For me, the best thing to happen to exiled followers of English soccer in the past 10 years has been the Internet. The highlight of which is the ginormous number of articles that the traditional British newspapers publish daily on the topic of the Premier League.
Whether you’re looking for breaking news stories, gossip, humor, rants or strategic analysis, the papers have it and more.
To make your journey easier through the sea of newspapers, here are the best ones according to EPL Talk:
1.
THE GUARDIAN
Football section
Football RSS feed
Blog
Online newsletter: The Fiver
Football podcast: Football Weekly
Notable writers: David Lacey, Russell Brand, Kevin McCarra, David Conn.
Average football articles per day during past 30 days: 17.5
Pros: Their ability to communicate in a voice that is aimed more at the masses separates The Guardian from their competitors. The infamous Fiver newsletter is a must-read, although it doesn’t seem as funny as it once did. And their podcast, meanwhile, is one of the most irreverent ones out there. Two other great features to their football site: Digger and The Knowledge. Lastly, their secret weapon is comprised of two words: Barry Glendenning.
Cons: Despite their success with the blogs, podcast and newsletter — as well as breaking stories — the one thing they’re missing is a greater output of articles to rival The Telegraph. The design of their site could do with an overhaul also.
2.
THE TELEGRAPH
Football section
Football RSS feed
Blog: European Football
Online newsletter: None
Football podcast: None
Notable writers: Henry Winter, Clive Tyldesley, Alan Hansen, Jim White.
Average football articles per day during past 30 days: 32.6
Pros: Quantity and quality of articles are impressive as well as their stable of recognized writers such as Henry Winter. Also to their credit, investigative reporter David Bond has uncovered some gems in the past.
Cons: Despite their foray in the past into podcasting with a fantasy football podcast, it’s criminal that The Telegraph doesn’t have one to compete against their rivals.
3.
THE TIMES
Football section
Football RSS feed
Blog: The Game
Online newsletter: Ahead of The Game
Football podcast: The Game
Notable writers: Martin Samuel, Gabriele Marcotti, Brian Glanville, Hugh McIlvanney, Matt Dickinson.
Average football articles per day during past 30 days: Unknown
Pros: The Times strikes a fine balance between a quality podcast and an abundance of intelligently-written articles about the beautiful game.
Cons: For a newspaper with so much quality content, I still can’t believe they haven’t created a RSS feed just for football articles instead of just sport. While the design of the football section of their website is smooth, it’s not consistent with the look-and-feel of the other football sections such as the blog.
4.
THE INDEPENDENT
Football section
Football RSS feed
Blog: None
Online newsletter: None
Football podcast: None
Notable writers: James Lawton, Neil Warnock.
Average football articles per day during past 30 days: 14.6
Pros: Neil Warnock’s unique weekly column entitled “What I Learned This Week” is a joy, giving great insight into what it’s like being a manager and how to combine that with family life.
Cons: The design of the site looks like it’s something from the pre-Internet, which is all the more surprising when you consider that their newspaper is one of the nicest designed ones out there, especially their eye-opening front covers.
5.
DAILY MAIL
Football section
Football RSS feed
Blog: None
Online newsletter: None
Football podcast: None
Notable writers: Patrick Collins, Ian Ridley.
Average football articles per day during past 30 days: Unknown
Pros: Surprisingly large quantity of football-related articles. I still have a soft spot for this newspaper after their involvement with the Soccernet website before it fell into the hands of ESPN.
Cons: For one of the leading British newspapers, the football section of their website looks clunky as if it hasn’t been redesigned in five years.
6.
THE DAILY MIRROR
Football section
Football RSS feed
Blog: Oliver Holt column
Online newsletter: None
Football podcast: None
Notable writers: Oliver Holt, Stan Collymore, Mark Lawrenson.
Average football articles per day during past 30 days: Unknown
Pros: Sometimes the best things going for newspapers are their esteemed football columnists, if they have them. In The Mirror’s case, they have their man in Oliver Holt who writes in a very direct and appealing manner.
Cons: The design of the football section is pretty awful, making it appear to the reader that the headlines and blurbs are thrown up on the page with as little effort as possible.
7.
THE SUN
Football section
Football RSS feed
Blog: None
Online newsletter: None
Football podcast: None
Notable writers: Neil Custis.
Average football articles per day during past 30 days: Unknown
Pros: If you enjoy football transfer gossip, this is the place to be.
Cons: The design of the football section is too busy and a new look is desperately needed. There’s also a surprising lack of top name writers at the paper.
8.
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
Football section
Football RSS feed
Blog: None
Online newsletter: None
Football podcast: None
Notable writers: Simon Kuper.
Average football articles per day during past 30 days: Unknown
Pros: Simon Kuper, author of “Football Against The Enemy,” is one of the brightest chaps writing about the beautiful game.
Cons: Other than Kuper, the newspaper’s sports selection is pretty light — understandably so since it’s a daily financial newspaper known worldwide for its pink salmon paper color.
9.
THE STAR
Football section
Football RSS feed
Blog: None
Online newsletter: None
Football podcast: None
Notable writers: None.
Average football articles per day during past 30 days: Unknown
Pros: Wake me up when you find something.
Cons: The articles are light on substance and more focused on transfer speculation. The site would have been in tenth place if it wasn’t for the poor design of the Daily Express website.
10.
THE DAILY EXPRESS
Football section
Football RSS feed
Blog: None
Online newsletter: None
Football podcast: None
Notable writers: Mick Dennis.
Average football articles per day during past 30 days: Unknown
Pros: Mick Dennis is an accomplished writer who can often be heard on BBC Sportsweek.
Cons: The design of the site tries to hard to be a Telegraph wanna-be. Plus the site doesn’t work very well. For example, when I click on a banner for articles by their veteran writer Mick Dennis the website returns the message “no results were found.”
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In terms of “paper” newspapers, I think that The Times’ “The Game” supplement is absolutely top drawer.
About the Independent: “The design of the site looks like it’s something from the pre-Internet”
Yes and thank goodness. It’s the cleanest and most readable of the ones you list. They keep the article to the left and the adverts are less intrusive unlike some of the other sites that stuff ads right into the middle of the article as well as on all four sides.
that guardian newspaper is absolutely rubbish. they are just london based, completely london clubs biased website. and except from the london clubs, the only other credible club for them is manchester united. The only bright thing in such a farce is Sid Lowe who is fantastically insightful concerning the La Liga.
There are many talented young soccer player’s in Nigeria in some states like Jos Gombe Kaduna Lagos Kano
how can the British help us we play very good and also talented and i live in Nigeria in a state called Gombe
Let’s cancel offside law
It has been a long time for the Existence of offside Law in the Football (Soccer) Matches, perhaps since the starting of the appearance of the football in the world ( Review the history of offside law on the internet ) , and since that time offside Law has been forgotten, and Nobody has paid attention to cancel it.
* Offside Law has the following disadvantages :-
1- Offside Law leads to No goals or less goals in many of the Football Matches.
2- Offside Law leads to failure of a lot of the Attacks due to restriction of the Movement of the strikers in the field of the opponent team due to the fear of offside trap by the defenders of the opponent team.
3- Offside Law makes the Football Matches boring and frustrating to the watchers and also to the players with loss of excitement as many attacks are not completed due to offside Law.
* Cancellation of offside Law has the following advantages :-
1- Cancellation of offside Law could lead to watching of some goals in the negative draw Matches or more goals in some of the other matches and at the same time the football will not turn to a Basketball game with many goals.
2- Cancellation of offside Law will make the play with more speed and more freedom as the strikers will not wait in each attack to locate or modify their position in relation to the position of the defenders of the opponent team, So the Mode of the play will be changed to become Faster and better.
3- Cancellation of offside Law will make the football game more exciting and more enjoyable to the watchers and to the players at the same time.
4- Cancellation of offside law will end the dispute about the misdecisions of some of the linesmen about the validity of the occurrence of offside in the matches .
Although the cancellation of offside law will partially limit the role of the 2 linesmen and there might be a slight increase in the number of goals in some matches , but these are not convincing reasons to stop its cancellation .
So I urge the FIFA to cancel offside Law by following the next steps :
1- to cancel offside law in the beginning in some of the friendly Matches for sometime to see the situation and to make a primary assessment .
2- Once the primary assessment gives an indication for the advantage of offside law cancellation , then they can proceed to the next step ; to cancel offside law in the 2ed half of 25% of the league matches to make a full assessment .
3- Once the full assessment proves the advantage of offside law cancellation , then they can proceed to the last step ; to cancel offside law ultimately and permanently in all the next league matches .
Finally I believe that any argument around the Advantages or disadvantages of cancellation of offside law will be unrealistic until a method of assessment ( like my previously mentioned method ) for that is done and the situation will be fully clear .
Adel Ismail Mekki
Cairo , Egypt
What can you say about the 777 score?