Back Page Football: A Century of Newspaper Coverage

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Manchester City hit a formidable run of form in the second half of the 2022/23 campaign, leaving long-standing pacesetters Arsenal five points behind en route to winning a third consecutive league title. Would Liverpool fans have called a halt to super-dosing on caffeine and other substances if it meant their beloved club didn’t end 30 years of chasing the dragon? Would they hell! The response each time I asked a fan was – well, they know what they’re doing or that it was the player’s choice. Like the vast majority of football journalists, they don’t particularly care. Surely the aim for a newly promoted side from the Fotball League to the Premier League, is to stay in the division, and what Flores has achieved this season would have to be seen as a resounding success, but not in the eyes of Watford’s unforgiving Itlaian owners. As recently as March, Karanka missed Boro’s game at Charlton as rumours circulated he was set to leave the Riverside but, ten games later, the side clinched a return to the Premier League after seven years in the Championship. By competing against the best players in the world regularly will help in pushing a player into his international side, which will continue to make agents build their links with the teams across the country to find routes for their players to come to the Premier League.

From YouTube videos to interviews, all the players looked thrilled to be representing their country, a desire that has disappeared over recent years for England. However, one factor that goes hugely under the radar is Southgate’s game management and his use of different formations. Two advantages of National League football are the refreshing absence of VAR, and touchline punditry that trumps the Carragher touch-screen. Added to which, today’s visitors, despite their lofty position, arrive without any Anfield-style hubris. The reverse fixture finished 2-1 to Chester in November, and a similar performance, if not result, would satisfy most; many supporters have accepted relegation, focussing instead on simple enjoyment.We have to be careful what we say and act only on fact, otherwise we’d get sued. If we start being prejudiced against people just because they don’t come from England, it’s a long and slippery slope. We are not against foreign ownership, but we want people to be able to own clubs in a sustainable way that did not demand billions of pounds. Whereas, Rooney was once the chosen one, he’s now the square peg. He is seemingly too famous to omit from the starting eleven, but no longer trusted to be the team’s focal point. Rooney’s only escape from this football purgatory will be a starring performance against Uruguay. If he cannot do this, it could be the last World Cup stand for the last of the street footballers. More worrying than that was a recent report published by the Daily Mail highlighting six Premier League players suffering from serious injuries in a space of six weeks earlier this season – with each player wearing a pair of Nike football boots.

Julian Alvarez impressed everyone last season, netting 17 goals in 23 starts for City. However, his remarkable efforts seemed overshadowed by Haaland’s record-breaking performance as the team clinched the treble. You can’t have too many foreign owners coming here wanting to change our game, what will happen is that we’ll play loads of games around the world. They’ll take games to where they want to play them – that will happen. Flores is not the only victim, Gary Monk has long been talked about as a rare breed of young emerging British managerial talent, someone who had done much to take Swansea forward, but as soon as his side hit a rough patch of form, he was disposed with. At the time of writing, Leeds United are 48 hours away from their opening fixture in the 2023/2024 Championship season.

But, after admitting that expectations were high and he would take full responsibility if they failed, Southgate experimented with a couple formations and variants in international friendlies and UEFA Nation League matches coming into Euro 2020. And during the tournament, England would rotate between three formations depending on the opponent. The 4-3-3