Alan Smith on the man who may finally become Arsenal’s “fox-in-the-box”. As it was he didn't even set foot on the park against Spurs on Saturday.

A couple pieces from articles that ran in the Economist back in July that RealMadridccfan forwarded to me. 

David Lacey writing about the good fortune of Steve McClaren.

A Times interview with Pierluigi Collina.

An excerpt from a massive – and massively expensive – Arsenal book soon to be published.

How long will Steve Staunton remain in charge of the Republic of Ireland?

Last week just before an old-timers game one of my team mates posed the question - when is a volley actually a volley? His point was that commentators have taken to calling just about every shot a volley when clearly it is not. (Another mate jumped in on the subject of penalty kicks and how he is fed up hearing about the dot, going to the spot etc. when commentators only have to save the words penalty kick!) As chance would have it the Times ran an article about the volley subject two days later.

That got me thinking about my pet-peeves – it didn’t take much.
I have a top four:

1. References to “footy” – it’s football, soccer or if you are, Italian, Calcio. The only two groups that are entitled to call it footy are kids under the age of 5 or Rugby playing public school boys who don’t know any better.

2. References to “mid” as in I play mid– what the hell is mid – midshipman, midriff! Apparently it’s a reference to midfield. Try saying midfield it doesn’t take that much longer.

3. Man Yoo – cringe!!! It is Manchester United or United – there is no such team as Man Yoo unless you are talking about the University of Manchester.

4. Right or left defense – no such position.  An obvious indication that the person you are talking to or reading hasn't a clue.

Now that I have that off my chest are there any that drive you up the wall? 

A new feature - Down Video Lane. Seeing that the Champions League proper gets going this week a European theme seems apprpriate. Here are the four goals scored by Ferenc Puskas in Real Madrid's 7-3 1960 European Cup Final win against Eintracht Frankfurt at Hampden Park, Glasgow in front of 130,000 odd fans.