Early season shapes the football rankings

From the Football Ranking System we see that Manchester City have just about retained top spot from the very in-form early season pace-setters Chelsea. Indeed, a Chelsea win in the UEFA Super Cup tonight might see them take over on top.

The other early season form team Everton have risen from 6th to 4th.

It will be fascinating to see how far Rangers fall now that they are in Scottish League Division Three. Among such lowly opposition they will not score so many points unless they thrash everyone of them, and they're not doing that yet. In August Rangers have fallen  from 8th to 19th.

Conversely, Swansea City have gone the other way, rising from 18th to 9th, and Wigan Athletic have gone from 14th to 7th.

Ten-place plus movers elsewhere include:

• Sheffield Wednesday, up from 55 to 21.
• Leeds United, up from 49 to 36.
• Motherwell, down from 28 to 38.
• Yeovil Town, up from 80 to 69.
• Swindon Town, up from 87 to 71.
• Dundee, down from 62 to 73.
• Preston North End, up from 85 to 74.
• Crawley Town, up from 98 to 84.
• Chesterfield, down from 76 to 86.
• Bradford City, up from 107 to 97.
• Ayr United, down from 88 to 100.
• Southend United, down from 95 to 105.
• Dumbarton, down from 106 to 117.
• Brackley, new in at 157.
• Bradford Park Avenue, new in at 161.
• Woking, up from 177 to 166.
• Dartford, up from 178 to 168.
• Chester, new in at 173.
• Altrincham, down from 165 to 176.
• Oxford City, new in at 179.
• Billericay Town, new in at 184.
• Corby Town, down from 174 to 186.
• AFC Hornhcurch, new in at 190.
• Bromley, down from 189 to 199.

Football talks a good Olympian game; let's see it in deed

The Footballers versus Olympians debate has raged and has quietened down and will rear its head from time to time over the next season.

The problem with football is that it refuses to learn from other sports; it knows it is the Beautiful Game, but thinks that it is the pinnacle of beauty. But it isn't.

I am not going to go into all the things that football should learn from other sports in this post; they will be the subject of many other posts to come.

However, in the Footballers versus Olympians debate, one thing has struck me. The Olympians have never said a word. People in the media and many of us bloggers, tweeters, facebook posters have commented on their behalf: "Weren't they wonderful?", "Fantastic attitude", "Actually apologising to supporters", etc. But I can't recall seeing any quotes from any of the participiants themselves.

Yet those "in the [football] game" have felt the need to speak out: Richard Scudamore, Joey Barton, Gary Neville are a few that spring to mind. And, of course, they're mostly defending their sport. Well, what would we expect? Of course they would.

The problem lies in the very fact that they need to defend their sport, and the behaviour of players, managers and supporters. And they do need to. It's because football's reputation is so woeful by its deeds that it needs to defend itself in words. Prime example: Alan Pardew (a most unexpected culprit) demonstrates his attitude by his deeds (pushing an assistant referee), but then apologises in words afterwards.

There's always been the joke about the not-so-good manager or player, who "talks a good game".

How about those "in the game", cutting the talk, and improving the reputation of football in their actions? Come May next year, let's see if football no longer needs to defends its actions in words.