Tag Archives: oldham

This One’s for the Neutrals

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Can we work out who is the Premier League’s ‘most neutral’ team? David Wild puts it to the test…

‘This is one for the neutrals’; English football has thrown this phrase our way an awful lot recently.  If we look at some recent cases from the League and FA Cup we can see in the cup runs of Bradford and Oldham a classic example of a national complex; the celebration of the plucky underdog.

When we see a team performing in a way that we admire our hearts go out to them, they achieve a kind of universal admiration. In these cases the admiration came from both teams performing beyond the expectations of teams of their quality in beating premier league opposition. Continue reading →

The Death of the Utility Man

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David Wild explores the decline of the utility man across the footballing landscape, and the normalisation of total football…

It’s the 60th minute. You’re 1-0 up and your first choice right back has just gone off injured. What do you do? Nowadays squads are large enough and filled with enough specialist players that this is fast becoming a problem consigned to the history books. In days gone by however most clubs could call upon a fan favourite utility player in times of need, willing to play anywhere if it meant time on the pitch.

Football used to be full of them. Paul Warhurst, an old Oldham favourite, would play a decent job anywhere on the pitch. He’s probably one of the only players who was as effective as a striker as he was a defender. This is excepting, of course, the ever memorable Dion Dublin, striker, defender and percussionist all in one.

Continue reading →