Footie Phantom

As Frank Lampard goes, Chelsea goes; an adage that has served the west Londoners well over the past decade, as Lampard's form rarely takes prolonged dips. But for the month of February and first half of March, the engine that has driven Chelsea to such great successes was showing a few leaks. Season after season, […]

Editor's note: EPL Talk reader Nicholas Buchel shared a series of three drawings he made that I should many of you would enjoy. The first features Fernando Torres who returned to action Sunday against Manchester City. The above picture is hand drawn in ballpoint by Nicholas. Below the fold, Buchel has included a ballpoint drawing […]

There are many English football fans who like World In Motion, New Order's 1990 World Cup song. I am not one of those people, but I don't think the song is an sort of embarrassment to that group. Compared to this, however, World In Motion might as well be the Champions League theme. An unknown […]

Had you wagered with any American soccer fan back in August that Landon Donovan would score his first Premier League goal before Jozy Altidore, he probably would have taken you up on it. You would have won that bet, too, as Altidore has struggled to find his form in his first Premier League season, leaving […]

When Tim Duncan was a senior at Wake Forest University, his teammates often utilized a very basic strategy: 1.) get the ball to Duncan, and 2.) watch him play. A 7-footer can only do so much on a basketball court, however, and the lack of real help from Duncan's teammates allowed opponents to double- and […]

The video below, which was spotted by our pals at 101 Great Goals, was taken at Old Trafford during Manchester United's 4-0 win over Hull City last weekend. In the video, we can see many United supporters sporting green and gold — the colors of Newton Heath FC, which was the original club name of […]

It should be plainly obvious to any football fan with half a brain that Craig Bellamy is looking at the front door. From the moment that his fellow Welshman Mark Hughes was sacked at Manchester City, reports emerged that Bellamy was preparing to hand in a transfer request. Just days later, Bellamy and new boss […]

While Fulham needs a win in Basel today to advance to the knockout stage of the Europa League, Roy Hodgson doesn't seem to think this is a must-win game for his club. He told reporters on Monday that he planned to run out the reserves for this match, saying that his club "didn't enter the […]

It can't be much fun to be a football fan in the city of Liverpool these days. With Sunday's Merseyside Derby approaching, the red side has fallen out of the Champions League and is slipping from its Top Four perch, while the blue side is so decimated by injuries that it's can't even stop Hull […]

When football pundits discuss Carlos Tevez, they often talk about his "work rate" and his "eye for the ball." At times, though, the words "work rate" can morph into a backhanded compliment — as if those pundits are really saying, "He's rubbish as a goal scorer, but boy, he sure works hard, doesn't he?" Indeed, […]

Those of you living in America probably couldn't stop hearing about last weekend's big National Football League game in London, the third such contest in three years, in which the New England Patriots tonked Malcolm Glazer's hapless Tampa Bay Buccaneers — who have cut costs to the bone this season, and we can all have […]

Hull City manager had to wait three weeks to get young American striker Jozy Altidore into the lineup. Once he did, Tigers supporters had to wait only 28 seconds for him to have an impact. With his first touch in the 61st minute, Altidore posted up in front of Bolton Wanderers defender Gary Cahill and […]

When ESPN won the rights to show Premier League matches in the U.S., the biggest worry for most football fans in America was that the "Worldwide Leader" would somehow ruin the presentation of the game with subpar announcers and other bells and whistles that often make MLS matches annoying to watch. If today's Wigan v. […]

For as many times as Richard Dunne and Shay Given collided today, you might have guessed that they had never played together before in their lives. Dunne's defensive woes today nearly overshadowed the lightning-quick start to Manchester City's season. In the third minute, Emmanuel Adebayor served up a through ball from the center circle that […]

American striker Jozy Altidore has confirmed that he will be playing for Hull City this season, and that a press conference to announce the deal will take place on Thursday afternoon. ESPN is reporting that move is not a transfer, but rather a one-year loan designed to get Altidore more playing time against top competition. […]