Recent content by Zebedee

Very impressed with Rodgers yesterday. Even more impressive is that he's convinced the owners to modify greatly their proposals for re-structuring the footballing side around a 'sporting director'. After watching and listening to him yesterday, he's definitely got something about him. He's got...

Yeah, saw the stories of a Tuesday press conference. Wigan don't have a press conference scheduled and deny any intention to schedule one and deny that there was one every scheduled. Glazer died the other day too. Again.

Think the lack of penetration against teams where England are expected to dominate will be an issue. May be that we'll see Lampard and Gerrard rotated in the centre to try and provide some quality running into the box. Norway are a very poor team at the moment, but can see why Hodgson would want...

Functional. Pretty much as expected though? Two banks of four, look to Carroll to be the outlet for someone pacy, hope that someone has a moment of class to get the goal etc. Gerrard didn't do too badly, but I can't see him breaking forward a lot over 90 minutes, and as ever his distribution...

This presumably is not the same Hodgson as the one who would scream from the touchline at Liverpool, "Daniel, Daniel, Danieeeeeeeeeeeeeel! Just ******* hoof it!"?

Most countries are looking 20 years ahead. We've looked 40 years into the past instead. Which isn't a totally bad thing because at least it skips most of Hughes' ideas, but year zero for us is now 1976. Fun stuff. Do wonder just how Gerrard and Parker are going to function together. Stuff of...

We're going from appointing proven winners to taking a huge gamble. We're switching from a manager to a head coach. People will understandably be underwhelmed. Would imagine that most will get back into line behind whoever is appointed when that happens. Lot of it seems to be because many of...

Genuinely concerned that we're heading towards hire and fire at a whim at the moment. If FSG put in someone supporters will call for as General Manager above Martinez, then they've made a horrid, horrid mistake should Martinez not get the results leading up to Christmas. Sacking Kenny after a...

In fairness, look at the players we were replacing. Alonso/Aquilani, Torres, Mascherano, needed an additional striker, needed a left winger, needed a left back. And that's without trying to establish any squad depth. We've got an injury prone centreback and an aging centreback, one of the...

£67.1m was spent last summer (as we'd normally understand it - although that also includes various fees payable on transfers which don't get much coverage when talking about buying players eg of the total £143m spent, since July 2010, £7m was to agents!). c.£18.5m was recouped. So net spend was...

In part, it's a reflection of how football has turned into big business. And in part, most English managers never had that level of control anyway - there was always a CEO/MD/Director involved at some level. Suppose it's also a reflection of the importance of having a clear direction. For the...

Would imagine Dein is exceptionally unlikely. Ayre is reported to have been given increased powers so he'll be directly responsible for transfer negotiations and functioning almost like a traditional CEO now. Billy Hogan is MD of the marketing arm of FSG (which used to be called FSG but is now...

Van Gaal being mooted as the General Manager. Nuts. But I do like it.

'Liverpool approach Guardiola and Capello'. Headline grabbing. Anyone who follows the game very closely as some of you lads in here do know the difference about asking about availability and having a realistic chance of securing a deal. Remember the little French club which faxed through to...

Could quibble with a couple of the player assessments (assuming injury free squads). Can't quibble with your league position. ----- Don't think it's scattergun Mike. Half of it's bullshit PR (we're a big club, we asked about Pep nonsense). Other half is finding someone who'll work under a...