January 6 – Ali Al Habsi, the Omani goalkeeping legend who made a name for himself as the first Arab player from the GCC countries to play in the Premier League, has announced his retirement from international football, aged 38.
January 3 – English football may at last have adopted a partial winter break but that hasn’t stopped the traditional festive fixture pile-up from resulting in an unprecedented spate of injuries.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 31 – Football’s law-makers have hit back at criticism of VAR by English football experts, saying the problem lies directly at the feet of the Premier League for not applying the rule correctly.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 30 – Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola declared the VAR system a “big mess” on Sunday after a weekend that witnessed a plethora of ever more baffling rulings being judged on a series of screens often hundreds of miles away from the action.
By Andrew Warshaw
December 30 – Four English top-flight teams go into 2020 with new men at the helm after the managerial merry-go-round moved into full swing over Christmas.
December 30 – A Moroccan referee has been banned for life for awarding four highly questionable penalties, three of them for the same team, in a domestic league match.
December 21 – Belgium will finish 2019 as the world’s top ranked team, ahead of France and Brazil – the same positions they held in December 2018 in the FIFA/Coca-Cola men’s World Rankings.
December 18 – Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, in Qatar for the Club World Cup, says he’s not the right person to talk about human rights in the country and whether it fit to host global tournaments.
By Paul Nicholson
December 17 – The Liverpool bubble was dramatically burst last night as Aston Villa spanked a young team 5-0 in the quarter finals of the EFL League Cup and in front of 30,000+ fans at Villa Park, 4,000 of them travelling Liverpool fans.
December 18 – A data analysis of MVPs in clubs in Europe’s Big 5 leagues for the season to date shows Liverpool’s Virgil van Dijk and Barcelona’s Lionel Messi as again being their clubs key players so far. But the lists also throw up some less well known names.
December 17 – Arsenal and Everton are both hoping for new managers for Christmas with Mikel Arteta and Carlo Ancelotti respectively emerging as frontrunners.
December 13 – The use of video assistant referees for marginal offside decisions, which has caused so much consternation throughout Europe, could be amended next season if a joint bid by UEFA and the British football associations succeeds.
December 11 – No sooner had he guided Napoli into the last 16 of the Champions League on Tuesday than Carlo Ancelotti, one of Europe’s most successful coaches, was sacked .
December 10 – He may starting to look towards his retirement but Lionel Messi still tops a ranking of the best performing players across 35 European leagues.
December 6 – Amid growing criticism across Europe over the inconsistent way VAR is being interpreted, UEFA are to ask football’s lawmakers for greater clarification according to UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin.
