He does not turn 31 till next month but Wayne Rooney made his Premier League debut at 16 and players who start out young often pay a priceThey changed the format of the press conferences at Manchester United some time ago. For the past 10 years or so, everything has been in front of the cameras and the managers, as such, always tend to put on their face for television, remember to mind their language and often disguise, or water down, what they really feel. It is a PR world more than ever before, but it used to be much better fun in the old days when Sir Alex Ferguson held separate briefings, the cameras turned off, where he could...
Watching Spurs and Harry Kane against Monaco this week it was hard not to think about the chalk spot employed by Pep Guardiola for Raheem SterlingFootball managers often like to make an entrance, to impose their own eviscerating personality from the start. Brian Clough kicked things off at Leeds United by telling the players to throw their medals in the bin because they were cheats. Bill Norman, moustache-twirling managerial hard-man of the 1920s, announced himself to his Hartlepool squad by stripping naked and rolling around in the snow in front of them after sensing a reluctance to follow him outside on a bitterly cold day.More recently José Mourinho seems to have decided the best approach at Manchester United is to...
Chelsea v Liverpool could be a Friday night thriller, Leicester and Tottenham both need a routine home win, and Mark Hughes is feeling the heat at StokeLiverpool are in rampant attacking form, Eden Hazard seems to be on song again, Diego Costa is back to his magnificent and provocative best and David Luiz is set for his second Chelsea debut: everything points to the most entertaining Premier League match of the season so far and another momentous match between two clubs who have built up a rich back catalogue of classics together. Given the wonderful maelstrom that is likely to be unleashed, it will be a big and surprising vote of confidence from the respective managers if Daniel Sturridge and...