Samuel Gardiner - Sports Journalism

Premier League Fixture Announcement: A Tottenham Hotspur Perspective   Tottenham Hotspur learned their 2025/26 Premier League fixtures on Wednesday morning Just 24 days after the climax of the 2024/25 Premier League season, the teams in the top flight of English football have learnt their fixture schedule for the upcoming 2025/26 campaign. For Tottenham Hotspur, a new era will dawn on Saturday 16 th August 2025. Highly-rated manager Thomas Frank has already been confirmed as the successor to Ange Postecoglou, arriving from cross-capital rivals Brentford, and it can be argued that he has a somewhat favourable opening league match in charge, at home to newly-promoted Burnley. Frank inherits a Spurs squad who have just finished a pitiful 17 th place in the league, but lifted the Europa League under his predecessor Postecoglou. Given that the Australian was a firm favourite among players and large sections of the fanbase, Frank will be keen to win over those who felt that the...

  OPINION: Essex Senior League: 2025/26 Preview & Predictions     The Essex Senior League is among the most competitive and high-profile Step 5 leagues in the country. As well as being impossible to predict (who would’ve tipped both Stanway Rovers and Takeley for promotion last year?), the division, consisting of 20 sides from across Essex and East London, is full of quality that is often slept on, given that this is the 9 th tier of English football – every year a handful of players earn moves to clubs in much higher divisions. Who will be the breakout stars of the season? That remains to be seen, but in the meantime, let me put my neck on the line and attempt the impossible task of predicting the Essex Senior League table for the 2025/26 season.   20 th – Ilford   This Essex Senior League campaign will be arguably the most competitive in the competition’s history, with plenty of teams who have enough on paper to challenge for promotion....

  Thomas Frank: A tactical analysis Thomas Frank was confirmed as Tottenham's new manager on Thursday evening. Tottenham Hotspur have got their man, and the fans appear to be on board. It is fair to say that the N17 faithful had mixed opinions on Ange Postecoglou, especially throughout the second season, but there was still some surprise when chairman Daniel Levy decided to press the panic button on Friday, sacking the Australian boss just 16 days after winning a European trophy. But the news on Thursday that Spurs have appointed highly-rated manager Thomas Frank has been met with widespread positivity among the fanbase. Frank, 51, has led Brentford from mid-table Championship finishes to top half in the Premier League on a shoestring budget compared to his top-flight counterparts. With a vision based mostly on statistics and data analysis, Frank has developed a reputation for picking up players for nominal fees, developing them into star players, and selling them on for ...

Europa League Final: Now that the dust has settled, where do Spurs go from here? Ange Postecoglou lifting the Europa League trophy – in his second season As the final whistle sounded in Bilbao on Wednesday, the relief and jubilation for the Tottenham Hotspur fans around the globe was there for all to see. The seventeen-year wait for major silverware, since a League Cup victory in 2008 at Wembley against Chelsea, had finally ended, with Brennan Johnson’s goal enough to see off Manchester United in the showpiece in the northern Spanish city. What’s more, Europa League victory for Spurs secured their place back in the Champions League for the first time since the 2022/23 season. But will this glorious failure be overshadowed by such a disappointing, dismal league campaign, their lowest finish since relegation in 1977? It has been a massively disappointing domestic season for Tottenham Hotspur and captain Heung-min Son The 2024/25 domestic campaign started promisingly: five...

  FK Bodø/Glimt v Tottenham Hotspur: UEFA Europa League Semi Final Second Leg Preview   James Maddison scored the second goal for Tottenham last week… but injury will rule him out of the second leg in Norway   It’s the biggest night in the history of FK Bodø/Glimt. A European semi-final seemed inconceivable for the Norwegian minnows when they were promoted back to the top-tier Eliteserien in 2019, then still very much a part-time club. But six years later, under the management of long-term boss Kjetil Knutsen and driven by a hard-working squad with very little foreign influence, they are just 90 minutes and a two-goal deficit away from the greatest night of the club’s history, bar none. All that stands in their way is Tottenham Hotspur, who would consider themselves European giants compared to the obscurity of their opponents from north of the Arctic Circle. While their Norwegian counterparts were surviving relegation by the skin of their teeth in 2019, Sp...

Nunes late winner defeats resolute Villa   Mateus Nunes scores a late winner for City.   Mateus Nunes’ first Premier League goal for Manchester City gave Pep Guardiola’s side a priceless victory in the race for a Champions League finish, defeating Aston Villa 2-1 at the Etihad Stadium on Tuesday evening. Bernardo Silva put City ahead from 12 yards after seven minutes following good work from Omar Marmoush, before Manchester United loanee Marcus Rashford, who put in a dynamic display, coolly scored from the penalty spot shortly after, following good work from Jacob Ramsey to draw a foul from Ruben Dias. Villa frustrated City throughout the match, not letting them break through their solid defence, right until stoppage time when they were beaten by Nunes, who appeared at the back post getting on the end of Jeremy Doku’s low cross and sending the home fans into raptures. Both teams rotated their starting teams from the previous match, with one eye on their respective upcoming FA ...