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Troubled Portsmouth face freefall fears

• Club unlikely to deal in transfer window until 10 January• Premier League may decide not to lift transfer embargoConcern is growing on the south coast that Avram Grant will be unable to strengthen a threadbare Portsmouth squad as he seeks to save the club, four points adrift at the...

Nwankwo Kanu on a big year for Africa

In Africa's biggest football year yet, Kanu looks back at a childhood with a ball at his feetI was born in Owerri and grew up in the east of Nigeria, in Imo state. You could say I was a "street boy": we grew up on the street, played on the street, did everything out on the street. It was a...

The hunger could drive Gerrard away

Roberto Mancini may be on to something – Liverpool cannot carry on disappointing their star playerAnother year, another transfer window. Time to wonder, do I dare? Roberto Mancini was probably only joking when he suggested Liverpool might like to make Manchester City a belated Christmas...

United and Leeds set to renew hostilities

Leeds are two divisions lower than Manchester United, but the intense rivalry born in the Seventies lingers onThere's a big game taking place at Old Trafford this afternoon. The television cameras will be there, the biggest crowd of the weekend will turn up even if the occasion is not quite sold...

Today and Sketch (2) For Suspension of Belief

Football's most notorious bad boy was the pick of Today's terrific guest-edited programmesThe Today programme guest editors have become a seasonal fixture, bridging those strange, hazy days between Christmas and new year, when there is news – a tsunami, a plane bomber – but it seems to...

Megson hits back over 'galling' sacking

• Former manager claims he left Bolton in a better position• Megson refuses to accept criticism of team's style of playThe former Bolton manager Gary Megson has hit out at the way he was sacked this week, describing the manner of his departure as "galling".Megson revealed he was given...

Gerrard on the mark to spoil Church service

With live coverage on terrestrial television at the end of such a dull afternoon, the nation was looking to Reading to conjure some of that old Cup magic. They are neither the club nor the team they were when Liverpool last played in Berkshire two years ago, but they made a decent fist of...

Boro no bother for Mancini as Benjani keeps cold at bay

It may have already developed something of a cult following, but despite its unbeaten status, Roberto Mancini revealed that there is no hint of superstition behind his "lucky" scarf. After three comfortable victories now, all accompanied by clean sheets, the Italian had more pragmatic reasons for...