sdfdsWinning the Europa Conference League did not do much to lift the pressure on David Moyes after an underwhelming domestic season but the clouds are starting to lift. New signings have joined to bolster the ranks and only two points have been dropped in three matches to put the Hammers in second position behind Manchester City. Things could hardly be going any better. One problem that Moyes will soon face is European football, an activity that hindered West Ham’s league form last season. In order to limit its impact, getting points on the board in winnable matches, such as Friday’s trip to Kenilworth Road will be crucial. At this stage last season, West Ham had failed to muster a single...
Clearlake and co care about marketing an undervalued product to 7 billion people: legacy supporters can only get in the wayWhen it comes to the current Chelsea ownership model it has been easy, and indeed quite comforting, to assume the entire story, from initial purchase price to that lost billion splurged on ill‑fitting new talent, is the product of good old-fashioned footballing idiocy, idiocy on steroids.A more plausible plan for change, power grab, paradigm shift, would surely come with cleaner lines or at least a set of coherent demands. Super Leagues, breakaways, nation‑state propaganda plots. We know what this stuff looks like. We can denounce it grandly on Monday Night Football, write hand-wringing editorials or come out into the streets...
The SA20 franchise tournament is taking precedence over the Test team and a rich red-ball history is now in danger So this is how it ends. Not only with a whimper and the impotent shrugging of shoulders, but under thick globules of sponsored maximums, reflective uniforms and suffocating excess. Like geese with bloated livers we’ve had a thing we love stuffed down our throats so that there’s no room for nourishment. If this is indeed how South African Test cricket dies then let’s be quick about it.Cricket’s landscape would be unrecognisable without South Africans. Not only have the Proteas provided some of the greatest exponents of the craft, but exports and expats have shaped the destinies of other nations as...
The central defender signed for a world-record fee has become a liability reluctant to leave. What went wrong?After Manchester United decided Harry Maguire’s on-off move away from the club is, barring a last‑minute about‑turn, decisively off, the 30-year-old reaches an odd career juncture for a defender Gareth Southgate still rates a mainstay of his England team.Maguire arrived at United in August 2019 on a ticket of being a yeoman defender and modern ball-playing centre‑half. The subsequent years have proved otherwise. He could be a powder‑puff last line of resistance and a paltry seven goals in 175 appearances showed a lack of aerial domination in opposition penalty areas. Continue reading...
Not a total upheaval of the status quo, but enough of a shake-up to remind people women are here to stay, on and off the fieldSport has long been a masculine domain. Even when women began to make inroads – as things slowly improved on the field and media coverage crept into the back pages of newspapers – men still held the positions of power.The announcement this week that Laura Kane has been appointed the AFL’s executive general manager of football is a sign of the changing times. It is not a complete upheaval of the status quo, but it is enough of a disturbance to cause a ripple and remind people that women in sport are here to stay,...