One of the great recurring themes of British Football happened the other day. Once every couple of years one of the Managers of the “Big Six” clubs sticks his head above the parapet and says something about wanting to have their reserve sides in the football leagues. The most recent exponent of this idea was Andre Villas Boas who said we should follow the model in Spain and have reserve teams playing in their equivalent of the championship: “What happens in Barcelona is a good ....

There has been much talk about who would do what in the January Transfer window, and yet, despite all the conjecture, very little has happened. It is hard to see anything really that will rival the earth shattering last day in 2011 when Fernando Torres and Andy Carroll moved clubs for an astonishing (for all sorts of reasons) £85 million. Indeed, it could be argued that both those transfers going so badly for both the clubs and players concerned has proved a salutatory lesson that all....

Everyone is total agreement that the abuse handed out by a Liverpool supporter to Oldham Athletic defender Tom Adeyemi was despicable, disgraceful and has no place in any section of society. A man has been arrested and bailed over the incident, and you can only hope that if the person concerned is found guilty of the offence he is prosecuted to the full extent of the law. In life we are all responsible for our own actions – and if this man is convicted he will only have himself to blame fo....

It’s that time of year again when people make their predictions for what will happen throughout the year. The other week on this very blog, I nailed my colours, as it were, to the Manchester City mast – and since I did they have stuttered slightly, losing at Sunderland and drawing at West Brom. But I thought it would be fun, if for this first blog of 2012 we looked at who might go up – and down – throughout the four divisions. Starting with the Premier League, I will stic....