Footie Phantom

Jozy Altidore seems to be handling this Twitter thing a little better than Darren Bent. While Bent tossed his toys out of the pram in 140 characters or less, the teenage American striker calmly tweeted to his followers: England early in the morning so im going to get some sleep ill tweet all day tomorrow […]

When Arsene Wenger told the press he was in no hurry to spend Emmanuel Adebayor's transfer fee and would replace him with "an internal player," more than a few people probably had the same reaction: "Same old Wenger, always stingy." A quick look over Arsenal's roster, however, proves Wenger indeed has no shortage of options […]

Say what you will about the obscene amount of money being spent by Manchester City this summer, but you have to admit that there's a certain perverse pleasure in watching someone build a real-life club lineup in much the same way that most regular joes would create their starting XI in a video game. Okay, […]

Some years, it seems like the UEFA Champions League is one part football, four parts money and twelve parts hype. This year, however, the hype surrounding the Champions League Final certainly seems justified. Manchester United v. Barcelona. Champions of England v. Champions of Spain. Both clubs are goliaths. Both clubs have already won two domestic […]

Earlier this morning, our friend The Gaffer lamented that ESPN's loss of the UEFA Champions League TV rights would be bad for soccer in America. After all, ESPN remains the primary vehicle for sporting culture in this country, and if the "Worldwide Leader in Sports" suddenly doesn't care enough to keep this planet's biggest club […]

Here's a statistic I had to look at twice and then verify before believing it: since star midfielder Cesc Fabregas went out with an injury last December, Arsenal hasn't lost a match in the Premier League. This is not to say they haven't dropped points. In their last 12, Arsenal has won 6 and drawn […]

When Nicolas Anelka arrived at Stamford Bridge 13 months ago, pundits everywhere talked up the possibility of a devastating strike partnership between him and Didier Drogba. Even Drogba himself described the potential pairing as "terrifying." One year later, however, it's become plainly obvious that the strike partnership everyone wants is simply never going to materialize. […]

Noel and Liam Gallagher might be the most famous Manchester City fans on the planet. So when they found themselves performing in Milan on Monday night, it only made sense that they would dedicate a song to the most famous transfer target in the history of their club — in the city where he decided […]

The beauty of the Premier League is that there are always three distinct races within the table, and after 23 rounds of this Premier League season, none of those races are decided. In the race for first place, only two points separate top-of-the-table Manchester United from Liverpool and Chelsea, while Aston Villa is only three […]

In a finer world, each football club would try to win every competition it entered. Only the biggest clubs, however, have that luxury, and managers of smaller clubs are forced to look at their fixture lists and determine what their biggest priorities are. Such is the case with Aston Villa manager Martin O'Neill, who told […]