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James Lawton

Thierry Henry's confession leaves revolting taste

The Republic of Ireland is entitled to believe it has never seen anything so cynical, so far removed from the spirit of sport, as the devilish hand played by Thierry Henry to deny Giovanni Trapattoni's team a place in the World Cup finals that would have been so thoroughly deserved.
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Inside James Lawton

James Lawton: New Formula One blood brothers facing up to battle

Thursday, 19 November 2009

You wouldn't want to dampen any national fervour surrounding the first British one-two champion Formula One combination since Graham Hill and Jim Clark drove for Lotus in 1968 - especially when the new McLaren team-mates Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button stopped short yesterday only at nicking their fingers and announcing themselves official blood brothers.
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James Lawton: Time to scrap the silly rugby titles

Tuesday, 17 November 2009

Given his own unforgiving tendency in his days of glory as a player, the relatively mild critical treatment Martin Johnson has received so far as England coach may be a little surprising.
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James Lawton: Pacquiao puts on a show worthy of the Four Kings

Tuesday, 17 November 2009

Boxing's ability to re-invent itself against heavy odds was never better illustrated than on the turn into the 1980's.
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James Lawton: Ignore the hype, Haye v Valuev was an insult to boxing

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

Give David Haye his large pot of gold and even throw in an award for superior opportunism.
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James Lawton: Refs must be held to account

Tuesday, 10 November 2009

It is now a no-brainer that Sir Alex Ferguson will never accept the futility of criticising referees. However, on Sunday at least he remembered not to cross the line that makes prosecution by the FA inevitable.
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James Lawton: Respect for Benitez slipping away

Tuesday, 3 November 2009

You may believe that savaging Rafa Benitez has become an issue for the League against Cruel Sports but sometimes it is too easy to get these things out of perspective. We are, after all, talking about someone who will benefit by roughly £20m if he should lose his job.
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James Lawton: Yeung at City heart

Tuesday, 3 November 2009

Carson Yeung may be prove an unnmitigated disaster as the new owner of Birmingham City and it certainly cannot be reassuring for incumbent manager Alex McLeish to see Steve McManaman attached so closely to his shoulder.
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James Lawton: The agony and ecstasy of Andre Agassi's life less ordinary

Saturday, 31 October 2009

His former lover, Barbra Streisand, sent him flowers and called him her Zen Buddha, but that was when Andre Agassi was a young and apparently uncomplicated god of sport.
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James Lawton: FA have to get tough on Ferguson

Tuesday, 27 October 2009

What are we going to do with Sir Alex Ferguson? No, let's be more precise. What is football, and what passes for its authority, going to do?
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James Lawton: Rafa the one man band out of tune

Thursday, 22 October 2009

If there was any mystery to the question now being asked in open panic on Merseyside, the situation might not seem quite so hopeless. Unfortunately there isn't.
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James Lawton: Slimline Reid must weight and see

Friday, 9 October 2009

Maybe, just maybe it will be different in the play-offs, especially seeded play-offs when a touch of skill, something a little different, is plainly more at the disposal of Andy Reid than any of the worthy yeoman currently barring his return to an over-achieving Republic of Ireland team.
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James Lawton: Fergie beyond the pale

Tuesday, 6 October 2009

Few, if any, football men have more reason than Sir Alex Ferguson to believe that they have won the right to make their own rules.
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James Lawton: Horses like Sea the Stars will always shine brightly

Tuesday, 6 October 2009

What is it about a horse, especially one like Sea The Stars?
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James Lawton: Classy Souness hitting the right notes

Tuesday, 6 October 2009

It has long been a belief here that in the matter of television football analysis Graeme Souness is in a class of his own.
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James Lawton: Roy Keane to make a crisis out of drama

Tuesday, 29 September 2009

The trouble with owning an extreme nature is that you always need to pack a parachute; you can fly high, but some of the landings are hell. Certainly in football it is hard to imagine a more draining descent than the one currently occupying Roy Keane.
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James Lawton: Chiefs driving F1 into the dirt

Tuesday, 22 September 2009

You have to wonder if there are any limits now. If is possible to employ men you vetted, and who carry your name, who go on to rig a race, strategically smash a car into a barrier, risk lives and damnation, and yet you survive, receive a green light to continue unscathed in something ever more loosely described as sport, surely it has to be asked what is next on the agenda?
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James Lawton: Accepting defeat as great imposter is Sir Bobby’s legacy

Tuesday, 22 September 2009

Football, as we have heard in Westminster Abbey, where the life of Bobby Moore was saluted, in the Catholic Church of Chorlton-cum-Hardy where Sir Matt Busby worshipped, and yesterday in the glorious setting of Durham Cathedral where Sir Bobby Robson was remembered, is capable of the finest words of farewell to its greatest heroes.
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James Lawton: Adebayor’s run out of excuses and must learn

Tuesday, 15 September 2009

If Emmanuel Adebayor had committed murder, rather than merely a grievous assault on the idea that some millionaire footballers have any idea of their duty, you might think he was angling for a plea of diminished responsibility.
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James Lawton: The Cap continues to fit for Beckham

Friday, 11 September 2009

You might call it the last mystery of Fabio Capello, the piece of his English jigsaw that doesn't quite fit. It is the fact that he refuses so obdurately to remove the last of the international lustre of Goldenballs.
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James Lawton: Thierry Henry is a class act - even when he is complaining

Tuesday, 8 September 2009

Thierry Henry's rebellion against the somewhat unorthodox coach Raymond Domenech, who is said in some of the less reverent corners of the dressing room to be also known as Le Crackpot, reminds us that whatever else the French may lack it is not style.
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