, stocky and terrier-like. They both score a lot of goals. Dimitar Berbatov is a joy to watch, playing the game at his own ludicrously leisurely pace. Tevez is a ball of energy, feverishly leading his team from the front. The only similarity between these two is [...]

Professional football is a notoriously ruthless business. The game is littered with stories of players cast aside after failing to make the grade, however, once a player reaches the top level, an uncharacteristic amount of faith and patience can come their way. The recent signing of Kieron Dyer by QPR is a fantastic example of such [...]

When Harry Redknapp secured fourth place for Tottenham Hotspur in 2010, he proclaimed that Spurs were two or three top, top players away from competing at the highest level. That seemed a fair, if slightly optimistic assessment but two and half transfer windows later are they any closer to reaching this top tier? And how much [...]

There are very few clubs in modern football that are afforded the time to see through a team-building project. The combination of ambitious players and the necessity for immediate results makes a nurturing, progressive environment a rarity. At the top end of the spectrum you have Real Madrid and Chelsea, frontrunners in impatience and disruption. The [...]

2 years ago it was considered blasphemy. Only the odd, slightly mad or slightly too drunk, radical Arsenal fan would suggest that Arsene Wenger should go. The suggestion would be met with cold stares and cold shoulders along the Holloway Road. Nobody questioned the leadership of Professor Wenger. That was four years after Arsenal’s last silverware, [...]

Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy erred with his first move in the Luka Modric transfer saga. Levy, a notoriously bullish negotiator has categorically stated that Modric is not for sale at any price and that is the end of it. It seems hard to be clearer. But Levy’s fear of Tottenham being perceived as a selling [...]

Ever since Arsenal FC successfully completed their move into one of the most impressive football stadiums on the planet, their north London neighbours Tottenham Hotspur have been peering over the garden wall, coveting all they see. Saying ‘ooohh, that’s nice’, ‘how much did you pay for that then?’ Really? Where did you get that kind of [...]

Paul Scholes, Manchester United’s midfield metronome, retires in typically understated fashion. As the tabloid press swarmed over Ryan Giggs’s private life, the man who stood beside him for 17 years slipped out of the back door leaving an irreplaceable void in the centre of Manchester United’s midfield. Paul Scholes has lit up the Premiership since 1994 [...]