So, here we are, December, the festive season is truly upon us. Even though this country’s retail sector would have you believe that this has been the case since September! But now that the first few windows have been opened on your advent calendar (the one on your fireplace with the club badge on the front) there can be no doubt, Christmas is here.
The names of the three players who have made the final short-list for Fifa’s much-coveted Ballon d’Or world player of the year award will have come as a surprise to very few devotees of the beautiful game...
Timing is paramount to many things, be it as a comedian on stage or a footballer sliding in for a tackle. In the last few weeks Chelsea FC's timing has been decisive, but for now that seems to be as good as it gets for a club that can't escape controversy.
By now, most of us will surely be accustomed to the doom and gloom headlines regarding the recession. Of course, football (north of the border in any case) hasn’t exactly been immune to the ravages of these challenging economic times. Indeed, fans of the beautiful game could perhaps be forgiven for assuming that the back pages of late have more closely resembled the Financial Times reports than sports news.
We all know the feeling, we turn up to watch our team, full of expectation. We look with excitement at the starting line-up, only to find that one key player, who we just knew would be the one to make the difference here, has been named amongst the substitutes. Maybe you just had a feeling about him today, maybe you had a fiver on him to score first.