Author: James Forrest
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Barcelona Begins To Look Like The Real Deal Again
For 90 minutes at the weekend, all of us went back in time a couple of years, to a period when one football team so eclipsed all others that they were being considered not just the best side on the planet at that moment but one of…
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A Sport That Ignores What It Doesn’t Like
I love football, but there’s something about the game that’s pretty hard to deny. Football, above and beyond any other sport, is incredibly good at ignoring problems. Its leaders are incredibly good at wishing they’d go away. I’m writing a lengthy piece for this site on the continuing trials Scottish football is enduring as the…
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Not So Special Anymore?
So is this how it ends? With a whimper? With a team languishing mid-table, out of the title race by November? Does the career of one of the most interesting, and successful, managers in the history of the game really come crashing down like this? Jose Mourinho has been at the top of the global…
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EPL Matchday 10: One Bore Draw And Many Harry Returns
Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea took another battering, on and off the pitch, over the last few days as this weekend’s Premier League matches saw them defeated, again, this time to West Ham. They followed that up with a penalty kicks defeat at Stoke, in the League Cup, although like most of the other top clubs that’s…
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Chaos At Leeds Shows No Sign Of Ending
Being from Scotland, and being a Celtic supporter, I have followed the story of British football’s most dysfunctional club, the one at Ibrox, keenly. Some of what has happened there is without parallel anywhere in the game, except perhaps for the rash of arrests and indictments at FIFA, but only someone who knows nothing about…
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International Blues
Is it only me who hates international weeks? Perhaps it’s a Scottish thing. All too often, our performances are the kind you watch from behind your hands, but only if there’s no room behind the sofa. The match against Poland was a case in point; you could feel the tension mounting up as the game…
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EPL Matchday 7 Roundup: Sanchez Hits Hat-Trick In A Big Weekend
Kane and Rooney finally scored. Sanchez hit a hat-trick and Newcastle blew it … again. It was a big weekend for in the EPL, with wins for Manchester United, Arsenal, Crystal Palace, Stoke, Southampton and, of course, Liverpool and Spurs. In the latter match, Harry Kane ended weeks of fevered speculation about whether or not…
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Brendan Rodgers: Nice Guys Finish Last?
As this is my first proper opinion piece on this site, I’m gonna clear a few things up about the articles I’m going to publish here. First, when it comes to the Premier League I have no dog in the fight. I’m a Scot and a Celtic fan, but I love football and I write…
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EPL 15/16 Matchday 6: Newcastle 1-2 Watford
Steve McClaren said, after this game, that trying to turn around Newcastle’s shocking form was “a little bit like a car crash.” He isn’t kidding. Right now it resembles a motorway pile-up, and one with a high likelihood of casualties. They flirted with relegation last season, and but for Sunderland also dropping three points and…
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EPL 15/16 Matchday 6: Bournemouth 2-0 Sunderland
Things are pretty grim up north at the moment, with Sunderland and Newcastle suffering a ghastly start to the season, and one that neither side was able to better at the weekend. In this match, played in front of a Bournemouth support who are much happier with the start they’ve made than the away fans…
