[A] week on from Crewe's triumph at Wembley, our illustrator and sometimes contributor Ben Piggott reports back on his experiences of the Football League's Trophy Final. ... The talk on the stroll/waddle up Wembley Way – at least among those who hadn't had to crawl down the spine of the country in the early hours – was of the 33,000 tickets that Southend had managed to shift for their first ever final here.
Crewe squeaked past Southend United to reach the League Two play-off final, drawing 2-2 at Roots
Hall and advancing courtesy of their narrow 1-0 victory in the first leg despite the best efforts
of Railwaymen striker Byron Moore to bungle it for his side.
Shaun Miller's brace in Crewe's impressive 3-1 victory at home to Oxford was the latest notable
performance from the Alsager-born striker, who is steadily gained a reputation as one of the best
strikers in the lower two divisions of the Football League. Building on his career-best 19 goals
last season alongside Clayton Donaldson, Miller has now taken the role of main striker with aplomb,
scoring
[W]andering around Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok in a jet-lagged haze last November, I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of a club shop selling merchandise for an English football team. Nothing too surprising in that, you might think - after all, the Premier League is hugely popular in South East Asia, and we had been welcomed to Thailand by Singha Beer in association with Chelsea and on our drive into the city centre were confronted with tower-block-high adverts featuring Wayne Rooney's pasty bonce.
[O]nce upon a time, the PFA Awards were the undisputed measure of a season's most valuable players.
Voted for by the Professionals themselves, the response to their announcement was one of awed hush
and consent – how could mere onlookers presume to know better than those involved in the rough
and tumble of the actual sport?
He's at it again, that Paul Sturrock. Having struggled for success since his days at Swindon,
Luggy's Southend lead the League 2 table and the only surprise is that so many people seem to have
failed to see it coming.Coming up to 18 months in charge of Blues, Sturrock has gone about his work
in a canny fashion.
Crewe Alexandra has long held a reputation for producing lots of talented young players through their academy, and Arsenal could be about to sign the latest hot prospect, striker Max Clayton.
Pat Rice, in his new role as scout for the Gunners, has been watching the 18-year old recently in his league games against Portsmouth and Walsall.
Arsenal will struggle to score any goals after the departure of Robin van Persie to Manchester United and Alex Song to Barcelona, everybody said. The top goal scorer and top assist provider would leave Arsenal in mid table, some suggested. Giroud can't score and will be another Chamakh, pundits predicted weeks ago.
The Arsenal starlet Chuks Aneke was sent off for a months loan at Crewe Alexander but it all went wrong after just 73 minutes of his debut against Stevenage when Aneke made a mad two-footed challenge on Stevenage's Anthony Grant which resulted in straight red card and an automatic three-match ban.
The talented young Arsenal midfielder Chuks Aneke was sent out on loan at Crewe Alexander to give him some much-needed first team action, but his debut against Stevenage last week went horribly wrong after a moment of madness from Gunners starlet.
Crewe were 2-1 up in the 73rd minute of the game when Aneke shocked everyone with a crazy two-footed challenge on Stevenage's Anthony Grant which resulted in straight red card for the Arsenal starlet.
It has been reportedly all season that Arsenal have had scouts watching the Crewe wonderkid Nick
Powell, who has scored an amazing 14 goals and 7 assists from midfield for the League Two side this
season. He also scored a brilliant goal to help his team win the Play-Off Final against Cheltenham
as a parting [.
It has been reportedly all season that Arsenal have had scouts watching the Crewe wonderkid Nick
Powell, who has scored an amazing 14 goals and 7 assists from midfield for the League Two side this
season. He also scored a brilliant goal to help his team win the Play-Off Final against Cheltenham
as a parting [.
Another Oxlade-Chamberlain Type of Signing? - By JG Nick Powell, an 18 year old English talent who
has climbed through the youth ranks of Crewe Alexandra and into their first team is heavily linked
with Arsenal. Not only has Powell been important in Crewe's ascendance to League 1, but he is/has
been a key player [.
There has been many Arsenal transfer rumours linking the Gunners with some of the best
up-and-coming English stars as Arsene Wenger tries to increase his pool of "home-grown" players,
and one name that has cropped up repeatedly is Crewe's Nick Powell. The 18 year-old has been at
Dario Gradi's famous Academy since he was just [.
In our recent analysis of the PFA awards, my fellow blogger John McGee highlighted the disagreement
that can ensue when debating the worth of leading young players. With Jordan Rhodes valued by the
press as a knee jerk £6 million, John pointed out that Adam Le Fondre, the man whose two goals
fired Reading to victory over Southampton in the Championship's recent summit meeting, cost a mere
£350,000.
The Crewe Alexander midfielder Nick Powell has been playing for England at all levels from U16 to
U18, and despite his tender years has already made over 50 appearances for the League Two club. The
6ft hitman can play up front as well as in midfield and has scored an impressive 12 goals in 37
[...]
There have been numerous Arsenal transfer rumours linking the Gunners with many established stars,
but there is a more believable "Exclusive" in the Mirror that says that Arsenal (and Chelsea I
might add) are going to make an offer for a young English player called Nick Powell. The 17
year-old attacking midfielder is an England [.
Liverpool are weighing up another bid for Crewe striker Max Clayton in January as competition
increases for the 17-year-old. Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester City are also
interested.
View the full story here: The Mail
A news article on 2011-11-24 22:48:23 from: The Mail
This news item has been reproduced from today's media.
Some time ago, a friend and I were discussing youth power in football and how an academy brings
out talent time and again. I thought this would be an interesting topic to write on though it has
been thrown around quite a bit in the blogosphere already. But, given that it's international
weekend, Phil Jones has been prompted as a future England captain, and Jack Wilshere is causingÂ
people the age of his Dad sweat over him, it sounds appropriate to devote something to the Next
Gen.
I am the Secret Footballer Published by Guardian Books July 2012, £7.99 ISBN: 9780852653081 The Guardian's decision to gather together their Secret Footballer columns into this new book appears to have been handsomely vindicated on first glance; sitting as thevolume does atop their online bookshop chart as well as prominently on the shelves of Britain's retailers.
The Reds have beaten Manchester City to Snap up the highly-rated 16-year-old Dan Smith from
Crewe Alexandra for a fee thought to be in the region of £300,000.
Crewe had hoped the England youth international would stay after his proposed switch to
Manchester City fell through last month however Liverpool were quick to hijack the move and sealed
a deal for the 16-year-old.
It has been sixteen years since Liverpool Football Club last appeared at Wembley Stadium. Much
has changed in that intervening decade and a half, not least of which is the fact that the stadium
itself has been knocked down and replaced by the monument to modern football which continues to
justify its existence through the medium of playing as many games there as physically possible.
The theme for the rumour mills this week concerns the possibility of young footballing talent
moving to Spurs and the latest name in the hat is that of Max Clayton, a young striker who had
scouts from no less than 17 Premiership sides watch him score the winner for Crewe in the week.
Crewe boss Dario Gradi has a long history of bringing through young quality players and he had
high hopes for Clayton after the Johnstone's Paint Trophy win over Macclesfield.
Harry Redknapp is lining up a move for Crewe's teenage wonderkid Max Clayton. The 17-year-old
scored his first goal in senior football against Macclesfield in the Johnstone's Paint.
View the full story here: The Mail
A news article on 2011-10-06 21:32:13 from: The Mail
This news item has been reproduced from today's media.
Last four head-to-head:
2-3 Liverpool (a; FA Cup) 01.30.91
2-2 (h; FA Cup) 01.26.91
4-0 Liverpool (h; League Cup) 10.29.85
0-2 Brighton (a; FA Cup) 01.01.84
Nearly a month into the transfer market, and things have been fairly quiet in England. Chelsea
have spent big, but maybe it just doesn't seem so mad as Man City have been so inactive. Perhaps
PSG now have all the money. But anyway, Utd, let's do a quick summary of ins and outs thus far:
Ins: Kagawa, Powell
Outs: Owen, Kuszczak, Park
Kagawa looks good value for money, or at least as good as one can get nowadays.
When Nick Powell put pen to paper and signed for Manchester United, many were puzzled by Sir Alex
Ferguson's decision to invest on an unproven, albeit highly talented, youngster rather than
splashing the cash on a central midfielder of proven quality. The jury is and will be out for some
time but the former Crewe [.
Manchester United have completed the capture of Japan midfielder Shinji Kagawa from Borussia
Dortmund on a four-year deal.
Kagawa passed a medical with the Old Trafford outfit earlier on Friday and has now tied up the
loose ends of a transfer Sir Alex Ferguson expects will prove a big success.
Media reports say that United have finally reached an agreement for Crewe's 18-year-old
attacking midfielder Nick Powell for around £4m deal.
The highly-rated 18-year-old lit up League Two last season scoring 14 goals in 38 appearances
from an attacking midfield role while helping his side beat Cheltenham 2-0 in the League Two
play-off final.
Two weeks ago United took on Crewe and got themselves back to winning ways (4-1) before they
travelled off on their annual team building and strength-testing trip to Slovakia. Goals from
Januzaj, Barmby, van Velzen and Rudge were enough to cement what was a much improved performance by
the Academy and also gave us a chance [.
Coventry full-back Cyrus Christie picked up a bizarre yellow card after he attempted to trip up a pitch invader. The 20-year-old attempted to thwart a topless fan, who ran onto the pitch during last night's Johnstone's Paint Trophy northern final first-leg against Crewe. As if a 0-3 home defeat didn't make Christie's night miserable enough, [.
A couple of the nominees for this year's best young player – Jordan Rhodes and Matt Phillips –
have been so well tracked by the blogosphere that any further attempt to describe their abilities
is probably about as welcome as the sight of the Cornish national flag on the Olympic Torch Relay.
Some of our other suggestions have perhaps been less heralded, though.
Liverpool Under-18s coach Mike Marsh has welcomed the signing of talented American teenager Marc
Pelosi.
The highly-rated 17-year-old midfielder has completed his move to the club's Kirkby Academy from
California outfit DeAnza Force.
Pelosi took his bow for the Reds in last weekend's 1-1 draw at Crewe in the Premier Academy League
and was an unused substitute for the reserves at Blackburn Rovers on Monday night.
The recent unveiling of the Elite Player Performance Plan has been met with a cacophony of
complaint from footballer bloggers. For Gary Andrews of Two Footed Tackle, it was not so much the
straw that broke the camel's back, more a case of the straw being repeatedly driven into said back
with a whopping great JCB -and as Jon Keen of The Tilehurst End pointed out, EPPP could allow
acquiring clubs
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-- From The Bushman Collection: Photo Memories of Rodney Marsh in His QPR Days
- The ever-growing QPR Report Messageboard Marks Its Third Anniversary today. (Almost!) All Very
Welcome to Come visit and post!
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- Throughout the day, the QPR Report Messageboard has news updates,
comments and perspectives - even links to other board comments of interest re QPR matters (on and
off the field) along with football (and ONLY football) topics in general.
