The Beautiful Game

Pushing the envelope in making an actual article over a meagre assist? Plus, this isn't an article to add to the bottle-neck of "Julian Draxler to Arsenal" threads clogging up the Twitter plughole (For what its worth, in my opinion, it'd be a dynamite signing, IF it came to fruition). Well allow me to retort... Mesut Özil has several pseudonym's; "Assist King", "King of the assist", "The assist King of" etc... These nicknames are not without a stimulus, the guy has a God-given knack of creating chances. Even if he's having a poor game, he'll still produce chances. Medical science are proposing Özil be used as a proxy to help couples with fertility issues, to conceive. He's that potent. Of course you can raid the statisticians handbook, a quick Google search and it's there in-front of your eyes, Özil is an assist machine, acing his way to the top of the assist and chance-creation charts. Yeah, you can m

Every window we witness a whole flurry of transfers taking place as a consequence of a single movement in the transfer market. For example, in the summer window, Arsenal selling Gervinho to AS Roma paved the way for Erik Lamela's big money move to Tottenham Hotspurs. This helped Gareth Bale's world record move to Spanish giants Real Madrid who in turn sold their star playmaker Mesut Ozil to Arsenal. In the 2013-14 winter transfer window, another trend seems to be unfurling. As David Moyes tries to salvage something from his first season in charge of the Red Devils, Chelsea's star Spaniard Juan Mata's arrival seems imminent. Chelsea already having loaned out Victor Moses, Marko Marin and practically every player on the Vitesse Arnhem team, still seemed to have surplus to their requirements Kevin De Bruyne who was just recently sold to VLf Wolfsburg. Also, suddenly since "The Special One" took over, their little Spaniard, Chelsea's player of the ye

 As always, the guess-work Guru's, fans & journalists have ran themselves ragged trying to get the lowdown on any of Arsenal's transfer targets in the January transfer-window. Whilst all manor of players have (& continue to) been linked with the club, one name that refuses to give up the ghost is that of exciting, hot young German, Julian Draxler. You can't get away from it! 20 year old Draxler is carrying on where he left off last campaign, impressing this season for his club (Schalke) and perplexing defences in the Bundesliga & now the Champions League, with his pace, passing, intelligent runs & dynamic dribbling style! From a personal point of view, I'm a fan of the player, I have been for a while now. Seen by many as the "best" of an incredibly talented bunch of hot talent coming out of Germany, Draxler has no shortage of admirers. Inevitably he's been linked with many of Europe's phallus-swinging-powe

It's often easy and a very popular tact (certainly here in England) to get carried away with young talent. Dressing them up in the Emperor's new clothes, lauding them with superlatives and burdening them with a weight of expectation that is both naive and unrealistic. That said, for the opportunities Wenger has afforded the Teddy-bear-lookalike German, you have to say he does seem to be something of a "natural". He plays without fear, intelligently, looks fairly strong for a young lad (he's only recently turned 18) and so far at least, hasn't looked out of place playing at a  VERY  high level! In the wake of Walcott's unfortunate injury, to "expect" a raw-recruit such as Gnabry to take the mantle of an experienced & effective, established 1st-team, international, Premier League "star" is a heavy ask. Too much pressure? That's a call for Wenger and in that respect, there's few football men I'd trust more to make

Iconic : United's 20th title The only constant in the universe is Change. Football in 2013 epitomized that sentiment in every possible way with glories, despair, hopes, disappointments and controversies along the way. As the football world starts to look forward to an exciting 2014, The Beautiful Game takes a look back at the moments that made 2013 the year of the unexpected…. LIONEL MESSI WINS 4 TH BALLON d’OR Messi winning his 4th Ballon d'Or Football fans across the globe bid goodbye to 2012 by watching Lionel Messi break another record in his already illustrious career when he broke Gerd Mueller’s record of 86 goals in a calendar year with 91 goals. And it was no surprise when he bagged the most prestigious individual prize in football for the fourth year running with a whopping 41% of total votes, beating Cristiano Ronaldo(23%) and team-mate Andres Iniesta(10%). The event was testimony to Messi’s individual brilliance over the previous calendar year