Always thinking, coaching, writing. Always football.

Hands. On the football pitch only one player has this advantage. The ability to block, dive, stretch, punch, catch and throw. No player has a spotlight shone on them like…

Goals Everywhere New England Saints hit a new apex this season. Eight players scoring more than 15 goals across all competitions. Four of those breaking 20. One surpassing 30. During…

20. It is FM perfection. Those 20 out of 20 ratings are golden. There are very few players who are loaded with these perfect attributes but the closer you can…

Pep Guardiola. Close your eyes and imagine a Guardiola team. What did you see? My expectation is that your mind's eye generated the image of a ball being zipped around…

The whole point of this New England Saints project is to develop young English players with a bias towards those who featured during the 2017 summer. In two seasons the…

The second season at New England Saints has been completed. On the pitch it was a second season of unexpected success. Off it, there was an ongoing takeover bid that…

Steve McManaman broke my heart. Not so long ago I wrote a piece about how McManaman leaving Liverpool for Real Madrid had left me bereft for a considerable amount of…

The season is over. At the beginning of the season the expectations for my (deliberately) young squad were low. The board would have been delighted if the side had finished…

In 1909 a young basque man returned to Bilbao from England. With him he had around 50 Southampton shirts. The red and white stripes matching perfectly with the flag of…

I am and have always been a fan of Football Manager. I can go further. I was a fan of Championship Manager. I was a fan of the original Football…