“This season has been a rich tapestry of successes and failures. From the elevation of Leicester, Watford, Stoke and Bournemouth, to the fall of Aston Villa, Swansea and Chelsea, it’s been a season of maddening stories. At the turn of the year, the current side on the slide is Southampton. On Christmas Day 2014, the Saints were nestled in the top four and the pundits were asking if they could stay there come April. One year later, the 31st of December saw Southampton sat in 12th. Not quite Leicester’s fairy tale, eh?” Outside of the Boot

“There’s been something of a lower class uprising in the Premier League over the last 9-12 months. Leicester were left for dead last season yet here they are lurking around first place despite most analysts saying they shouldn’t be there and won’t stay there (in fairness, they shouldn’t but that’s already been discussed). Bournemouth have remarkably remained a positive shot differential team this season despite a litany of injuries to their attacking core (with expected goal numbers not painting Bournemouth quite as highly, locations have hurt them), and have Crystal Palace somehow found a formula of making the shots that hit the target incredibly valuable? (Well, no they haven’t but the divergence between TSR/ xG formulas that count all shots versus SoTR/xG models that count only SoT is fascinating).” Stats Bomb

“Everton and Tottenham Hotspur played out a fascinating 1-1 draw at Goodison Park, a result which helped neither team’s cause. Everton were left stranded on 11th, while Spurs failed to maintain a positive push for the title as rivals Manchester City and Arsenal won their respective games.” Outside of the Boot

“Welcome to the Guardian’s choice of the world’s top 100 footballers for 2015. Led by Zico, Javier Zanetti and Gheorghe Hagi, our panel of 123 experts from 49 nations compiled a countdown of the greatest male players on the planet. Click on an individual to read more about their year. Guardian: Barney Ronay: Messi regains No1 position, How our judges voted: the complete statistics, Datablog: the numbers crunched, Video: the ten best footballers in the world, Read the full list of judges and top 100 rules

“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. Across the year, we monitor each player on our long list to see how things are going while considering what the future is likely to hold for them. Eventually our long list becomes the #IBWM100 – nothing definitive, just the players that we believe will really soar in 2016.” In Bed With Maradona – INTRODUCTION, In Bed With Maradona – 100 2015: Our twelve month review of the class of 2015

“Watford’s success has been nothing if not understated. Like waking up to find the sun bright outside one’s window in the middle of winter, Watford’s success invites a slight smile but no small amount of bemusement. For a team whose solid consistency and durable success belied the extent to which they by no means set the Championship alight last season, à la Bournemouth, the Hornets could perhaps have been expected to struggle. Yet in a Premier League reminiscent of the End of Days, where Jamie Vardy scores for fun and Chelsea sit just two points clear of the relegation zone, Watford have proven a balm of consistency.” backpagefootball

“Waterford has had its share of visitors over the centuries, ever since the Vikings first set up shop there back in the 9th Century. The football team have been no different, whether it was former World Cup winner Bobby Charlton, Polish international Piotr Suski or the Coventry born duo of Johnny Matthews and Peter Thomas who would enjoy great success down on the south coast, all playing in the blue of the city at one stage or other. In his recent, meticulously researched history of soccer in Munster, David Toms goes into some detail in the development of the sport in the southern province and he focuses especially on developments in urban centres like Cork, Limerick and Waterford.”backpagefootball

“12 months ago the expectation was that Pierre-Emile Højbjerg was on the verge of breaking into the Bayern Munich first team. We felt sure that the young midfielder would start to feature more regularly after a handful of Bundesliga and Champions League appearances to end the year had gone reasonably well. Instead he has spent 2015 on loan at Augsburg and currently Schalke, and admittedly he is a better player for it even though he’d clearly have preferred to have had the same experiences with his parent club.” In Bed With Maradina – Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, Pione Sisto, Etc.

100 2015

“One of the classics of Spanish football was played on Sunday, Valencia CF – Sevilla FC faced each other at the Sanchez-Pizjuan Stadium. No doubt, the match promised more than it gave, because the expulsion of J. Cancelo of Valencia completely distorted the development of the game, and the second ejection only served to confirm the supremacy of the Sevilla team.” Outside of the Boot

“Born on the 28th of July, 1993, Harry Kane is well on his way to footballing stardom. The youngster began his football journey with his local club, Ridgeway Rovers before seemingly getting his big break at Arsenal. However, the move didn’t work out (just imagine if it did), and after a brief return to Rovers, Kane continued his development at Watford. The last step in his circuitous career was to be the club where he has made his name since and one whose fan base has come to idolize the youngster.” Outside of the Boot

“After eighteen months in charge, Mauricio Pochettino’s plan appears close to completion. Last sunday’s 4-1 win against West Ham, coupled with excellence at the Emirates, the multi-goal hammerings of Bournemouth and Manchester City, have only added to the growing belief that Tottenham can finally clear that final hurdle. After all, Champions League qualification, after five fifth place finishes in a decade, has proved notoriously elusive. Displaying energy, efficiency, inherent interchanging combined with an outstanding collective awareness, Tottenham’s early-season excellence shows no signs of slowing. A far cry from the fragile, eternally transitional shambles of recent years, Pochettino has interspersed the bulldog spirit of Harry Redknapp and Tim Sherwood with a continental strategy a la Juande Ramos and Andre Villas Boas.” Outside of the Boot

“We are a third of the way through the Premier League of 2015/16 already, so it seems as good a time as any to evaluate that greatest of football imponderables – Everton. How have the Toffees done and what can we expect to see from them going into the crucial winter slog? Up front I’m going to declare that I was one of those people who clamoured for Roberto Martinez’ head last season. Does that make me one of those intolerably excitable kneejerk types? Possibly, but plenty of managers have been given the shove at all levels of professional football – never mind the Premier League – for presiding over the type of dross that was served up by Everton during the 2014/15 campaign.” Football Pink

“The football world is obsessed with transfers and possible surprise moves; it all boils down to multi-million dollar pay cheques, club rivalries and a never-ending flow of players. Often, we only see the sport from the perspective of the premiere leagues and forget that the large majority of transfers occur in the lesser known divisions. There is a soccer transfer being made every five minutes that you won’t read about. It’s not just the big teams that are looking for new talents all over the globe. Today, almost every team has to compete with the rest of the world to find the right balance of players and hopefully discover a future star that will help them reach a new playing and financial level.” Football Pink

“Judging the calibre of a young player is often a tricky task. Perceived potential has an important bearing in any consideration and is just one of the many parameters to consider when trying to quantify the ability of football’s young stars. To add a basis to what may be a leap of faith, it is useful to look back and trace the growth, or indeed lack thereof, in young players.” Outside of the Boot