Tag: Aston Villa

  • Fantastic Friday proves nobody’s home and dry

    Fantastic Friday proves nobody’s home and dry

    At the outset here, an admission – while a very high percentage of the World Cup action has been consumed in this seat, an equally large quantity thereof has been viewed without sound. Simply as ITV is too damn awkward to find on the Sky box and the RTE commentators – with a few notable…

  • Emery back in England

    Emery back in England

    Aston Villa have turned to Unai Emery to replace the defenestrated Steven Gerrard as they seek to extricate themselves from the relegation dogfight near the foot of the Premier League table. It marks a return to English football for Emery who previously had an underwhelming stint in charge of Arsenal, having been serially successful in…

  • Gerrard playing the long game with percentage call

    Gerrard playing the long game with percentage call

    Bastions of the bandwagon are one of the few sporting phenomena yours truly cannot stomach. Fair weather followers is another acronym attributed to the same lot. It usually is followers, you see. There’s usually obvious telltale signs, they’ll be over the top if the need arises to decorate, will become expert ‘analysts’ overnight and everything…

  • Pride in whatever shade it is

    Pride in whatever shade it is

    No secret has ever been made of the fact that being able to write about sport is the nearest I will ever get to filling the void left by not being able to partake therein. Especially in more recent years when being involved in team management was no longer an option. Now read on… The…

  • DriveThru Sports Weekly – Ep. 12

    This week’s episode looks back on the latest player to make a big breakthrough in darts, Jonny Clayton of Wales. I also look back at what happened regarding Irish players in the recently closed transfer window, while a look is taken as well at the addition of Paul O’Connell to the Irish rugby backroom team.

  • Weird window leaves many questions

    A few years ago, on Deadline Day of the winter transfer window, I wrote a piece headlined “Almost time to take down the tent”. Inference being that the concept and the time around it resemble a circus. At the time, that manifested itself in the insane fees clubs were paying for players and the manner…

  • Two CC’s of shocks as magic of the Cup lives on

    There’s shaky old footage on YouTube of Manchester United defeating Northampton Town 8-2 in the FA Cup of 1970. On a pitch that, while it may not have resembled a ploughed field, definitely had the top worked down on it. That, however, didn’t stop George Best from setting a record by netting six times over…