Written by Football NerdMarch 29, 2019

Football Nerd Weekly Ramblings- The tedium of the international break is over and now we can all concentrate on the real stuff once again.

Two wins out of two, six points out of six, ten goals for and just one against and a four point lead in the group already, so England are finding the going tough in their Euro 2020 qualification group then! As I pondered on this page last week (https://football-nerd.org/2019/03/22/football-nerd-weekly-ramblings-international-break-boredom-var-creates-an-un-level-playing-field-and-orient-one-step-away-from-wembley/), one wonders what strange logic anyone […]

Written by Football NerdMarch 28, 2019March 28, 2019

Taking stock- do we dare to dream just yet?

As football fans we’ve all done that mental management of expectations during the course of a match, a run of games or even over an entire season. Where we try to convince ourselves that: conceding a goal, drawing a match, losing one even, doesn’t necessarily mean the end of our chances of winning the match, […]

Written by Football NerdMarch 22, 2019

Football Nerd Weekly Ramblings: International break boredom, VAR creates an un-level playing field and Orient one step away from Wembley.

Interlull Tedium So here we are in the deepest darkest depths of another Interlull (© Arseblog), after the relative excitement generated by the fledgling Nations League, this one sees a return to the overwhelming tedium of qualification for Euro 2020. Back in 2016 when the Euros expanded to 24 teams, it was suggested that the […]

Written by Football NerdMarch 15, 2019

Football Nerd Weekly Ramblings: Are English clubs set to dominate European competition once again?

So another weekend passes and another win each for Manchester City and Liverpool and still no decisive move in the race for the Premier League title. First up on Saturday evening Manchester City made light work of Watford thanks to a thirteen minute hat-trick from Raheem Sterling. On Sunday Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool responded to the […]

Written by Football NerdMarch 14, 2019

Orient make it four out of four and put themselves back in the promotion race driving seat.

After two vital away wins in four days at Havant & Waterlooville and Barrow, Orient returned home for a potentially pivotal clash with top of the table Wrexham last Saturday. Anyone familiar with the O’s track record in live TV matches will appreciate that confidence was far from high amongst the Orient faithful going into […]

Written by Football NerdMarch 7, 2019

Football Nerd Weekly Ramblings: City nudge into the lead in the title, Arsenal show unexpected defensive discipline, while Ajax and Manchester United shock Europe.

For the first time since Opta has been gathering the data a team failed to record a single shot on or off target in a Premier League match. The fact that it was Eddie Howe’s usually progressive Bournemouth side made it even more puzzling. Howe has in the past, on several occasions, stated that he […]

Written by Football NerdMarch 6, 2019

Two wins in four days means Orient have leaders Wrexham in their sights.

In what is an absolutely pivotal run of three games in a week, Orient are over the first two hurdles and just about continue to hold their fate in their own hands. Going into these games having won just one of their previous five league games since the turn of the year, it was absolutely […]

Written by Football NerdMarch 1, 2019

Football Nerd Weekly Ramblings: Does the Arrizabalaga/ Sarri incident show us that player power has gone too far?

I don’t recall ever seeing anything like it, not even at lower levels of competition, let alone in a televised Wembley final. Deep into extra time of Sunday’s League Cup Final under-fire Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri, having seen his goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga twice go down with cramp, opted to replace him with sub keeper Willy […]

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Month: March 2019