Arseblog
Plenty of unsuspecting worldwide web surfers have no doubt happened across this Arsenal-devoted corner of the internet searching for something else entirely, but they’d have soon discovered there’s no better place for all things Gunners. Updated daily, the site provides a live blog on game days and channels a weekly podcast too.
Beyond The Last Man
A post-by-post love letter to a long-departed football, inspired by the marginalisation of the game’s pre-Champions League history. Lovingly-researched and visually-arresting essays short and long focus on seldom-revisited tales from the 1950s to the 1980s.
David Squires
Squires’ short satirical comic strips on the latest happenings in the po-faced, double-speaking, PR-whitewashed world of modern football take their targets to Sketchleys’ with unerring accuracy.
Experimental 3-6-1
A Mecca for those who love both the Football League and analytics, Experimental 3-6-1 undertakes extensive studies on a subject matter that rarely receives this degree of attention.
Fantasy Football First
A fundamental for any budding fantasy football champion, this site serves as the Peter Taylor to your Brian Clough with tips, ideas and advice on the players you need in your XI, the quality of which you can’t get elsewhere.
Football 365
Offsets gossip and the latest bulletins on the Premier League with longer-form features that you wouldn’t find on your typical news dispensary, which are cleverly written and often very funny.
Football Ground Guide
An indispensable companion for football’s most devoted acolyte, the away supporter. FGG draws together everything you would wish to know for planning a trip, whether the hosts are Arsenal, Alfreton, Annan Athletic or Airbus UK.
Football Shirt Culture
Unironic, non-hipsterised and as likely to devote column inches to Portmouth’s 2016/17 third strip as the thing of beauty that it is the 1990 Austria home kit this encyclopaedic annal of uniforms is breathtaking in scope.
Front Office Report
The mouthpiece for Richard Whittall, a journalist celebrated on both sides of the Atlantic, whose expertise in finance, analytics and, of course, football blend to create fascinating, fantastically-written articles.
In Bed With Maradona
Filmically-presented writing on an ever-developing web of tangents, from reassessments of the careers of cult La Liga stars to the meditations on homesickness amongst professionals and interviews with lower league data analysis professionals. It’s tentacles reach far beyond the beautiful game too, with sections devoted to music and travel.
Just Football
Talking (just) football from around the globe since 2007, Jonathan Fadugba’s brainchild has reached the eyes of readers in no fewer than 207 countries, no doubt touching on the local teams in most of them, such is the site’s extraordinary breadth of coverage.
Licence To Roam
A blog that puts tactics and performances under the magnifying glass, specialising in thoughtful examinations of the roles of individual players within the collective framework.
Republik of Mancunia
A font of Manchester United news and opinions penned by a host of authors you may have encountered in various different corners of the mainstream media. The blog comes complete with a thriving forum for those who want to debate the Red Devils, as well as read about them.
Russian Football News
Russian football can often feel like it operates in a parallel universe that only rubs up against west European consciousness via the occasional transfer or Champions League away game. RFN’s cross-continental crew of freelance Russophiles offer an illuminated, well-written and often-updated path into its intrigues.
Scout Nation
For those students of the game unwilling to be satisfied with the paper-thin insight into players’ abilities that masquerades as research among the gossip column churnalists, Scout Nation’s highlight reels are an invaluable tool.
Soccer Politics
Laurent Dubois, Professor of Romance Studies and History and Director of the Forum for Scholars & Publics at Duke University edits this home for writing on the politics of football across the globe. An endless source of fascination with a healthy list of further reading.
Spielverlagerung
Founded in Germany, the site was expanded to accommodate the English speaking readership and, boy, are we glad about that. It’s a blog devoted exclusively to tactical analysis, examining a wealth of subject matters – players, teams, coaches, matches, trends and more – in scarily great detail; no armchair expert’s armoury is complete without it.
Stats Bomb
Not just any old football statistics site, but one dedicated to the scientific pursuit of ever truer and more insightful ways of using numbers to understand the game. So enlightening and influential that, despite only starting three years back, one of it’s founders Ted Knutson left to work for Brentford.
Swiss Ramble
The Ramble specialises is lengthy and diligently-researched reportage on the role finances play in the fates of football clubs with reliably absorbing results.
The Anfield Wrap
A wide and impressive array of contributors, ranging from bedroom bloggers to broadsheet journalists, scribble their two pennies’ worth on Liverpool FC at TAW. The written word is supplemented with the spoken variety, with multiple podcasts delivered daily.
The Football History Boys
No punches pulled here, this site is devoted to the history of the beautiful game. For the studious soccer fan who wants to familiarise themselves with the Soviet teams of the 1960s there’s no better place on the net.
The Knowledge
Nestled away in a dusty corner of The Guardian’s sport pages, The Knowledge is dedicated to unearthing answers to the most esoteric football questions it’s readers can possibly dream up, from dust-ups in pre-season friendlies, to the most own goals ever scored in a professional match or the worst start a winning team has made to a penalty shootout.
The New Libero
Ian Walker (probably not the old Spurs goalie, though this hasn’t been confirmed) writes insightful, concise pieces on the changing, cyclic nature of the beautiful game. Publications aren’t exactly prolific, but they’re always worth a read.
The Set Pieces
Championship/Football Manager-focused features are particularly pleasing, but there’s much more for those who aren’t fans of simulated soccer. With a strong enough spread to rival some costlier online magazines, The Set Pieces supports its written pieces with sections devoted to interviews, football-themed artwork and kits from around the globe for the design enthusiasts among the readership.
The Two Unfortunates
Life in the Football League is the source inspiration for Rob and Lloyd Langman’s verbiage, with TTU particularly notable for its reviews of the kind of books chronicling or critiquing the spotlight-spurned stories of the beautiful game.
The World Football Phone-In
Dotun Adebayo presides over this long-running small hours talking shop on football across the globe, ably assisted by continental experts including inimitable Rio resident Tim Vickery and African font Mark ‘Springboca Junior’ Gleeson, who lift their neighbourhood lids on everything from transfer targets to the cultural and political underpinnings of the sport.
These Football Times
An elegantly-designed and internationally-lauded offering providing high-quality content for budding coaches, as well as a ton of splendid articles regaling the stories of football’s many diverse protagonists.
TomWFootball
French Press Agency scribe Tom Williams serves up an engaging buffet of English-language features and analysis on his personal site.
Twohundredpercent
A decade old blog about the politics, culture, history and inner workings of the game, now with sister podcast, that gives equal, thoughtful consideration to everything from Liverpool’s relationship with The Sun to Hendon’s 52 years in the Isthmian League top flight.
Zonal Marking
Founded on a fascination with the tactical machinations so often overlooked by the mainstream punditocracy, Michael Cox’s blog has been illuminating the decisive factors behind the results so often submerged beneath the cliches and hyperbole since 2010.
