Laurent Blanc
“Irrespective of what Bordeaux go on to achieve this season, it is impossible to overstate what their coach Laurent Blanc has done for the club. In just under two years and nine months he has transformed the south-west side from occasionally successful also-rans into the emerging force in French football, having led them to a league and Coupe de la Ligue double last season, the top of the table this term and the last eight of the Champions League for the first time since 1988.” (Football Further)

“The animosity between bitter Belgrade rivals Red Star and Partizan, which is bad enough at the best of times, stepped up a notch as they both set their sights on this season’s championship. Partizan president Dragan Djuric got the ball rolling by claiming referees work in favour of Red Star and that his club’s administrative board would be issuing an announcement regarding refereeing at Red Star’s league games.” (World Soccer)

“When Roberto Martínez arrived at Wigan Athletic in the summer of 2009, he made it clear from the outset that he wanted to do things his way. ‘We’ve introduced a completely different style of play to the team,’ he said in August. ‘We’re allowing the players to think more about their own decisions during the game’.” (Football Further)

“When we first play football, a left-footer will automatically go to the left, and a right-footer to the right. It is essentially unnatural to swap sides and, speaking from experience as a lifelong left-winger, unremittingly difficult. Either a coach will prompt the move, or the player might have an innate understanding of where he should be. Mostly, though, the possibility of having to use one’s weaker foot brings most wingers out in a cold sweat.” (WSC)

“German football fans have enjoyed a largely positive press for the past 20 years thanks to a number of well co-ordinated campaigns. Among other things, these have helped to retain standing areas, affordable tickets and a reasonable number of Saturday afternoon kick-offs. And it’s thanks to the concerted efforts of fan groups that the atmosphere in stadiums makes for a loud and boisterous match day. Although some people might find the idea of a “conductor” with a megaphone at the front of the terrace leading the chants as a little less than spontaneous, it’s certainly preferable to a mute support restricted to either cheering goals or moaning.” (WSC)

“French football may not be regarded as one of the financial powerhouses of the European game, but you really shouldn’t feel too sorry for the players plying their trade in Ligue 1 at the moment. Take Moussa Sow, for example. The Rennes striker (three league goals in 20 matches so far this season and with just the barest handful of international selections for Senegal to his name) has opted to join Lille when he becomes a free agent in June.” (World Soccer)

“Tactical talk is all the rage nowadays thanks to books like Jonathan Wilson’s Inverting the Pyramid, an enlightening read on the history of tactics and the philosophy of formations that taught me many things I never knew. World Soccer magazine sometimes runs a double-page spread outlining one coach’s tactical history with every club he’s managed. It’s all fascinating stuff. However, I confess that I recently let my decade-long subscription lapse. Such features made my heart feel heavy with a sense of duty rather than of joy when I picked the magazine out of my postbox – I could frankly not care less how Frank Rijkaard’s 2001-02 Sparta Rotterdam team lined up.” (WSC: Talking of tactics, WSC: Inverting the Pyramid)

“It was standing room only in the social club at Gigg Lane, Bury on Saturday lunchtime for the “Beyond The Debt” rally as a crowd of hundreds watched an impressive array of those in the know explain that the time for debate on the ownership of football clubs is coming to an end. We seem now to be entering a different time. A time when action is required. A time in which shrugging your shoulders and muttering that, “well, my club is alright” is no longer enough. When opening speaker and rally chair Andy Walsh from FC United of Manchester spoke, he talked of the rivalries between supporters of football clubs being an artificial construct which masked the true enemies of football supporters – the people that run the game itself.” (twohundredpercent)

“Why, after several failed attempts at European glory, has Landon Donovan with Everton finally performed at a level appropriate to one of the top leagues in the world (barring the occasional ‘horror miss’)? Is he a different player physically from his depressing stints with Bayer Leverkusen in 2000 and 2005? Maybe a little bit—but probably not much. If anything he was likely a bit more spry back in 2000 and 2005. The most dramatic difference is his confidence, composure, and attitude. Donovan is not a very different physical player, but he seems very different psychologically.” (Pitch Invasion)

“Attempting to make sense of the financial state of English football. It’s almost eight years since the ITV digital collapse brought chaos and financial meltdown to the lower leagues. By pulling out of their deal to pay £315million over three years for the right to screen fixtures such as Chesterfield vs Barnet they provided us with some great anecdotes (heard the one about the Tuesday night match where it would have been cheaper to drive every viewer to the ground in a limo, put them up in a hotel and give them £500 rather than pay the costs of televising the game?) and the perfect bogeyman to blame for all the problems at England’s provincial football clubs.” (This is Pop)

“Michel Platini, with all of the elegance that one might expect from a man with such a playing career, describes it as ‘financial doping’. It is, in short, the accumulation of debt to purchase success on the pitch. Some clubs do it as a result of the egos of their chairmen, some do it from the fear of what might happen if they don’t, and some do it in the genuine but misguided belief that somehow everything will be okay if they manage to get the team winning on the pitch. The result, however, is usually the same. The players and the manager leave when things turn sour, there is a desperate rush for new investors and, when these can’t be found, it ends in either administration or a close shave with administration.” (twohundredpercent)

“Just when Chester City fans thought their club might finally be put out of its misery in its present state — its ownership having wrecked the club’s finances to the extent that they could not field a team, thus now facing a vote on expulsion from the Blue Square Premier — things have taken a turn for the even more bizarre. Last week, Chester’s supporters’ trust said they hoped they would be given the chance to start the club over, but now it seems a Danish consortium claiming to be saviours might make things even worse.” (Pitch Invasion)

Chester City Reportedly Sold To The Danes
“Chester City, according to widespread reports today, are to be sold to the Danish consortium that expressed their interest in buying the club a couple of weeks ago. This sale comes less than three days after a meeting of Chester Fans United at which it was made perfectly clear that CFU had a business plan in place to start up a new club when the new one expires. They have, as we suspected they might, run utterly roughshod over the desires of Chester’s supporters in doing this and deserve nothing more than our contempt for their own contempt of the club’s supporters.” (twohundredpercent)

” A few years ago you never got to hear what football supporters thought. Players, presenters and pundits told us black was white and right was wrong. All we could do was scream at the TV so loud we frightened the kids or whack the off button on the radio so hard it wouldn’t go on again. Now it’s phone-ins, discussion programmes, reality TV and invitations to text your views, email your comments or reply to some blog or other.” (WSC)

“Hardly a season goes by in Belgium without one club or another encountering a severe financial crisis and plunging down the divisions as a harsh consequence. Will they never learn? This time it was the turn of little Excelsior Mouscron – a club that had punched above its weight for years – to follow the likes of Aalst, Lommel and La Louviere in suffering the punishment of failing to pay the tax authorities.” (World Soccer)