Stephen Lucey

On the face of it, Mario Balotelli is exactly the type of player I, as a thoroughbred American sports fan, should hate: an aloof, cold, joyless sourpuss who even at twenty years old possesses the trappings of a career mercenary. When Super Mario scores, he celebrates with the excitement one expresses when their doctor starts […]

Before we all look forward to the new season and what it promises us, I've decided to take a look back at West Brom's remarkable finish to last season's campaign, in which they picked up 14 points out of an available 24 from their last six matches to guarantee another year in England's Premier League. […]

When Mesut Ozil joined Real Madrid this past summer, some wondered who he was and where he had come from, especially considering his dazzling performances in South Africa. Mesut Ozil was born 15th October 1988 in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. He quickly established himself as a key player to the Gelsenkirchen team and he continued to play […]

As yet another fantastic year of football comes to an end, I took a look at what made this year's highlight reel. Match Of The Year Tottenham 3-1 Inter Milan What a bloody match. As debutants of the world's finest European competition, Spurs were paired with last years champions Inter Milan, FC Twente and Werder […]

Gai Assulin was born in Nahariya on the 9th of April 1991 and signed for Manchester City from Barcelona in December, 2010. He is one of Israel’s exceptional young talents that exist among football today. Assulin started his career at the footballing school of Hapoel Haifa. When he was just seven years old, Assulin moved to […]

Joe Cole is currently playing for Liverpool and the England national team. As a youngster Joe Cole was widely regarded as the hottest prospect in English football and was compared to the likes of Paul Gascoine. He famously scored seven goals in an 8-0 win over the Spanish under-18 national side. He established himself as […]

It is never surprising to hear Sir Alex Ferguson saying something 'controversial'. Whether it's emotional, pointless sniping at a beleaguered enemy or an attempt some kind of Jedi Mind Trick deployed to 'psych out' Liverpool and their players is up to you. An interesting point with Ferguson's 'Torres is the biggest cheater ever, EVER' (possible paraphrase) comments is that […]

After a successful, if occassionally indifferent 4-0 win over Bulgaria on Friday, England have won 11 successive home games. Before this game, the British tabloids were ready, knives sharpened, to cut England's manager to pieces. In his England-Bulgaria preview last week, titled 'Fabio Capello has lost his players and now he will lose his job', […]

Articulate, funny and an enthusiastic celebrator of his team's goals, Martin O'Neill is one of the most popular men in football. Having done a superb job at Leicester City, and a very good one at Celtic (despite quite heavy spending) he was linked with the Manchester United job in 2002 (before Ferguson stayed on) and […]

The last three permanent managers of Liverpool have all overseen a familiar pattern of events. Roy Evans, Gerard Houllier and Rafael Benitez all enjoyed moderately successful starts – Evans had a decent first full league season, Houllier a distant third place and a (very fortunate) cup treble, Benitez's Champions League triumph rightly overshadowed a fairly […]

There can no be no denying that Rafael Benitez has done a good job at Liverpool. His ever growing number of acolytes of the Liverpool persuasion would of course point to Istanbul, Cardiff, Old Trafford and Fernando Torres. He further helped re-establish Liverpool as a European force who could consistently challenge, if not for the […]

That's it then. Arsenal have officially turned the corner. In the same way that Eduardo's injury, Stuart Parnaby's dive and William Gallas's teary outburst reflected the collapse of their 2007-08 title challenge, so Ramsey's injury, Danny Pugh's waving arms and Cesc Fabregas's penalty will reflect Arsenal's glorious rampage to the title. Yet despite the significance […]

Editor's note: This is part two of a series of articles written by Stephen Lucey. Part one, released earlier this week, focused on whether a salary cap could save the Premier League from itself. Part two, here, discusses unrestricted free agency and compares the NFL model to the Premier League. Portsmouth FC are near-mortally crippled […]

I was posed a question last night about the Premier League by a casual American observer. “Why don't they have a salary cap?” While on the face of it I know that in some ways the comparisons aren't entirely fair, it certainly is a fair question. My knowledge of the economics of the Premier League […]

It all looked so easy on Sunday. Despite losing the titanic battle for possession and corners, Chelsea garnered enough wherewithall to dismiss title rivals Arsenal 2-0, moving solidly to the top of the table. Arsenal were dead and buried; United were still walking their admittedly impressive tightrope, though never far away from collapsing around a […]