rachelgee

One of the most contentious and pressing issues in English football is how to make the next generation of English footballers as good technically as their Spanish, German or Dutch counterparts.

One announcement from UEFA and the English press has enough ammunition to fill an opinion page on any slow news day for the next seven months; should Wayne Rooney be taken to the European Championships if he is banned for the opening three games (appeal not withstanding)?

Thus far the football business has taken the oncoming global financial apocalypse rather well, the lower reaches of football notwithstanding and besides, Sky doesn’t care for them so why should we?*

Tactical innovation happens all the time without one even noticing it as it is all about organic growth; refinement and tinkering to come up with the optimum set-up for a team.

Football and Twitter is all the rage at the moment, what with Joey Barton attempts to transform himself into a Scouse Che Guevara/ George Orwell hybrid and Mick McCarthy’s Louise Mench-esque attempts to ban the site.

Clichés become clichés for a very good reason; the fact that they have a solid grounding in reality and truth. Usually anyway.
Thus, the cliché that the Championship (no marketing here) is the most hotly contested and difficult league to predict has an element of truth to it. However, certain patterns can be deduced.

The club versus country row that has rumbled on for most of this century looks set to take on a whole new level of bitterness.