Upon watching my Sunday League team play at the weekend from the comfort of the sideline, I couldn’t help but feel our zonal approach to the task at hand was one of the main reasons we were suffocated inside our own box for 85 out of the 90 minutes of a cup final. Tactics are…
There was a general belief in England when Manchester United signed Erik ten Hag that they would become a Pep Guardiola esque possession-based football team that controlled the ball no matter where they went or the occasion they were playing at. Ten Hag had showcased a possession-based style at Ajax that had drawn plaudits from…
Chelsea have been lacklustre for large parts of the season, which has led to widespread criticism of the manager, Mauricio Pochettino. The London club have been sitting in the bottom half for more than a quarter of the campaign, dropping to 12th not even a month ago, in a period that looked like there was…
Manchester United and Ireland have many connections, but to start this story off right, we need to go back to 1893, when Manchester United was known as Newton Heath. A 28-year-old, John Eden from Northern Ireland, joined the club. During his time at Newton Heath, he scored 8 goals in 32 appearances for the club…
Tosin Adarabioyo has been quietly going about his business since he left Manchester City in 2020 for Fulham, but he has slowly become one of the most underrated footballers in the entire league. The English defender, who is also eligible to play for Nigeria, has been a key cog in the Fulham side over the…
Bernardo Silva could be one of football’s most underappreciated players. The Portuguese midfielder is a key member of Guardiola’s Man City.
Manchester City under Pep Guardiola have been symbiotic with one word more than any other during the last seven years in the Premier League. That word is control. Whether the control was off the pitch with their trophy haul or on the pitch with the way they played football, Guardiola’s Blues have always seemed to…
The Moneyball method was popularised in the world of sports by a man named Bill Beane when he decided to apply a theory made by Bill James. Beane wanted to use the theory to try and allow his baseball team, the Oakland Athletics, to punch well above their weight and fight with the big dogs…
The MoneyBall method was created by a man named Bill James and popularised by Billy Beane at the Oakland Athletics in 2002. The MoneyBall way of thinking is statistic-based, and it overlooks the traditional way of thinking to prioritise data to find which players are undervalued. It’s a way of doing things that allowed a…
Manchester United have had nine academy graduates in their last two matchday squads, as the academy presence around the first team continues to grow under Erik ten Hag. Five graduates started in the victory against Everton at the weekend at Old Trafford, with a further four players on the bench. One of those made an…
