By Brian Sears 28 January 2010 Heaven forfend that a humble statistician should put the Heebie-jeebies on any club, but it has occured to us after this midweek’s games that Rochdale are currently sitting at the top of League Two, 11 points above the play-off zone and therefore, one must conclude, be in with a […]

By Brian Sears 20 January 2010 . Nine top-flight clubs are in danger this weekend of becoming the 101st Premier League giants to be slain in the FA Cup by lower-division opponents. Since the English top flight was revamped in 1992, there have been 100 such “slayings”, with Liverpool the 100th and most recent victims […]

By Jonnie Baker 19 January 2010 The English Premier League, or EPL as people who must immediately be smothered are prone to call it, is the best league in the world. We know this because a man said it the other day and we must trust the men from football or all about us shall […]

By Nick Harris 16 January 2010 Arsenal are the only major English club that would meet Michel Platini’s own “Financial Fair Play” criteria for European club competitions if the Uefa president were able to introduce them now, according to senior sources within the organisation, although any such rules are at least three years away and […]

By Brian Sears 15 January 2010 If the second half of this season is as good for Arsenal as the second half of last season, they’ll win the title. That’s the hope that Arsene Wenger will be nurturing into the Spring, and we can paint a statistical scenario where it might just happen. Here’s how […]

By Nick Harris 15 January 2010 Manchester City’s wage bill has surged by more than 52 per cent in a year from £54.2m to £82.6m, sportingintelligence can reveal. The figures, included in the club’s full annual report – just filed at Companies House – were excluded from the data presented to the public when the […]

By Andy Cole 7 January 2010 I’ve been in the Manchester United dressing room after surprising defeats and it’s not pretty. I can only imagine it was similarly loud and uncomfortable – and possibly even terrifying – for the players who had to face the wrath of Sir Alex Ferguson after Sunday’s shock 1-0 FA […]

By Helen Harris 7 January 2010 I am not interested in sport, or so I thought, and with good reason.  I never read the sports pages of the newspapers. The first note of the Match of the Day theme tune is my signal for an early night, and if conversation turns (by some extraordinary lack […]

JOHN ROBERTS wrote for the Daily Express, The Guardian, the Daily Mail and The Independent, where he was the tennis correspondent for 20 years. He collaborated with Bill Shankly on the Liverpool manager’s autobiography, ghosted Kevin Keegan’s first book, and has written books on George Best, Manchester United’s Busby Babes (The Team That Wouldn’t Die) […]

By Jonnie Baker 1 January 2010 I’m not convinced I know much about football. No, what I mean is, I’m not convinced I understand much about football. Certainly I boast a reasonable knowledge of the nuts and bolts of the game – that the Saddlers are Walsall and Josimar scored a screamer for Brazil while […]