It's been a tough year for Blackburn Rovers. Steve Kean has led the side to a relegation back to the second flight and the halcyon days of Stuart Ripley, Jason Wilcox and Nick Marker must feel as far away as they've ever been.

The below word cloud was generated using all of Blackburn Rovers' match reports from the BBC website.

I get the impression that many people who read blogs have very short attention spans. Therefore rather than writing a long piece on Arsenal's 2011/2012 season I have instead generated a word cloud that describes the season gone by. The word cloud has been generated from all of Arsenal's match reports from the 2011/2012 season that were published on the BBC website.

Chelsea striker Romelu Lukaku has openly criticized the spending of owner Roman Abramovich, questioning his own signing last summer as he wonders why he was left out of the Champions League winner's side this past year.

"I don't like people talking to me about the Champions League. It wasn't me, but my team that won," Lukaku said to the BBC.

Ahead of Euro 2012, the BBC's program Panorama have released an episode called 'Stadiums of Hate' that focuses on the violence and racism exhibited by Ultras surrounding football in Ukraine and Poland. We cover the documentary and discuss how these issues could potentially affect the tournament.

BBC Sport today reported that Swansea Brendan Rodgers has agreed a deal to become the new manager of Liverpool Football Club.

It is understood that the 39-year-old will sign a three-year contract at Anfield and his appointment is likely to be officially confirmed within 24 hours.

Liverpool will pay Swansea City between £4m and £5m in compensation to secure the Northern Irishman's services.

Rodgers' appointment is imminent according to the BBC and Liverpool Echo, although we're still waiting for confirmation from the club.
Biography Snapshot
Born: 26 January 1973, Camlough, Northern Ireland
Teams Managed: Swansea (July 2010 - May 2012), Reading (June 2009 - December 2009), Watford (November 2008 - June 2009)
Career Record: 151 matches (62W-33D-56L)
We might as well get the feared, loaded question out of the way up front.

Get that notepad ready...According to the BBC and the likes of @GuilemBalague Liverpool have just appointed Brendan Rodgers as their new manager after he agreed to sign a three year contract.
It's been a long list of candidates but has been clear in the last couple of days that it was between Wigan's Roberto Martinez and Swansea's Brendan Rodgers.

Brendan Rodgers has agreed a three-year deal to become Liverpool's next manager, according to a report by BBC Sport. The Swansea City manager met with Fenway Sports Group on Wednesday afternoon, according to Sky Sports. This is the second time...
This is a content summary. Visit http://www.

An investigate reporter from BBC's Panorama documentary show recently spent a month in Poland and Ukraine to see whether the issue of racism and hooliganism among ultras fans is as bad as was first feared. With just days to go ...
This is a content summary. Visit http://www.epltalk.com to read the entire article

France Football published an interview with Mario Balotelli in their latest issue and the result was predictably wonderful. Touching on everything from his uniqueness to his zero tolerance policy for racial abuse to confirming that he definitely does have the overpowering self-confidence of a striker, Mario once against shows why he's so much fun.

On the continued build-up to Euro 2012, a Gadsby's England Matchday Special from Oslo with all the coverage and reaction to England's warm-up match with Norway. Plus, after a damning BBC Panorama documentary on racist violence in Poland and Ukraine, Sol Campbell tells England fans to stay away from Euro 2012.

If you've ever wondered what would happen if you took every BBC match report from the 2011/2012 for every Premier League side and put it into a word-cloud, then wonder no longer.

Click to see a larger version of the below image.

Premier League 2011/2012 word cloud

Definition of "word cloud" from wikipedia: A tag cloud (word cloud, or weighted list in visual design) is a visual representation for text data, typically used to depict keyword metadata (tags) on websites, or to visualize free form text.

According the the talkative Wigan owner Dave Whelan, Roberto Martinez has been made an offer by Liverpool to take over as manager.

Martinez broke off from his holiday in Barbados for talks with the Reds in Florida and Whelan says he now wants his manager's future resolved by next Thursday.

After 8 years and 10 trophies The Drogs forever has a place in my football hall of fame. So much so that I placed an order for his No. 11 jersey at the Chelsea Megastore soon after the final whistle in Munich.

Drogba is a top striker in almost all ways strong in the air, good feand the only thing people can call him out for is his temperament, but my biased self has always supported him simply for delivering moments of outstanding class.

Last night the BBC did a TV programme about Rangers. It was only shown on BBC Scotland, rather than nationally across the UK, perhaps on the basis that the BBC planner think that no on in the south is interested in Scotland.

And yet what is happening at Rangers is a warning to all of [...]

There's news on BBC Sports that Celtic want Newcastle 6'7″ goalkeeper Fraser Forster. Fraser Forster - in action for Celtic Fraser has been on loan for the last two seasons at Celtic, and during that time he has appeared 91 times for the Scottish Champions. Of course it's not a certainty that Celtic will be able to agree a fee with Newcastle, for the Hexham born player, [.

Oh, hai there. Image: EFE.

Saturday

- Our mums always said don't let a guys' wrinkled clothes or dodgy bull fight hairstyles fool you because it's what's inside their pants and underneath their shirts that counts. [ABC.es]

- Heart of Midlothian 'ballers, hang onto your 2012 Scottish Cup winners' medals.

By Chris Wright

On Saturday night, a chap by the name of Robin Cooper made it onto BBC Five Live's 606 phone-in and claimed that he had in his possession the Champions League Final matchball after smuggling out of the Allianz Arena after the game and that he was going to get it home through German customs by labelling it as 'seismology equipment' a yarn that had host Alan Green appearing to believe every word.

By Chris Wright

A Freudian tit on the BBC? The press standards in this country are going to the dongs...

Fnarf fnarf, she said sex.

So King Kenny has been sacked and it was done in a very unedifying way.
Commanded by Fsg to board a plane to Boston to be held to account over Liverpool's season by John W Henry.
It has since emerged that Kenny knew his fate before boarding the plane to the States by telling Liverpool stalwart Jamie Carragher: "Its Kenny now, not Gaffer".

Manchester City may not have enjoyed the most popular title celebration this week but that doesn't bother the club's players, who firmly believe that they can beat bitter rivals Manchester United to the crown next season.

Carlos Tevez stole headlines earlier this week when he held up a 'RIP Fergie' sign given to him by a fan during City's parade across Manchester.

By J Hutcherson - WASHINGTON, DC (May 15, 2012) US Soccer Players -- As if we needed another indication for how clubs are really responding to the specter of Financial Fair Play, Manchester City has already shown its hand. Media reports are quoting their manager as saying what we've come to expect. Defending the title will cost, and it's time once again to spend on players.

There's been quite a bit of backlash from the Brits this season in regards to their growing frustrations with the pundits on BBC's Match Of The Day. Personally, I love the show and find that it's one of the best ...
This is a content summary. Visit http://www.epltalk.com to read the entire article

There's been quite a bit of backlash from the Brits this season in regards to their growing frustrations with the pundits on BBC's Match Of The Day. Personally, I love the show and find that it's one of the best ...
This is a content summary. Visit http://www.epltalk.com to read the entire article

In the end, Kettering Town's wretched season ended with a whimper rather than a bang. They finished the season with just thirty points, rooted to the bottom of the Blue Square Bet Premier, and under the same ownership with which they began the season albeit under the apparent control of a new "acting chairman" and with the future of the club hanging in the balance to the same extent as it has been for much of the last nine months.

So, it has begun already. The season is barely finished and the summer transfer madness has kicked in. I say madness because there's a lot of talk, a lot of hype, a lot of speculation and frankly, it should barely register on our Give-a-fuck-ometers because it's nothing anyone who has even a passing interest in football couldn't have predicted.

There's little doubt that Alan Pardew has concerns about losing Demba Ba this summer. Papiss Cisse - in action yesterday What's that ball doing there it should be in the back of the net And in last Friday's BBC Radio Five call-in he said there was some truth to the rumors about Ba having a release clause in his contract, and that Newcastle were trying to fix that by offering the Senegal striker [.

Well, it's been a week for Newcastle United picking up awards with manager, Alan Pardew, recently being awarded the Barclay's (bloody awful bank by the way I know!) "Manager of the Season" award. Well on BBC's "Match of the Day" on yesterday evening, there were no less than three Newcastle United contenders (out of [.

The European 2012 Championships are just around the corner, beginning in June, so what is always an enthralling and memourable
Tournament should feature plenty of Liverpool's players at this year's Tournament Euro 2012 Betting lets hope for good performances from the men from Liverpool in the Euro's.

Alan Pardew gave the biggest hint yet yesterday, about a player who may be arriving in the summer. Mathieu Debuchy French International right back With Danny Simpson looking to leave Newcastle in the summer, Newcastle may already have decided on his replacement. This is what Alan Pardew told BBC Newcastle yesterday: "We are trying [.

Another season, another football autobiography except this one is a little different. After 20 years in the job, the Premier League table has finally spilled the beans on his time as the true barometer of football's top tier. "Laying My Cards On My Table" will be available to buy next week and OTP has [.

Another season, another football autobiography except this one is a little different. After 20 years in the job, the Premier League table has finally spilled the beans on his time as the true barometer of football's top tier. "Laying My Cards On My Table" will be available to buy next week and OTP has [.

More "lies"? Rangers co-administrators, Paul Clark and David Whitehouse have been relatively normal in at least one aspect of their Ibrox operations. Wherever there are co-administrators, one dominant personality emerges. When insolvency practitioners such as Andrew Andronikou (Portsmouth) and Brendan Guilfoyle (Plymouth) are involved, these dominant personalities tend to be.

Despite losing 2-0 to Manchester United on Sunday, Swansea City have had a tremendous first season in the Premier League, playing entertaining football and staying comfortably out of relegation danger all season. So, perhaps inspired by Hartlepool's Smurfs, Swansea manager Brendan Rodgers has asked the club's fans to wear something special for their final match of the season at home against Liverpool.

Here is Alan Pardew's BBC interview after the diappointing defeat against manchseter City this afternoon. Alan is right when he says he couldn't have asked any more from his players, who gave their all today. Here's the interview it's a good one for Newcastle fans to watch and don't forget we could still [.

Welp, just over one week left. Two match days remaining. The 2011-12 Season carriage will soon turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of 5pm GMT Sunday, May 13.

How do you see things shaking out? After using the BBC's pretty darn cool predictor, I see us splitting our remaining two matches to finish a respectable ninth.

Welp, just over one week left. Two match days remaining. The 2011-12 Season carriage will soon turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of 5pm GMT Sunday, May 13.

How do you see things shaking out? After using the BBC's pretty darn cool predictor, I see us splitting our remaining two matches to finish a respectable ninth.

Last September, 29-year-old Carolyn Still became the youngest CEO in English football when she took the helm at Conference side Mansfield Town. Two weeks after her appointment, she was engaged to club chairman John Radford (this handsome devil), and it has emerged that she used to work as an escort under the name 'Luella'.

Below is a link to the transcript from the conversations between Neil Doncaster, Jim Spence and Jim Traynor on BBC Radio Scotland.
It is taken from the excellent blog by Paul McConville - Scots Law Thoughts (http://scotslawthoughts.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/neil-doncaster-of-the-spl-on-bbc-radio-scotland-transcript-30-april/).

Viewers of the BBC's flagship football programme Match Of The Day were treated to a somewhat extraordinary sight last weekend when presenter Gary Lineker launched into a somewhat bizarre impersonation of the Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger complaining about refereeing decisions going against his team during their match earlier that day against Stoke City.