FootballFilter

Hello and welcome to my latest look at what has passing through Football Filter this week.

Where else to start this week but the pulsating Manchester derby at Old Trafford where United prevailed over their “noisy neighbours” to reach the Carling Cup final thanks to an injury time Wayne Rooney header.

Contrasting emotions across the Manchester divide were obviously felt with THE STRETTY RANT full of praise for United’s performance while THE OFFSIDE reflects on what might have been for Roberto Mancini’s men.

Manchester United’s Carling Cup odds make them favourites to lift the trophy.

To make things worse for City unsettled Brazilian striker Robinho, the player who signing was meant to symbolise the Sky blue revival, joined his old side Santos on loan for the rest of the season. The ironically titled blog WE’VE GOT ROBINHO mourns his departure.

Another week, another collection of stories detailing the growing crisis at Portsmouth. Now it is the club website that has fallen victim to their financial woes, shutting down for a period this week due to unpaid bills. THE TELGRAPH and THE TIMES have all the grim details.

Pompey aren’t alone though, Championship side Crystal Palace fell into administration this week, admitting defeat in their quest to repay debts of around £30 million according to IN THE STANDS. A ten-point deduction has also seen them tumble down the table.

Happier news now and the spectacular and rapid rise of Chris Smalling made headlines this week. The Fulham defender was playing non-league football two years ago but will join Manchester United in the summer in a deal worth around £7million. THE DAILY MAIL charts his Roy Of the Rovers-esque rise to the top.

And finally…

List time everyone (you know you love ‘em!) If anyone needs anymore convincing that David Beckham deserves a place in England’s World Cup squad SOCCERLENS lists five reasons why Becks should be on that plane to South Africa. He’ll boost England’s World Cup chances, after all.

But you already know why didn’t you?

It seems having a back injury can sometimes leave you quite bored, so I have just finished making all the league one team pages. If you support one of these many teams please let us know what you think of the page and what is missing or could be improved.

It interesting how some teams really have very little content or in some case even very few websites, I was quite surprised. I also noticed that the new official websites that have been created for each team are (not only exactly the same but with different colours) incredibly shit!

Just a quick note to say we have now created team pages for all the championship pages – its been a long time coming but I am glad to say it is finally done. Please give us a feedback on your team’s page if you are not satisfied. And feel free to use our support request link if you want a team page made, or email us at the usual address.

We are proud to announce that we received an silver web award from the brilliant When Saturday Comes magazine.  Check out the article here:  http://www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/4195/38/

Petty squabbles and superficial differences were put into context with the sad death of Germany ‘keeper Robert Enke, who after years of depression decided to take his own life. THE SPORTS REVIEW was among many news agencies to tell us his sad story.

In other sports news, the odds for the Cheltenham Gold Cup are starting to heat up, so it could be well worth keeping you eye on them!

Hello and welcome to my latest look at what has been passing through the football filter this week….

On the face of it was a sedate Carling Cup league match in South Yorkshire. But try telling that to the Man United fans who, in their wisdom, decided to trash the food stall on the concourse at Barnsley. THE GUARDIAN reports on the potential consequences for those caught.

Swine flu has also been the hot topic as football clubs prove  not to be immune to the virus. THE INDEPENDANT report that QPR are the latest club to have players struck down.

What’s going on at Hull? Amid rumours of financial oblivion and a departing chairman boss Phil Brown is still holding onto his job – just. WHEN SATURDAY COMES gives us a good insight into the past few years at Hull and perhaps a case of unrealistic expectations.

Strachan’s back! After a brief sojourn North of the border Gordon Strachan made his return to English Championship football with Middlesbrough. THE NORTHERN ECHO gave him a local welcome and set out his task ahead.

First Celtic and Rangers, now the giants of Faroe Islands football have backed the idea of an Atlantic league according to BACK OF THE NET NEWS Will it happen? It’s doubtful, and if teams from the Faroe Islands are allowed in why not the likes of Hibs, Hearts and Aberdeen??

Like your goals scored from distance? Well FLAT BACK FOUR has gathered a handy list of and video clips of the best goals scored from behind the halfway line. And yes, Beckham’s is there.

And finally…

In keeping with the ’spooky’ time of year THE MIRROR have come up with the best Halloween themed footballers – The Nightmare on Elmander Street is my particular favourite.

Ok so just a quick update – we have jumped on the twitter list bandwagon and have made various lists….. ch ch check them out here:

Footballers list: http://twitter.com/footballfilter/footballers

Podcasters list: http://twitter.com/footballfilter/footballpodcasts

Bloggers: http://twitter.com/footballfilter/blogs

MLS Bloggers: http://twitter.com/footballfilter/mlsblogs

And we have a few more that we are working on….you can find them on our twitter page…cheers.

After our Twitter list of football players we thought we would do page where you can get a quick overview of all the tweets out there related to football. Categorised into sections like footballers, journos, podcasts, bloggers, wags etc we hope you find it useful. Let us know what you think and if you have any suggestions. Other categories to come will be video sites, newspapers, commentators and anything else I can think of on the way. Always open to ideas.

Take a look here:

http://www.footballfilter.com/twitter

Hello and welcome to the latest look at what as been passing through the Football Filter this week.

The managerial merry-go-round looks set to get a kick-start as twitchy chairman hover their fingers over the trigger. One of those managers under pressure is Hull’s Phil Brown. But after his heroic Premier League survival last year is Brown the victim of raised expectations? JUST FOOTBALL takes a closer look.

The haves and the have nots have been highlighted this week. First off Arsenal announced pre-tax profits of £45.5m, with match-day revenue exceeding £100m for the first time.

The figures have been digested and assessed over at Soccerlens.
Liverpool could also be in the money with rumours of a Saudi Prince wanting to invest in the club, THE INDEPENDENT has all the details.

And the have nots? Well WHEN SATURDAY COMES reports that the end is nigh for Hyde United as the Cheshire club were wound up following unpaid debts of £122,000. John  Terry earns that in about 4 days…..

Lists, lists and more lists were the order of the week in many of the papers. THE TIMES gave us the 50 people who fouled up football. Yes, Ashley Cole is in there.

THE MIRROR meanwhile, brought us the top ten scary managers.

With Didier Drogba netting his 100th goal for Chelsea last weekend THE MIRROR also reminds us of the best of the Ivory Coast International’s Chelsea career over the past four years.
And finally…

With Australia’s A league failing to capture the publics imagination, competition chief Archie Fraser gave us all an example of how NOT to promote your own league. BACK OF THE NET NEWS has all the details.

Having used twitter for quite a while now I thought I would put together a list of all the footballers and ex footballers who I have found that are tweeting.  Some of them are very very debatable…..tis very hard to know how legit some of them are.  Will mention my skepticism where relevant

Mark Bright – Legit fo sure:  http://twitter.com/MarkBrighty

Daniel Sturridge – could be, hasn’t used it in a while: http://twitter.com/Danny_Sturridge

Robert Earhshaw – seems possibly legit, I think the more important question is if it ain’t legit why is someone impersonating old R.Earnshaw of all the possible twitters in the world:  http://twitter.com/robertearnshaw

Landon Donavon – legit, as always America sportsmen catch on to the latest online tools quicker than their UK counterparts, but he hasn’t used it of late: http://twitter.com/Landon_Donovan

James Beattie – probably legit but he hasn’t used it in months: http://twitter.com/JSBeattie

Rory Delap – has some banter with Beattie and Shawcross, defo legit and reasonably regular poster: http://twitter.com/DelapSCFC

Ryan Shawcross -continuing the Stoke link, but hasn’t used it in months: http://twitter.com/RShawcross87

Matthew Etherington- also hasnt used it in months: http://twitter.com/Etherington26

Danny Dichio – Toronto F player and regular on the old tweets: http://twitter.com/DannyDichio

Steven Gerrard – very very debatable, although his mundane comments lead me to believe it is him : http://twitter.com/Steven_Gerrard

Harry Redknapp – not sure if this is real but apparently he’s too busy to do it anymore, a posting he made in the last week – lazy: http://twitter.com/harrysblog .  He even has a blog http://harryredknappsblog.blogspot.com/ but I am just not sure if it really is him.  I hope so as it is on our Tottenham page!   – http://www.footballfilter.com/tottenham-hotspur

Giuseppe Rossi – legit twitter playing at Villa Real: http://twitter.com/GiuRo22

Freddy Adu – the highly rated American star, defo a legit account I reckon: http://twitter.com/FreddyAdu11

Stan Collymore – ex footballer, possible dogger, Talk Sport DJ : http://twitter.com/StanCollymore

Rio Ferdinand – not sure its real, could be: http://twitter.com/RedRio

Wayne Rooney – also not sure if it’s real: http://twitter.com/RealWayneRooney

Daniel Gabbidon:  seems legit to me, been talking about his injury of late: http://twitter.com/TheRealGabbidon

Darren Bent – we all know about his account.  Still very vocal, still dissing the haters.  Big up my man DB: http://twitter.com/DBTheTruth .  In fact he has just challenged boxer Tony Jeffries to a “war”, or rather a race to get 10,000 followers.  Here’s Tony Jeffries account http://twitter.com/Tony_Jeffries .

So that’s our list so far, will add more when I see them.  Feel free to email us at contact@footballfilter.com with further suggestions!

Contributions from the comments and our twitter followers and new ones I have found:

Ryan Giggs – looks legit and he’s quite a regular tweeter too.  http://twitter.com/Ryan_Giggs .  Thanks to vishnurchari for that contribution.

David Beckham – hasn’t posted anything since May, even when Shaq was challenging him to whatever it is Shaq does .  http://twitter.com/beckham

Jermaine Defoe – scoring well this season and bigging it up on Twitter, could be real: http://twitter.com/JCDefoe

Carlos Tevez – really not sure if this is him, but his midly stunted English phrasing and the Spanish posts suggest it could well be: http://twitter.com/carlitotevez

A selection found by FootballsUp (thanks) that I missed (follow FootballsUp on twitter http://twitter.com/footballsup):

Brad Guzman: American and Villas number two goalie: http://twitter.com/bguzan

Peter Crouch: hasn’t used it since April:  http://twitter.com/OfficialCrouch/

Shay Given – looks like his tweets are taken from his site, but very regular at least: http://twitter.com/Shay_Given

Rohan Ricketts – never heard of him before but he plays for Toronto and he is English: http://twitter.com/rohanricketts

Jozy Altidore – Hull and US player, regular on Twitter: http://twitter.com/JozyAltidore17

More courtesy of Patrycja:

Maurice Edu – Rangers and US player – http://twitter.com/mauriceedu

Carl Robinson – another Toroto FC player – http://twitter.com/CarlRobinson33

Jim Brennan – captain of Toronto FC – http://twitter.com/jimmyBrennan

Dwayne DeRosario – another Toronto FC player! http://twitter.com/DwayneDeRosario

Jonathan DeGuzman – another Torotnto FC player – one of the De Guzman brothers: https://twitter.com/jdeguz

Julian De Guzman – Toronto player: http://twitter.com/JBDEGUZZI

I also spotted Ryan Babel on Twitter this very afternoon – looking G and Kayne esque on the background wallpaper: http://twitter.com/ryanbabel19

Vurnon Anita – Dutch midfielder, plays for Ajax: http://twitter.com/Vurnon

More to come….