Tony Mowbray promised attacking football but lasted only nine months at Celtic Park. Neil Forsyth looks at what went wrong

The car park outside Celtic Park is an influential stretch of concrete. Prominent new arrivals, such as Robbie Keane, are sent out there to receive adoration, while protests in the car park have been synonymous with much of Celtic’s recent history. They brought down the board in 1994, before Fergus McCann arrived to build a new Parkhead and start the process of correcting the club’s finances.

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How you react to José Mourinho seems to depend on your nationality. Andy Brassell witnessed his return to Chelsea

It could have easily been HMV Oxford St waiting for JLS to do a personal appearance were you to substitute the sweating hacks present for screaming teenage girls. Taking a seat a full half hour before the Special One deigns to honour us with his presence, the clammy press conference room at Stamford Bridge is already packed and abuzz with gossiping whisper. Just along the row an English and Italian journalist almost come to blows (Italian: “I’m sorry, my friend is sitting there.” Englishman: “I don’t see anyone sitting there. Do you even understand English?”).

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The bosses at Major League Soccer in America thought it necessary to spend millions on a new web presence. Ian Plenderleith points out why it has been a disaster

“The days of the 800-word think-piece are over,” a football journalist recently told me as we discussed the state of internet writing. With all that content being condensed into ever shorter formats, readers want easily browsed headlines, Twitter snippets, news-based blog entries that end with a question, controversial quotes and a space at the bottom where they can launch in with their opinions. Those long paragraphs just give us a headache and take up time better spent watching that shaky YouTube clip where the loco ref scores with an overhead kick in a Paraguayan Fourth Division game before taking a out a handgun and opening fire on the crowd.

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It sounds like a dream. A young man plucked from a building site and now scoring goals freely in the Football League. Scott Anthony recounts the story of Charlie Austin

When Charlie Austin swept in Swindon Town’s opener in their 3-0 victory over Leeds United it marked a truly remarkable ascent through the football pyramid. After arriving at the County Ground from Wessex League Poole Town in the summer, 20-year-old Austin has become a scoring sensation. At the time of writing he had notched 15 goals in 23 games, a ratio that bears comparison with much-hyped peers such as Jermaine Beckford and Jordan Rhodes. Austin is “constantly pinching myself”, League One defences are consistently being shredded. For Swindon promotion is a possibility, for Austin there is talk of an England Under-21 bow.

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Failure to gain league status can have an impact on all levels of a club. One area it affects is youth development funding, which is only allocated to clubs in the Football League. Matt Ramsay questions whether this is fair and highlights a non-League director who is trying to raise awareness of the problem

Last May’s Conference play-off final between Torquay United and Cambridge United represented a clash between two sides seeking to return to League Two after periods of non-League exile. Yet there was more at stake for the winner than just promotion and a considerable increase in television income.

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