As one half of Saint and Greavsie, the former striker spoke about the sport he loved with enjoyment and wit. We could do with some of that now“I am someone who believes that what we need without a doubt is more of Jimmy Greaves,” wrote the performance poet John Hegley in Greavsie, an ironic yet affectionate early-1990s paean to a then ubiquitous figure. “The more I get of Greaves, the more my life achieves.”The Premier League’s paywall model would soon be bringing down the curtain on one of the more curious and varied media careers of an ex-footballer. ITV’s failure to land broadcast rights to what the victor, Sky, would trail as a “whole new ball game” meant the axe...
At his best the Tottenham record signing resembles Michael Essien but his attitude has been questioned in the pastEverybody knows how much Mauricio Pochettino loved Mousa Dembélé when the Belgian midfielder was strutting his stuff for Tottenham. “He’s one of the genius players I have been lucky enough to meet – together with Maradona, Ronaldinho, Okocha and Ivan de la Pena,” the Spurs manager once said. And everybody knows how badly he wanted to make a statement signing this summer in order to reinvigorate his project in north London.Imagine Pochettino’s excitement now. He has done the latter with the £55m club record purchase of Tanguy Ndombele from Lyon and it is a move that not only plugs the gap left...
The club should take their lead from Mauricio Pochettino at Tottenham and forge a real team ethosThe premise of Good Morning Transfers, a new Sky Sports segment that begins on Monday, is that the present transfer window is poised to be the biggest, best and most expensive of all time and viewers will naturally wish to tune in from 9am just to make sure they did not miss anything while they were sleeping. Related: Gianfranco Zola turns down new role at Chelsea and targets job as manager Continue reading...
I flew back from Madrid to watch the Champions League final on TV, but other travel plans went awry. See you next seasonI recently wrote an article explaining how I’d given up my Champions League final ticket to watch the game with my dad. He gave me a love of Spurs that meant it was the right thing to do. It was well received. Real journalists slid into my DMs to praise me. Ex- pros texted me (well, one ex-pro texted me). What an altruistic gesture. What a moving piece. You should write more they all said. I was a hero.A cynic might argue that writing an article about liking both your own father and football was likely to resonate...
The Spurs manager has some tough decision to make over the nature of his team following their defeat by Liverpool in the Champions League finalHindsight is of course always twenty-twenty. Did Mauricio Pochettino make a defining error in selecting Harry Kane to play from the start in the Wanda Metropolitana, Tottenham’s once-in-a-generation shot at European ultimacy?In outline the tone and texture of that oddly deathly Champions League final might suggest this was the case. Kane had not played for seven weeks, had not scored for Tottenham since early March. A half-fit Kane tends to be a ponderous Kane, with a tendency to spend much of the game grappling with his marker, arms stretched behind him, like a man feeling for...