“Assem Allam should be the most popular man in Hull. But he isn’t. Far from it. You have probably heard of the 75-year-old owner of Hull City. You may have read about him, too. He is the man who launched a thousand headlines after going public with his desire to alter the club’s name to Hull Tigers, having viewed it as a more marketable brand. Some have labelled him a dictator, others call him crazy. But what about the man behind the bluster? Talk to those who know Dr Allam and a very different picture begins to emerge. He is, they say, generous to a fault, polite and kind.” BBC

“Or, to put it another way: Mauricio Pochettino 1, Mauricio Pochettino 0. Against a team crafted in his image, against a club he abandoned in the summer, this was a match that Tottenham Hotspur’s manager dared not lose. Thanks to a performance of real substance, they did not. It was flawed and it was nervous, but Tottenham stood firm, which is not something we have always been able to say about them.” Telegraph

“Regular readers of my FM posts and, indeed, those subject to my anguished diatribes on social media, will be aware that I suffered a catastrophe a few months ago. In the middle of my first season at Everton, having been offered the job on the back of my resounding success at Rangers employing a Moneyball-style transfer strategy, and in my second season at Manchester United which had generated this semi-fictional Moyes-trouncing piece in Pickles, I lost my saved games. They vanished from my computer quicker than Ali Dia from the Southampton match-day squad and I could not find them. And so, bereft, I wandered lonely through an unceasing interior monologue of woe and self-commiseration.” Put Niels In Goal

“Southampton recently beat Newcastle 4-0 in what is to going to be their third season in the Premier League after Nigel Adkins took them to Saints back to the Premier League with back to back promotions. Adkins was sacked in the first season but since then, Southampton have managed to not drop straight back down to the Championship and have done so by impressing fans and pundits alike.” backpagefootball

“Eight weeks into the 2014 Liga MX Apertura – otherwise known as the last eight weeks before Ronaldinho Mania takes over Mexico – Club America remains at the top of the table after a hot start. There’s more to that than meets the eye, though. The team seems to be heading in the wrong direction with an attack that has stumbled ever since leading scorer Raul Jimenez bolted for Atletico Madrid.” SI

“15 August 1987, Upton Park. West Ham v QPR on the opening Saturday of the season. West Ham had finished 15th in the First Division the previous season and QPR 16th; no one expected much more than the usual rough and tumble of a London derby. And yet a significant piece of English football history was about to be made. QPR lined up in a 3-5-2 system, with wing-backs, two man-to-man markers in central defence and a sweeper. It was the first time a major club side in England had opted for the formation as a first-choice strategy and, perhaps more significantly, it worked. QPR won 3-0, and went on to win six and draw one of their opening seven games. In a world that had been dominated by 4-4-2 since the 1960s, this was a radical departure and it took QPR to the top of the league.” Guardian

“Monday’s Transfer Deadline Day business done by Ronald Koeman and Southampton was the icing on the cake of a brilliant rebound by the Saints, after it all could have turned into a catastrophic set of events that would have set the club on their way to a state of pure bedlam. Their well-documented struggles in the transfer window with losing the majority of their influential players were dealt with in a very calm and collective way.” Outside of the Boot

“Southampton have been through a lot over this summer. Losing four of their key first team players to Liverpool and Manchester United along with their manager Mauricio Pochettino to Spurs. Add to that a promising young lad coming through the ranks in the form of Chambers being snapped up by Arsenal. All this in a single transfer window. People thought they were done and dusted. It would have been the case if Saints hierarchy had made a blunder in choosing a wrong coach for their first team. But with Ronald Koeman the team seems to be in safe pair of hands.” Outside of the Boot