Just a week in to the new Premier League season and we can already say that a number of players have made evidently good moves over the course of the summer -- Eden Hazard has needed no time to bed in at Chelsea, Michu is already having a ball at Swansea City, and Mladen Petric has quickly embraced the team ethic at Fulham. As we barrel towards the end of the transfer window, however, there are a few moves that, if not entirely baffling, at least give rise to a feeling of unease.
Former England captain David Beckham is full of excitement ahead of the London Olympics. CNN's Amanda Davies reports.
CNN's Amanda Davis reports from Etihad stadium as Manchester City scores the winning goal for the Premiere League title.
Roberto Mancini has signed a new five-year contract with Manchester City after guiding the club to their first English title for 44 years.
Sol Campbell discusses Kenny Dalglish's sacking by Liverpool and John Terry's selection by England for Euro 2012.
English Premier League club Liverpool have appointed Brendan Rodgers as their new manager.
CNN's Amanda Davies interviews Dennis Tueart, former Manchester City player, following the team's historic win.
Since its inception in 1992, the English Premier League has grown into one of football's most compelling and commercially successful domestic competitions.
Manchester City won their first league title in 44 years to deny rivals Manchester United a 20th league championship in a gripping conclusion to the English Premier League season.
Their Indian owners once talked about pushing Blackburn Rovers into the elite tier of the English Premier League but just 18 months after their takeover, poultry giants Venky's are contemplating relegation.
After their heroics last Monday against hated city rivals Manchester United, Manchester City went one step closer to securing their first league title in four decades after beating Newcastle United 2-0.
HALEWOOD, England -- Seated in the Liverpool suburb of Halewood, Finch Farm is a 55-acre state-of-the-art training complex. It also houses Everton, currently one of the Premier League's most innovative and progressive teams when it comes to the use of performance analytics.
Five Premier League thoughts after City's Manchester Derby victory:
A Luis Suarez hat-trick earned Liverpool a 3-0 win against Norwich City in the English Premier League on Saturday to give the Merseysiders a boost ahead of next weekend's FA Cup final against Chelsea.
The English Premier League has decided to dispense with the traditional pre-match handshakes before Sunday's clash between Chelsea and Queens Park Rangers due to the legal case involving John Terry and Anton Ferdinand.
Five things we learned in Premier League action Saturday:
Let's come right out and say it: Clint Dempsey is having the best season ever by a U.S. international in Europe. With his late equalizer against Chelsea on Monday, the Fulham sniper now has 16 Premier League goals this season. The only Premier League players who have more goals in all competitions than Dempsey's 22 are Robin van Persie, Wayne Rooney and Sergio Aguero.
In the March 13 Merseyside derby, Steven Gerrard scored his 87th, 88th and 89th league goals for Liverpool, the club with which he signed his first professional contract 15 years and 400 first-team appearances ago. Gerrard is one of several one-club Premier League players in their 30s -- Jamie Carragher (also Liverpool), Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes (both Manchester United), Tony Hibbert (Everton), Ledley King (Tottenham Hotspur), and Chelsea captain John Terry (if you don't count the six appearances he made while on loan at Nottingham Forest at 20 years old) -- but they're few and far between in these days of big-money transfers. That wasn't always the case; here is a selection of more or less well-known one-club players from the recent and distant past of English soccer.
With the derisory and ironic chants of "Hodgson for England" from the Anfield crowd ringing fresh in his ears, following Liverpool's stunning and stultifying 1-0 home loss to then bottom-placed Wolves, coach Roy Hodgson committed probably the final fatal two verbal missteps in what has been a tortuous six-month reign.
A dramatic injury-time goal by Juan Mata handed Chelsea a 2-1 victory over Wigan in the English Premier League on Saturday to boost their chances of qualifying for next season's Champions League.
Five things we learned in Barclays Premier League action Saturday:
Five things we learned in Barclays Premier League action Sunday:
Didier Drogba scored his 100th English Premier League goal as Chelsea edged 10-man Stoke 1-0 at Stamford Bridge Saturday.
Andre Villas-Boas' troubles as Chelsea manager deepened on Saturday as he watched his side go down to a 1-0 defeat at West Bromwich Albion in the English Premier League.
As Cup final victories go, Liverpool's Carling Cup final success (3-2 in a penalty shootout) over Cardiff City on Sunday was particularly unconvincing. When a Premier League team plays a side from a lower division, even if it plays a team from lower down the same division, anticlimax is probably the best it can hope for; to win by a comfortable two- or three-goal margin.
Five things we learned in Barclays Premier League and Carling Cup action Sunday:
Five things we learned from Saturday's action in the Barclays Premier League:
Paul Scholes came out of retirement for a shock return as Manchester United beat FA Cup holders Manchester City 3-2 in Sunday's dramatic third-round tie between England's top two teams.
Five things we learned from the week's action in the Barclays Premier League
In the midst of Blackburn Rovers' defeat to Bolton Wanderers last week, a tall unkempt man strode along the front of the stand toward the home dugout. Steve Kean, wisely, was standing at the front of his technical area, barking instructions and waving his arms to offer a simulacrum of control, as far from the fans as is possible under Premier League regulations. The man stood, unmolested by stewards, just behind the perimeter advertising hoarding. Slowly, he raised his left arm and, with a dramatic flourish, pointed off to his left.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic was again on target as AC Milan returned to the top of Italy's Serie A with a 2-0 victory at Cagliari on Tuesday.
Five things we learned from Saturday's action in the Barclays Premier League.
When Sir Alex Ferguson reviews how and why Manchester United crashed out of the Champions League he'll find a number of reasons. But ultimately he may well find he has to bear a lot of the responsibility.
There was nothing especially remarkable about Grant Holt's goal against Queens Park Rangers on Saturday afternoon. With 17 minutes remaining, the Norwich substitute bundled the ball over the line from close range to win a midtable clash that was shown last, as midnight approached, on BBC highlights show Match of the Day, and then squeezed into modest columns in the Sunday newspapers. The goal, his third off the bench this season, makes Holt the Premier League's joint-leading "impact sub;" Everton's young Greek forward Apostolos Vellios, with whom he currently shares that title, made bigger news. But then the attention paid to Holt's career is a study in understatement, the antithesis of fuss.
Back in May this year it was reported that the Tottenham Hotspur manager, Harry Redknapp, had been interested in Luis Suarez before Liverpool signed him but had been told by the club's scouts that the Uruguayan forward "wasn't up to it" and that he "couldn't cope in the Premier League." Cue great mirth at Redknapp's expense, despite the fact that what he actually said was: "We kept looking at Suarez but people thought he couldn't play up as a striker; they said he's like Rafa [van der Vaart] and you can't have him and Rafa or you'd have two players who want to drop deep, so that was the problem."
Five things we learned from Saturday's action in the Barclays Premier League:
Five things we learned from Saturday's action in the Barclays Premier League:
Five thoughts from Saturday's action in the Barclays Premier League:
You may have heard the recent scaremongering from Richard Bevan, head of England's League Managers' Association. He said this week that a number of "overaeas-owned" clubs are "already talking about the avoidance of promotion and relegation in the Barclays Premier League. If we have four or five more new owners, that could happen."
This weekend's reporting duties took me to Pride Park, where Derby County hosted Southampton for a top-of-the-table second division match. Sat beneath a black and white photograph of Brian Clough in the manager's office in 1968, his two-year-old son Nigel perched on the desk, I read the program notes of the 45-year-old Nigel, now in charge of Derby himself. "Too much is made of pressure and expectation in football these days," wrote Clough, who bounced into the press room grinning after a high-tempo 1-1 draw. "There is too much focus on issues and characters that don't really matter ... it's about players and fans; one group performing to entertain the other."
A landmark ruling from the European Court of Justice could change the way Premier League matches are broadcast.
A landmark ruling which could change the way top-level European football matches are broadcast and sold by television companies was made on Tuesday.
Five thoughts from Saturday's action in the Barclays Premier League ...
Anticipated debuts, goal-scoring forwards and a potential renaissance.
The summer transfer window in the Premier League slammed shut on Wednesday night after the usual deadline day shopping carnage. According to Deloitte, the management consultants, whose figures, it must be said, include an element of guesswork; the 20 clubs spent a total of £485 million ($786M). That is a leap of 33 percent on last summer. The total was below the £500 million ($811M) spent in the summer of 2008, but the £225 million ($365M) spent in January make this a record year. Five clubs, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United each spent more than £50 million ($81M) and between them accounted for 66 percent of the total spend. Of course, research shows that the truest predictor of a club's success is not its transfer spending but its wage bill. In that, the three clubs that don't seem to care what wages they pay, City, United and Chelsea, have a clear edge.
Five things we learned from Saturday's action in the Barclays Premier League:
Five things we learned from Saturday's action in the Barclays Premier League:
For a player on the verge of a proposed €13 million ($18.4M) move to Arsenal, the 24-year-old Gervinho certainly splits opinion and not just among the London club's fans, who would rather see his Lille teammate Eden Hazard join.
Dan Jones of Deloitte discusses why Europe's biggest football clubs have some big bills to cope with.
With the conclusion of the Championship playoffs at Wembley on Monday, we now know the three teams promoted to the Premier League for the 2011-12 season. It's a return for Queens Park Rangers and Norwich City, which were both involved in the first three seasons of the re-branded Premier League in the 1990s, while Swansea will get its first taste at the Liberty Stadium. What can we expect from each?
Five things we learned from the final day's action in the Premier League:
Five things we learned from Saturday's action in the Premier League:
He scores with his left He scores with his right That boy Clint Dempsey Makes Drogba look ...
Five things we learned from Saturday's action in the Premier League:
Five things we learned from Saturday's action in the Premier League and FA Cup:
With one unfortunate tackle, Stuart Holden's breakout season is over.
In the last 48 hours, two Premier League managers have been punished for the way they reacted to officiating in matches their teams lost: first Manchester United's Sir Alex Ferguson received a five-match touchline ban and $48,222 fine from the FA for questioning Martin Atkinson's refereeing at Stamford Bridge at the start of the month, then Arsene Wenger was banned for one match and fined $13,952 by UEFA after confronting Champions League referee Massimo Busacca at the end of Arsenal's defeat to Barcelona.
This has been a season of ups and downs, but take a look at the form table and you'll see several clubs whose Premier League standing is struggling to pull out of a nosedive. Right at the bottom sit Blackpool and Stoke City, which have both slipped out of the top half of the table with one win in their last six matches. In lip-microphone parlance, that's relegation form all right. The big difference is that the plight of Blackpool fills a far-flung legion of armchair supporters, won over by its have-a-go attitude, with genuine dread. Few beyond the city would mourn the loss of Stoke, and now some of its own fans are starting to feel the same way.
There was a moment in Everton's insipid defeat to Bolton Wanderers three weeks ago when the camera cut to manager David Moyes on the bench. He sat hunched half forward, an expression on his face midway between disgust and resignation. He looked thoroughly fed up, and suddenly the rumors that have been circling around Goodison Park all season made sense. He may or may not be planning to quit in the summer -- only he knows that -- but it would be hard to believe he hasn't at least considered it.
With the cancellation of Wednesday's friendly between the U.S. and Egypt in Cairo, it's an unplanned slow day in the world of American soccer. So let's open the mailbag and answer some of your questions:
This is an age in which nobody is allowed to make a mistake. Nobody learns on the job any more. A manager loses a handful of games, and he's out. There's no sense that he might learn from his errors, put things right and come back stronger in the future, or at least not at the same club. Everything must be instant.
The fourth round of the FA Cup interrupted the Premier League calendar over the weekend, which meant the handful of eliminated top-flight clubs were not in action. Here are a few thoughts on some that were:
Five things we learned from Saturday's "action" in the Premier League:
Reflecting on the midweek mayhem in the Barclays Premier League:
Five things we learned from Sunday's action in the Premier League:
There are times in football when you just despair. For Newcastle United to sack Chris Hughton was bad enough, but Blackburn Rovers' decision to part company with Sam Allardyce defies belief.
It's too early to start asking big questions about this season, really, but since everyone in Britain is snowed in, huddled around a two-bar electric fire and plunged into darkness by 4 p.m., nobody's got anything better to do. And look at the table, it's begging to be interrogated: after 15 games, just six points separate first and fifth -- with only eight points between fifth and 15th. We've seen a clutch of high-scoring games, a record-breaking weekend of goals, and we're on course for the lowest clean-sheet count in Premier League history. The question is: is this brilliant or terrible?
There's only one word to describe Ian Holloway's reaction to the suggestion that he might be fined for making 10 changes to his team against Aston Villa this week: apoplexy.
BIRMINGHAM, England -- Part of Birmingham City's preparation for Saturday's match against West Ham will be a thorough fitness test on Roger Johnson. The defender hasn't trained since struggling through the closing minutes of last week's derby against Aston Villa, having taken a knock to the ankle; his leg is invisible inside a protective boot.
CNN's Alex Thomas talks to Manchester United midfielder Ryan Giggs about his twenty years at the club.
In what was a rather quiet week for American soccer players abroad, aside from Sacha Kljestan's second goal for RSC Anderlecht and Clint Dempsey's returning to the starting lineup for Fulham, one up-and-comer managed to make some serious career headway.
Watch the television coverage of any English Premier League game between a side near the top of the table and a side near the bottom and you can guarantee that before kickoff one of the pundits will say something along these lines: "The great thing about this league is that on any given day anybody can beat anybody." Except it's not true, not anymore.
Manchester City FC defender Kolo Toure tells CNN's Patrick Snell he is hopeful that Manchester City FC can win a trophy.
The Premier League is effectively a series of mini-leagues, and for many sides, seeking promotion or avoiding relegation is the main goal of the season. There is a clutch of sides for whom relegation should be no more than a distant threat, but for whom European qualification is an impossibly distant prospect. Here we look at three of the mid-table sides that may be moving up or down a notch this season:
What a difference a week makes. Twelve goals in two games has put Chelsea right on the shoulder of Manchester United -- its opponent this weekend -- and given the Blues the Premier League's healthiest goal difference.
FIFA boss Sepp Blatter tells CNN's Pedro Pinto that English football clubs need to stop overpaying their players.
On Tuesday, Chelsea boss Carlo Ancelotti made a somewhat bold pronouncement. "I like statistics and in think that, in the past, with 86 points every team won the title," he said at a press conference. "I think we need to get to 86 points to win the Premier League."
The man leading the administrator process for Portsmouth FC outlined three goals for the club. CNN's Kate Giles reports.
Don Fabio Capello has ensured that England already has booked its place at next summer's World Cup, and this weekend, the Three Lions are sunning themselves ahead of a showpiece money-spinner against Brazil in Qatar.
It's been said before: John Skipper is that rare American who can equally negotiate the worlds of Craven Cottage and Ricky Craven. As ESPN's executive vice president for content, Skipper has a major hand in the programming you see on the network and his fondness for soccer is no Beckham-come-lately act. He is a devoted supporter of Tottenham, the plucky London-based English Premier League team, and has spanned the globe with his two children visiting some of soccer's most famous cathedrals.
When even the FA Cup is drawing criticism, you know domestic cup competitions are in trouble.
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