Manchester United midfielder Tom Cleverley is becoming a regular starter for both club and country, and has admitted that he wants to emulate the goal scoring antics of Paul Scholes.
After a sensational strike against Newcastle at the weekend, Cleverley has described himself as on a mission to get on the score sheet more often.
“It’s amazing that the two goals I have scored for Manchester United have both been against Newcastle, but this season it feels like I am really getting into scoring positions,” he told the Mirror.
The 23-year-old midfielder is proving to be a pivotal player under Sir Alex Ferguson and England gaffer Roy Hodgson, as he sets to banish the memories of a disappointing Premier League season last year.
Cleverley has been tipped to be the next potential home-grown star after Paul Scholes, and has started to add goals to his repertoire, scoring two goals in his last three games.
The midfielder has recently started the last two international games against Moldova and Ukraine and is set to add to his three caps against San Marino on Friday.
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“I’m very excited about the future. We have only had the opening couple of months of the season but I have played at massive stadiums in some huge games already, so it is all very good in terms of gaining experience.
“I am enjoying it massively. Everyone knows I had some injuries last season so to be at United and in the England squad is something I am hugely proud of and I hope this season just carries on,” he added.
Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has revealed that the club are looking to add yet more players to their squad despite their arrivals count for this window standing at a whopping six.
The Reds have spent close to £90m this summer to snap up a host of talented players, with the sale of Luis Suarez offsetting £75m of the splurge.
Southampton trio Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren and Rickie Lambert have been joined at Anfield by Lazar Markovic, Emre Can and Divock Origi – the latter will return to Lille on loan – in a hectic few weeks on Merseyside.
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Spanish defenders Alberto Moreno and Javier Manquillo are expected to become Liverpool players in the coming weeks, but beyond them even more names are being linked with the club.
Although Rodgers admitted that he’s happy with both his concluded and imminent business, the Northern Irishman says that he has more areas of his squad he wants to strengthen:
“It’s just purely on the back of us having a really thin squad last season where we were very, very short.” He is quoted by Goal.
“The players did remarkably well and it was incredible what they achieved but they need help this year – they need assistance.
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“We’ve got the belief this year we can go on and do well in all of the competitions. Especially after the Christmas period on the back end of a World Cup year, we need to make sure we have freshness in every game we play because of the nature of our game.
“There are still one or two areas to look at. There’s no point mentioning numbers or positions – we want a couple of positions strengthened and if we can do that, I’ll be really, really happy.”
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It seems as though the previous summer was merely an anomaly – when it comes to Manchester City sniffing round Arsenal’s squad – with reports emerging that City are ready to offer Bacary Sagna the three-year contract he desires.
With Arsenal having seemingly shaken off the tag of ‘selling club’, it should be of paramount importance for the club’s hierarchy to tie the Frenchman down to a long-term contract.
With 276 games under his belt, Sagna is the most-capped right-back during Wenger’s years as Arsenal boss and has been a model of consistency. His first season in 2007-08 he was inducted into the PFA Premier League Team of the Year, and repeated this achievement three years later.
Arsenal’s policy of one-year contract extensions for over-30s makes the situation with Sagna a difficult one. But Arsenal and Wenger’s well-known stubbornness needs to give a little. Two leg-breaks in the space of a year saw Sagna struggle briefly for form. But this season he has proven his worth to the side. Sagna has been a regular fixture in a defence which has, on the whole, made significant leaps forward from the Arsenal teams of recent years.
In terms of commitment and work-rate there are few in the Arsenal side who can match Sagna. When backs are against the wall, Bac usually comes up trumps. The Gunners’ ability to grind out more results this season is tribute to the defensive resolve they have shown and Sagna is often right in the mix. He is gritty, determined and hyper-physical, all characteristics not often attributed to Arsene Wenger’s side.
Sagna’s versatility is also something that Wenger cannot afford to overlook. With just three recognised centre-backs in the first-team squad, his ability to fill the gap if needs be is necessary. Wenger isn’t one for making large squad changes in the summer transfer window so the likelihood of recruiting two new centre-backs, assuming Thomas Vermaelen leaves, is quite low.
Despite his relative inexperience in the position, Sagna’s positional awareness and experience have shone through during the times he’s been called upon to fill a central role.
It brings into questions the club’s appreciation of somebody as loyal as Sagna if they don’t cede somewhat in negotiations. For seven years he’s been omnipresent in a side that has had more than a few wobbles along the way. There have been no stories of dressing room problems, no paper talk of him itching for a move away, and no off-field drama of the type Olivier Giroud has excelled at this season.
If there ever was a person the club should look into recalibrating its contract policy for, Sagna is that person.
Despite recent hiccups, it would be fair to suggest that this season Arsenal have made steps in the direction they want to head in. And defensive improvements have been a large part in this. If the club wants to continue to progress, having players like Sagna around the club with the experience and know-how of the club is vital.
With Carl Jenkinson still in need of some development before he could fairly stake his claim to be the first choice option, there are few better players to learn the trade from than Bacary Sagna.
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Reports in The Mirror have suggested in recent days that Arsenal are actually prepared to bend when it comes to Sagna. But the fact that his contract expires in just three months is a great concern. The club should be breaking their backs to get him to sign up.
He’s been Mr Consistent for a number of years now and Arsenal need more of that. Losing him would be a great loss to the club. And losing him to Manchester city would rub further salt into the wounds.
David Moyes sympathizes with Premier League referees, but feels they are being let down by their assistants in games.
The Everton boss, who saw two penalty shouts waved away by referee Kevin Friend against Spurs on Sunday, said that at times it is the linesmen who should be supporting the man in the middle more.
Moyes feels that poor decisions have cost his side points this season. In September Newcastle came from behind to draw 2-2 after the officials ruled out a legitimate goal from Victor Anichebe, which would have put the Toffees 3-1 up.
“Being a referee nowadays comes with a much higher profile and it is also a much more challenging job,” Moyes told Goal. “The cameras and the technology now allow us to analyse every decision and for anyone who has never refereed a game I can tell you that it is very difficult as I do it most days in training.
“However, here comes a ‘but’ from me. What we’ve had in recent games, starting at Reading a few weeks ago, are decisions that have cost us points. I will always be the first person to look at the players to finish better or to defend better and not rely on decisions, but as you can see on a regular basis at the moment decisions are affecting the outcome of the games.
“Some of the decisions that have gone against us have been made by the assistants – Newcastle and Wigan for example.”
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“I do feel that the referees are not being supported by their assistants and are, on occasions, being let down by them.”
Hartlepool United’s belated and thin retained list epitomises everything about the club at present: blindness, needless stubbornness and failure of bravery.
Releasing just one of the first team regulars – Evan Horwood – of the catastrophic relegation season and renewing the contract (or soon to be renewed in the case of Sam Collins, Andy Monkhouse and Ritchie Humphreys) of Neil Austin and not dispensing of the failures is a recipe for another season awash with defeats. And let’s not forget, last season’s relegation was not just a combination of poor effort attributed by the players earlier on, or luck or any other excuses, it is the harvest of poor player recruitment and turnover the past 3 years. It’s been coming and the signs are that there are very little plans in place to right the wrongs and that’s worrying.
Nine wins in one season does not see “winners” emblazoned across the players’ forehead. No, there is an imprint of losers, of failures, of players who have not been good enough in the past so what’s to say they will be good enough in the future?
The refusal to cleanse the squad of the players that are responsible for the team’s demise stinks of ignorance to their entire situation. And the wonderful season ticket offer of £150 will not cover the damage the club have done. People will not part with that amount of money – however small – if they do not believe they will get a return for their investment. And with the continuation of the same players who have delivered such sparse forms of entertainment for the past three years on offer again, gates will fall beneath the 3000 barrier, possibly even further. The club have only got themselves to blame.
Unfortunately, though, it is what we can now expect of HUFC. Expect the unexpected. The club is afraid of making brave decisions, of releasing players who fit the Clarence Road furniture. The club have a policy of not discussing players’ contracts until the season has reached its climax. In a season of more lows than highs and when fans are as disillusioned as they have ever been in the IOR era – now was the time to scrap those policies and act in the best way to help move the club forward and recover from the wreckage of the past seasons.
Decisions on who went and who stayed was made 11 days after the season had finished, seven more than most clubs in League One and League Two had waited. Not for the first time this season, the club were languishing behind the rest.
Manager John Hughes had talked about rebuilding the club in March, identifying his targets for the next season and coming to conclusions about who should make up the playing staff come August. His appeals, via the media, for a meeting with chief executive Russ Green were rejected. Hughes was then forced to make a rather embarrassing u-turn, stating that “now isn’t the time.” Had he been warned by Green that the club must not deviate from their polices? It certainly appears that way. It’s child-like. Hughes adhered to the club’s stringent rules; is he going to be made to walk because his views and ways do not marry those of IOR’s?
Football success is dependent on making bold, correct decisions and Tuesday’s retained list was distant to the factors that conjure up success.
In Hughes Pools have a manager who has already demonstrated in 2013 that he can evoke a wining formula out of a group of players who had come so accustomed to losing. He has shown his credentials, but he MUST be allowed to carry that onto next season. One fears that will not be the case and it will be another case of the club shooting themselves in the foot.
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Hughes’ appointment was huge, for the club desperately needed to resurrect the flailing ship. However, failure to back Hughes with trust, judgement and with finance (as much as can be afforded for the finance restrictions at HUFC limits over spending) over the summer months for his squad assemblage will only eventuate with more failure, declining attendances and increasing fan unrest
To obey a fan’s wish is not always encouraged, see the return of Neale Cooper. But to also remain stubborn and blind to the reasons behind the previous failures without correcting them is also not encouraged. It’s plain stupidity. I hope I have ill-perceived the current going-ons at HUFC.
In the modern era the debate over nationality is becoming harder and harder. Long gone are the days where birthplace dictated nationality, in today’s world citizenship can be determined by ancestry, employment as well as political asylum. Adnan Januzaj’s dilemma is one faced by a number of rising stars in today’s game and it is beginning to become a complex issue for both the individual and countries concerned.
Jack Wilshere today waded into the debate by suggesting that all players to represent England should be born in England:
“The only people who should play for England are English people. If you live in England for five years it doesn’t make you English. If I went to Spain and lived there for five years I’m not going to play for Spain.”
Is he right?
Clearly this is as much a legal issue as it a moral one. It is easy to forget that we ourselves are a country of immigrants, a definite part of our culture and not something to take lightly. Wilshere may be right though, if someone has only lived here for five years can they really understand what it means to be English and in footballing terms the honour of donning the Three Lions? Wilshere clearly believes that Englishman are born and not manufactured, that there is a definite English mentality that cannot simply be taught:
“We have to remember what we are, we are English and we tackle hard and we are tough on the pitch and we are hard to beat. We have great characters. You think of Spain and they are technical, but you think of England and you think they are brave and they tackle hard.”
The England first team squad is entirely English born as it stands, something at odds with almost all the major sports we as a country play. The national Rugby and Cricket teams are full of mainly South African born talent that have become eligible through and English mother or father. An England cricket team without Jonathan Trott or Kevin Pieterson would be almost unimaginable now and for fans of our national team we really cannot pass up the chance of delving into this new talent loophole.
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Our U-21 side already contains a handful of foreign born stars including Wilfried Zaha and Nathaniel Chalobah. These are some of the top young prospects in the Premier League and in my mind certain stars of the national side in the near future. It is unsurprising therefore that U-21 manager Gareth Southgate took a much more sensible stance on the matter:
“We have lots of boys in our squad who weren’t born here but whose families have fled here — and some wonderful stories,” Southgate said.
“Saido, Wilf, Nat Chalobah. All incredibly proud to play for England. The world is changing, families are moving more, working abroad.”
I think Southgate is right. Our world is becoming more and more globalised, the national boundaries are blurring and it is just a natural transition for our national sides to contain foreign born stars. Being foreign born doesn’t mean that someone doesn’t care about their adoptive country, in many cases it is quite the opposite with immigrants keen to get as immersed in their new culture as is possible.
Of course in an ideal world our squad would be full of English born players ready to go out and do battle for the cross of St George. The reality now is that the world has changed and our national team must move with it. It is down to the likes of Roy Hodgson to ease the transition, ensuring the likes of a Zaha realise the importance of the decision they have made.
Someone like Wilshere rather than marginalising these foreign born kids should take it upon himself as well to put an arm around their shoulder and teach them about the ethics we have as a national team.
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Countries around the world are already taking advantage of the way in which eligibility criteria work and if England step away on moral grounds I think it would be a huge loss for us in purely footballing terms. Now clearly the case of a Januzaj is different to a Wilfried Zaha,the latter has English relatives whereas the former’s eligibility appears purely employment related.
The FA need to draw a line somewhere, but for me suggesting that English players must be born English is plainly ridiculous.
Is Wilshere right here or do we need to start accepting change?
Arsenal defender Bacary Sagna has questioned the direction that the club are taking after another summer of high-profile exits at the club and with that in mind, will he be the next key player to leave Arsene Wenger’s side in pursuit of silverware?
Ever since moving from French outfit Auxerre back in 2007, the 29-year-old right-back has been an integral part of the side, making over 150 league appearances in his five seasons at the club so far. His presence was sorely missed last term, during which he sustained two separate broken leg injuries as he bids to keep up his comeback to full fitness this term.
Speaking in French publication L’Equipe, Sagna, rather worryingly for the club’s fans, questioned the wisdom of letting both Robin van Persie and Alex Song go this summer: “Everyone was expecting Robin Van Persie to leave, but Alex Song, that was a surprise. I don’t understand that at all. It is a big loss for the club. When you see two of the best players from last season leave, you ask a lot of questions. I understand why the supporters are nervous. I am the only starting player left from 2007. In May, I watched City’s parade on TV. I saw Samir and Gael lift the trophy. I want that (feeling). For the moment, I want to play with Arsenal, and find my level again.”
The most alarming point to take from that is the declaration of professional jealousy at the likes of Samir Nasri and Gael Clichy for achieving success while at Manchester City, proving that their respective moves to the current Premier League champions for trophies were entirely vindicated last campaign.
Arsenal have routinely been labelled a ‘selling club’ recently under Wenger and the club have been accused of putting fiscal concerns above footballing matters, often choosing short-term financial gain to the detriment of the side out on the pitch. However, what this fails to take into account is that Arsenal under Wenger have always been a ‘selling club’, dating right back to Nicolas Anelka’s move to Real Madrid in 1999, while the likes of Marc Overmars, Emmanuel Petit, Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry and then Cesc Fabregas followed a similar path – it’s a far more long-term trend than previously assumed, as opposed to a new idea since the stadium move.
If you look at Arsenal’s expenditure since Wenger took over the club back in 1996, while they may have spent £385m on new players, they’ve also recouped £363m from sales during the same time, to give the club a net spend of just £22m over 16 years, which is a truly staggering statistic.
If Sagna were to leave, the only likely destinations would have to be either Manchester United or Manchester City if he wanted to remain in the Premier League. Real Madrid are in need of another right-back to compete with Alvaro Arbeloa while Barcelona’s Daniel Alves has been linked with a departure for quite some time, so there are certainly options open to the highly-regarded defender.
The summer transfer saga that envelopes the club is almost a yearly ritual now, though, and even if they allowed Alex Song to leave for Barcelona on their own terms, they have acted like a feeder club in recent times for both the Catalan giants and Roberto Mancini’s side and there’s nothing to suggest that this will change in the future. Is Sagna the next obvious player to make the move out of the club over Arsenal’s perceived lack of ambition?
Jack Wilshere is the next logical player in mind other than Sagna and he’s likely to be a player that will be coveted by a whole host of top clubs throughout his career. However, after missing an entire year out through injury at such a crucial stage in his development, it remains to be seen whether he will be able to return to his best this season and he may need time to feel his way back into the side and any sort of form, so Arsenal should be safe for the foreseeable future at least.
Other than Sagna and Wilshere, the club’s next most highly-valued prospect is perhaps Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, with the 19-year-old catching the eye with a series of bright displays last season. His performance against AC Milan during the team’s 3-0 win over them at home in the Champions League last term will have been duly noted all across the continent as he delivered a virtuoso display in a more central role with a maturity well beyond his years which suggests he’s capable of becoming a player of genuine class in the future and big things are expected of him, but whether that will be at Arsenal remains to be seen.
Cast your eye around the remainder of the Arsenal squad, though, and the club’s shift in transfer policy to recruiting more experienced players with proven European experience should see an end for a while at least to the destructive policy of selling on your best player every summer.
Unless the likes of Lukas Podolski, Thomas Vermaelen or Wojciech Szczesny have an absolutely storming season, they are probably at a club that matches their ambitions and talent level. You suspect that Laurent Koscielny, Theo Walcott and Santi Cazorla could attract attention in the future from bigger clubs, but perhaps not to the same extent as the aforementioned trio.
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This myth that Arsenal have only just become a ‘selling club’ is a false one and the club’s fans must come to terms with the likelihood of key players leaving at crucial times unless they start to challenge for silverware more at the end of the season; there’s no reason why that’s not possible, but until the seven-year trophy drought is ended, players like Sagna will always have a wandering eye towards other clubs and the thought in their mind that the grass may in fact be greener on the other side.
Charlie Adam’s first half goal proved to be enough for Stoke to see off Fulham at the Britannia Stadium.
The Potters made it 13 games without defeat on home soil to move level on points with the visitors, who saw they four match unbeaten run on the road brought to an end.
Martin Jol’s men were beaten in their own backyard by Sunderland last Sunday and missed the presence of suspended captain Brede Hangeland, with the hosts seeking to exploit their aerial superiority.
Robert Huth sent an early warning shot across the bow, heading a corner just wide of the post but the Cottagers failed to take heed and were trailing after 26 minutes.
A corner from Ryan Shotton found Peter Crouch and his header set up Adam to touch, swivel and shoot past Mark Schwarzer to score his second goal in three games.
Ryan Shawcross thought he’d doubled the lead after beating Schwarzer with a header from Matthew Etherington’s corner, only to see the ball cannon agonisingly back off the crossbar.
From that Fulham launched a swift counter attack but Mladen Petric was unable to apply the finishing touches before a dangerous delivery from Dimitar Berbatov went unchallenged.
Apart from that they were virtual bystanders for much of the 90 minutes and were lucky not to concede more than one goal with Glenn Whelan firing over in the second half after being teed up by Jon Walters.
The away sides best chance of an equaliser fell to the subdued Berbatov, but his strike was kept out by Asmir Begovic as their late attacking flurry failed to produce the desired result.
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And Kenwyne Jones thought he’d doubled Stokes lead in the dying embers only to be flagged for offside after mistiming his run to connect with Michael Kightlys pass.
The summer transfer window is always massively busy for Premier League clubs, desperate to improve their squad and push-on for a more successful season than the last. But sometimes, it takes a few months of the new season for teams to notice where the money should have been spent – whether that be in defence, midfield or attack – and managers are left anxiously waiting for the January transfer window to roll around so that they may attempt to plug the gaps.
Here is a list of 10 ‘priority purchases’ in the Premier League that I feel are vastly important to improving the respective teams. These are all just my opinion, however, and I would love to hear your suggestions.
Click on the cheque book below to see the Top 10
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Such is the nature of the digital age that we currently live in, it seems that no realm of society is immune from the globalized phenomenon that is social media. Be you a notorious celebrity, fame seeking reality star or merely even a long haul truck driver, there is no walk of life that hasn’t been seemingly invigorated by the power of Twitter, Facebook and the like.
And unless you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere for the past five years, you’ll be very aware of the efforts those in the footballing world have made to dine at the table of Twitterati prestige. But far from boosting the already inflated egos of the Ashley Cole’s and Rio Ferdinand’s of this world, it’s served a far greater purpose by cultivating the rebirth of football’s cult hero.
Within all the doomy analysis of the state of the game within the 21st century, the penchants for nostalgia among us can’t help but look back to the game of yesteryear. Even just ten years ago, ticket prices didn’t involve the remortgaging of homes, simulation was used to describe PlayStations, not players, and a prawn sandwich was a culinary delicacy that had yet to morph into the footballing antichrist.
But perhaps just as poignantly, cult heroes rightly got the recognition they deserved.
The Manchester City attack may currently be inhibited by a quartet of multi-millionaire, precociously gifted talents, but ten years ago, one Shaun Goater was still lining up for The Citizens. Which begs a good question, in that where have all the Shaun Goaters gone?
Enter the 90’s and beyond, and football seemed to bestow such a wealth of characters, adored by fans not because solely on footballing ability, but because they harnessed more than one iota of personality.
The likes of Jason Lee, Efe Sodje and Marc Bircham were more famous for what was going on with their heads, than down at their feet, but you knew you were in for a bit of entertainment going to watch them every weekend. John Jensen, Julian Dicks and Steve Stone were never the most technically accomplished of footballers, but they always wielded an affectionate response from fans.
Their cult statuses were forged by fans, within the grounds; not because they banged in 30 goals a year, but because they had a little something more about them. In the PR sanitized world of the modern day Premier League which we currently live in, it does sometimes feel like these characters are no more than a distant motif of yesterday’s game.
But although it does feel like there are generally a lot less silly haircuts and eccentric personalities within the English game, this isn’t necessarily to say that the practice of the cult hero doesn’t still exist. It’s just that today, perhaps, cult heroes are forged more in the digital domain than the physical one.
Take Emile Heskey, for example. During his time in the Premier League, he came in for a bit of stick for a suspect goal scoring record, but such was his relatively serious public demeanor, you could never coax much in the way of humour out of the big man, on or off the pitch.
Type his name into Google, however, and you become instantly exposed to something of a digital underworld of cult practice. Indeed, the first three related searches for the ex-England striker, include ‘Emile Heskey jokes’, ‘Emile Heskey drinking game’ and ‘Emile Heskey Twitter’; the latter of which produces a page of four parody accounts with near on 30,000 followers in total. He’s even got his own parody rap song, which has around 2,500,000 views on You Tube and counting.
The cult hero phenomenon isn’t dead – it’s just experiencing a rebirth.
Again, take Mario Balotelli as another example. With an off field resume that includes the lighting of pyrotechnics in his own mansion, the racking up of £10,000 in parking fines and various tales of random acts of generosity, he’s got all the trappings of a classic cult hero. Yet he feels somewhat maligned by the frowning corporate face of today’s Premier League. But in the digital domain, he’s the stuff of urban legend.
Balotelli himself can boast two parody accounts on Twitter to the combined tune of half a million followers. His iconic, hulking celebration after his second goal against Germany in the European Championships has produced hundreds of memes and comedy photoshopped images that have spawned the world over. You could argue that the cult of Balotelli, despite his obvious higher profile than your archetypal cult hero, has gone further than anything we could have ever imagined ten years ago.
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Some will of course argue that it’s not the same and that the social media fuelled revolutions of Heskey, Balotelli and the like, can’t be compared to yesterday’s heroes. But there’s no need to fear, as even they’re now joining in on the fun.
Are you a QPR fan craving a bit of Marc Bircham related banter? His bio says he enjoys having a cheeky few drinks now and again, and you can ask him all about it here. Former Spurs Uefa Cup winner turned London cabbie Micky Hazard is a prolific Tweeter and he loves nothing more than interacting with fans.
Still not enough cult heroes for you? You can get nuggets of Dean Windass related wisdom on Twitter, legendary cult left-back Rufus Brevett would be only too happy to have you on board and if that’s still not whetting the appetite, then why not add to ex-Plymouth Argyle and Nigerian legend Taribo West’s 5,254 followers?
Football has changed in almost ever respect within recent times, and even something as trivial and as organic as the creation of a cult hero, isn’t quite the same as it used to be. But it’s still there and in one guise or another, it most certainly always will be.
How do you feel about the evolution of the Cult Hero? Have I missed any social networking phenomenons or do you just want to fire a few Eoin Jess’ at me? Tell me all on Twitter: follow @samuel_antrobus and get involved.