Search: ' Roberto Mancini'

Star players in the Championship are often on loan from big Premier League clubs and unlikely to stay for long. Adam Bate explains why this trend is distorting competition

There have been many changes to the game over the last 20 years. One aspect that sometimes gets overlooked is the changing nature of the football loan system. It’s not like the backpass rule or the tackle from behind – you don’t instantly see the impact it has on the football field. And it’s not as conspicuous as an Arab sheikh or a Russian oligarch when it comes to transforming a club. But if there is one thing that is distorting the Football League Championship today it is the use of the loan system.

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Big spending Premier League clubs could learn from the style and management of the newly promoted sides

The English Premier League is a festering mess of greed, sleaze and stupidity but, allowing for that, the 2010-11 season is shaping up quite well. It is at least less predictable than at any time in the century so far. It may be too much to hope for only three months in, but there is cause for thinking that, for only the second time in Premier League history, none of the three promoted clubs will go straight back down. For anyone other than local rivals of the clubs in question, this ought to be seen as a sign of progress.

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As more Northern Irish fans look to England and Scotland for their football, Robbie Meredith stikes up for the financially challenged local game

Like their lower-division counterparts across the water, supporters in Northern Ireland will have mixed views on England’s summer struggles in South Africa. There’s always the hope that widespread disillusion with brand Wazza, Lamps and JT will lead more people to abandon the Premier League chimera and venture to their nearest club. Yet most local fans also fear that within a couple of “Super Sundays”, many potential supporters will be booking flights and tickets for Anfield and Old Trafford rather than trekking a mile or two to Seaview or Solitude.

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Ian Plenderleith examines a philosophical approach to the game which could make watching international football more bearable for England fans

As we approach the World Cup and lose all sense of proportion about football’s importance, it’s worth asking just why we follow the game at all. A column by Andrew Guest at pitchinvasion.net asked a pertinent hypothetical question: If England win the World Cup, will their fans be any happier one year from now than if they had been knocked out in the second round by a goal that Carlos Tevez surreptitiously bundled in with his fist?

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As the press pick apart Liverpool's fall from grace, Tottenham and Manchester City's Champions League 'play-off' sparks a punfest in Fleet Street

Liverpool began the season hoping to win a 19th League championship. They ended it with 19 defeats. Rafa Benítez guaranteed supporters a top-four finish, but the club dropped to seventh place in the league, went out of the FA Cup in the third round and faced the ignominy of being knocked out of two European competitions. To put it mildly, the 20th anniversary of their last Championship-winning season has not been their most memorable. Putting it mildly, however, is not one of the charms of British newspapers. If the facts were difficult reading for Benítez, he will have wanted to avoid the back pages.

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