The English Football Thread

[Special Juan 28,235]

Summerville is an outstanding player, what a game he is having here

[Vesper 30,375]

Harsh criticism of the highly-prized Wirtz and Liverpool: "He's not up to par, he's a disaster."

The defeat against Galatasaray has once again put the spotlight on the German international.

https://www.mundodeportivo.com/futbol/champions-league/20251001/1002542828/durisima-critica-carisimo-wirtz-liverpool-esta-altura-desastre.html

Florian Wirtz is back in the spotlight. The approximately €135 million Liverpool paid for the 22-year-old former Bayer Leverkusen player is weighing heavily on him, and he's receiving constant criticism.

The English side's 1-0 defeat to Galatasaray in the Champions League on Tuesday only fueled a firestorm that was already burning. In nine appearances for Liverpool , the German international has zero goals and just one assist.

One of the harshest analyses after the knockout against the Turks came from former footballer Jamie Carragher on CBS Sports. “He's just not up to the task. He's a young lad coming into a new league, he has a lot of time ahead of him as a Liverpool player , but right now I think he needs to leave the team, for Liverpool to get back to what it was last season, and from there, regain confidence and defensive solidity.” 

He added: "Right now it's a disaster. It's not about the defeats. This has been going on since day one. I don't think I'm watching a top team. Liverpool aren't playing football, they're playing basketball."

[Vesper 30,375]

without Håland ( who is just playing at another world level) Citeh would perhaps not make the top 5, maybe not any Euro footie

he is absolutely carrying them on his back

[Vesper 30,375]

Udo Onwere: ‘Being a lawyer is easier than being a footballer’

The former Fulham midfielder tells Catherine Baksi how his sports background has influenced his legal career — particularly his new venture with Jamie Redknapp

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/udo-onwere-interview-lawyer-footballer-m9cx7kz0g

Udo Onwere — a former Fulham FC midfielder — trained as a lawyer after hanging up his football boots at the end of a 12-year career on the pitch.

He is now a partner at Bray & Krais, a specialist music, sports and entertainment firm, where he leads the sports and private client teams — and the 53-year-old brings clients and skills from his time in the beautiful game.

He recently teamed up with his fellow former footballer and long-time friend Jamie Redknapp to launch M&C Saatchi Football, a sports management company that provides career planning, mentoring and legal advice to young footballers.

Aware of the impact of the competitive and pressured environment for young professional footballers, Onwere is keen to “give back” to the sport that he loves and ensure that they are properly equipped.

Since its launch a fortnight ago, seven players have signed up for the company’s services. “Jamie does the mentoring and I’m tasked with dealing with all the legal side of things,” Onwere says. The duo try to involve players’ parents in an effort to “give them a dose of realism”. While the players are all talented, Onwere and Redknapp are keen to ensure they understand the stresses and pressures of success and failure.

There are, he says, two things that the young players need to understand: “How to deal with disappointment and to realise that they will always have to prove themselves.”

Comparing his two careers, Onwere says: “I always maintain that being a lawyer is easier than being a footballer.” He adds that he respects both professions “intensely, but I think there is an element of being a footballer that people might overlook. It is obviously quite glamorous and enjoyable, but there is a lot of performance pressure that comes with that.”

In contrast to being a lawyer, where there can be “pockets of pressure and deadlines”, he says, “being a footballer is like going into an exam hall and having an examination every week. It’s brutally meritocratic.”

Onwere had a stint at Lincoln City during his 12-year football career

ALAMY

Onwere, who retired from professional football 25 years ago, misses the fun aspects of his former career — teammates, locker-room camaraderie and “the adrenaline of the big wins; but it’s not something that I would run back to”.

Born in Hammersmith, Onwere loved sport and football “from the moment I could walk”. Growing up in west London in the Seventies and Eighties, with his brother and two sisters, he recalls a “happy, loving childhood, with loads of fun”.

But in 1988, when he left school after his GCSEs to take a youth training place with Chelsea, his parents, who had come to England from Nigeria during the Biafran war, “were not particularly pleased”. His father had been a market trader in Nigeria and his mother was a nurse. In common with many West African parents, he says, they prized education.

It was three years after the Heysel Stadium disaster in Belgium, in which 39 people died after crowd trouble between rival fans led to a crush, and Onwere says that “football was in a different place than it is now”. There was, he recalls, a lot of hooliganism and racism associated with the game, adding: “It wasn’t an environment that was particularly welcoming to someone who was black.”

Looking back, he can understand his parents’ reticence, but at the time says “I was just thinking they should be super proud and pleased”. The step up from schoolboy to club football was “intense”. At the same time as coping with the training, Onwere says “you’re growing up — your body is changing and your brain is changing”.

After a two-year apprenticeship at Chelsea, Onwere signed his first professional contract with rival Fulham. Over 12 years he also played for Lincoln City, Dover Athletic, Blackpool, Barnet, Aylesbury United, Hayes and Maidenhead United, before retiring in 2000. “I wasn’t injured, I just made a conscious decision that I wanted to get into something else that was going to give me an element of stability and independence,” he says.

Having enjoyed negotiating his own contracts during his footballing career, Onwere turned to law, completing an access course at Middlesex University before doing a degree. “I was reasonably academic at school and knew I would be able to deal with the amount of reading that was required,” Onwere says.

The biggest change was getting used to modern methods of teaching. “When I left school in 1988, it was all blackboards and chalk” — but 12 years later, the world had moved on and Onwere had to learn how to type and use a computer.

After law school, he joined Thomas Eggar (now Irwin Mitchell) as a trainee in 2006. Enjoying the “emotional intelligence” and “collaboration” required for non-contentious work, he qualified into the firm’s private client practice two years later.

After a stint at Farrer & Co, he was head-hunted by Bray & Krais to launch its private client and sports teams. Building on his playing background, Onwere advises high-profile sportsmen and women, particularly professional footballers, managers and directors. His clients include the former player for England and Manchester United Rio Ferdinand and England and Chelsea siblings Reece and Lauren James.

He also does regulatory and disciplinary work as a judicial panel member of the Football Association.

Private client work includes handling the multimillion-pound estate of the One Direction singer Liam Payne. Cheryl Tweedy, a former partner of Payne, has been appointed administrator of the estate with the law firm founder, Richard Bray.

Onwere lives in Dorking in Surrey, with his wife, who works in marketing. He enjoys swimming, watching football and spending time with his family. While “Fulham will always be in my heart”, he does not follow a club, but his three grown-up children all support Arsenal.

[Vesper 30,375]

Antoine Semenyo is a beast

far better than any LWer we have

Bournemouth came from down nil 1 to win 3 1 with a brace from Semenyo

Bournemouth are 2nd in the table

[Laylabelle 9,553]

Man U winning..as it stands we're 2 behind them..let's hope can change that later!

[Vesper 30,375]

Ange Postecoglou on the verge of being sacked AGAIN, lolol

[Vesper 30,375]

Håland scored

18 goals in 11 games for club and country this season

9 EPL goals so far

no other Citeh player has more than 1

[Vesper 30,375]

Rodri off injured again

[NikkiCFC 8,406]

I think this season first time since 1998-99 champions will have less than 80 points. 

[Laylabelle 9,553]

On 05/10/2025 at 23:03, NikkiCFC said:

I think this season first time since 1998-99 champions will have less than 80 points. 

Probably 7 games played and no team is unbeaten 

[mkh 632]

EXCLUSIVE: Arsenal exploring options to increase capacity beyond 70,000 as 20th anniversary of move from Highbury approaches

(@JWTelegraph and @SamWallaceTel)

And Chelsea continues to hover around 41,000K😔 All of these teams have larger and newer stadiums or renovated stands. Spurs, Arsenal, Newcastle, West Ham, Everton United, and Liverpool City have already implemented their stadium plans or are well on their way to doing so.

[Vesper 30,375]

35 minutes ago, mkh said:

EXCLUSIVE: Arsenal exploring options to increase capacity beyond 70,000 as 20th anniversary of move from Highbury approaches

(@JWTelegraph and @SamWallaceTel)

And Chelsea continues to hover around 41,000K😔 All of these teams have larger and newer stadiums or renovated stands. Spurs, Arsenal, Newcastle, West Ham, Everton United, and Liverpool City have already implemented their stadium plans or are well on their way to doing so.

We will not have a new stadium until the early mid 2030s (2033 or 2034 or so) at the earliest. Maybe longer, I fear.

[We Hate Scouse 10,338]

2 hours ago, Vesper said:

We will not have a new stadium until the early mid 2030s (2033 or 2034 or so) at the earliest. Maybe longer, I fear.

What comes first, the shirt sponsor or the stadium? 😅

[Laylabelle 9,553]

23 hours ago, Vesper said:

We will not have a new stadium until the early mid 2030s (2033 or 2034 or so) at the earliest. Maybe longer, I fear.

Or ever...

[Vesper 30,375]

https://thedailybriefing.io/p/arsenal-liverpool-title-race

Could Arsenal finally get their hands on the Premier League title through sheer consistency alone?

Some interesting data caught my eye this morning which perhaps points towards Arsenal finally being given a clear pathway towards what would be a first title victory in 22 years.

See below as Opta Analyst show the difference in points this season versus the same stage in the 2024/25 campaign.

What immediately stands out is the pretty big drop from both Liverpool and Manchester City. Arsenal, despite some far-from-kind opening fixtures, are just one point worse off. So far, after what is admittedly a relatively small sample size, we can see that that shift is enough to put the Gunners in front of their two main title rivals.

 

 

Despite the electrifying form of Erling Haaland at the start of this season, it is interesting to note that City as a whole have not really improved. Their drop-off since that Rodri injury last season is only continuing, with Pep Guardiola seemingly unable to rebuild the side to what it was when the Spaniard was at the peak of his powers.

It is, of course, too early to draw major conclusions, but we do know that Arsenal under Mikel Arteta are the most consistent team in the Premier League. No one has more points than the north Londoners over the last three seasons…

 

 

Perhaps Arsenal won’t be able to keep that kind of consistency going, but, if anything, they look like they should be in a better state to do so than what proved to be a hugely challenging season last term.

A strong summer transfer window has massively improved Arsenal’s squad depth, and Swedish goal machine Viktor Gyokeres hasn’t even got going yet, even if his mere presence up front is already causing opposition defences problems and freeing up more space for the likes of Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Eberechi Eze.

Meanwhile, even during their winning start, Liverpool didn’t look as convincing as they did for so much of last season, with Arne Slot even admitting that teams had perhaps worked out how to play against them after initially taking him lightly when he first came in to replace Jurgen Klopp.

 

🚨 NEW contract for Arsenal star, Man Utd eyeing £70m attacker, Chelsea plot Barca raid, Newcastle star discusses shock exit, & more

Slot worked miracles in first season at Anfield, but we don’t yet know how he’ll respond to his first real crisis after three defeats in a row, and without Trent Alexander-Arnold, and with an ageing Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk.

The early signs are hugely positive for Arsenal. Do you think this will finally be their year, or are you backing someone else? Let me hear your thoughts in the comments!