An overblown Eden Hazard love-in

The start of Eden Hazard’s career with Chelsea might best be
described as bimodal.




After a £32-million summer transfer from the 2011 French
Champions Lille, Hazard began the season lauded as perhaps the best Belgian in
a league full of ‘em.  But his form slumped
around the time his club entered the mid-season depression that cost Champions
League winning manager Roberto Di Matteo his

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Agüero’s curious "tackle" lays bare need for rule change

Following Sergio Agüero’s … enthusiastic … challenge upon
David Luiz’s hindquarters during this weekend’s FA Cup Semi-Final, the issue of
crude tackles has once again been thrust into football’s spotlight. 



Agüero, who
scored a decisive goal in City’s 2-0 triumph, appeared to drop-kick the
Chelsea centre-back in the posterior at about the 82-minute mark and escaped
without serious censure

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10-year form chart, English Championship promotion contenders

Perhaps this year they can do it.



Maybe, just maybe, this is the year that Cardiff City can break their five-year playoff hoodoo and finally earn promotion to the Premier League.  Few would argue that they're deserving - the Bluebirds Dragons have finished thereabouts in English football's second tier for half a decade as well appearing at Wembley in FA and League Cup Finals - yet seem always

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QPR's Townsend, the £40 million man

When they loaned Andros Townsend to QPR in late January,
Tottenham Hotspur sat fourth in the Premiership and could be well satisfied
with their past two months.  After taking
nineteen points from a possible thirty, they looked forward to a February
facing strictly mid-table clubs.



With Gareth
Bale and Aaron Lennon offering a pincer attack in outstanding form – and Clint
Dempsey, Lewis Holtby

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Benitez, Chelsea and the successful season

Now he's officially departing Cobham in a few weeks, we can begin to evaluate more fully Rafael Benitez's star-cross'd reign at Chelsea.



At present, the Blues are locked in a tight battle for a Champions League position, while also active on two further fronts: the Europa League and, after Monday's victory against Old Rivals United, the FA Cup.



More correctly, we ask what would constitute

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Cricket Australia contract list: more questions than answers

Yesterday, Moises Henriques – he
of three recent Tests against India – was ignored
by Cricket Australia in their list of twenty centrally-contracted
players.  He was ostensibly passed over
for young Tasmania all-rounder James Faulkner, who earned his first Australia
contract at age 22.



Although this isn't to detract from Faulkner's joy (he probably deserves the position), Henriques can

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Di Canio turns up the contrast at Sunderland

In appointing Paolo Di Canio as Sunderland manager, owner
Ellis Short not only fell victim to the “Contrast Theory” but has actively
embraced it. 



The theory is simple, and has its origins in time
immemorial.  When replacing an
underperforming manager, simply make your next selection his polar opposite: freewheelers
replace tacticians.  Teachers replace
“player’s coaches”; experience

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