Paul Bestall

So, how many people thought Hull City would be Premiership cannon fodder, this seasons Derby County, bravely battling against the odds in a futile struggle that would ultimately lead to relegation. If so, how many had actually seen Hull City play before they came up? Not many I bet. Fair enough, I'd only seen them […]

Andrew Cole has announced today that he has retired from playing football with immediate effect and brings the curtain down on an eventful career in top flight football. Whilst the last couple of seasons have seen Cole out of the Premiership, there was no doubt that at one point he was one of the most […]

Watching Manchester City yesterday left me in no doubt as to the scale of the issues currently affecting Mark Hughes team and the dreadful run of form they currently find themselves in. With 4 wins, 1 draw and 7 defeats so far in the Premier League, the optimism that greeted the signing of Robinho on […]

There is no doubting about the ramifications of Saturday nights late late show at Tottenham and just how important a decision the installing of Harry Redknapp is for one man above any other involved with Tottenham Hostpur. After the despicable way that Martin Jol was treated a year ago, booted out for having the audacity […]

Literally in the last few minutes, the BBC are reporting that Keegan has resigned due to the football structure of Newcastle United. He feels that his position has been completely undermined by Dennis Wise and Tony Jiminez. A hastily released statement by Keegan pointedly clarifies that his position has become untenable due to pressure put […]

Congratulations Mike Ashley and Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson on showing everyone how not to run a Premiership Football Club over the last 48 hours. Both of them have shown incredible levels of naivety in their experience of how to support a manager, keep the fans on side and lose all the good faith they'd generated by selling […]

In the immediate aftermath of Arsenal's 1-0 defeat at Craven Cottage on the second Saturday evening of the Premiership, several pundits queued up to pass judgement on Arsenal, the players who performed and the lack of signings. Two games into the season and Arsenal have no chance of winning anything, finishing in the top four […]

I got up this morning expecting another tense, dull day to be spattered with the occasional factual transfer as the transfer window creaked shut getting excited about nothing much in particular. A day spent scouring the BBC and Sky Sports transfer vidi-printers and tutting at bored 14 year old's just texting and e-mailing rubbish to […]

Roy Hodgson is one of the great unsung English managers of the last 30 years and I'm a big fan of England's most underrated manager. A polite, erudite professor of the game and an intelligent, well spoken man, he's simply never received the recognition his career and achievements deserve in England due to the majority of his success being on […]

When the Vedran Corluka story broke on Thursday, it seemed nothing more than transfer speculation hitting the news wires, stoked by the usual rumour mongers and agents, desperately trying to earn a bit of corn for themselves, pushing a transfer through. Manchester City denied it, Tottenham didn't mention it and Mark Hughes came out and […]

It's certainly been a busy summer at White Hart Lane this year as Juande Ramos begins to weed out the players he feels are holding Spurs back over the last few weeks and looks to bring in the kind of players he feels can bring more silverware Tottenham's way. With the exception of Robbie Keane, […]

Liverpool seem to have decided on a new transfer policy this summer which makes the same impact as Real Madrid's lovelorn chase for Ronaldo. Liverpool seem to be using their local paper, The Echo, to release transfer target information into the public domain to unsettle players at other clubs. Gareth Barry became the first and now it seems […]

Tonight could give us one of the tournaments great games and after yesterday's dramatic 5 goal thriller anything else will be a disappointment. It is impossible to gauge who can take the game tonight, such is Russia's improvement after Spain spanked them in the opening game of Group D. Russia were absolutely phenomenal against Holland […]

And so the last of the quarter finals is upon us and of course this is the one with most needle involved. To say that there is a little bit of animosity between these two sides would be an understatement and it is 88 years since Spain beat Italy in a competitive fixture, way back in the […]

I have a new name in my house. I have now been dubbed the Spectre of Football Death by my partner after my two stunning Quarter Finals failures. She is now highly concerned as her favourites are playing today and tomorrow, so to prevent myself suffering some sort of domestic incident, I have promised to […]