The Mixer: The Story of Premier League Tactics, from Route One to False Nines

An absolutely essential book for every modern football fan, about the development of Premier League tactics, published to coincide with 25 years of the competition. Back in 1992, English football was stuck in the dark ages, emerging from a five-year ban from European competition. The game was physical, bruising and attritional, based on strength over speed, aggression over finesse. It was the era of the midfield general, reducers, big men up front and getting it in the mixer; 4-4-2 was the order of the day. Few teams experimented tactically. And then, almost overnight, it all changed. The creation of the Premier League coincided with one of the most seismic rule changes in football history: the abolition of the back-pass. Suddenly defenders had no-get-out-of-jail-free card, goalkeepers had to be able to field and play the ball and the pace of the game quickened immeasurably. Tactics evolved dramatically, helped by an increased foreign influence. The Mixer is the first book to delve deep into the tactical story of the Premier League, and take a long view of how the game has developed over the last quarter century. From Ferguson's directness to Keegan's relentlessly attacking Newcastle outfit, to Mourinho's cagey, reactive Chelsea, all the way to Ranieri's counter-attacking champions, The Mixer is one of the most entertaining, rich and knowledgeable football books ever written.

michael-cox

HARPER/COLLINS

Harper Collins Export Editions

The Oxford Book of English Ghost Stories

With their evocative settings amid mists and shadows, in ruinous houses, on lonely roads and wild moorlands, in abandoned churches and over-grown gardens, ghost stories have long exercised a universal fascination. Here at last is an anthology of some of the very best English ghost stories which combines a serious literary purpose with the plain intention of arousing a pleasurable fear at the doings of the dead. This selection of forty-two stories, written between 1829 and 1968, is the first to present the full range and vitality of the ghost fiction tradition by demonstrating its historical development as well as its major themes and characteristics. It includes stories by Walter Scott, M. R. James, Bram Stoker, Rudyard Kipling, Edith Wharton, Somerset Maugham and T. H. White. Elizabeth Bowen suggested that the ghost story works "through a series of happenings whose horror lies in their being just, just, out of time", and the success of a story may be judged by what Edith Wharton called its "thermometrical quality; if it sends a cold shiver down the spine, it has done its job and done it well". The challenge of this most demanding form has been taken up by a host of writers, both 'specialists' like J. S. Le Fanu and Algernon Blackwood, and those, such as Henry James and H. G. Wells, for whom ghost stories were only a part of their literary output. Nor does this collection overlook the important contribution of women writers, with eight stories included from Amelia Edward's The Phantom Ghost (1864) to Elizabeth Bowen's Hand in Glove (1952).

Literature & Fiction

R.A. Gilbert

Genre Fiction

Oxford University Press

M.R. James: An Informal Portrait

Biographies & Memoirs

Oxford Paperbacks

Top Ten Viking Legends (Top Ten)

Children's Books

History

scholastic

Hello to YOU! Hi, my name's Keri and I live in a place called Okotoks in awesome Alberta in Canada. I'm real excited to be your pen-pal and I've got heaps to tell you about my life here in the f-f-f-freezing north. You can: - slurp some snow with me and my friends - watch out for the snowballs! - find out why our cows play bingo and polar bears get sent to jail - learn how to make fishy Inuit ice-cream - think I'll stick to pumpkin pie! see the Rocky Mountains too, meet some enormoose Canadian creatures (ha, ha!), and be cool as a cowboy in our Rodeo bonanza. Yippee ay ay ! Love, Keri!

Canada (Airmail From...)

HIPPO/SCHOLASTIC

October 1415 What I saw when we looked down into that valley made my stomach churn, my heart pound and my legs feel like they were made from bowstrings. There below us, about half a mile away, for almost as far as I could see in all directions, was a vast sea of grey steel. Moving before us was the most enormous host of men I had ever laid eyes on in my life. As their pennants fluttered in the breeeze and their countless lances bobbed up and down, thousands and thousands of French knights on horseback were now taking up their positions in the valley...

Agincourt - Jenkin Lloyd, France 1415

You've probably heard of Leonardo da Vinci...He is dead famous for: - painting the most famous picture in the world - designing the first-ever flying machine - being THE all-round fabulous Renaissance Man. But have you heard that Leonardo: - spent ten years making a seven-metre tall horse - thought pink was the coolest colour for clothes - loved to play practical jokes? Yes, even though he's dead, Leonardo's still full of surprises. Now you can get the inside story with Leonardo's lost notebook, flick through the pages of the Milan Messenger and discover dozens of the dazzling inventions the great man dreamed up in his amazing super-brain. Dead Funny - Dead Gripping - Dead Famous

Leonardo Da Vinci and His Super-Brain

First there were a load of boffins who got excited about their network of nodes. Then along came one boffin who decided to make his net into a web. Now over 600 million users log on to the Incredible Indernet and Wondrous World Wide Web every day. Yes, this cyberspace safari tells you all you need to know about the people and inventions that made it all happen. From Internet toilets to gorilla online chat sessions, you'll also discover sites and bytes along the way you didn't even know existed. 'Plus' find out if you're a nerd, webaholic or a newbie in our cybertrivia challenge. If you want to be in the know, get "The Knowledge"!

The Incredible Internet

Elvis and His Pelvis (Dead Famous)

Teen & Young Adult

Scholastic/Hippo

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by michael-cox. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by michael-cox