Search: 'Michael Mancienne'

By moving their central defenders forward into midfield, English managers are taking a tactical step backwards, says Adam Bate

After the initial excitement, it only took a few difficult games for questions to be raised about Phil Jones. “In the end… Jones is there to stop, not start, the fun,” wrote Paul Hayward in the Guardian. And he is right, of course. A defender should be able to defend. Less understandable is the desire to move Jones into midfield – as Alex Ferguson did against Liverpool – simply because he can trap a football. It seems that Jones is just the latest victim of English football’s love affair with converting the centre-half.

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A West Midlands derby leaves the home team just about over the safety line, while the visitors are left with the volatile mood swings familiar to anyone who has experienced a relegation scrap. Adam Bate relives the action

I’m meeting an old school friend to go to the game. Although we are both Wolves fans, he lives behind enemy lines – near the Mailbox in the centre of Birmingham. He greets me at the door with a sheepish raise of the eyebrows. No words. We both know this is not a social call. Such is life for the supporters of a team in the midst of a relegation battle.

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With every team desperate to find the quickest route to success, the debate over clubs' spending patterns rages on

It’s rare enough that Rafa Benítez and Sir Alex Ferguson have an exchange of views that could be described as entertaining but they achieved it mid-March. It started with Benítez claiming that in his five seasons at Liverpool they had spent £100 million less on players than Man Utd. One can imagine that Sir Alex was a picture of wounded dignity as he asked a couple of United’s sports scientists to lay down their stopwatches and clipboards for an afternoon to look into this claim. Wouldn’t you know, they came up with figures to refute it.

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