At the very end of ITV's interview with Jose Mourinho following Real Madrid's attempt to come back from a 4-1 first-leg deficit against Borussia Dortmund, Mourinho started to open up about where he'll be next season. Speculation has been heavy for months now that Mourinho would return to Chelsea since his time in Madrid has turned sour with infighting and less than absolute support from the fans.
ITV thwarted Jose Mourinho's attempts to give them an exclusive on his future by cutting short an interview with him to make sure they went to advert break on time ahead of the News at Ten. Mourinho said he would "maybe not" be at Real Madrid next season. He added: "I love to be where [...]
Wayne Rooney's wife Coleen took to Twitter to express her surprise that her hubby didn't start last night's match against Real Madrid. Rooney was left on the bench for the Champions League match, with Coleen tweeting: "Can't believe @WayneRooney isn't starting tonight!!!" Some of today's newspapers are pondering whether the selection decision spells the end [.
There will be much gnashing of teeth and questions of 'where do we go from here?' after another defeat. Bayern came, they saw, they conquered. They are, basically, a much better football team than us and it showed last night.
Manchester City were beaten by Real Madrid last night in deflating circumstances, having led twice unlikely as it would seem given their largely erratic performance in the cavernous confines of the Bernabeu, only to see two late goals give Real a frantic last-gasp victory.
Believe it or not there was a time when there were only one or two live football matches shown per
season on television. Even when I started following football properly in the very late 80s, you
would only get a maximum one game per week on television in the form of ITV's ‘The Big Match,'
with Elton Welsby (remember him?
ITV aren't a brilliant broadcaster, are they? Firstly they subject us to Clive Tyldesley and Jim
Beglin on a semi-regular basis, and now they have completed a fairly impressive hat trick, in
cutting away three times during high profile football matches. In 2009, the channel missed Dan
Gosling's extra-time winner for Everton against Liverpool in [.
ITV aren't a brilliant broadcaster, are they? Firstly they subject us to Clive Tyldesley and Jim
Beglin on a semi-regular basis, and now they have completed a fairly impressive hat trick, in
cutting away three times during high profile football matches. In 2009, the channel missed Dan
Gosling's extra-time winner for Everton against Liverpool in [.
It's a question that no one will know the answer to until around 1700 on Sunday. There will be
plenty of opinion from both sets of supporters on this that will continue to change right up until
we find out from RDM and Harry Redknapp.
Of course being a Chelsea blog, I am going to focus purely on the Chelsea side and formation and to
not take into consideration anything to do with Spurs.
In the immediate aftermath of Fabio Capello's resignation on Wednesday night, a number of
England players shared their views on the matter via Twitter. "Gutted Capello has quit. Good guy
and top coach. Got to be English to replace him. Harry Redknapp for me," said Wayne Rooney. These
comments were relayed to his former teammate and current ITV pundit Roy Keane, who promptly
eviscerated him.
Liverpool stalwart Jamie Carragher will join Sky Sports from the start of next season. The veteran defender had previously announced that he would retire at the end of the current campaign, although the rumour mill had suggested he was thinking of performing a U-turn and staying on for one more season.
Pundits appear to agree that Wigan Athletic had a good season. Indeed, they had such a good
season that Latics chief Roberto Martinez has become a pundit himself, sitting on sofas alongside
Patrik Vieira and Roy Keane on ITV's Euro 2012 coverage.
The below word cloud was generated using all of Wigan Athletic's match reports from the BBC
website from the 2011/2012 season.
This article titled "BBC v ITV: who is winning the Euro 2012 battle?" was written by Martin
Kelner, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 14th June 2012 11.36 UTC
Shiny new football-themed commercials are part of the joy of big tournaments in my view – the
superannuated ex-stars carrying away wheelbarrow loads of money probably feel the same.
Greece's manager Fernando Santos knew what was coming – in the first half at least. He had his
head down, his eyes shut and his hand wiping a furrowed brow (a neat facial trick if your eyes are
closed). The speech bubble "oh no, here we go again" wrote itself. I'm sure it has been noted
somewhere that Santos would be a shoo-in for any Greek remake of the Inspector Wexford
Mysteries.
This article titled "England's draw with France in Euro 2012 attracts over 12m viewers" was
written by Jason Deans, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 12th June 2012 10.43 UTC
England's 1-1 draw with France in their opening Euro 2012 match gave ITV1 a welcome ratings
boost on Monday afternoon, attracting an average audience of more than 12 million viewers.
Monday gave us the final two games of the first group stage round, and for Liverpool fans the
main attraction was France versus England, where two of the club's players started and another four
were available from the bench. We took an extended look at England's draw yesterday, which means
it's time now for a quick look back at the exciting Ukraine-Sweden match and a look ahead to the
start of the second set of group games, including the dominant Russians taking on hosts Poland,
desperate for a result to keep any hopes of advancing alive.
Follow @Regista_blog ::: FistedAway welcomes a guest post from Michael, who has an ace surname and runs the splendid Regista ::: Euro-time is almost upon us.
And yet, most of our attention is wrongly focused on the national teams competing at the
finals, when we should be weighing up the merits of the real heroes – the
broadcasters.
After watching this EURO 2012 spot for ITV, it's safe to say that if England were hugely
successful on the international stage, then they would be absolutely insufferable. Think about it.
The English press already thinks that England perpetually has the best team in the world.
Admittedly a little bit of an oxymoron in football, that, considering England's only ever hauled
in one trophy over the two major competitions, and never even reached the final of the Euros. But a
little bit of fiction and child-like imaginantion never hurt anyone, so ITV has gone on to remind
everyone what could've been.
The complete Euro 2012 TV guide for UK and US viewers - originally posted on Soccerlens.com
There is nothing quite like an international football tournament: the best players, teams and
games packed into a three-week beautiful game marathon.
For most of us, the not-so-exotic climes of Ukraine and Poland will be avoided but the Euro 2012
extravaganza can be monitored closely from the safe haven of our living rooms.
As European domestic campaigns start to wrap up, the footballing world is starting to turn its
focus to the upcoming Euro 2012 campaign in Ukraine and Poland. With the first game less than two
months away on June 8th, through to the final on July 1st, some of the leading players and teams
will be on show in eastern Europe, with Euro 2012 bets sure to increase in coming weeks.
ITV's nasty habit of interrupting live football matches to show something not quite as important continued last night. In the past it's been a Tic-Tac advert and their newsreader, but last night they broke off from the closing moments of the first-half of Lyon vs Tottenham to show you... a team bus. We've seen most [.
My abiding memory of Chris Eagles came from an otherwise long forgotten episode of ITV's Football
League highlights hosted by Matt Smith dating back about five years or so now. In that favourite
director's technique, players were seen alighting from the team bus and amid the friendly smiles
and poised pens for autographs, Eagles stepped down coolly, in possession of headphones the size of
which would have shamed the participants of the Live Aid video.
My abiding memory of Chris Eagles came from an otherwise long forgotten episode of ITV's Football
League highlights hosted by Matt Smith dating back about five years or so now. In that favourite
director's technique, players were seen alighting from the team bus and amid the friendly smiles
and poised pens for autographs, Eagles stepped down coolly, in possession of headphones the size of
which would have shamed the participants of the Live Aid video.
Poor Wrighty did his level best to give the impression of an intellectual 1950s Oxford professor for his appearance on ITV's FA Cup coverage yesterday by wearing a pair of 'Good Will Hunting' horn-rims, but sadly he just came off looking a bit like that berk from The Halifax adverts.
Chelsea saw off Birmingham by two goals to nil in their FA Cup fifth round replay at St Andrews
last night (photos up shortly), but it was the Chelsea players' wanton display of anything more
emotive than a fierce, dead-eyed glare before the game that really got ITV pundit Roy 'Every Day's
A Jamboree' Keane's dander up.
Before I preview the game tonight, I want to take a direct quote from the match preview that
appeared on the Birmingham site "Joys and Sorrows" last night.
It reads:
There are few cliche's in football more reliable than ‘New Manager Effect'. The
recent dressing room squabbles will be forgotten and players who weren't going the extra yard will
suddenly be going two.
Stevenage will host Tottenham at the Lamex Stadium
Not the draw I wanted at all, but taking personal reasons away and concentrating solely on the
club, drawing Tottenham at home is a very good tie. The Lamex Stadium is almost guaranteed to be
packed to the rafters mostly with Spurs supporters to watch Boro host the Premier League side for
the first time in a competitive fixture.
ITV's excitable Manchester United fan-in-residence, Clive Tyldesley, has a habit of getting ahead of himself whilst commentating, something he perfectly demonstrated early on in Chelsea's Champions League clash with Juventus.
As Eden Hazard's attempt on goal deflected off Gigi Buffon's legs and towards the pitchside hoardings, Tyldesley had a bit of a commentator-gasm, as his voice grunted out, rather disturbingly, "Chelsea take the lead".
If you're going to take someone out, make sure you do it with a bit of panache...
To think, Pinzi's unashamedly blatant take down had ITV wibbler Clive Tyldesley screaming blue murder at the time: "RED CARD!!! VIOLENT CONDUCT!!!"Please, 'twas nothing more than a little piggyback.
Famed for missing that crucial spot-kick against Germany back in 1996, Gareth Southgate has quit
his post as The FA's Head of Elite Development, thus ruling himself out of the running for the
organisation's Technical Director job.
The former Aston Villa defender released a statement on The FA's website which said:
The FA can today confirm that Gareth Southgate will not be continuing in his role as Head of
Elite Development and no longer wishes to be considered for the role of FA Technical Director.
This article titled "BSkyB and ESPN lead field for Premier League auction of live UK TV rights"
was written by Mark Sweney, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 7th June 2012 12.53 UTC
The Premier League's £2bn-plus auction of live UK television rights draws to a close on Friday,
with a field of potential bidders including al-Jazeera, Google and Channel 4 understood to have
dramatically thinned.
After a weekend of speculation regarding the relationship between Rafa Benitez and John Terry, it hasn't taken long for JT to step into the spotlight with the media, telling it how it is to give them copy in their articles this morning.
That's JT though isn't it. Never someone to shy away from adversity or speculation.
Tottenham midfielder Gareth Bale has expressed his gratitude at being back in action for Spurs following their 2-1 win over Southampton this weekend. The former Saints player was on the scoresheet in his return from injury, and now sees his side flying high in fourth place in the league.
"It was great to come back and it was obviously great to get back on the scoresheet," Bale told ITV after the match.
Morning. I thought I'd check into the old place after what I can assure is the longest I have
ever let this blog go fallow – three days short of a calendar month. If I leave it three days
longer I'm eligible for CAP subsidies, I think.
It's not quite like I put the dustsheets on because it wasn't as planned as that, but I downed
tools after the season ended and never felt like picking them up again.
Despite Group C containing three of its best teams, the tension of the final games nearly
unravelled the quality with which Spain, Italy and Croatia have sprinkled this tournament to date.
Spain's light blue kit was, dare I say it, a bit scruffy, i.e. it suited players such as the
Sergios Ramos and Busquets.
