Footytube.com - Latest Football Video Highlights

In April of this year, EPL Talk speculated that Tottenham Hotspur could be Jose Mourinho’s next destination.

EPL Talk was derided for the article by Spurs fans who proclaimed “Rubbish” and “Stick with Jol and do it the Spurs way,” and even “Give me Jol anytime, moaner Mourinho is not wanted by Chelsea and definitely not Tottenham, we are getting there and the five year plan is working well.” And those were some of the nice things that were said in the comments section!

However, now that Mourinho has left and Martin Jol’s position at Spurs is as precarious as ever, now would be the perfect time for The Special One to take over the top position at White Hart Lane. If Tottenham misses this opportunity to act, they can kiss their chances of ever getting Mourinho and they can kiss their chances of winning a trophy or having a successful season in the near future.

Mourinho could make an immediate impact at Tottenham as he did at Chelsea where Claudio Ranieri had the foundation of a good team (as Spurs has) but was unable to turn that into a consistent record on the pitch.

Tactically, Mourinho would make a massive difference at Spurs overnight. Instead of the white half of North London giving up their one-nil leads and eventually losing more times than I care to remember under Jol, Mourinho would be able to give Spurs the experience of how to hold on to those leads.

If Tottenham wants to be a top four club and wants to win silverware, it needs to be audacious and focused on acquiring Mourinho’s signature. This isn’t a time for the club to dawdle. They need to act now and act fast.

More: continued here

The recent deal between Setanta Sports and DISH Network gave the Irish broadcaster the potential to almost double its audience. With DirecTV and DISH Network offering Setanta Sports, the company has made a giant leap forward to getting into more homes throughout the United States.

The challenge, however, is that not everyone has satellite (either by choice or if they live in an area where they’re prevented from having a dish). The stop gap measure for many has been to resort to ITVN, the IPTV company that allows you to view Setanta Sports over your broadband internet connection via a box that’s connected to your TV set.

So while more people can access Setanta Sports than before, the experience still isn’t optimal for DISH Network and ITVN customers for the following reasons:

1) Both DISH Network and ITVN do not have access to Setanta Xtra, the “overflow” channel that’s only available via DirecTV that shows additional matches to the ones that appear on the regular Setanta Sports channel in the United States.

While this isn’t the end of the world, it can be annoying for those fans who want to have the choice of deciding which games to watch especially if your favorite team is being shown on Setanta Xtra and not the traditional Setanta channel. For example, Liverpool fans without Setanta Xtra will have been disappointed that they missed the match shown on the channel against Wigan this past Saturday.

2) One of the most frustrating disadvantages of ITVN is the inability to record matches for later viewing. While this may not be as big an issue for Saturday and Sunday matches, it does become extremely problematic for matches shown during midweek while many people in the United States are at 9-5 jobs while matches are being shown.

This week is a perfect example of this where Setanta Sports, which now has the rights to show the Monday matches instead of Fox Soccer Channel, will be showing the Spurs against Aston Villa match. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the channel will be showing key matches from the Champions League.

With DISH Network, you can record matches just as easily as you can with DirecTV.

If you those two above issues don’t concern you, then the DISH Network and ITVN may be convenient choices for you. If you’re interested in signing up for DISH Network to get Setanta Sports, go here — or go here to sign up for ITVN.

But right now, the optimal experience for enjoying Setanta Sports belongs to DirecTV viewers who are able to get Setanta Sports, Setanta Xtra as well as the convenience of being able to DVR or record matches.

Unfortunately, the outlook for DISH Network and ITVN solving the issues mentioned above any time soon is very slim.

More: continued here

Jose Mourinho will be remembered for many things over the four years he’s been at Chelsea Football Club.

Unfortunately, he may regret one of his last few press conferences where he uttered these inane comments about eggs as he compared them to his Chelsea squad:

Omelette, eggs. No eggs, no omelettes. It depends on the quality of the eggs. In the supermarket you have eggs, class one, class two, class three. Some are more expensive than others, and some give you better omelettes. When the class one eggs are in Waitrose and you cannot go there, you have a problem.

Waitrose, by the way, is an online British grocery (i.e. supermarket).

More: continued here

Crystal Palace sack manager Peter Taylor after a run of one win in 10 games.

More: continued here

Uefa opens disciplinary proceedings against AC Milan and Dida after events at Celtic Park last week.

More: continued here

Reports of Chelsea players considering an exodus from Stamford Bridge now that Mourinho has left are eye-opening. After all, who do the Chelsea players give their allegiance to (other than the almighty pound)? Is it Chelsea Football Club or Jose Mourinho?

For the manager to become bigger than the club is dangerous ground for football chairmen. While Mourinho has obviously built a close trust, respect and relationship with his players, the stars at Chelsea need to grow some balls and concentrate on playing for their club and winning matches. After all, even with Mourinho in charge, Chelsea has looked a shadow of themselves for the longest time. When was the last time they put in an awe-inspiring performance?

What’s revealing to me about this proposed exodus is that it’s the foreign contingent of players that are the ones expressing a desire to leave. No word from the English camp of players.

My belief is that the current episode in the Chelsea soap opera will show what the players are made of and whether they truly are world-class players. They have the talent to win the Premier League but have shown they’ve been lacking the killer instinct and character worthy of being champions.

If Drogba, Carvalho, Essien, Ferriera, Malouda and Makelele want to leave, it shows how spineless they are. What they need to do is go on to the pitch this Sunday against Old Trafford and win the match for Jose Mourinho and show what legacy he has left behind at Chelsea. Dedicate the win to Jose.

But, what we’re reading about the player’s thoughts, their minds will be elsewhere this Sunday and the Blues could be in for a hiding.

More: continued here

Tottenham are placed in the second tier of clubs for Tuesday’s Uefa Cup group stage draw.

More: continued here

Avram Grant, whose name is actually spelled Avraham Grant, was manager of Israel from 2002 to 2006 where he took the country to the brink of qualifying for the 2006 World Cup. Despite being undefeated in their qualifying (four wins and six draws), Grant lost out to France and Switzerland who qualified instead.

His record at Israel was played 33, won 14, drawn 13 and lost 6, which was a win percentage of 62. In comparison, Steve McClaren’s winning percentage for England is 50, while Jose Mourinho at Chelsea achieved a 68% record.

At club level, Grant managed several sides in Israel including Maccabi Haifa and Maccabi Tel Aviv.

Interestingly, while at Maccabi Haifa, Grant won Israeli championships with players who would later go on to become famous in the Premier League such as Yossi Benayoun and Yakubu. While at Haifa, Grant was known for his attacking style of play and tactical wisdom.

More details about Grant can be found here.

More: continued here

Viewers to Fox Soccer Channel on Saturday were pleasantly shocked and surprised to see live coverage of Soccer Saturday, the weekly show from Sky Sports.

It was one of those rare Saturdays where Fox Soccer Channel had no Premier League matches on-air while Setanta Sports had the two matches from the day: Manchester United against Wigan, and Aston Villa versus West Ham United. Due to so many English teams playing in the UEFA Cup and Champions League, the majority of the matches are scheduled for Sunday, October 7.

So instead of reruns, Fox Soccer Channel showed Soccer Saturday live from SkySports so many of us had our chance to experience first hand how viewers in the UK follow live matches on TV. For a review of my first Soccer Saturday experience from this past February, go here.

On the minus side, the network only showed the first hour of the show from 10-11am, so viewers were unable to see the second half news and scorelines. Instead, Fox Soccer Channel showed the Premier League Preview Show, an excellent show no doubt, but one that could have been shown in a different timeslot.

If you watched the Soccer Saturday show on Fox, consider yourself fortunate. It’s going to be quite some time until we’ll have another Saturday with no football on Fox during the Premier League season.

More: continued here

As you’re sitting at home watching Premier League, spare a thought for the punters who are paying significant amounts to watch their home team play. How much? Scroll through the prices below to see the top prices for each category of matches.

Category A matches are usually those versus the big four (although some clubs will expand that to include local derbies, etc). Category B is typically your lower-position teams. Click on the club’s name to find out the full details.

The only club where I was unable to find accurate information was Wigan Athletic, who — despite the fact that their club website proclaims they’re “the home of the best value football in the Premiership” — fail to conveniently list their prices for the season.

The prices indicated show the highest and lowest for each category. For example, the lowest price for a category A ticket at Arsenal is £46, while the highest is £94.

Arsenal: £94/£46 (A), £66/£32 (B)
Aston Villa: £35/£20 (A), £33/£19 (B), £31/£15 (W)
Birmingham City: £48/£35 (AA), £15/£15 (C)
Blackburn Rovers: £35/£25 (A), £20/£15 (B)
Bolton Wanderers: £39/£31 (A+), £36/£28 (A), £32/£24 (B), £29/£21 (C)
Chelsea: £53/£48 (Premier League), £36/£35 (Champions League), £25/£25 (FA Cup), £20/£20 (League Cup).
Derby County: £44/£33 (AA), £42/£31 (A&B), £40/£29 (C&D)
Everton: £34/£28 (versus Middlesbrough, 9/30/07)
Fulham: £50/£35 (A), £45/£30 (B), £38/£25 (C)
Liverpool: £36/£34 (A), £34/£32 (B)
Manchester City: £34/£28 (A), £30/£25 (B), £26/£21 (C)
Manchester United: £44/£12.50
Middlesbrough: £32/£24 (versus Chelsea, 10/20/07)
Newcastle United: £45/26 (A), £40/23 (B), £36/20 (C)
Portsmouth: £41/£34
Reading: £41/£39 (platinum), £38/£36 (gold), £34/£32 (silver)
Sunderland: £30/£25 (A), £25/£20 (B)
Tottenham Hotspur: £71/£39 (A), £52/£32 (B), £42/£27 (C)
West Ham United: £61/£43 (A), £49/£34 (B)
Wigan Athletic: ?/? (A), ?/? (B), £15/£15 (C)

Easiest ticket price structures to understand: Manchester United and Portsmouth (no categories, just one set price depending on the area of the ground where your seats are).

Fairest ticket pricing structure (fairest not cheapest): Chelsea for breaking down ticket prices for the different types of competitions: Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup and League Cup.

Most complicated ticket price structure: Bolton with four different price structures. Chelsea has four, too, but theirs is easier to understand. For Bolton, you’d have to cross-reference the fixtures to find out which ones are considered AA, A, B and C.

Most difficult club websites to find ticket prices:

• Birmingham (not available except on a match-by-match basis)

• Everton (you have to log into their e-ticketing service to find ticket prices for each match; even then, it’s not easy to find prices without having to click several times)
• Liverpool (very difficult to find; I found the information on their version of their website optimized for mobile phones)
• Middlesbrough (ticket price page lists season ticket prices only, and you have to log into their e-ticketing service to find ticket prices for each match; even then, it’s not easy to find prices without having to click several times)
• Wigan (another club guilty of using the e-ticketing service, which is absolutely awful)

Notes:

• Ticket prices are for adult non-members and doesn’t include corporate sections or sports bars prices (i.e. Newcastle).

• Prices are subject to change (as they often do) and are accurate as of September 26, 2007.

More: continued here

During the 2006/2007 season, the average UK TV audience for a Premier League match was 1.18 million, according to the industry newsletter TV Sports Markets.

This compares with an average US TV audience of approximately 300,000 people watching a Premier League match on Fox Soccer Channel.

While there’s a significant gap between the two numbers, it isn’t inconceivable that the United States may surpass the UK in the number of viewers watching Premier League matches. Of course, the US population is far greater than the UK (300 million compared to 60 million). But the groundswell of interest in the US for the English Premier League is taking many, myself included, by surprise.

When the TV rights for the Premier League next become available for bidding — in a few years time — it’ll be interesting to see if ESPN becomes involved in the negotiations. Despite the success of Fox Soccer Channel, it would take an ESPN to bring the game to the masses and to push the TV audience figures to over the 1.18 million mark such as in the UK.

An ideal situation would be to have ESPN, Fox Soccer Channel and Setanta Sports sharing the broadcasts of the games, so ESPN could show live matches during low TV rating hours (early morning Saturday kickoffs, for example), while Fox and Setanta would continue to share the rest of the spoils. Impossible you say? I think not.

However, of most importance is the entertainment level on the pitch. As long as we can continue to see so many exciting matches throughout the season, the league will sell itself in America. Already this season, we’ve seen enthralling encounters between Fulham and Manchester City, Man United and Chelsea, Fulham and Spurs, Liverpool and Chelsea, Portsmouth v Bolton, Spurs against Arsenal, and many more.

Let’s just hope we don’t see the dark period of English football that we encountered last Autumn where the quality of football was dismal. This time around, I don’t see it happening. With Chelsea faltering, Liverpool sputtering and Arsenal flying, Man United has a fight to try to retain the Premier League trophy. And with the emergence of Man City and Aston Villa as new hopes of beating some of the top four teams (as they’ve proven already), right now everything is on target to make this one of the more interesting seasons in recent memory.

More: continued here

For the second consecutive year, the Colorado Rapids reserves are champions of the MLS Reserve Division. The Rapids reserves defeated the Toronto FC reserves in a convincing 3-0 win on Sunday night.

More: continued here

The sun shines brightly for the Premier League right now. The new season has kicked off without the plague of TV problems that La Liga has encountered. The play on the pitch, so far, has been exciting and much better than the slump we saw last Fall. The only negatives thus far have been the controversial refereeing decisions with teams like Fulham, Liverpool and Chelsea — to name but a few — having key decisions going against them.

But look under the carpet, and you’ll notice a dark netherworld of activity that the press haven’t covered lately. That’s because it’s remarkable how soon we as football fans forget. And it’s remarkable how the flurry of entertainment on the pitch makes us forget some of the less friendly moments in the game.

I’m talking about the bung scandals and the Tevez Affair. The latter has been quiet as of late. Even trying to find updates about the case on the Sheffield United website is difficult to do so. The last report is five pages deep on their site here.

In the bung scandal, it’s still dragging on. The latest there was the recent arrest of Pascal Chimbonda on suspicion of fraud resulting from his transfer from Bastia to Wigan. The longer these type of cases drag on (as this one has, indeed), the more likely the public is to get less interested in the story. We’re still waiting for the shoe to drop regarding a Premier League manager getting fined or accused of irregularities.

I believe it’s the press’s responsibility to stay on top of these stories and keep on reporting them to the public and demanding resolution. Instead, the tabloids resort to backpages with Mourinho talking about eggs. How low can we go?

More: continued here

Playing out the string, when there are no postseason hopes and all that is left to play for is pride and positive momentum for next year, is never fun, but TFC looking to be making a positive out of it.

More: continued here

All the talk the past few days about players only playing for Chelsea because Mourinho was there got me thinking whether they’d prefer to have Mourinho FC or Chelsea FC crests on their shirts?

It’s a ridiculous thought, but in a way it does demonstrate the grip that Mourinho had on his players.

Psychologically, the Chelsea side this Sunday will be a shambles against Manchester United. Sure, they’re professionals and they should be able to put the turmoil at the club behind them, but such is the sensitivity that players have for Mourinho that I believe it will affect them in a very negative manner.

My concern is that some Chelsea players may not play to the peak of the game and may not believe in Avram Grant, especially if the players were psychologically playing for Mourinho FC instead of Chelsea FC in the past.

They’d never admit that but based on the the feared exodus by Chelsea players and what they’ve said in the press thus far, they are wearing their hearts on their sleeves and honoring Mourinho — which is understandable. However, psychologically I wonder if Chelsea players believe an emphatic loss against United will prove how much of a difference Mourinho was and how much of a mountain Grant has to climb.

More: continued here

If you’re searching for a way to experience Saturday’s match between Arsenal and Sunderland online, join the EPL Talk Chat hosted by BC John.

We’ll have Gunners, Sunderland and neutral fans from around the world chatting in real-time about the final. We’ll also be able to tip you off regarding Man Utd v Wigan Athletic radio coverage and how to listen live (depending on what part of the world you live in). The match kicks off on Sunday, October 7th at 7am ET/12pm GMT. You can access the EPL Talk Chat from the EPL Talk homepage.

If you have your own webcam, feel free to switch it on and point it at you so we can see you wearing your club’s colors with pride whether it be Arsenal, the Mackems or any other team.

More: continued here

Rafa Benitez has himself to blame for Liverpool’s defeat last night in the Champions League. Deciding to put Leto and Aurelio on the left wing and Sissoko in the middle was a devastating mistake.

It was almost as if Benitez seemed to not take Marseille too seriously, the first French side ever to win at Anfield. Valbuena’s goal, an exquisite shot, was the deciding factor.

For Benitez, he should have started Arbeloa as left back instead of the woeful Aurelio. Riise should have began the match as left winger instead of Leto, and Mascherano should have been on instead of Sissoko.

With those changes, Liverpool would have been a completely side last night. Based on Sissoko’s poor performances recently, how did he start the match and why did Benitez keep him on for 90 minutes?

More: continued here

West Ham striker Dean Ashton will miss England’s qualifiers against Estonia and Russia because of a knee injury.

More: continued here

If you’re searching for a way to experience Sunday’s match between Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur online, join the EPL Talk Chat hosted by BC John.

We’ll have Liverpool, Tottenham and neutral fans from around the world chatting in real-time about the final. We’ll also be able to tip you off regarding Man Utd v Wigan Athletic radio coverage and how to listen live (depending on what part of the world you live in). The match kicks off on Sunday, October 7th at 10am ET/3pm GMT. You can access the EPL Talk Chat from the EPL Talk homepage.

If you have your own webcam, feel free to switch it on and point it at you so we can see you wearing your club’s colors with pride whether it be Liverpool, Spurs or any other team.

More: continued here

More: continued here

With a 2-1 victory against Houston Dynamo on Sunday, the Los Angeles Galaxy extended their four-game winning streak and kept themselves in the running for the MLS Cup Playoffs.

More: continued here

Goals from Benjani and Hermann Hreidarsson give Portsmouth victory over Fulham.

More: continued here

Goals by David Bentley and Benni McCarthy secure victory for Blackburn despite a spirited Birmingham effort.

More: continued here

Michael Owen is on target after coming on as substitute as Newcastle beat Everton.

More: continued here

La Liga Week 7 Highlights, covers the following matches:
Real Zaragoza v UD Levante Valencia
Osasuna Pamplona v Villarreal CF
Athletic Bilbao v UD Almeria
Real Murcia v Real Betis Sevilla
RCD Mallorca v Getafe CF

Late goals from Chris Killen and Scott McDonald ensure a return to the top of the SPL table for Celtic.

More: continued here

The Los Angeles Galaxy kept their winning streak alive and stayed in the hunt for the MLS Cup Playoffs with a 2-1 win against Houston Dynamo at Roberston Stadium on Sunday.

More: continued here

Houston Dynamo saw their bid to win the Western Conference regular season dealt a serious blow Sunday in a 2-1 to the Los Angeles Galaxy at Robertson Stadium.

More: continued here

Michael Owen is fit for England’s Euro 2008 qualifiers after scoring against Everton, but Andrew Johnson is ruled out by ankle surgery.

More: continued here

Fernando Torres’ injury-time header ensures Liverpool retain their unbeaten Premier League record.

More: continued here

Celtic midfielder Paul Hartley is very doubtful for Scotland’s Euro 2008 double-header against Ukraine and Georgia.

More: continued here