John Baines @the_johnbaines ?

Being asked to compile a list of the top ten most annoying football figures in the media was undoubtedly one of the most difficult assignments I’ve ever been given. It’s like being asked to pick the ten women you’d like to be stranded on a desert island with. There are no right or wrong answers, the [...]

Being asked to compile a list of the top ten most annoying football figures in the media was undoubtedly one of the most difficult assignments I’ve ever been given. It’s like being asked to pick the ten women you’d like to be stranded on a desert island with. There are no right or wrong answers, the [...]

It’s been a curate’s egg of a season so far for Liverpool – good in parts – with the best bits coming against the better sides. A pair of recent cup successes against the two Manchester clubs has highlighted the Reds infuriatingly inconsistent nature. Ignoring a hiding at White Hart Lane, victories at Arsenal, two at [...]

It’s almost a year since Chelsea broke the British transfer record to bring Fernando Torres to Stamford Bridge and by way of an anniversary present the forlorn Spaniard has recently repaid the Blues backing by breaking a longstanding goalscoring record. Unfortunately though, another blank at the weekend against Norwich means Torres’s haul of no goals in [...]

Being stuck in the reserves whilst Michael Carrick continues to get a game in the first team is enough to test anybody’s patience and if rumours emanating from the Paul Pogba camp are to be believed, the talented 18-year-old is set to call time on his Manchester United career when his contract expires next summer. [...]

They call it El Clasico for a reason. Down the years both Real Madrid and Barcelona has been the habitat of some of football’s finest talents, all schooled into traditions of brilliant attacking football. However, this game stretches way beyond the perimeters of the pitch and with political and cultural connotations adding to the mix, few [...]

It’s pretty safe to say that Sir Alex Ferguson has a relatively short level of tolerance towards players who don’t rise to his expected standards and many of those in the dock before Wednesday night’s limp Carling Cup defeat to Crystal Palace will now have been found guilty and sentenced to a life outside of Old [...]

10) Aston Villa v Birmingham – The Second City derby The countries second city might be a little further down the pecking order in footballing terms but that does nothing to dampen hostilities between Aston Villa and Birmingham. The Villains have always viewed themselves in higher esteem than their blue neighbours and when the clubs first [...]

As the festive period approaches fast, there are many football fans up and down the country not wishing to find a new pair of socks or a Christmas jumper in their stocking, but instead, a decent defender, a quality striker or new manager to be delivered to their clubs. As the fallout of another weekend of [...]

The last week has hardly been English football’s finest hour in European competition. Last year’s Premier League top three and the country’s biggest spenders accumulated just a solitary point between them as their respective Champions League participation hangs in the balance. So far the European campaigns of Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City have been a [...]

There’s rarely a dull moment down at the Bridge but you bet that all concerned with Chelsea could do with getting back to a bit of normality. Three defeats from five, two consecutive home losses and only two wins from seven is causing much delight around the rest of the country but within the corridors [...]

As if they needed any crueller twists of fate, it had to be full-back Glen Johnson who scored the type of goal that £85m worth of substitute were bought to score. That Fernando Torres and Andy Carroll both started Sunday’s clash between Chelsea and Liverpool on the bench was only a partial surprise owing more [...]

A couple of days after Emmanuel Adebayor signed a season long loan deal with Tottenham Hotspur, his parent club rolled in to White Hart Lane and demolished the hosts with the sort of display which had all associated with each club immediately re-appraising their aims for the campaign. With Adebayor watching on, it was Edin Dzeko [...]

Tottenham Hotspur are currently at a very curious juncture within English football. They sit ahead of 87 league clubs yet they look on enviously at a quartet of sides who have got what they want, but effectively can’t have. After a brief dalliance in the Champions League last season, Spurs had themselves set for a concerted [...]

On Wednesday night Liverpool’s academy were handed a 5-1 hiding by Sporting Lisbon in the NextGen Series – a competition derived to ‘step into the future of football.’ The result was largely immaterial given the Reds had already qualified from their Champions League-esque group, but with two wins, three defeats and a draw, their step [...]

Barely an international break goes by without the British press seizing on some soundbite that slowly filters its way back across the continent. This week it was the turn of Fulham striker Moussa Dembele to be put under the spotlight after he apparently ‘courted’ Tottenham’s interest whilst away with Belgium. The Flemish daily newspaper De [...]

There are many players who never reach their full potential for various reasons. In this list I have focused on those within the Premier League years and those who never reached the heights their early years suggested they would. 10) Mark Kennedy – Kennedy was a regular at Millwall by 16 and his pacy wing-play had a [...]

It’s a little known fact that the UEFA Champions League – the height of football capitalism – was borne from the collapse of communism on the continent. When the former USSR disbanded in 1991, the Soviet Union granted independence to it’s associated states meaning the former European Cup had to accommodate another 14 national champions into [...]

In this week’s episode of Eastenders, Phil angrily confronted Christian and their argument took a violent turn, leaving Roxy to plead with Ben to tell the truth whilst Jane chastised Ian for neglecting Bobby. Dramatic stuff indeed, yet a couple of miles away from the relative tranquility of Walford, an even more absurd soap opera is [...]

They say the table doesn’t lie and even if it can be misleading, few will be fooled into thinking that Chelsea are the strongest side in the Premier League at the moment. It seems preposterous to think that a club that have shelled out close to £600m on almost 70 different players since 2003 are [...]