Football analysis by Mark Payne
Mark Payne is a journalist currently living in Sydney, Australia. He is a weekly correspondent for ESPN's online service and a contributor to a host of business, travel and lifestyle publications.
Alex Ferguson will be 69 this New Year’s Eve and has no firm retirement date set. As such, you can expect an avalanche of stories all season about this being his last year and who is set to replace him. Things have kicked off already with Wesley Schneider claiming Mourinho wants the job when the great [click to read more]
It can’t be great being Avram Grant. Every time the guy needs to catch a break the Manchester United team bus hovers into view. He must be sick of the sight of us. After his first and last matches at Chelsea (including Moscow) and nine goals against Portsmouth last term maybe the Israeli felt he’d [click to read more]
I think it is unlikely Avram Grant likes the sight of Manchester United. His first and last games in charge of Chelsea were defeats to us and we put nine goals past his Portsmouth team last season. I have nothing against the guy but we enter this fixture needing a feast of goals and this [click to read more]
Your house is on fire. Someone has stolen your credit card details and run up a six-figure bill. You just found out your wife was born a man. These are reasons to be hysterical; drawing 2-2 with Fulham at the Cottage is not one of them. It seems the days when you could just shrug your [click to read more]
UNited and Chelsea both cam out of the traps but strongly but against fairly weak opposition. City looked very much second best against Spurs and Arsenal and Liverpool did little more than just tickle each other. How much can we read into the opening round of games? Your thoughts below…
Like the abominable snowman, the lost city of Atlantis and Hillary Clinton’s libido nobody was quite sure that it even existed. At Old Trafford on Monday night the debate was laid to rest. Dimitar Berbatov finally smiled. Not only did he smile, he also outplayed Wayne Rooney, looked pretty useful all round and seems to [click to read more]
Can this really be so? Has Beckham been axed for the final time in the crudest manner possible? Surely this can’t be the end of the man’s run in the national side. Capello has won few friends recently and there are more than mere suggestions that his regimen is disorganised in the supreme. Are we getting into [click to read more]
By all accounts both Villa and O’Neill will come off badly after his shock departure this morning. Where has the Ulsterman ever done a bad job of being manager? Nowhere, he is someone who manages to combine a flair for the job along with being a nice guy. The shame for him is that he will spend [click to read more]
A lovely afternoon in the sunshine. There is always the temptation to write this game off as nothing more than a glorified warm up, but against Chelsea I am always happy of a victory. It was gut wrenching watching their morally bankrupt team of evildoers win the league last year. Personally, I don’t want [click to read more]
There comes a time in every correspondent’s life when he must place his hand in the fire. When he, or she!, feels the urge to go against everything he knows and make some predictions. For me, that time is now and with the way this season is shaping up I have very little chance [click to read more]