The death of Barcelona?

Consecutive defeats to Real Madrid and
Chelsea decry this season's Barcelona bandwagon is coming to a
faltering and much-needed rest. That hiatus could be temporary or
permanent, depending on new coach Tito Villanova's methods; manager
in excelsis Josep
“Pep” Guardiola confirmed today that he would not return to
helm Barca in 2012-13.



There are reasons aplenty behind
Barca's slip from the

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My Favourite Cricketer: Hansie Cronje by Purna Hassan

In our series "My Favourite Cricketer" we've invited the best cricket writers and bloggers to divulge why certain cricketers emerge as their favourites.  This week, Purna Hassan of Cricket Minded and @cricketminded takes the stand



I
fell in love with cricket because of Hansie Cronje and the team he
captained. My Dad introduced me to cricket and as he was an avid
fan of India, I followed his

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Alternative XI: Footballing Autofills

The fantastically funny Dave Gorman
podcast features a segment called “Autofill
your boots”. In it, a listener is invited to answer quiz
questions which have been autofilled by Google's search engine
algorithms.




It works like this: if you type the
querulous words “Can you” into Google's query box, it suggest the
next most likely conclusions to your request. These autofill answers
are

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Book review: And God created Cricket - Simon Hughes

by columnist Ben Roberts, re-posted from our affiliate site Books with Balls.

Former
veteran county cricketer now cricket journalist Simon Hughes posits this work as
being something of an antithesis to the efforts provided by most
cricketing historians. Hughes even goes as far to mention that those
works developed by ex-Prime
Ministers are too serious. 'And God Created Cricket' is a light

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Alternative XI: 2012 Bosman Transfers

Even deeply embroiled in a recession,
football fans expect their respective clubs to restructure their
playing squads during the offseason. This summer is likely to be
remarkable because it features a major tournament; this befuddles the
break's early weeks as players inflate their purchase prices with
tantalising glimpses of form or potential.



A nearly pathological desire for value
for

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Where to now for Wolves?

Like bookies who pay out early, and despite the fact
mathematical possibility that Wolverhampton’s three-year stint in the Premier
League can still be extended, it’s time look at the men in orange and work out
what steps they should take as they prepare for a non-Premiership existence.





Distance
yourselves quickly from panic-hiring Terry Connor


“TC” has been the subject of almost

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Mythbusting the Australian First Class season

Bowlers win matches
It's been often said that batsmen put you into a position to win
matches, but bowlers do the actual winning. After combing through
the stats from this year's Australian First Class season, we can
confirm (for 2011-12 at least) that this is, in fact, true.
It's also easily proven.

A quick glance at the following three charts best displays how
crucial both the major aspects

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Short pitch: Sheffield Shield Efficiency

(c) Balanced Sports, click to enlarge

The chart above maps the combined batting/bowling prowess of each of last year's Sheffield Shield teams.  It forms a very rough guide to each state's efficiency by mapping the cumulative batting and bowling averages of each state's specialists against each other.  Please note the curious wording (batsmen/bowlers) - only recognised  batsmen and allrounders

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The Dempsey Dilemma

courtesy: mlssoccer.com


Clint Dempsey is having another
fantastic – and well-documented – season for Fulham. In fact,
his conspicuous excellence for three successive managers in concert
with a slowly expiring contact (June 2013) mean England's
most scurrilous have started to chirrup about a potential move to
a “bigger” club.



Is he good enough? Can he deliver in
the Champions League?

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My Favourite Cricketer: VVS Laxman by Minal of Granger Gab

We've invited some of the very best cricket writers and bloggers to tell us why certain players stand out for them above all others.  This week, Minal of Granger Gab and The Sight Screen writes of the most stylish Indian of them all, a man whose nickname was the ultimate compliment: VVS Laxman.  Minal tweets @granger_gab, and we really suggest you follow her.

 As
much as we love to deny it, we

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The Balotelli Curve

Click to enlarge




 When he thrust his spikes into Alex
Song's knee, popular opinion finally and perhaps definitively swung
against Mario Balotelli. The Italy forward leapt into numerous
dangerous challenges during Manchester City's weekend
loss to Arsenal and finished the match copping a pointless red
card in the tie's waning minutes. He arrived in the sheds to a power
of criticism flung

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Short Pitch: Occupy Cricinfo

Cricinfo, the arbiter of finality for all oval-based pub discussion, is a necessary evil.  It exists almost entirely to disseminate information about a game played where a cork ball enveloped in leather is flung at at someone wielding a ruddy great lump of willow.

The interweb - and through the magic of Google, its affiliation with ESPN and Search Engine Optimisation - is where an awful lot of

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Teams of the Year - by league position

As the Premier League season draws to a
close, it becomes typical to start vetting candidates for awards.
Why wouldn't you? I mean, it's like writing
about All-Star selections in the NBA – it's easy column inches
relying on relative opinions rather than absolute logic and saves you
from using undeveloped ideas before they're fully mapped out.



So with seven matches per club left in
the

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Why Kenny Dalglish was (sort of) right

Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish was
roundly
chastised last week for suggesting that Liverpool's season, by
every other measure than Premiership points, had
been a success. The Reds sit in eighth position on the Premier
League table after a forgettable 2012 that has seen them take only
eight points from their twelve fixtures since the turn of the year.



Although a peculiar statement, the fact

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