The Prememento Podcast

Heroes don't exist without villains. In footballing terms, the antagonist is often just anyone outside our own personal fanbases. It's hard for a player to draw the kind of ire and ill-will from neutrals if he's never done anything to their clubs. There are a certain few however that – for one reason or another – stand the test of time in terms of Premier League infamy. There's a hurricane of outr...

Behind every footballer, there is the person. The former gets judged, often without the latter ever coming into question. Hopes, dreams and emotions are all reduced to games, goals and assists. People aren't defined by their profession, regardless of how high profile it may be. The more you get to learn about the man behind the shirt, the more you'll be surprised by the depth of their character. F...

Self belief can carry you a long way in football, and those that have a sheer force of will above all others can bulldoze their way to success and drag everyone along with them. It's the kind of determination that were it to be distilled into a single image, might very well just be one of the most iconic England photographs of a certain generation. Old Trafford is one of the grand stages in world...

There's something to be said for being the last man standing. At the highest level, it's not a question of ability anymore, it becomes something more personal. Playing through a succession of eras and continuing to produce, at a time where the game itself has supposedly moved on; that's not for everyone. It didn't work out for him going back to where it all began, and as a result there are questio...

Nostalgia appeals so much because of it's simplicity. We know the context for how something happened and what became of it. As football has evolved, so to has the reading of it become infinitely more complicated. Goalkeeping used to be about the uttermost basic of basics, to the point where it sounds almost patronizing to think nowadays. All you had to do, was stop the ball going in the net. There...

Surprise and anticipation are forever tethered together. The mixture of the two plays out across every game of football ever played. Our disposition toward something we never could have seen coming lies within what we consider possible. That's why when the truly unthinkable happens, it means that much more. From being used as a substitute striker in the Champions League to the goals that helped se...

Within a lifetime, there are many seasons. Each one – good or bad – will hold a special place in our minds. A few of them may blur together and be associated with a specific points in our upbringing. These periods are often summed up by a sole individual, be they in the team itself or the dugout. Years of their professional life, distilled into a handful of touches. The comprised duration of our f...

Worth is a big concept in football. Perhaps even the biggest. While the money has risen astronomically over the years, it's not the numbers so much as the context for them. Measuring value in a financial context alone is to get it backward. What they do on the pitch defines their price tag, not the other way around. In an era when one goal – one solitary kick of a ball can change the fortunes of a...

Like the game itself, a successful football career often comes down to timing. The right circumstances off the field are as key as the perfect pass on it. Join a club at the ideal time and with the right ability, the sky is the limit. Conversely when expectations are high and they don't match up with resources, your time at the top can be cut short. As choices for players and the clubs that want t...

Change in football moves at a breakneck speed. What one day was accepted as absolute, very quickly finds itself lost in time. There's so much to keep track of, it often gets lost in the shuffle. Those first ten years the Premier League had made steady progress within the home grown players that plied their trade, it was then the arrival of a few mercurial talents that would catapult the league ont...

When it comes to getting over the line, a decision has to be made what other lines are there to be crossed. How far are you willing to go to get what you want? What's more, there are questions to be asked when it comes to the idea of talent versus application. As with anything in football, in the end it all comes town to results. For a player that people hated unless he was one of theirs, there wa...

Certain points in history are so important, they split the timeline down the middle and there is only what came before and what will now happen as a result. In that regard, those that put the most into those circumstances playing out should be rightly acknowledged for their efforts. Even for the fourteenth top scorer in Premier League history, things don't quite work like that. Most players have o...

Playing the most noticeable position, it's not a surprise that goalkeepers tend to have bigger personalities. They're a unique breed of footballer to the point of cliche, judged on completely different aspects to everyone else out on the field. The battle is more of an internal than external one, knowing that at the top levels it will be concentration that's called upon rather than physical abilit...

The road to glory is filled with obstacles. How teams – let alone players themselves – manage to navigate in times of even relative stability is crucial. One false move can lead to a slippery slope and alter the course of a club indefinitely. Certain personalities are better equipped to being able to help steer everyone in the right direction. Even then there are still extraordinary circumstances...

On the pitch. Off the pitch. Player. Pundit. No matter how many times we try to separate out the differing aspects of a career, they ultimately all belong in the same place. We sometimes forget that there's a person behind the headlines, whether they're on the back or even the front page. Football is littered with those who talk, but how many of them actually have something to say? The potential c...

Though the game itself may be global, British – more specifically English – footballers rank very low in terms of successful exports around the world. For far too long it has seemed as though the home of football was always a couple of generations behind the tactics and styles that the rest of the world were embracing. But it appears that finally that may be beginning to change. What a difference...

How it all ends makes us feel different about the beginning and middle. It's easy to watch back old games as a fan even in the most dire of circumstances and know it'll be alright in the end. The 90th minute winner is an joy of a different kind. But those goals don't always arrive. Those games don't always get turned around. It could so very easily have ended in the kind of fairytale glory that we...

For a team sport, there's an incredible emphasis put on individuals. The Premier League itself multiplied that a thousand times over and become a conveyor belt of superstars. Yet in one of it's earliest incarnations there came a duo. One that still resonates to this day. Everyone knows what happened to a certain Geordie, yet his strike partner gets little attention despite his own misadventures. B...

Popular opinion is such an invalid criteria when it comes to evaluating a players ability – or career – and yet it's one of the biggest factors. Reputations aren't built on how many medals anyone has had dangled around their neck, even if that's kind of the whole point. At the same time, performances – regardless of how jaw dropping they may be – have to lead to something. Two sides of the same co...

It began as a blank canvas. The Premier League as a whole has seen much in the way of diversity pass through it as the game has become more cosmopolitan, but at first there was very little in the way of variety. A select few paved the way for it to become more and more prevalent for managers to cast their nets to foreign shores to look for talent. They were the foundation for the global game we se...

It's difficult to explain how or why, but some players loom larger over certain clubs. Like a spectre, appearing infrequently to scare the locals. Their name on the teamsheet is terrifying. It doesn't matter the run of form or even the respective ability, there's just an inevitability about them. Much in the same way that the goalscorer enjoys the limelight from the rest of his teammates, those at...

Being part of something special should be enough. Enough to guarantee your place among the recognition of football fans everywhere. Enough to satisfy personal motivations. That's not always the case though. For Nick Barmby it took going home again. Coming back the place his heart had never left. What was meant to be a final chapter had a surprise ending on a book that had way more twists and turns...

We take for granted the familiar. That they are immortalized in our minds eye in a very specific way ignores the role circumstance has to play. Dion Dublin is one of the most recognizable faces from the early years of the Premier Football. His very face conjures up very specific images of Aston Villa and Coventry kits of the past. But it all could have been so different. Before we even get to the...

Bringing through and developing young talent is one of the most important things any manager is tasked with. Pep Guardiola is widely regarded as being not just among the top of the class in terms of his generation of coaches, but of management at the top level full stop. His Manchester City side set the league alight, collecting almost 200 points in two seasons. In that time, one youthful addition...

In the mid-ninties, as the Premier League was becoming an ever increasing global phenomenon so too did the rest of the world introduce itself into in English football in a big way. The reach was just as far in terms of a pool of talent as it was beaming to television audiences across the continents. Kanu might not have been the first African – or even Nigerian – player to play in the Premier Leagu...