By Andy Cole 29 January 2010 Imagine this scenario: you’re in the second leg of the League Cup semi-final, playing against Manchester United, your former club with whom you won the Champions League, and then you score a goal – not a bad goal at all, as it happens – which at the moment you […]

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 […]

27 January 2010 With the World Cup in South Africa just around the corner, the third international conference on the ‘Economics and Psychology of Football’ will be staged at Heythrop College, University of London, on 29-30 May. As the Heythrop website says: “The aim of the conference is to gather scholars, the media and other […]

26 January 2010 Crystal Palace entered administration this afternoon after the pressure from creditors and the size of the wage bill finally became too much for owner Simon Jordan to bear. But in a statement issued by the club, Brendan Guilfoyle of administrators P&A Partnership said: “We are hoping our appointment will be short-lived as […]

26 January 2010 Did Diego Maradona get away with the ‘Hand of God’ goal that helped Argentina to eliminate England from the 1986 World Cup because he was small, or to use a more technical term, because of “height perception bias”? The Argentina manager’s specific case is not dealt with in a fresh and wide-ranging […]

By Nick Harris 26 January 2010 The revelation last night by Fifa’s president, Sepp Blatter, that bidding to host the 2018 World Cup could be restricted to candidates from Europe won’t necessarily increase England’s chances of staging the tournament. In those circumstances, eight key Fifa voters within Europe would get a “free hand” where to […]

Sporting Intelligence will host open forums on topical subjects on a regular basis, with contributions welcomed directly via this site, as well as through our pages on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. All contributions will be collated here at the forum, a depository for wisdom. Join in. Please do …. Who will win the three World […]

By Nick Harris 20 January Live coverage of every match in the 2010 Indian Premier League cricket season will be screened free-to-air, globally, on a dedicated YouTube channel, in every TV market except America, after a landmark agreement today between the IPL and Indian arm of Google, which owns YouTube. At face value, the agreement […]

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 Andy Cole 20 January 2010 Manchester United would have benefited from taking up their option on Carlos Tevez last summer instead of letting him go, to Manchester City as it transpired. I know that’s a view that puts me at odds with Gary Neville – sorry Nev – and even with Sir Alex Ferguson, who ultimately made […]