Poor management, failed takeovers and petty squabbling – the struggles facing Cardiff City, West Bromwich Albion, Oxford United and Barnet
“It is almost as if the club has forgotten how to do anything successfully,” one recent visitor to a Cardiff City internet bulletin board remarked. That includes selling it to a member of the Sullivan family, which has been a regular agenda item since the early 1990s, when David Sullivan first expressed an interest.
Football in Greece is turning increasingly ugly, tainted by both hooliganism and corruption. Paul Pomonis reports
When fans of Olympiakos used stones, lumps of wood and petrol bombs to attack a bus carrying AEK Athens supporters to their Greek Cup semi-final second leg last month, there can have been few in Greek football who were either shocked or surprised. Violence and corruption have been escalating for years and the AEK-Olympiakos feud is the most poisonous of all in the festering domestic game.
Dundee United's manager has blamed recent poor results on the disruptive behaviour of the club's fans. Ken Gall reports
“A sinking ship” is a familiar term to fans of atrophying clubs everywhere. For the rapidly dwindling ranks of Dundee United followers, however,a more appropriate analogy is that of a sinking ship opening fire on its rescuers.
Wednesday 1 Man Utd beat Bordeaux 2-0. “You’ve got to win your home games,” advises Sir Alex. Mark Bosnich, dropped after his leaden-footed display against Wimbledon the previous Saturday, is said to be “fuming”, the poppet.
Stephen Wagg examines the press coverage lavished on Stan Collymore's latest indiscretion
“Sounds like a nice bloke,” I said innocently to my mate as we drove out of Watford on February 12. We were listening to Stan Collymore tell Radio 5 about the welcome he’d had at Leicester City and of his pleasant surprise at being able to get through 90 minutes of Premiership football after nearly a year away. But it seems I was wrong. The following day in the Observer, former Crystal Palace manager Alan Smith, now apparently a consultant psychiatrist, pondered whether Collymore was “an ultra-sensitive soul” or “simply mad”.