Tag: arsenal

The striking similarities between Arsenal and England

If I were to argue that England were the Arsenal of international football, who would I be insulting? On face value it’s Arsenal right? Some may say England. The answer is neither,…

Mesut Özil and the subjunctive mood

Given the thousand of words dedicated to Mesut Özil, adding another 800 or so to the conversation seems rather trite. Yet the German is such a charismatic, divisive figure it’s hard to avoid…

Mapping the future of the Premier League: the London clubs

Arsenal   THE WORD ‘EMBROILED’ depicts imagery of a painful, laborious struggle with no real end in sight. Consequently, within the realms of football speak, the word is quite appositely associated with a…

Liam Brady: the most complete Irish footballer of all-time

Elegant, intelligent, incisive and a match-winner; terms that can be applied to the greats of the game, and terms that unequivocally apply to Dublin’s Liam Brady. A midfielder with touch and poise ahead…

David Bentley and the unforgiving world of football

June 13, 2014: “Robotic, predictable and a bit too calculated.” Those were the words chosen by a tearful David Bentley, aged 29 at the time, to describe his views on the modern game…

The riots that brought British football together

In 1988, The Firm, a prime example of in-your-face realism – directed by Alan Clark – was first shown on British television, and since then British films have, with varying degrees of success,…