Football Diary

by Patrick O'Connor

THE family of the Bolton player Fabrice Muamba have posted a picture of him on Twitter from his hospital room – a move which has provided comfort for the Aston Villa captain Stiliyan Petrov who has been diagnosed with acute leukaemia.

Speaking before Saturday's home game against Chelsea, Petrov said that he had taken strength from Muamba's recent battle with ill-health after the player suffered a cardiac arrest during the game at Tottenham.

A selection of headlines from stories in the news. They use English in a way that you might think is intended to confuse but it's all perfectly clear to the native speaker.

Football Diary

by Patrick O'Connor

TWO of the Premier League's top foreign managers have been upsetting the natives!

Chelsea's Portuguese boss Andre Villas-Boas really put the cat amongst the pigeons by suggesting that top Premier League clubs be allowed to field reserve sides in the Championship.

Football Diary

by Patrick O'Connor

THE job of being a football referee is becoming more difficult every day and recent controversy over who should and should not be sent off for two-footed tackles is not making things any easier.

Indeed, it's almost becoming a witch hunt by television as pundits pour over, frame by frame, every contentious tackle.

Football Diary

by Patrick O'Connor

THE transfer window may now be closed but its after-effects are still being felt.

The Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger claimed it was a traumatic period. The summer saw him lose two of his best players in Samir Nasri and Cesc Fabregas and Wenger was then left with a rather frantic scramble in the last few days of the window to bring reinforcements in.

OH dear, the natives are getting restless!

In the impatient world that is football, calling for the manager to be sacked even before we’ve entered the month of December is commonplace.