The excitement levels at In Off The Post about fieldoo are off the chart!

As the author of In Off The Post, I always get the opportunity to look at different aspects of football. I look at the sublime, the interesting, the strange and the crazy. This week I take a look at a website that's recently come to my attention.

Excitement. That's the word that comes to mind when first browsing through the fieldoo.com website. I feel like a child again. It's like bringing the graphics, gameplay and thrill of a football video game into your real life. The slickest and best football video game on the market. The website is sleek modern and has functionality that other networking tools look at with envy. It's a cross between Championship Manager, FIFA 16 and Facebook. And this is exactly what fieldoo is and does - a networking (and social networking) site for the football community. It is a great network in itself and has uses for players, scouts, coaches, agents and clubs.

Part of the website is like Football Manager, where you can look up infinite details about any players you want to consider, studying the statistics and making considered decisions. But as a budding professional player you can put yourself on the other side of this equation. You can be the scouted player, the subject of other people's attention. The best way in which to do this is to set up your profile. This showcases who you are in the game by allowing you to upload-

• ·         Promo Video
• ·         Career
• ·         Latest Match
• ·         Press Clips or Cuttings
• ·         Photos

Once you've set up your profile, updated your stats and uploaded your videos you've got that presence on fieldoo. You're then searchable to scouts, clubs and coaches. From there you've opened up a world of possibilities for your potential football career. You should update your stats as soon as possible after every game to ensure that your latest achievements are there for the world to see. Encourage your teammates to do the same. You can look deeper into the website by getting into the trials that fieldoo organise. Pitting yourself against other players is the ultimate test in football. And, amazingly, fieldoo can enable you to do this.

They currently have a fabulous opportunity to go on a trial with Almeria, the Spanish second division team. You can get the chance to train for 7 days with their top players. Almeria has a track record of nurturing young talent and they have produced players such as Alvaro Negredo (Valencia), Aleix Vidal (FC Barcelona) and Felipe Melo (Inter) in the past.

There's so much to see and do on fieldoo and I recommend that you look into the premium options to give you the best experience. To have the ability to do the extras will enhance what you get out if the site, such as-

• ·         Being able to directly contact clubs and agents
• ·         See who's viewing your CV
• ·         Having your CV promoted

I recommend you check out fieldoo if you are a player, scout, agent or club. There's so much more to football networking if it's done via a top system like this. Give it a go!

fieldoo.com

I've found another gem in Soccer 360 magazine

So much is said and written about football. Newspapers have column inches to fill, Sky have built a media empire on its shoulders and websites churn out tens of thousands of words every week. What Dave Gorman refers to as "the bottom half of the internet" is awash with comment, banter and abuse. And all of this is before we start to scratch the surface of social media and all that is written there about the game we love. In some places, what is written is poor quality, derivate and offers nothing different.

In Off The Post looks for something different is this game we love. And I think I’ve found another gem.

I used to read Shoot and Match magazines when I was a kid, with basic short articles on players with an interesting story, and the back portion full of adverts including the obligatory Steve Earl football programme collectors adverts.

Just like In Off The Post, Soccer 360 Magazine is different. It looks at the game with different eyes. The magazine focuses on producing quality work and its success continues to grow, as it has recently published the 60th issue, stretching back to 2006. Soccer 360 is a creatively designed magazine and offers a unique extra large format size at 9.5” x 13.5”. This gives you a bigger, better experience and every page is in full colour. Its reach is global as it is available for digital subscription via the app or shipped worldwide to print subscribers. This marks out Soccer 360 Magazine over the alternatives.  Soccer 360 Magazine features the best of Premier League, MLS, Serie A, Bundesliga, La Liga and all the other big leagues from around the world. Ongoing coverage includes the world’s biggest soccer events - the Champion’s League, Europa League, World Cup qualifying and Euro 2016.

http://www.soccer360magazine.com/

Football fans want coverage of the biggest and best events, they want it in colour and they want it featured with insight and quality. Step forward, Soccer 360 magazine into the limelight. The magazine is over 100 pages per issue and this gives the writers the space to include quality articles about the players, teams and other aspects of the game in full. Being a magazine that is well-established and truly global gives them the opportunity to access the best players and the biggest names in the game. The 60th edition features Neymar, Zlatan Ibrahimovic , Paul Pogba and Jose Mourinho among others. This a wish list of the stars of world football for any reader and every issue is similarly jam-packed with the names of the game that you know and love (and sometimes loathe!)

If you are a discerning reader about football (and I would already assume that you are if you’re reading In Off The Post) then Soccer 360 Magazine is the one for you. I want to be able to bring something different to the readers of my blog every week and this magazine is another step in developing the ultimate football experience. Get in the know, get the app or subscribe to the magazine.

Check it out at-

http://www.soccer360magazine.com/

After 12 games of the season it's my part-season progress report

When Arsenal v Tottenham and Liverpool v Crystal Palace finish their games today, we will be at the 12-game mark in this season's Premier League. The international break is next so it's a good time to look at where things are and what might transpire between now and the end of the current campaign. The league table looks like this-

Premier League

Pos.	Team	P	GD	Pts.
1No movement	Man City	12	17	26
2No movement	Arsenal	11	13	25
3No movement	Leicester	12	5	25
4No movement	Man Utd	12	9	24
5No movement	West Ham	12	7	21
6No movement	Tottenham	11	10	20
7No movement	Southampton	12	6	20
8No movement	Everton	12	4	17
9No movement	Liverpool	11	0	17
10No movement	Crystal Palace	11	1	16
11No movement	Watford	12	-1	16
12No movement	Stoke	12	-2	16
13No movement	West Brom	12	-6	14
14No movement	Swansea	12	-4	13
15No movement	Norwich	12	-7	12
16No movement	Chelsea	12	-7	11
17No movement	Newcastle	12	-9	10
18No movement	Bournemouth	12	-13	8
19No movement	Sunderland	12	-13	6
20No movement	Aston Villa	12	-10	5

I'll start here with my awards for so far this season and my predictions for the end of the season.

Over achievers 

This is a close-run thing but I think that by virtue of having four more points, I'll give this to Leicester City over West Ham United. Mahrez and Vardy in particular have been great going forward but the thing that has put Leicester in their lofty position is their spirit. They just don't know when they are beaten.

Under achievers

This isn't a close-run thing at all. To go from comfortable champions to 16th place is terrible. It's never happened before. I put the blame squarely at the manager's feet. He has undermined the staff, upset the players, blamed everyone except for himself and disrupted a team that looked so unified last season.

Player of the (part) season

The exploits of Jamie Vardy have been remarkable but the stand-out player in the matches I've watched has been Dimitri Payet. His skill, running and vision have been a delight to watch and have transformed West Ham from average to very good.

Relegation candidates

I said at the start of the season that I thought Sunderland, Newcastle and Aston Villa would be relegated. I stand by two of these but I think that Newcastle United have shown enough progress under Steve McClaren to survive. Bournemouth have has a rotten run of injuries and I think that losing Callum Wilson is a blow they can't recover from.

Champions (and Champuons League)

I think that there many be a new face in next season's Champions League as I think Spurs can make the top four this year. In my opinion they will be joined by the two Manchester clubs and Arsenal. I think that Chelsea have left themselves too much to do, even at this relatively early stage. My tip for champions is Manchester City again, but I think that Arsenal and Manchester United will run them close and make it a fight right up until the last couple of fixtures. Sergio Aguero remaining fit will be the deciding factor as neither of the other clubs have a goalscorer that can compete with him.

Let's see how things go!

Has the Champions League started to disappear? Read where it's gone to!

The Champions League in England and English football is going through a little bit of an identity crisis at the moment. The relative lack of success of English teams in the last few editions is a major factor. After the successes of the years 2005 to 2009 when we had six finalists (and two winners) in five years, there have only been two finalists since.

Manchester City have really struggled with the competition ever with the money they have spent, the stars at their disposal and their success domestically. Yaya Toure, David Silva and Sergio Aguero have not had an impact.

Last season Liverpool were a huge disappointment and this season has seen some very mixed results in the early group stages. There seems to be a real threat to our fourth place in the competition from Italy.

But it's not just the drop in results that is affectng the competition. It happened with the FA Cup when coverage left the terrestrial channels for a more obscure channel. It was one of the reasons that the competition lost some prestige and excitement.

Now that the Champions League has moved from ITV and Sky completely, the competition has lost some visibility. I feel that the newspapers cover it less, the sports news on the BBC and ITV pay it less attention and it disappears from view a bit more. The little erosion of visibility makes a big difference. I don't always watch the group games with great vigour but I'm not really watching much at all this year. When the knockout starts I might feel differently but the fate of English clubs will have a bearing on that.

The two Manchester clubs is rate about 50-50 before this weeks games, with Chelsea at 60-40 and Arsenal currently at 40-60 after the first three rounds. The problem can be with qualifying second in the group and a horrible Round of 16 draw. I love to see English clubs test themselves against European greats such as Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Real Madrid. But meeting these teams too early in the competition has been part of out relative failure since the last English winner - Chelsea in 2012.

Let's look forward to a successful and exciting Champions League this season and some good progress for the English clubs.