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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

Outlier based on small sample size or long-term trend? A BIT OF BOTH.

Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

What am I on about? Well, back in 22-23 with so much focus on distribution, there were some laughably incompetent shot-stoppers in the PL. That just hasn't been the case in the last couple of seasons, and now the promoted sides have all invested in - seemingly - big, solid, proper goalkeepers.

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Similar moves leading up to the award of the penalty and the opening goal - Messi between the lines and switching play out to Almada on the left, with Medina ready to overlap. They seemed to know there would be space when the Austria winger on the far side tucked in.

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

I’ve watched a few of these players play quite badly in the 8th tier in recent years 😂

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 02/05/2026

I have finally achieved my dream of writing about snooker - I was at the longest frame in Crucible history yesterday, and here's why the crowd were right to get stuck into the referee a bit and force the issue www.nytimes.com/athletic/724...

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

Great article, this. Sorry but this bit really made me laugh

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

Look sometimes the “word” just doesn’t work very well, and people should accept that.

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

Peter Ridsdale praised for financial prudence in terms of player wages, 1999.

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 27/09/2025

Kayode’s extra long throws partly because of the wind which is basically taking the ball from the near side towards that goal.

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

you can say what you want in footnotes, no-one is gonna read it

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 07/09/2025

The four ways to play football in 1956:

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

always found this trend funny as they were all the rage when doing 'food technology' (presumably not called this any more) at school, I never really saw them again for years, then suddenly it's how you measure whether Arsenal should sign Giroud or Higuain bsky.app/profile/chri...

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 21/08/2025

Good luck to the women's rugby world cup - it's presumably no worse than the men's equivalent - but this is an astonishingly bleak set of odds, match after match with a complete no-hoper. Ultimately there's not enough global interest in the sport to make this work.

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 07/07/2025

fair play to Thun, possibly the nicest town I’ve been to for football: Spain v Belgium today. It was either this or Basingstoke v Kingstonian for me this week.

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

intriguing WC1962 scandal here…playing a….training match?

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 03/05/2025

a real classic football-in-political-coverage analogy here. The footballing element is never entirely wrong, but always just not quuiiiite right.

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 26/01/2025

A keeper standing in an offside position is one of the best things in football, just looks ridiculous

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

“Fancy modern theories” (1968)

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

Rare to see a system so comprehensively dismantled like Man Utd's 3-4-3 was yesterday. The first goal almost like Brighton were taking the piss, just putting the strikers deep and the wingers high to drag them around. De Ligt weird movement up to Welbeck - but looks like Amorim was telling him to!

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

this logo feels a biiit familiar? Talk about clean sheets etc etc

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

Wonder if anyone actually DOES watch the whole two hours of Final Score on delay?

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

an enjoyable description of inverted wingers as an “abject confession of failure” by Bernard Joy in his 1957 book Soccer Tactics

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

A nice article below on a very interesting and significant player. Eastham also wrote this book Soccer Science which is a fine summary of technical and tactical trends in the 1960s.

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

Simeone gives his substitutes, on average, more minutes than any other coach, and almost always uses all five changes. Traditional bedfellows Dyche and Guardiola are at the opposite end of the scale.

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

a bit of FA Vase action for me today

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

enjoyed this 1970s description of assists as a “fringe absurdity”

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

But the number of long-range shots has always come down, every decade. The shot map from the WC1966 final shows how football was played then. By the 80s and 90s players were more selective. That probably wasn’t anything to do with data!

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

warming up for 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 v 🇺🇸 at Wembley in fitting style with this slightly mad 1964 intro by Brian Glanville

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

1971 reminder that every generation of football fans thinks that flair players aren’t given as much freedom as they used to be (they may, of course, all be correct)

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 24/11/2024

This was the extent of his attacking role. Guardiola obviously moved away from using full-backs like this for a reason. I don't think you can reasonably use Walker like this, especially versus Son, and blame him if he doesn't have the legs to get back.

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Going through some old football books and stumbled upon perhaps the least interesting one I own: Neville Southall’s diary of 1996-97

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

The last two words here really made me laugh *points at various places around the park*

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

China: second-most wins, but bottom!

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

just reading this (pre-2004!) account of the first Football League campaign. I wonder how improbable that unbeaten season felt. People probably thought it would happen semi-regularly. Anyone who said it would take another 100+ years would be dead before being proven right - the ultimate tragedy.

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Four years today, one sport received more lockdown support money from the government than all other sports put together 👏🏻

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Another Finland 0-0 coming to the rescue…?

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

Part 2: Chelsea 2-0 Man City. 2 ways the deadlock might’ve been broken: City high press (but Shaw fluffed a shot & then a pass) or a striker in the channel (Shaw fouled by Bjorn; Ramirez fouled by Greenwood; Ramirez shrugged off Kennedy to score). City unbalanced, no subs til 2-0 down, needed Kelly.

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 16/11/2024

The WSL London double-header part 1: Tottenham 0-3 Arsenal. Entirely comfortable for Arsenal. Always lots of talk about Spurs’ approach but individually - and in particular physically - they just can’t compete. Walti controlled the game, Maanum found space between the lines, Russo linked well.

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

this was the quarter-final lineup in the women’s padel World Cup earlier this month. Is there any other sport - barring variations on football - which could produce such a footbally final eight?

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

important to whip out some hot shareable content on this new social media platform - so here’s a graph plotting average attendance in the Isthmian Premier League 2019-20 and latitude of the relevant town. The more southern you were, the more people came to watch. Roughly.

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Michael Cox @zonal-marking.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

Kingstonian now on their longest winning run this century, proving that the secret to success is your manager resigning after a 7-4 defeat, then deciding to come back six days later, therefore providing an artificial new manager bounce.

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