<div style="width: 330px" class="wp-caption alignright"><div><figure class="external-image"><img loading="lazy" src="http://www012.upp.so-net.ne.jp/footballmap/darr.jpg" alt="Can Fergie Complete The Challenge?" width="320" height="320"></figure></div>Can Fergie Complete The Challenge?</div>
If you&nbsp;don’t&nbsp;know already, Darren Ferguson has took the vacant managerial&nbsp;position&nbsp;at Preston North End after Alan Irvine was sacked after a poor run of results. Ferguson will take over a Preston team who currently sit 16th in the Championship and eight points of a&nbsp;play-off&nbsp;position. The former Peterborough manager signed a three and a half years deal and faces the challenge of taking Preston to the next level after many of his predocesors failed at getting Preston&nbsp;Promoted. Fergusons challenge is far from easy and he will need to do the following if he wants to face his father in the league next year.
Gain Confidence
In&nbsp;Preston’s&nbsp;last eight games, they have only won one, as well as drawing two and lost five. This is no where near good enough for a team with Preston’s potential. If they keep this run of form going, it will only make Ferguson’s task harder. The players should be a little bit up beat after the 7-0 thrashing of Colchester on Saturday and Saturday’s fixture at home to Doncaster is winnable and&nbsp;I’m&nbsp;sure Ferguson would like nothing more than to get off to a winning start. If Preston are capable of beating Doncaster on Saturday it will see them rise to the same points tally as Doncaster and move them to just five points off the play-off’s.
Make Deepdale a fortress again
Last season Deepdale was a fortress and one of the main reasons why Preston made the&nbsp;play-off’s, If Preston are going to repeat that feat then they need to regain their great home form. This season Preston have only won four home games out of a possible eleven. If Ferguson can get the team playing and winning games at home again then the&nbsp;play off’s&nbsp;are a&nbsp;possibility.
Transfer Policy
Ideally, Preston would love to spend money on a few new players this transfer window, however that is unlikely to happen. Ferguson will be looking to sell some dead wood which is not good enough for a team&nbsp;aiming&nbsp;for the big time and replacing them with young enthusiastic players. I think its quite likely he’ll be giving his Dad a ring and will want to take a few of Manchester United’s youngster&nbsp;out on loan for the rest of the season to bolster his squad.
So after back to back promotions with Peterborough, Ferguson is about to take on a challenge that could make him a household name in the world of football&nbsp;management&nbsp;due to the failed attempts by many before him. If Ferguson can get Preston playing again and stop the amount of goals being&nbsp;coincided the play-off’s are a huge possibility for Ferguson and Preston who both have great potential.

Can Darren Ferguson Take Preston To The Premiership?

Can Darren Ferguson Take Preston To The Premiership? - World Soccer Talk

Several teams have managed to put together some pretty decent runs in the Championship this season. All of them, though, are susceptible to poor form and bad results. This is partly because this is a tight league with little difference between top and bottom – especially compared with the Premier League – but also because few teams have the resources to really cope with injuries or suspensions.<div><figure class="external-image"><img loading="lazy" class="alignright size-full wp-image-685" src="http://epltalk.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/2009/11/QPR.jpg" alt="QPR" width="257" height="257"></figure></div>
Newcastle apart, it’s Queens Park Rangers who have probably received the most praise and media coverage over the last couple of months. Goals have been flying in from all angles, Derby were humiliated on terrestrial television and the passing style insisted upon by Jim Magilton has led to the club being dubbed ‘The Arsenal of the Championship’ on more than one occasion.
QPR, though, have problems. First of all they failed to find much flow against Leicester live on Sky and their winning run came to an abrupt end. A few days later they were denied again by a hard working Palace side who held them to a 1-1 draw. Even Rangers’ recent victory at Sheffield Wednesday needed a late winner to patch over a lack of fluency.
The cliche is that the top teams win even when they are playing badly, so in that respect the win at Hillsborough was an encouraging sign. Yet despite the individual brilliance of Akos Buzsaky, Adel Taraabt amd Wayne Routledge, QPR fans harbour concerns about how far their team can go this season.
The reason for this is The Captain Curse. Five separate players have already led the team out this season. Four of those players are currently injured. If Mikele Leigertwood was to be crocked in training this week, the chances are a sixth name would be added to that list. It’s only November!
Rangers are currently chronically low on genuine leadership. That’s not to say there isn’t plenty of endeavour. Defender Peter Ramage has a tremendous attitude. Wayne Routledge’s work ethic is outstanding for such a creative footballer. Jay Simpson is a tireless worker up front. But it feels like a quiet dressing room. Teams going for promotion need defiance, they need players in the team that will drive them forward when the going is tough. Sometimes, just playing great football isn’t quite enough.
It all started when poor Martin Rowlands suffered a second cruciate injury in a year while playing in a friendly for the Republic of Ireland, ruling him out for the rest of the season. It was a cruel blow for the QPR captain and also for the team because his energy, his drive and his snappy tackling add an extra dimension to the squad. Gavin Mahon took over the armband and the matchday programme notes as Rowlands prepared for a season watching from the sidelines. Mahon will have been with the club for two years in January and during that time he never missed a game through injury – until about a fortnight ago. He’s now out for four months following knee surgery. While not always a first team regular, Mahon is nevertheless a real leader and was captain of Watford the last time they paid a brief visit to the Premier League.
With defender Fitz Hall seemingly unable to put together a run of games in a QPR shirt without suffering injury, Rangers are certainly lacking a genuine captain. The possible signing on a permanent deal of current loan player Ben Watson in January would help (not least because QPR’s central midfield is now looking a bit thin), but ideally Rangers probably need something extra.
If the club is still in the top six after Christmas, it seems likely that Jim Magilton will be asking Chairman Flavio Briatore for a little more investment (Russell Martin of Peterborough is one name that has already been rumoured in the press). A couple of wise additions in January may well be enough to push Rangers over the line and back into the top flight for the first time in 14 years… unless The Captain Curse continues to strike down QPR’s leaders.

Can QPR Cope With The Captain Curse?

Can QPR Cope With The Captain Curse? - World Soccer Talk

<div id="attachment_564" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignright"><div><figure class="external-image"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-564" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-564" src="http://epltalk.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/2009/06/ameobi.jpg" alt="Will Shola Ameobi be enough to fire Newcastle back to the EPL?" width="200" height="256"></figure></div>Will Shola Ameobi be enough to fire Newcastle back to the EPL?</div>
Newcastle fans must have watched Leeds United’s loss to Millwall in the League One play-offs and shuddered. It was like watching The Ghost of Football’s Future. Two clubs of similar size with similarly raucous fans, they are teams that by rights should never experience relegation from the top flight, let alone into League One. But it happened to Leeds. And it could happen to The Toon.
There can be no doubt that the steep road Leeds followed during their rapid decline could be one that Newcastle are already barrelling along themselves. The similarities, from playing staff, to wages, to financial excess, to a quick succession of managers, is almost eerie. To a Newcastle fan it should be downright terrifying.
The Championship is an unforgiving place – graduation is difficult, expulsion is effortless. Here are eight reasons why Newcastle will find next season to be the toughest battle the club has faced since before King Kev’s revolution in 1992:
1. Expectation: Birmingham faced their fair share of expectation last season and only just managed to cope with it. They went up, but with the players at their disposal it was hardly inspiring. Newcastle have an even larger mountain to climb. Pundits and the Newcastle public, regardless of who stays and who joins, will expect Newcastle to not only win the league, but to win it in style and with games to spare. Newcastle failed to deal with the pressure last season – can they reverse that next season?
2. The Bus: Fans, management, players and directors are going to be desperate for their club to beat Newcastle.&nbsp; No other team in the league has the cache of the Toon. At St James’ Park teams will, as they say, park the bus in front of the goal. Away from Newcastle, teams will fancy themselves to take a black-and-white scalp in front of their biggest crowd of the season. Every game, from Doncaster to Blackpool to Peterborough, is going to be a scrap. Are they up for it?
3. The Manager: As things stand, Newcastle do not have a manager. In fact, they have not had a permanent boss since the Keegan debacle at the start of last season. Alan Shearer looks likely to take the role and perhaps given a blank sheet of paper he may thrive where this season, to be blunt, he ultimately failed. Yet even with the talismanic Shearer Newcastle could struggle as they come to terms with the take-no-prisoners nature of the Championship. To overcome that, Newcastle need stability on and off the field, which leads us to…
4. Ownership: Mike Ashley wants to sell and says he wants to sell fast. Few could blame him. Newcastle have a large squad full of players on extensive wages that cannot be supported in the Championship. Not only will the new manager need to be rid of a substantial portion of the playing staff, he’ll also need to pick up a few players who will help guide them through the second tier. The longer the sale of the club drags on, the more difficult this will be and the more unprepared the club will become for the new season.
5. Middlesbrough: Newcastle will be favourites, but in reality Middlesbrough will, gallingly, probably be in better shape than their local rivals. Steve Gibson manages the finances of the club well and always backs his managers. The team should really only lose one or two of their better players and, due to injury, they may even hold on to Stewart Downing for the whole campaign. If Middlesbrough do storm the league it will heap pressure on the Toon and leave just one automatic promotion spot up for grabs.
6. Unpredictability: The Championship is an odd league in many ways. It has become a cliche to say that any team can beat any other, but it is close to the truth. Last year, mediocre Coventry beat Birmingham home and away, while Wolves were battered 5-2 against the usually-feeble Norwich. The gap between the top and bottom of the table is nowhere near as large as it is in the Premier League.
7. Goals: Having a Kevin Phillips or a Sylvain Ebanks-Blake in the squad can pay dividends for any Championship team. Newcastle need to act quickly. Michael Owen will be gone, as will Mark Viduka and Obafemi Martins. Peter Lovenkrands may look for a transfer, which means only the terminally under-achieving Shola Ameobi will be left of Newcastle’s senior strike force. That seems unlikely to be enough.
8. Referees: We often hear how bad the standard of refereeing is in the EPL, but whatever the real truth, it cannot be denied that those in the Championship are, by definition, worse. The Championship, for example, boasts ‘phantom goal’ referee Stuart Attwell. They are not referees impressed by reputation and the Magpies may find it tough to struggle in the more physical second tier.

Newcastle The New Leeds? Eight Reasons The Championship Will Not Be A Walk In St James' Park

Newcastle The New Leeds? Eight Reasons The Championship Will Not Be A Walk In St James' Park - World Soccer Talk

<div><figure class="external-image"><img loading="lazy" class="alignright size-full wp-image-400" src="http://epltalk.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/2009/04/paddy.jpg" alt="paddy" width="300" height="349"></figure></div>
Back in the day, commentators, football writers and outfield players all used to laugh at goalkeepers. They were sometimes described as ‘a breed apart’ but mostly they were bluntly referred to as ‘mad’. Keepers were allowed to have rushes of blood and make silly mistakes, because that is what they were there for. They provided added entertainment to football.
Goalies were weird. Just think…
Imagine that over-enthusiastic fan who sits near you. The one who screams, cries and laughs for 90 minutes. Now give him the fabled powers of a top class goalkeeper. You’ve got Les Sealy. Memorably, he once had an enormous row with the Man Utd physio who was insisting he come off the pitch after an injury. To Les, that was not an option.
John Burridge was one of the prototypes. I believe he played at least one game for every single professional football club in existence in England. Burridge freely admits that he sleeps with a football every night. Even now.
Years before David Ginola smouldered at the camera and said: “Because I’m worth it,” Phil Parkes thought it would be a fine idea to do a Cossack Hairspray commercial. Footballers had advertised things before, but that was Bobby Moore promoting pubs (yes, just pubs in general) and Kevin Keegan splashing Brut all over his toned body. Phil Parkes’ commercial was shot soft-focus and looked like a perfume ad.
Bruce Grobbelaar’s regular title in Roy of the Rovers in the 1980s was ‘The Clown Prince of Soccer’. When it was raining he’d run onto the pitch while shielding himself with an umbrella. He once wore an old man’s mask at the start of a game. He swung on the crossbars. His legs sometimes turned to spaghetti at key moments.
In fact, all over the world goalies have been unusual. Rene Higuita and his famous scorpion kick.&nbsp; Jorge Campos and his luminous, Picasso-style goalkeeper jerseys. Dead-ball specialist José Luis Chilavert scored an astonishing 62 goals in his career. Jens Lehmann performs a strange jump and click of the heels before taking a goal kick, like Dorothy in Oz. Peter Schmeichel was the most scary man to ever stand between the sticks.
Yet sadly the age of the eccentric goalkeeper is coming to an end. Football is just too much of a business to tolerate someone like Grobelaar actually enjoying himself on a football pitch and entertaining the fans.&nbsp; And, thanks in part to the back pass rule, goalkeepers have become integrated into mainstream pro-footballer society.
Look at the keepers around these days: Chris Kirkland, Rob Green, Scott Carson, Shay Given. I’m sure they’re all nice blokes. But the closest they get to being described as eccentric is when they drop a cross. David James is conisdered slightly different because he likes painting. Give me strength.
So today I kneel down in praise of Sheffield United goalkeeper Paddy Kenny. A true throwback. A man who proudly carries the tradition of weird goalkeepers.
Paddy Kenny looks like he wears his kit all week so he doesn’t have to bother changing between games.
Paddy Kenny looks a bit overweight. Keepers always used to be a bit chunky. Now they’re all skinny like Kirkland or muscly like James.
Paddy Kenny doesn’t stand around his penalty spot before kick-off doing a few exercises. He stands somewhere off to the left, shoulders slumped, looking at the planes passing overhead, his goal wide open.
Paddy Kenny looks like a bloke who drinks WKD every Friday night in the Yorkshire clubs.
Paddy Kenny will respond to crowds who chant that he likes to eat pies.
Paddy Kenny is never, ever limited by his penalty box.
Paddy Kenny has no need for a substitute goalkeeper.
Paddy Kenny is the last of a dying breed… unless there’s one at your club?

Crazy Keepers: Is Paddy Kenny The Last Of A Dying Breed?

Crazy Keepers: Is Paddy Kenny The Last Of A Dying Breed? - World Soccer Talk

<div><figure class="external-image"><img loading="lazy" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-300" src="http://epltalk.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/7/files/2009/02/swansea_city_team_2007_2008.jpg" alt="swansea_city_team_2007_2008" width="500" height="314"></figure></div>
Another weekend gone and if you are a Swansea fan another great result which sees you to continue to inch up the Championship towards a play-offs spot. The win for the side from Wales moves them to within two points of a play-0ff spot as we get into the business end of the season. However it was not so long ago that Swansea were close to going out of the football league and going out of business full stop. So can the club once sold for a £1 better Hull City by going from League Two relegation candidates in 2003 to a Premier League side six years later.
If you had been a Swansea fan you won’t have had too much to cheer about since the Swans glory days back in the early 1980’s when the side beat the likes of Manchester United and Arsenal and even played in the Uefa Cup Winners Cup. However since then it has been a slippery slide down the football league, culminating in the 2002-03 season when survival as a football league side was not guaranteed until the final day of the season. Ironically it was a 4-2 victory over Hull on the last day at Vetch Field which kept the side in the division and saved the club as a whole.
Since then though the only way has been up for the Swans and now as one of the form sides in the Championship are they about to return to the top flight of English? Well they certainly have one of the best young managers in British football, perhaps even in Europe, at the helm with Roberto Martinez currently in charge. Martinez took over in 2007 and in his first full season in charge managed to get his side promoted as champions from League One.
Swansea have gone from strength to strength since then and have flown up the Championship table to join rivals Cardiff in the <a href="http://betting.betfair.com/football/championship/">football betting</a> as both sides&nbsp; hunt for promotion. Martinez has assembled a useful little side since arriving with Jason Scotland one of the stand out performers with his goals whilst on loan Jordi Gomez has become&nbsp;a firm favourite with the fans this season along with the likes of Leon Britton, Darren Pratley and Mark Gower.
The Welsh club have lost just one game at the Liberty Stadium all season and are beginning to hit a good run of form at about the right time, which has been coupled with a good run in the FA Cup. Swansea will receive a good test on Saturday when they face Fulham at home in the FA Cup and it could go along way to measuring whether they could cut it in the Premier League.
It was certainly an impressive showing when they beat the cup holders Portsmouth in the last round and they would certainly love to repeat Cardiff’s achievement last year, perhaps going one better, by reaching Wembley. However I imagine that they would rather be there in the play-off final later on in May.
Swansea’s <a href="http://betting.betfair.com/football/">football odds</a> have been slashed greatly since they embarked on their recent run of good form and their would certainly be a few eyebrows raised if Martinez’s side were able to achieve promotion, especially given the short period of time since their near demise. Whilst it may not be as remarkable as Hull achieving promotion to the top flight for their first time in history it would be a fairy tale in itself to see Swansea back in the top flight.

Swansea City to repeat Hull's feat

Swansea City to repeat Hull's feat - World Soccer Talk

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Can Darren Ferguson Take Preston To The Premiership?

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Can QPR Cope With The Captain Curse?

Leagues: Championship

Newcastle The New Leeds? Eight Reasons The Championship Will Not Be A Walk In St James' Park

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Crazy Keepers: Is Paddy Kenny The Last Of A Dying Breed?

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Swansea City to repeat Hull's feat