Manchester City paid £38m for Sergio Aguero because he is a player that can perform rare feats of brilliance with a football.
It is a peculiar feature of this Premier League season that the only team in the top six that has had a season they can really be proud of is Newcastle United.
Chelsea’s demolition job on QPR reflected the euphoria coursing through a club that might be about to record one of their finest seasons under Roman Abramovich with the worst team they’ve had since the Russian arrived.
Things have come to a strange pass when a win for Real Madrid, courtesy of a goal by the world’s most expensive player, feels like a victory for the underdog.
David Moyes’ most formidable enemy at Everton is not the reduced financial circumstances of the club, but the endless adaptability of the human spirit.
Roberto Mancini is not an easy man to work out. After listening to his strange comments after Manchester City’s defeat at Arsenal yesterday evening, you had to conclude he is not an easy man to work for either.
The recent book on judgment and decision-making, Thinking, Fast and Slow, by the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, should be required reading for the people who run football clubs.
Roberto Mancini spent most of last week in a foul mood and Mario Balotelli took the brunt of it.
We know Trapattoni believes that class is permanent and form has nothing to do with it, but it must be hard for Noel Hunt to think that he is probably the most in-form Irish striker at the moment and yet has no chance of going to the Euros.
It is getting to the time of the year when some people like to talk about Alex Ferguson’s mind games, and he obliged them before the weekend with some mildly provocative comments about Manchester City’s recall of Carlos Tevez.
The shortage of Premier League fixtures on Saturday meant Swansea’s flattening of Fulham took centre stage on Match of the Day, with their manager Brendan Rodgers interviewed by Gary Lineker via video link.
Liverpool’s six-year wait for a trophy is over, and their laboured victory over Cardiff City summed up where they are at as a team.
© Examiner Publications (Cork) Limited, City Quarter, Lapps Quay, Cork. Registered in Ireland: 73385.
