“The vile winds met corrugated steel and it was as if Goodison Park had become an old container ship struggling to navigate in the wilds of the Irish Sea. Five minutes were still left to play against Arsenal and in that time two more goals were scored. Goodison, though, had already given up. So often a “bear pit,” as Frank Lampard once described it, “the most difficult place to play” had sunken to a new eeriness, marked by a sad acquiesce. …” Independent

“From Vinicius Júnior, who has already signed for Real Madrid, to ‘the Romanian Donnarumma’ the Guardian identifies 60 of the best players in the world born in 2000. Check the progress of our 2016 class | 2015 | 2014” Guardian

“Manolo Gabbiadini hit a brace as Southampton twice came from behind to draw 2-2 at home to Newcastle United in an entertaining encounter at St Mary’s this afternoon. Newcastle took the lead in the first half through Isaac Hayden’s first Premier League goal but Southampton equalised early in the second half when Gabbiadini, who has struggled this season, managed to find the net.” Squawka

“While this website has made its name focusing on the lesser known youth of this beautiful sport, utnd combined it with a tinge of tactical flavour meant for the football enthusiast, we found a large gap to be exploited in terms of combining the two. This mini-series thus focuses on young managers (below the age of 45) and their tactical philosophies, deriving what got them here and where they could go. Patrick Mills has a look at Patrick Vieira’s rise in recent seasons. …” Outside of the Boot

“Northern Irish football has a history every bit as complicated as the socio-political context that surrounds it. Back in late 2014 I wrote an article for The Football Pink issue 6 in which I talked about Irish Football’s Long Divorce, as the island’s football federation split into two. Just like the partition of Ireland in 1921, the split was messy but involved a great deal less bloodshed. It did though leave bad blood between the two federations and created a situation where the Irish League came to mirror the state that it represented. To British Unionists this is ‘a great wee country’ that is an integral part of Britain, but to Irish nationalists it’s a state that few fully identify with. …” Football Pink, amazon

“Although Everton reached two domestic cup semi-finals in 2015/16 (something the club had not done since 1984), their performances were disappointing in the Premier League, as they finished 11th for the second successive season. As chairman Bill Kenwright observed, ‘Ultimately, our final league positions over the last two seasons were not good enough.’ This culminated in the decision to sack manager Roberto Martinez, replacing him with former Dutch international Ronald Koeman, who was tempted to leave Southampton for the project at Everton.” The Swiss Ramble

“Mazzari’s Watford welcomed Crystal Palace and their new manager Sam Allardyce or ‘Big Sam’ as many choose to call him, to Vicarage Road. This was a game with lots of differences between the two teams. The continuously imposing multinational Watford with Mazzari and his Italian-inspired football, against Crystal Palace and their more British-inspired squad and football philosophy with the nowadays coach Sam Allardyce at the forefront.” Outside of the Boot

“Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham Hotspur travelled to a buoyant St.Mary’s on Wednesday night, with a view of winning their first away game since their 2-1 win at Riverside over Middlesbrough. Spurs, who have lost only two games this season – the least in the league, alongside Liverpool and Chelsea, were also on the lookout for their third consecutive win following their disappointing loss to Manchester United at Old Trafford.” Outside of the Boot

“Last years champions are struggling this season, a 1-0 loss to Bournemouth saw them fall to 14th in the table and more worryingly it’s not just bad luck. Some regression was expected, but they have played well below bookies expectations. The obvious problem is shot volume: this year they have the 16th most shots and shots on target after being 7th and 6th last year. They allowed the 6th fewest SOT last year, this year they are 16th. The problem isn’t possession or a lower completion%, both of those metrics have slight rises, so it must have something to do with the quality of those passes. That’s what we will do today, take a dive into what has changed so drastically when Leicester has the ball.” Stats Bomb

“On Wednesday, 23 December at 10am (GMT) we will publish the #IBWM100 for 2016 – our list of the most exciting young* players in world football. As always, we’ve stuck with the format that served Don Balon so successfully for many years; 100 names and details of where each player is from. We’ll revisit the list in twelve months’ time and assess how the year has panned out for each of the players concerned. The process we use for selection remains exactly the same. We talk to scouts, coaches, players, journalists, fans and bloggers from around the world to get a clear a picture of exactly who we should be watching and why.” #IBWM100 2016 – Introduction, #IBWM100 For 2016 – A Year In Review>/a>>

“11th June 2016. A moment I had resigned myself to never seeing had actually, finally arrived. In the magnificent Stade de Bordeaux Wales were about to make their European Championship finals debut and play its first match at a tournament since eight days shy of exactly 58 years earlier in the World Cup of 1958.” Football Pink

The Curious Geography of Welsh Goalkeepers
“With the news in the run up to Euro 2016 that Chris Maxwell had been called up to Wales squad as cover for Danny Ward it meant that Wales’s four first choice goalkeepers are north Walians. Russell Todd investigates the curious geography of Welsh goalkeepers.” Podcast Pêl-droed

“I was recently invited to send some of my work on passing motifs to be used for a Fink Tank column in The Times, but of course a dendrogram such as the one I linked in my previous entry wouldn’t cut it in printed media. Therefore, I thought the best thing to do was set out to answer some concrete applied questions the methodology might answer, which would be easy to display but interesting nevertheless.” Stats Bomb