Derby County & the 2007/08 Season – Remembering the “Worst team in his-tory”

TFN’s Piers Barber recalls Derby County’s 2007-08 season, the worst in Premier League history…

Ungainly own goals, inevitable late defeats, Dejan Lovren’s defending: each passing week seems to confirm the idea that practically every team in this season’s Premier League is almost entirely useless. Perhaps, then, a little perspective is in order. Derby County, relegated at the end of the 2007-08 season with a record low points total of just 11 points, may be just the tonic.

Despite a foreboding late season slump, Derby secured promotion in 2006-07 thanks to a narrow play-off victory against West Bromwich Albion. Despite operating on a proverbial shoestring budget, manager Billy Davies made a few not insubstantial outlays over the summer, bringing in Kenny Miller from Celtic and Robert Earnshaw from Norwich City to bag the goals to keep them up. Peculiarly, the club also deemed it sensible business to part company with £3 million to secure the services of Claude Davis from Sheffield United. Continue reading

Roy Hodgson and five other crazy coaching methods

Steven Gerrard, left, believes Roy Hodgson's hiring of Dr Steve Peters will be invaluable to England

TFN regular Piers Barber takes a look at some of the more unusual managerial strategies of recent years…

Roy Hodgson raised a few eyebrows last week with his confirmation that Dr Steve Peters had been recruited to work with the England team during their preparations for this summer’s World Cup.

The idea that the recruitment of a psychiatrist will be sufficient to heal England’s mental block over penalties at major tournaments may be a bit of a stretch, to say the least. Yet the madness levels of Hodgson’s latest addition to his coaching staff pale into insignificance compared to some of the other weird and wonderful strategies that his managerial counterparts have employed over the years. Here are some of the best. Continue reading

Alan Pardew’s Moments of Madness

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Piers Barber looks back at five moments of Alan Pardew madness…

Alan Pardew has won both the Premier League Manager of the Season and LMA Manager of the Year awards, has twice led teams to Premier League promotion and is surpassed only by Arsene Wenger as the longest serving manager in the Premier League.

Yet the current Newcastle United boss still seems determined to prove that he has a few wires loose, with his behaviour on the touchline repeatedly proving irresponsible, and often nasty. A succession of crazy moments reached a bizarre culmination on Saturday, when he was sent to the stands for headbutting Hull City’s David Meyler.

Pardew has already been fined £100,000 for his actions, and can expect more punishment in the coming days from the FA. His case is unlikely to be helped by the fact he has considerable previous in the field of managerial indiscretions. Here are five of his worst moments of madness that are coming increasingly close to defining his managerial career. Continue reading

Fulham and Felix Magath – “The last dictator in Europe” seizes control of the Cottage

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Piers Barber profiles the man charged with keeping Fulham up – Felix Magath…

“The English are already trembling” read the headline in the German newspaper Bild, just hours after it became clear that Felix Magath, a three times Bundesliga-winning coach also known as the toughest of disciplinarians, had been appointed as the new manager of Fulham.

Dimitar Berbatov will be overjoyed that he got out of the club when he did. For the languorous Bulgarian striker – now lounging next to the bluest sea in some sunny neighbourhood of Monaco, occasionally having a kickabout with Falcao – Magath is the pure embodiment of his worst nightmare. Continue reading

The Premier League and the race to Rio

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TFN’s Piers Barber on the Premier League players who will be fighting desperately to make it into their national squads before the season is out.

The Spanish contingent

Spain, current defending World champions and winners of the last two European Championships, are extremely strong contenders for the title of Best Team To Have Ever Played Anywhere In The World Ever, or something like that. Their embarrassment of midfield riches has meant they are once again one of the favourites to walk away with football’s biggest prize in Brazil, yet their strength in depth has also laid on a substantial challenge for some of the nation’s most talented players to even make it on to the plane to South America. Juan Mata, who scored in the Euro 2012 final, felt his place in the national squad under such threat that he recently initiated a move from Chelsea to Manchester United in a quest to secure some playing time in the lead up to the tournament. Jesus Navas at Manchester City and Santi Cazorla at Arsenal, meanwhile, will have to ensure they are on top form throughout the rest of the season if they hope to figure in Brazil.

The suffering Man United players

It’s been a calamitous start to 2014 for Manchester United, who have lost five of their nine games since the turn of the year. Their dramatic post-Alex Ferguson slump has not only put the Old Trafford club in serious danger of failing to qualify for European football next year, but has also threatened to jeopardise several of their highest profile players’ international careers. Marouane Fellaini, for instance, desperately needs to find some form if he is to make the starting line-up for highly fancied Belgium, whilst Nani – who, through a combination of bad form and injury, has barely figured throughout 2013/14 – must also improve if he is to feature for Portugal. Elsewhere, whilst an excellent season last year put Michael Carrick in contention for a starting berth for England in Brazil, a dire first half to the current campaign has cast even his spot on the plane in substantial doubt. Continue reading

Manchester United and Twitter – a social media story

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TFN’s Piers Barber takes a look at Manchester United’s experiments with social media…

For many, the moment that Juan Mata’s transfer to Manchester United became a believable reality was when the club’s new No.8 logged in to Twitter to alter his profile’s biography. “Official Twitter account of @ManUtd’s player” read @JuanMata8 by Saturday afternoon, an alteration which occurred almost in real time as the player was in the process of agreeing terms at Old Trafford.

By the end of the weekend, his profile had been fully optimised to affirm his identity as a fully fledged Old Trafford player. Whilst his new followers – the likes of Tom Cleverley and Alexander Büttner – may not bring the highest levels of entertainment to Juan’s new-look timeline, it is significant that Mata, and those representing him, placed significant importance on maintaining an efficient level of engagement via the social media channel.

The importance Mata placed on hastily evolving his Twitter profile says much about the role that footballers and football clubs are increasingly starting to play within the world of social media. It’s an area of football marketing which only seems set to grow and grow.

After all, Mata’s profile now contains links to not just the club’s official English account, but also its official Spanish language outlet @ManUtd_ES. United also have official accounts directed at their Malaysian, Indonesian, Japan, and Arabic audiences.

Yet wind the clock back half a year and the club’s clout on the micro-blogging site possessed a far different complexion: indeed, United were the last Premier League club to embrace the potential benefits of Twitter. “We were late into social media and were worried a lot about how to approach it as a football club,” United’s Head of Marketing Jonathan Rigby said in 2011. “There will be no official Twitter site until we have satisfied a role for Twitter.” Continue reading

Stomach pumps and power drills: Football’s weirdest injuries

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Piers Barber reminisces on some of the most peculiar injury setbacks to have befallen footballers in recent years.

The news that Jose Mourinho somehow managed to sustain a fracture to his elbow after Chelsea’s game with Manchester United last weekend is the latest in a long line of mysteriously bizarre footballing injuries. Indeed, the Beautiful Game is filled with a great canon of weird and wonderful physical misfortunes. Here is our top 10…

10. Phillipe Mexes

Pretty-boy Mexes clearly cares a lot about his appearance, although was clearly guilty of taking the obsession a bit too far last year after he was forced to sit out a game against Celtic after spending too long on a sun bed. His price for a creepy fake bronzed torso was a rather serious eye condition known as central serous retinopathy. Continue reading