Sport

Sport News 24/7 By Will Herrmann In the final few games of last season Connor Wickham began to give some evidence that he has the ability to succeed at the top level and his goals went a long way to keeping Sunderland up. Gus Poyet has come out and said that neither Wickham nor Fletcher will be leaving this summer and yet the press are continuing to link Wickham with a move away. Here are three reasons why I wouldn’t...

Sport News 24/7 By David de Winter - Sports Writer @davidjdewinter Cricket is a game of fine margins. Matches, even series turn on a crucial decision, an important wicket, a dogged innings or a dropped catch. This is the difference between success and failure. One regularly hears soundbites from cricketers referring to the importance of momentum. It may sound like a cliché but it is true. Start a match, an innings, a series well and the pressure is on the...

Sport News 24/7 By Ian Carroll The good news; we only had one left back on the pitch. That, boys and girls, is progress! The bad news; that left back was Paul Dummett, a man ideally suited to a mid-table third division side (with an injury crisis) It takes a special kind of manager to pick one player for pretty much all of pre-season, then decide that actually, Sadio Haidara isn’t up to the job, and only Dummett will do....

Sport News 24/7 By Richard De Winter @rgdewinter I suppose in some respects QPR’s 1-0 defeat at home to Hull on Saturday was in fact a good result -   Rangers’ last 3 opening home matches in the Premier League have finished: QPR 0-3 Wimbledon (95/96), QPR 0-4 Bolton (11/12), QPR 0-5 Swansea (12/13). Therefore anything less than a 6-0 defeat would have been a triumph. There were other positives to take too: unlike in the above matches the R’s performed...

By Jack Peat  At 5pm on every Saturday for as long as I can remember I have tuned into the radio to hear the voice of James Alexander Gordon. The passing of a man whose dulcet tones have become synonymous with the classified football results will deeply sadden many fans of the sport who, like me, will recall with nostalgia sitting in a car as the hot air blew from the heaters after 90 minutes on the terrace as the...

By James Mackney @JimMackney Going into yesterday's opening clash I thoroughly expected to get hit for a cricket score despite Liverpool being a Suarez down. In actuality this was far from the truth and Saints gave a thoroughly good account of themselves with a high pressing and near-polished performance. The front line of Tadić, Pellé and Ward-Prowse are in an embryonic state but there were flashes of link up play that suggest that it will not take long for them...

By David Edwards  The home game against Palace saw Arsenal fans suffer the switchback of emotions common to football fans the world over. Some tidy pre-season transfer business and a trophy of sorts are enough to convince you that this is the season when we really are going to go for it. Ten minutes of sharp possession play whet the appetite, and then the passing and movement gets more stodgy, and after half an hour Palace score from their first...

Newcastle United’s season kicks off today against Manchester City and to celebrate we were going to do a top ten quotes from a current member of Newcastle’s staff, but Stephen Taylor’s “musings” aside, there isn’t much to go at. So here is Geordie legend Sir Bobby Robson’s top ten quotes, enjoy. RIP Bobby. 10. "When Gazza was dribbling, he used to go through a minefield with his arm, a bit like you go through a supermarket." 9. "Look at those...

By David de Winter - Sports Editor It seems only yesterday that the World Cup finished in Brazil.  That month-long feast of football was indeed a wonderful way to spend one’s summer getting acquainted with one’s sofa, but no sooner had Mario Götze’s volley hit the back of Sergio Romero’s net than the footballing public were getting bombarded with transfer gossip, pre-season friendlies and Louis Van Gaal.  Now I like football as much as the next chap but I can’t help...