Against Spurs, Gunners Show Why They Are Contenders

Robin van Persie, in Arsenal's 3-0 derby win over Tottenham

There will be a lot of scrutiny of Tottenham after their lopsided loss at the Emirates. Pundits will use the result to illustrate Spurs are not ready to break the top four. That’s a view with which I disagree, though it very well [...]

Weekend Viewing Schedule

I alluded to these matches on the last episode of Inside the Six, but here is what my viewing schedule is going to be this weekend. Don’t be surprised if you see the stories and themes from these matches seep into the podcasts and articles.

All times are Pacific.

Saturday
5:45 a.m. – Arsenal vs. Tottenham Hotspur
The [...]

Knee-Jerk World Club Top Ten

Each week, I aggregate a World Club Top Ten lists from the view of the staff at World Soccer Reader. I always start the discussion with my knee-jerk list.

To get any conversation started, I throw a list together as quickly as possible, send it out, and let people yell at me for being dumb.

This [...]

RFN Quickcast: Zico Fired; Ramos Hired; Arshavin Out

Over at Russian Football Now, Chris Riordan and I did a QuickCast to talk about Zico’s firing at CSKA Moscow. He was replaced by Juande Ramos, a hiring I found a bit sad. I talk about that on the podcast (which is about 12 minutes long). We also talk about Andrei Arshavin [...]

Manchester United-Arsenal Thoughts (while I watch Madrid-Depor)

We’re going to test my typing and multi-tasking skills as I try to get my thoughts on the Manchester United-Arsenal match down while I watch the start of the second Galacticos era. I’m so distracted that I’m too lazy to properly spell Galacticos (there should be an accent in there).

The match’s drama started even [...]

Spare Me Your Indignation About Eduardo

Yesterday, after Arsenal’s Eduardo “earned” a penalty with a well executed dive against Celtic in Champions League qualifying, the wails of indignation starting burning our bandwidth, and at the risk of wasting what little might be left, here is the evidence:

Eduardo clearly dove. We clearly don’t like diving. This is just one of [...]

Knee-Jerk World Club Rankings

Each week at World Soccer Reader I lead a discussion that leads to the site’s weekly World Club Top 10 article. On Monday, I send out an email with my thoughts. One day later, I’m editing the content.

Here’s the email I just sent. Disclaimer: This email is almost intended to be [...]

EPL Saturday, Thoughts

Perhaps people are surprised by Arsenal because of their indefensibly low preseason expectations of the club, by two wins and a 10-2 aggregate over Everton (last week) and Portsmouth (today) is classic Arsenal. The Everton result was admitted impressive. Mightly. But their 2-0 over Celtic and their 4-1 win over Portsmouth are [...]

Inside the Six, Episode #9

The ninth episode of Inside the Six was devoted to previewing the English Premier League. We featured Zach Woosley, Travis Clark, Jordan Wise, Lee Simmons Radke and Seena Vali, each of whom covered one of the top five teams.