“… Brighton came sixth despite losing 5-1 at home to Everton. There may still be a stigma to a heavy loss, but it is perhaps not the indicator of fundamental flaws it once was. Still, it was intriguing to hear Sir Alex Ferguson say that Aston Villa had played “fantastic football” in their 5-1 defeat at Newcastle on the opening weekend of the season – even if there was immediate apparent vindication as they beat Everton 4-0 in their next game. …”
Guardian – Jonathan Wilson

“All life, Valeriy Lobanovskyi once said, is a number. Which might have made sense for the groundbreaking Dynamo Kyiv manager, with his high-school medal for mathematics, but for most people who follow sport is a little disconcerting. We want to believe in heroes and glory, in imagination and genius, in fate and curses. Even if we acknowledge it probably is quite important, the thought of football as a series of vast interlocking spreadsheets feels a little dry. …”
Guardian

“Individually, none of West Ham’s first three Premier League games of the season have been that bad. They were extremely unfortunate to lose at Nottingham Forest, there’s little shame in losing to Manchester City, and Brighton can be awkward opponents for any side, but especially West Ham, who now haven’t beaten them in 11 attempts. All together, though, these three defeats with no goals scored have West Ham bottom of the table. Sunday’s meeting with a struggling Aston Villa comes with a distinct sense of pressure. …”
Guardian – Jonathan Wilson

“In retrospect, Rafa Benítez was probably never going to work as manager of Everton. Certainly by the end, as he was sacked on Sunday after 200 days in charge, following a run of just one win in the club’s last 13 Premier League games, there was a feeling of inevitability about his departure. When you have been a successful manager of Liverpool, when you have been so closely identified with that half of the city, when you have made comments about Everton perceived as disparaging, the window for error is extremely small. And there was plenty of error. …”
SI: Jonathan Wilson (Video)

“The Blizzard is a quarterly football magazine edited by Jonathan Wilson, published in both download and hard copy formats by Blizzard Media. The magazine was originally sold on a pay-what-you-like basis. The Blizzard took its name from an eclectic Victorian Sunderland-based newspaper set up by Sidney Duncan, which ran for 12 issues and was established in 1893. Wilson, who also comes from Sunderland, wanted to replicate the eclectic nature of this publication. The Editor’s Note, which began Issue Zero, set out the magazine’s ethos as an alternative to that which was currently available in football media. … The Blizzard accommodates longer articles than a typical football magazine, with pieces up to 8000 words long. Topics are often more obscure and esoteric than other magazines, aiming to either cover little-explored components of football culture, or to take new perspectives on previously well explored issues. …”
Wikipedia
The Blizzard