Analysis

How good is Jorgen Strand Larsen?
29Aug By Joe SorianoNo Comments
Analysis

How good is Jorgen Strand Larsen?

As Newcastle do their best to hold onto Alexander Isak thinking that making a "statement" - whatever that means - is worth keeping around a notoriously moody player who clearly doesn't want to be at the club, they are still doing their due diligence to sign a striker to replace Isak, should he end up moving to reigning Premier League champions Liverpool anyway. Isak was the best striker in the Premier League last season, so it's only natural for Newcastle fans and everyone else to wonder how far the downgrade will go to the next No. 9. Yoane Wissa scored 19 goals for Brentford alongside newly-minted Manchester United signing Bryan Mbeumo, and he's on Newcastle's radar despite doing what is essentially a harsher version to Brentford of what Isak is doing to Newcastle. The latest st...
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Why Manchester United is so bad year after year
28Aug By Joe SorianoNo Comments
Analysis

Why Manchester United is so bad year after year

If you are reading this article, I assume you are an intelligent football fan, because I don't know of many blithering idiots who stumble onto The Trivela Effect. No, no, usually those trolls end up somewhere like Diario Gol or Don Balon while they fiddle with their dial-up connection. Because you are an intelligent football fan, you acknowledge that Manchester United are indeed bad. Very bad. In fact, they are so horrendous that it almost defies belief that a club that has given the world so many of the finest footballers of all time - Cristiano Ronaldo, Paul Scholes, Nemanja Vidic, David Beckham, Eric Cantona, Bobby Charlton, Ryan Giggs, Wayne Rooney, George Best, Denis Irwin, Roy Keane...OK I'll stop now - could be such an abject failure in 2025. It has been more than a decade sin...
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The 5 best Real Betis players you need to know for the 2025/26 season
27Aug By Joe SorianoNo Comments
Analysis

The 5 best Real Betis players you need to know for the 2025/26 season

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a bigger club that still gets treated like a small club than Real Betis. Year after year, they are in the hunt for Champions League football, and just last year, they made it to the Conference League Final against Chelsea. Some of the biggest legends of Spanish football have come through Betis, such as Joaquin, and reigning Champions League winner Fabian Ruiz actually got his first breakout with Real Betis...alongside a certain Real Madrid center midfielder by the name of Dani Ceballos. Real Betis have designs on making it back to the Champions League this season, but who are the main protagonists leading the charge after the Verdiblancos finished sixth in the league last season? I'll take you through the five players I think you should kno...
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Premier League Predictions: The 5 most likely managers to be fired before 2026 begins
26Aug By Cody AcevedaNo Comments
Analysis

Premier League Predictions: The 5 most likely managers to be fired before 2026 begins

The 2025-26 Premier League season has kicked off, and several managers are already on the hot seat. Some of them won’t be around for much longer. Here are the five managers most likely to be fired before 2026 begins. 5. Ruben Amorim (Manchester United) Since Sir Alex Ferguson, every new Manchester United manager has been told he’ll be given time to build. Yet, not a single one has lasted more than 30 months in charge. A third of them didn’t even make it more than a year.  Ruben Amorim has been given the same assurances from new Man Utd owner INEOS, but, based on how his team has performed so far, it’s not hard to imagine him as the next Red Devils’ boss whose project is cut short.  The former Sporting CP boss somehow made Man Utd worse than they were under Erik ten Hag.  United los...
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Premier League Predictions: The biggest question for each Big 6 club in 2025/26
25Aug By Cody AcevedaNo Comments
Analysis

Premier League Predictions: The biggest question for each Big 6 club in 2025/26

The Premier League is underway, but there’s still enough time to interrogate the league’s top teams. Here is one question for each Big 6 club that could decide their seasons.  Manchester United: Who plays in midfield? Ruben Amorim’s first half-season at Manchester United was plagued by every problem imaginable. As David Moyes once said, Man Utd “must improve in a number of areas, including passing, creating chances and defending.” The Red Devils addressed some of those issues in attack by spending €225m to sign Benjamin Sesko, Bryan Mbeumo, and Matheus Cunha. The defense was already in decent shape and should remain so this season (provided key players stay healthy). Goalkeeper is another issue, but Andre Onana is at least serviceable. That just leaves the midfield.  So far, Amorim...
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Is Dusan Vlahovic overrated or underrated? Why the striker has flopped at Juventus
18Aug By Joe SorianoNo Comments
Analysis

Is Dusan Vlahovic overrated or underrated? Why the striker has flopped at Juventus

Juventus striker Dusan Vlahovic is heading into the final year of his contract with the Bianconeri, and as the club negotiates to keep Randal Kolo Muani for longer from PSG and welcomes incoming free agent striker Jonathan David, the transfer rumors surrounding Vlahovic's own future continues to swirl. But the old rumors linking him to giant clubs like Premier League title contenders Arsenal have waned, and as Juve continue to toil away from the true Serie A title race, Vlahovic's own transfer has, likewise, taken a significant hit. The on-and-off again contract and transfer talks have now yielded a clear reality, and that is the fact that Vlahovic is in a make-or-break year at Juventus. He either blows up and earns a long-term future at the club he chose to join a few years ago, or ...
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La Liga 2025/26 Storylines: Title Race, Real Oviedo’s Return, and Relegation Drama
13Aug By Javier MartinezNo Comments
Analysis

La Liga 2025/26 Storylines: Title Race, Real Oviedo’s Return, and Relegation Drama

As the 2025/26 La Liga season is set to begin, Spanish football promises a captivating blend of high-stakes rivalries, historic comebacks, and intense battles across the table. From the race for the title to the fight for survival, here are five key storylines, packed with context and insights, to watch this season. La Liga 2025/26 Title Race: Can Barcelona Defend Their Crown Against Real Madrid and Atlético? The race for the La Liga title promises to be an exciting competition, with FC Barcelona and Real Madrid as the leading contenders, and Atlético Madrid posing as a potential dark horse. Barcelona, managed by Hansi Flick, secured the title last season and boasts a dynamic attacking lineup led by rising star Lamine Yamal. The recent addition of Marcus Rashford on loan from Manches...
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The 10 best young Bundesliga players to watch in the 2025/26 season
13Aug By Joe SorianoNo Comments
Analysis

The 10 best young Bundesliga players to watch in the 2025/26 season

Perhaps no league in world football has a bigger reputation for building top young talents than the Bundesliga, and that's because clubs like Bayer Leverkusen, Borussia Monchengladbach, Eintracht Frankfurt, RB Leipzig, and, of course, Borussia Dortmund have made it a regular habit of signing and developing young players into superstars. But even the most historic and successful club in the German top flight, Bayern Munich, has produced more than its fair share of homegrown elite players, including five-time Champions League winning center midfielder Toni Kroos. The Bundesliga is almost like a factory for talent to the other big leagues in Europe, especially the Premier League, and Liverpool alone spent well over 200 million euros this summer on two of the biggest German league talent...
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Every Champions League contender’s best Ballon d’Or candidate for 2025/26
9Aug By Joe SorianoNo Comments
Analysis

Every Champions League contender’s best Ballon d’Or candidate for 2025/26

PSG took everyone by surprise and conquered the 2024/25 Champions League, and although their triumph of world football's premier club competition was marked by a transition to a more team-oriented setup after the departure of Kylian Mbappe, the Parisians still had one of the Ballon d'Or favorites from the campaign in the resurrected form of a more mature Ousmane Dembele. Every high-achieving club needs at least one superstar to lead the way, and in 2025/26, there's a wide open slate of contenders of the Champions League crown, whether it's the defending champions PSG or the competition's record-holding champions Real Madrid. So in that spirit, let's take a preview of what could unfold in the 2025/26 and name every Champions League title contender's best shot at capturing the Ballon d...
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Is Martin Zubimendi Worth £55.8M? How Good Is Arsenal’s Latest Midfield Anchor?
7Aug By Joe SorianoNo Comments
Analysis

Is Martin Zubimendi Worth £55.8M? How Good Is Arsenal’s Latest Midfield Anchor?

Martín Zubimendi isn't a flashy name, but the £55.8 million Arsenal paid says everything about how highly Mikel Arteta rates him. A metronomic passer with elite defensive positioning, Zubimendi has quietly become one of Europe’s most reliable holding midfielders at Real Sociedad. Now, with Arsenal chasing the final piece of a title-winning puzzle, the question is simple: is he really that good? In an era where deep-lying midfielders are the brainstems of elite teams, Zubimendi’s intelligence and ball security might make him worth every penny. Here’s what makes him tick. And why Arsenal wanted him so badly. What Type of Midfielder Is Martín Zubimendi, and Where Would He Fit at Arsenal? Martin Zubimendi is a classic holding midfielder. He fulfills an archetype of a player who is a midfi...
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