Ethan Pinnock and Liam Lindsay are linchpins of a backline that has Barnsley on course for a return to the ChampionshipThere is something about Barnsley and the art of defending. In the Yorkshire town where John Stones and Alfie Mawson honed their craft, a new era of centre-backs is quietly going about its business. At the heart of a near-watertight defence that boasts the best record in the Football League, Ethan Pinnock and Liam Lindsay are providing a steely platform for Daniel Stendel’s side to shine. With six games to play, the team are second in League One and well placed to return to the Championship at the first attempt.Portsmouth and Sunderland may yet have something to say about that...
The Netflix series is fascinating for many reasons, but primarily for the insight it gives into the plight of players who have fallen just below the standards of the game’s eliteAmong the many joys of the eight-part Netflix series Sunderland ’Til I Die is a glimpse of football that is seldom seen, and little discussed in the media. Not the behind-the-scenes problems faced by managers with limited budgets and a distant owner looking to sell. That’s all fascinating stuff, though not quite as warts-and-all gripping as Premier Passions, the 1998 fly-on-the-dressing-room-wall account of Sunderland’s relegation, in which Peter Reid’s team talks would have made a stevedore blush.No, what was most revealing was the plight of professional sportsmen a rung or,...
From Leeds United’s Jack Clarke to Middlesbrough’s Marcus Tavernier, these 10 talented teenagers are quickly becoming fixtures in the future of footballAfter several game-changing cameos off the bench, the York-born forward was finally handed his full debut by Marcelo Bielsa last Sunday. Raw and direct, Clarke has the ability to grab games by the scruff of the neck; he kickstarted an extraordinary comeback victory at Villa Park last month and made a similar dent against Nottingham Forest and, before that, Sheffield United. Clarke has pleasantly surprised Bielsa, becoming the Argentinian’s go-to man, asked to spark Leeds into life at half-time on no fewer than six occasions since November. “When I started to look at his skills I didn’t imagine that...
The 20-year-old midfielder has been a revelation on loan at Doncaster and has plans to impress Jürgen Klopp when he returns to Liverpool in the summerGrowing up, Herbie Kane’s hero was Steven Gerrard, so playing under him for Liverpool Under-19s last season was the stuff of dreams. “I had a few shirts with his name on the back and, when I was little, I used to watch some of his goals and want to be able to do what he had done; I used to practise in the back garden, pretending to be Gerrard,” Kane says, breaking into laughter. Related: Celtic sign 15-year-old Karamoko Dembélé to first professional contract I went to Chelsea for a few weeks, had a look...
A sense of loss is all-pervading in a Netflix series chronicling Sunderland’s relegation into League One but, throughout, a sense of optimism shines out from most fansIt’s the hope that kills them, Sunderland fans can handle the despair. And it is a prevailing sense of hope that percolates throughout all eight episodes of a behind-the-scenes documentary chronicling the club’s relegation to the third tier of English football last season. Throughout a preposterously chaotic campaign, even by the standards of a club long considered utterly dysfunctional, Sunderland’s fans remain surprisingly upbeat, despite having grown wearily accustomed to coping with apparently bottomless levels of crushing disappointment. Related: Sunderland's hall of shame: club's (mostly bad) signings under Short The transformation of Jason Steele...