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 […]
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 […]
While the jury may remain out on whether it is a good or a bad thing (https://football-nerd.org/2019/02/06/a-heavily-rotated-orient-do-just-enough-in-the-fa-trophy/), Orient took a step closer to Wembley and a potential FA Trophy Final appearance with a 2-1 come-from-behind victory over holders Brackley Town. Their ‘reward’ is a two-leg semi-final against the might of AFC Telford United of the […]
As the second phase of Champions League Round of 16 ties got underway this week, two of the competitions most successful sides met at Anfield on Tuesday when Liverpool hosted fellow five time winners Bayern Munich. Given Liverpool’s Premier League form and near success in Europe’s premier competition last season; it was largely felt that […]
That wasn’t supposed to be how it went! We did our bit: wore my now ‘lucky’ white and red Sambas? Check! Had a couple of pints and chips with beer cheese sauce in the Star? Check! Walked through Coronation Gardens with the missus rubbing the ball on the Laurie Cunningham statue for good luck? Check! […]
As much as everyone suspected the defeat at St James Park was a temporary blip, a one-off, a lapse in focus; no one truthfully saw what happened next coming. As good as Manchester City were in making light work of Arsenal last week, the shredding to pieces of Chelsea last Sunday was simply extraordinary. To […]
On the face of it a draw away at mid-table Hartlepool is a creditable result, but such is the nature of the arm wrestle at the top of the National League, that any dropped points whatsoever spark anxious scanning of the table and hasty calculations to try to understand the implications. It had all got […]
For those of us of a Gooner persuasion it was never in doubt that Manchester City would bounce back after their dodgy showing and result away at Newcastle. For our team we simply hoped that it wouldn’t be another one of those embarrassing tonkings away at purported rivals that have been all too common over […]
One of the unexpected factors of being exiled outside the Football League is entry into the FA Trophy, basically the non-league equivalent of the League Cup which features a total of 295 teams drawn from steps 1 to 4 of the English football pyramid. Given entry at the First Round Proper, the teams from the […]
Once again with almost Nostradamus-like powers of prediction, yours truly’s proclamation last week that the title race “looks very much like it is going to go right down to the wire” and “it feels very much a case of waiting to see which one of the protagonists will blink first“ (https://football-nerd.org/2019/01/25/football-nerd-weekly-ramblings-the-title-race-mexican-standoff-continues/), proved as prescient as […]
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