Tag: column

Tony Pulis column: Man City boss Enzo Maresca will be demanding a siege mentality at Anfield
9 October 2026 Off

Tony Pulis column: Man City boss Enzo Maresca will be demanding a siege mentality at Anfield

By Total Football News

If the verdict about City breaking the Premier League’s financial rules is upheld, it will come at a heavy cost to the club and its reputation.

I feel there needs to be more attention paid to all of these rules, and their fairness, because professional football at the top level is now dominated by massive financial investment.

Even if you just consider player transfers, it’s not unusual for around a

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Tony Pulis column: Why international break has come at worst time for De Zerbi & Spurs
24 September 2026 Off

Tony Pulis column: Why international break has come at worst time for De Zerbi & Spurs

By Total Football News

De Zerbi is a very passionate, straight-talking and ambitious manager who demands total commitment and backing from his board.

He has definitely had that at Spurs, which has left people wondering why he has made such a slow start.

But, before the season started, I thought his biggest challenge with so many different types of players arriving would be to put players together that fit as a team, not as

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Tony Pulis column: It makes English football unique – why the Football League is important too
10 April 2026 Off

Tony Pulis column: It makes English football unique – why the Football League is important too

By Total Football News

There’s one other aspect of the Football League, and football in general, that I discovered when I was sacked by Bournemouth.

There’s a camaraderie that exists with people you encounter, whether they are working above you at your club like Norman was or further afield, and an effect they can have if they give you any kind of opportunity.

During the 12 months I was out of management, I

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Tony Pulis column: ‘Everyone follows fashion’ – is the Premier League better now than 10 or 20 years ago?
8 December 2025 Off

Tony Pulis column: ‘Everyone follows fashion’ – is the Premier League better now than 10 or 20 years ago?

By Total Football News

It is nine years since Pep Guardiola arrived at Manchester City and brought with him a style of play that was to be followed – and copied – by coaches up and down the country, from the highest professional level to the amateur and youth game.

As I talked about in a previous column about the value of defending properly, Pep’s style of play did not just become ‘the right

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Tony Pulis Column: ‘More data than ever, but does it help managers?’
5 November 2025 Off

Tony Pulis Column: ‘More data than ever, but does it help managers?’

By Total Football News

I managed the recruitment at all my clubs. I would tell my scouts and coaches what I wanted and then did my homework on their recommendations and watched them in action.

The more the years passed, the more noise there would be in this area from other people inside the club, but I always insisted on being the person who made the final decision.

My scouts and coaches knew exactly

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Danny Murphy column: ‘The Thomas Frank effect’ – but is there more to come from Spurs?
29 October 2025 Off

Danny Murphy column: ‘The Thomas Frank effect’ – but is there more to come from Spurs?

By Total Football News

I don’t believe Tottenham’s​ current identity is set in stone because we saw how Brentford evolved under him over a number of seasons and he is only just getting started here.

When they first came into the Premier League, Brentford had a very direct style and were also quite obvious or predictable in what they did.

If you watched them last season, though, it was a totally different approach. They

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Tony Pulis column: ‘I was seen as a dinosaur but I don’t see many managers moaning about set-pieces now’
29 October 2025 Off

Tony Pulis column: ‘I was seen as a dinosaur but I don’t see many managers moaning about set-pieces now’

By Total Football News

Hello. I’m Tony Pulis and welcome to my new BBC Sport column, Going Direct.

From tactics to man-management, I’m going to be tackling a different aspect of the modern game every week, and comparing old-school ideas to new trends.

There’s only one place to start, and that’s with the rise of set-pieces, which is probably the story of the season so far.

I was seen as a dinosaur for my

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Nedum Onuoha column on Tottenham’s injury crisis
31 January 2025 Off

Nedum Onuoha column on Tottenham’s injury crisis

By Total Football News

From experience, your playing schedule is likely to have far more impact in terms of injuries than your team’s playing style.

Playing games every three or four days, and going on international duty as well, adds up over time, but it becomes a bigger issue when you have a few injuries to deal with too.

The hardest thing in football comes when you are never able to get on a

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Danny Murphy column: Keeping Mohamed Salah not Liverpool’s priority
5 May 2024 0

Danny Murphy column: Keeping Mohamed Salah not Liverpool’s priority

By Total Football News

When you look at Liverpool’s season as a whole then of course, for obvious reasons, there will be some disappointment about how things have turned out.

But there are also more positives than you might think because they have won a trophy, the Carabao Cup and got back into the Champions League spots, which was not a given after their previous campaign. And there is more to come from this

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