Seven straight league defeats have manager clinging to his job as he faces popular predecessor Neil Warnock’s MiddlesbroughLast week Neil Warnock borrowed Forrest Gump’s famous line, comparing the unpredictability of his Middlesbrough team to a box of chocolates. “You never know what you’re gonna get,” he said, doing his best impression of Tom Hanks. On Saturday he visits his previous club, Cardiff City, whose form is anything but irregular after seven straight league defeats for the first time since 1934, an alarming run in which they have scored a solitary goal – a Sean Morrison header from a corner when trailing 4-0 at Blackburn – and conceded 17. If Derby had not been docked points for entering administration, Cardiff would...
Ironic cheers mocking the opposition and losing control of all senses for goal celebrations returned effortlessly at the stadiumThere was a point during the first lockdown, when I’d daydream about becoming a “yes man”. I’d think to myself “I got too sucked into the rat race, man. If this thing has taught me anything, it’s that life is about experiences. I’ve spent too much time on my phone. As soon as I’m able to I’ll say yes to that bungee jump. I’ll say yes to that National Trust dry stone walling course. Life is lived on the margins so I’ll take up kickboxing and enter a dialogue with pain.” As you can imagine, this nettle grasping lasted about 30 seconds...
Accusations of deceit and avarice have always been thrown at bigger clubs who want to improve and capitalise on their statusIn mid-April 12 clubs who fancied themselves to be the biggest, the most important and frankly the most potentially lucrative around made a controversial announcement. They had decided to set up a league together, and there was nothing anybody could do to stop them.Cue outrage. “A dozen clubs, who style themselves the pick of the talent, have joined hands for their own mutual benefit, apparently without a care for those unhappily shut out in the cold,” raged one newspaper. “Is it fair to the clubs thus coolly left to shift for themselves? On what principle has the selection been made?...
Fan and former under-eights coach Mark Bonner is overseeing unlikely promotion push at free-scoring League Two clubIt is a romantic rise that has the hallmarks of a homegrown hero making his name on Football Manager but, whereas that is a world of fantasy, Mark Bonner is calling the shots in the dugout having earned his stripes at his boyhood club. He started coaching Cambridge United’s under-eights almost two decades ago before roles as academy manager, first-team coach, assistant manager and spells in caretaker charge paved the way to becoming the head coach.“Growing up in the area and having been a supporter as a kid, it is a very unusual [story] – I know that and I don’t take that for...
John Coleman’s canny squad blend of experience, misfits and loans have promotion out of League One in their own handsUntil last week, for a few days at least, those basking in Arsenal’s struggles frivolously floated the idea of the club sparring with Accrington Stanley in the Championship. Such a meeting may seem incomputable but part of the sentence could soon ring true. It is increasingly difficult to ignore Accrington’s promotion credentials and, with at least two games in hand on those above them, John Coleman’s side are primed to supersede some of League One’s most famous names.On Saturday they plan to upstage second-placed Portsmouth and, if they earn maximum points from three games in hand on the leaders, Lincoln –...