Borrowed from goal.com, especially for Finnster... :-) Steve McClaren started his first job as head coach in 2001, when he was appointed as Middlesbrough manager. The former Manchester United assistant guided the club to League Cup success three years after his appointment and made it to the UEFA Cup final in Click to continue reading...

Eduardo's back heel onto Arshavin, who runs and takes the ball and finds the pass to Diaby, who sets himself up and scores.

That my friends was the goal of the night and the fourth for Arsenal against AZ Alkmaar. The football recently played by Arsenal is nothing short of phenomenal, offensively of course.

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A deal that could well get the green light from Rafa.

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Liverpool are closely monitoring Hamburg winger Eljero Elia, according to reports in German newspaper Bild.

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You've got to give� Steve McClaren some credit. The man was a pitiful England manager, but for a brief moment in time he was able to derail one of the most powerful forces in modern football:� David Beckham.

When Becks stepped down as England's captain after the� 2006 World Cup, McClaren dropped him entirely from the team.

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Andy Goram came to Manchester United on loan during the 2000-2001 to help us out during a time when our other goalies, Fabien Barthez and Raimond Van der Gouw, were unavailable Barthez on duty with the French side and Van der Gouw struggling with injury.

His first game was our 4-2 win over Coventry in the league although was subbed off with an hour played with the scoreline at 2-2.

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Steve McClaren led his FC Twente side to another impressive win as they continue to lead the Eredivisie.

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Why now?

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Middlesbrough have announced that manager Gareth Southgate has been 'relieved of his duties'.

Boro have endured an in-different start to the Championship season following relegation from the Premier League last term.

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Big Story
It might be early in the season, but the obituary notices are already being written in England: the Big Four is dead. Remember the Big Five from the 1980s (Liverpool, Man Utd, Arsenal, Tottenham, Everton)?

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Ah, I get it now – he has an adamantium right foot. Figures.
Despite looking increasingly like a mutant cross between Wolverine and how I imagine Ryan Reynolds' grizzly older brother might look, Becks rolled back the years to put in a man-of-the-match stint for England against Belarus last night at Wembley. Click to continue reading...

1. Peter Crouch's gangly legs are not supposed to be involved in six-yard tap-ins. They were made for bicycle kicks. 2. David Beckham has brown hair, a ginger moustache and a black beard. What is that all about? 3. Twin, dwarf, right-footed wingers is probably not a viable tactical option against decent opposition. Click to continue reading...

‘If in doubt, get it out!' It's a cry heard from many a parent and even coaches every weekend around the country at junior football games.

It's a cry that can sum up in a nutshell the attitude English football has carried for many years. And looking at some of England's attempts to win major championships since 1966, it's a slogan that the national team should have had stitched to their shirts at times.

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... and John Colquhoun keeps popping up again and again and again, so he does.
Being a humble imbiber of sporting journalism, you will not realise that this is taking place, unless you are a regular reader of this blog.
In which case you will understand that we are onto Mr Colquhoun's case. Click to continue reading...

It's official.� England has made the World Cup with a win over Croatia earlier in the week.� The Three Lions will be feasting on World Cup opponents this summer rather then eating moldy wedding cake with the likes of Dicken's Miss Havisham.�

And with a World Cup birth comes an� opportunity that is filled with great expectations.

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LONDON (AP) -- England coach Fabio Capello has given a strong indication that Galaxy midfielder David Beckham will make it to a fourth World Cup, hailing the former captain's ability to bring the squad together.

The 34-year-old Beckham made his 114th international appearance as England routed Croatia 5-1 on Wednesday to qualify for next year's tournament with two games to spare.

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Big Story
England manager John Terry announced Aaron Lennon had "played his way into the World Cup squad" with his display in England's destruction of Croatia yesterday, one that of course has the English press in a frenzy. But, please, can we not call Lennon "Azza"?

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'Scuse me while I kiss the sky...
I was lucky enough to be at Wembley Stadium last night to witness England give their most complete performance since the headline-friendly – but ultimately meaningless – 5-1 demolition of Germany in Munich in September 2001.
There's a pleasing symmetry there, and not just in the scorelines – as in the win against Croatia, the rout of the Germans was managed by a foreign coach; for Capello now, read the much-maligned Sven-Goran Eriksson then. Click to continue reading...

1. England. Damn.

2. Argentina. Damn.

3. In light of the wild reversals of fortune seemingly or I would actually think obviously brought about at their respective teams by Capello and Maradona it's a mystery to me how someone like Simon Kuper could argue with a straight face that a manager is a figure of little real importance who could be replaced by a Polish Lowland Sheepdog with no ill effects, since even Steve McClaren seemed to bring with him a whole parcel of ill effects, and regardless of your opinion of Steve McClaren he is presumably a few notches higher on the grand scale of being than even a very well-trained Polish Lowland Sheepdog, although for the sake of argument we have to consider the possibility that England would have been exactly where they are now under Steve McClaren, that all the team were waiting on was some mysterious gelling process and an improvement in Aaron Lennon's crossing, the end result of which would have seen them playing those little plinky through balls to devastating effect regardless of who was on the sideline, whether Steve McClaren or a Polish Lowland Sheepdog, or even Alan Shearer, but to me the whole point is that under Steve McClaren they never actually tried those little plinky through balls, but then what do I know, never having sat in on a single pitch meeting about how Freakonomics could be applied to soccer.

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What a difference two years make. In November, 2007, England succumbed to Croatia at Wembley by a scoreline of 2-3 and thus surrendered their qualifying for Euro 2008. Cue the images of a fumbling Steve McClaren and an England team with so little confidence. Croatia, meanwhile, looked like world beaters.

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England has been wearing the tag of one of the best national teams in the world for quite a while, but the fans are still waiting for the emergence of a generation that could repeat the feat of winning the World Cup, something that only '66 team managed to do.

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With a 5-1 victory at Wembley, the English national team was able to exorcise the ghosts of its last meeting with Croatia and advance to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. 5-1? Against effectively the same Croatia side that gave England fits in their 2007 meeting? You could write off last year's 4-1 England victory in Zagreb as a fluke, but this suddenly makes England look pretty good. Click to continue reading...

Fabio Capello formally appointed as England Head Manager on 14 December 2007 after signing a 4 years and half contract, and his first match was a friendly against Switzerland (England won 2-1). After less than two years from his appointing date things looks positive for the Three Lions as they almost forget Steve McClaren woful [. Click to continue reading...

Last time England met Croatia at Wembley... ...it all ended in tears. Here is the way talkSport chose to commemorate that fateful night's events.

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Some moments are never meant to be forgotten. The entire world of football witnessed one such shocking moment a little less than two years ago in London. On a rainy evening at Wembley, hosts England were expected to advance to the finals of Euro 2008 with just a draw needed against visiting Croatia.

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Spot the odd one out? Capello. He's not a knob. 'Mike Bassett, England Manager' is the most legendary Football film ever made. Forget 'Damned United', 'Football Factory', 'Mean Machine'. They've got nothing on Bassy. He danced half-naked on a bar infront of Pele, opened his curtains to the media completely starkers, and he liked the Christmas Pudding [. Click to continue reading...

Stability. Composure. Quality. These are just a few adjectives that England's defense certainly doesn't deserve based on the Three Lions' 2-2 draw against Holland in their most recent international fixture. However, only the aforementioned adjectives can do justice to one defender that England's system failed to recognize.

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Schteve is inschensched Ex-England boss Steve McClaren was not best pleased to see his FC Twente side knocked out of the Champions League by a late Sporting Lisbon goal. He expressed his anger verbally to a global television audience! Spotted on 101GG

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McClaren the FC Twente manager speaks English with a Dutch accent and unusual grammar these days..We have a video of Steve swearing when his FC Twente team drew 1-1 with Sporting Lisbon when goalkeeper Rui Patricio scored a last minute away goal to dump FC Twente out the Champions League.It makes me feel better when they lost the game. Click to continue reading...

Remember that fight between the Chinese and Aussie U19 girls teams?
Football Fashion found some pictures. Not sure or any video yet, but this is pretty good.
Now to the links:

• K.C. names interim coach: Peter Vermes. [Goal.com]
  
• FA bans pre-match ref criticism in EPL.

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Trailing Sporting Lisbon 1-0 from the first leg in the Champions League qualifier, Steve McLaren's FC Twente got off to the perfect start this evening in the second leg, when Douglas headed them into the lead in the second minute of the match.
However, with the tie all square and well into injury time, Sporting got a corner and up came their goalkeeper Rui Patricio, who's header took deflections off two Twente defenders before finding its way into the bottom corner of the net, to the absolute delight of Sporting and despair for Twente and McLaren. Click to continue reading...

The most fun we had at the corner flag last year was poking fun at Chelsea's Jose Bosingwa for losing his composure and going all Karate Kid into Yossi Benayoun's back.
But forget that unibrowed very expensive, dirty cheater and let's focus on the Dutch Eredivisie's opening weekend for our corner flag fun today. Click to continue reading...

What do you do when a defender has backed you all the way up to the corner flag, and you have no where to go?
In this game between Sparta Rotterdam and FC Twente at the weekend, in the first round of Eredivisie matches, rather than the Sparta forward just kicking it against the defender and out for a throw or corner, he gets his team mate to remove the offending corner flag so that he can cross the ball in. Click to continue reading...

[101 Great Goals] The corner flag is the underappreciated woodwork of the modern game. While the goalposts get all the glory - and the occasional kiss - corner flags just sit around idly and only joining the action on rare occasion. But Sparta Rotterdam appreciate the corner flag's work. With the ball on the line (yes, [. Click to continue reading...

The week's Ultimate 11's is Bobby Richards' England Pony 11. Bobby once scored 2 goals in Hastings as a 20 year old playing for an under 12's side, and was ever present when his Sunday League side took a 12-0, 8-0, and 14-0 battering. So who better quailified to give us his Ultimate England Pony 11!

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Episode 124 of the EPL Talk Podcast features interviews with Chelsea's John Terry and Carlo Ancelotti after Chelsea's 2-0 victory against Club America in the final of the World Football Challenge in Arlington, Texas. Both Terry and Ancelotti discuss their reflections on the tournament itself.

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Por Miguel Bujalance
La temporada pasada, se especuló con que Jermaine Pennant podría acabar en el Santiago Bernabéu. Eran meses maravillosos, en los que hasta yo podría haber fichado por el Madrid de Calderón...
Al final, Pennant, defensa-centrocampista indefinido del Liverpool, que jugó cedido la temporada pasada en el Porstmouth, ha fichado por el Real Zaragoza. Click to continue reading...