AC Milan are readying bids for Newcastle duo Tim Krul and Davide Santon, according to reports from The Mirror.
The Italians are keen to strengthen their squad, following the departures of a number of first-team players, and have set their sights on the Premier League pair.
Their interest in Santon has been longstanding, with the San Siro side keen to bring him back to Italy following a successful period at St James’ Park.
It is unclear as to whether the player himself is looking to move on, but he could be tempted by the prospect of Champions League football.
Santon was on the books at Milan’s local rivals Inter before switching to the Magpies, but this has not deterred them from considering a move.
They are also believed to be monitoring the situation of goalkeeper Krul, with the Dutchman viewed as a candidate to be the club’s long-term number one.
The 24-year-old is under contract until 2017, but Milan are confident that they can lure him away.
However, they are unlikely to move for the stopper until the summer.
Meanwhile, manager Alan Pardew is set to ask wantaway defender Fabricio Coloccini to remain at the club until at least this summer.
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The Argentine is keen to return to his homeland for personal reasons, and has reportedly asked the club to release him from his contract.
Tottenham Hotspur wide man David Bentley has joined former club Blackburn Rovers on loan until the end of the season as reported by Sky Sports.
Bentley has failed to establish himself at White Hart Lane since his £15million move in 2008 from Rovers and is not in Andre Villas-Boas’ squad for the remainder of the season.
The 28-year-old will be looking to rediscover the sort of form that earned him seven England caps and that big money move back to North London while he was Ewood Park.
Failed loan spells at Birmingham City, West Ham and Russian outfit FC Rostov have not helped Bentley’s career as he was tipped to become the next David Beckham when he first came on the scene.
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Rovers are more than happy to bring Bentley back to the North West and with Michael Appleton’s side now moving in the right direction up the league, a permanent deal could be offered if the England international succeeds.
Paul Lambert has hailed Gabby Agbonlahor’s renewed enthusiasm for the game as a reason why he will be a huge factor in Villa’s run in.
Agbonlahor let his head go down when he went through a barren spell at the end of last season and the start of the new campaign, but he is buzzing again after bagging four times since January.
Lambert said: “I think he has been excellent.
“I think he’s loving his football at the minute, is scoring quite regularly at the moment and when Gabby gets a run at you, there are not many people going to catch him.”
Lambert is not short of pacy options up front, although Darren Bent remains out of the frame for whatever reason at the moment, and the Villa boss highlighted Agbonlahor as one of the reasons why he remains optimitsic about the club’s chances for the rest of this season and beyond.
“He is playing extremely well at the minute and if we can keep him, Charles N’Zogbia, Christian Benteke and Andreas Weimann fit, we’ve got loads of options up front,” he added.
“The one thing that was lacking in his game was goals. His stats from that point of view up to the West Brom game weren’t great.
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“But what he does bring is genuine pace to the game and a threat. He has added goals and that’s why he is enjoying it. He looks sharp in training.”
Hamburg’s Sporting Director Frank Arnesen says the club will do everything to keep South Korea star Heung-Min Son, with a new deal forthcoming.
Son has impressed in the the Bundesliga this season and scored twice in Hamburg’s 2-1 win over Mainz on Saturday, taking his tally to 11 goals in 28 appearances.
Son, who arrived from FC Seoul in 2008, has just over a year left on his current deal but Arnesen is keen to sort out new terms and ward off interest from other clubs, with Tottenham reportedly leading the chase.
“Son, with his 20 years, is one of the players we would really like to keep hold of,” he told Sky Sports. “We are willing to push ourselves to our pain barrier for him.
“He still has a year to go on his contract and we haven’t had any offers from other clubs. We are at a good stage with him and his contract extension so I am positive that we will extend with him for the long term.
“We have to ensure that we extend his contract as quickly as possible so that he can be settled.”
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Son has been linked with a move to some of the top German sides, while scouts from Serie A, the Premier League and La Liga have also shown an interest in him this season.
Olivier Giroud starts a three-match suspension following his red card against Fulham. Goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski (rib) is also missing, while Theo Walcott and Lukas Podolski are vying for a starting spot in attack.
Manchester United are expected to bring Rio Ferdinand and captain Nemanja Vidic back into their defence. Johnny Evans is a doubt with a injury, while Michael Carrick is struggling with a knock and could be replaced in midfield by Phil Jones.
What the managers said…
“I am looking forward to our performance on Sunday more than anything else. You focus on your own team and it’s an interesting opportunity for us to achieve something special on Sunday. We want to take this opportunity. We respect Robin van Persie like every other player who has left us and came back to the Emirates. I want the player to be respected like everybody else. I always said that for every single player who left, even some of them in much more controversy than Robin van Persie.” Arsene Wenger says Arsenal will ‘respect’ Robin Van Persie (Guardian Sport)
“I don’t really bother about it and I don’t think Robin should bother about it either. There was a bit of booing when he played against Arsenal at Old Trafford and you probably expect a portion of the fans to do that. That’s the modern generation and modern society, I’m afraid. But I’m glad Arsene has done that (guard of honour) because when they came to Old Trafford some years back and Wiltord scored the only goal we did that, and that’s what great clubs should do.” Sir Alex Ferguson has told Van Persie to ignore the boos when he returns to Arsenal for the first time (Daily Mail)
Pre-match Statistic: Arsenal have scored 18 times in the final quarter of games this season, which is slightly more than Manchester United’s total of 15.
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Prediction: Arsenal 1-2 Manchester United
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Arsene Wenger believes Arsenal have now put Robin van Persie’s departure behind them as they chase third place in the Premier League.
The Frenchman accepts that it took his side a while to adjust to life without him after their former captain and star striker moved to Manchester United last summer.
Wenger’s own position at the Emirates Stadium has even been called into question by critics at times this season, with the Gunners at one point dropping as low as 10th in the Premier League.
However, Wenger’s men have regrouped well since seemingly dropping out of contention for a top-four finish, with the Frenchman pin-pointing the Champions League win over Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena as the catalyst for their upturn in form.
As a result of their improvement, third place isn’t now beyond them either heading into tomorrow’s final game at Newcastle, although they do need Chelsea to slip up to Everton.
Wenger feels it is testament to the strength of character of a squad which was rebuilt around Lukas Podolski, Santi Cazorla and Olivier Giroud following the acrimonious departure of captain Van Persie to Manchester United for £24million.
The Gunners boss said: “This team suffered for a very long time from a lack of confidence because you take the talisman away – Robin van Persie – and get the new players in, then you lose the first big games and suddenly we are faced with scepticism around the team. You could see that.
“That was the problem and balancing the team took a while, to find a formula to have a good balance in the team. Since this has been back, we have been very efficient.
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“The Bayern Munich away game was very important, you could feel after that we could do it, that helped.
“I never felt this team lacked focus or desire to do well but we lacked confidence for a while.”
The relationship between Mike Ashley and Newcastle supporters has always been cordial at best, and insufferable at worst, but following yet another summer of false promises, the St. James’s faithful are set to launch a new wave of protests against the rule of the Magpies owner with a march before their Premier League clash with Liverpool tomorrow afternoon, headed by a group named ‘Time for Change’.
We’ve been here before with Mike Ashley; iconic images of the ‘Cockney Mafia out’ banner draped across the stands at St. James’s Park live long in the memory, and the club and the fans almost reached the point of civil war when former manager Kevin Keegan resigned 2008.
Now however, the fans seem more serious than ever in trying to force the Sports Direct mogul out of the club, playing on the fact their home fixture with Liverpool will be aired live and therefore their mass protest will receive nationwide coverage, whilst a more militant sub group of disgruntled fans have even suggested a boycott of Newcastle’s Capital One Cup tie with Leeds.
Few supporters would actively turn their backs on their club at the worst of times, so for the idea to circulate enough to be mentioned in the Newcastle Chronicle, there must be a strong section of the Newcastle fanbase that are reaching the point of no return.
And with that in mind, we ask, is it finally time for Mike Ashley to sell Newcastle United, as it appears pre-existing wounds cannot be re-healed.
[cat_link cat=”newcastle-united” type=”tower”]
Newcastle have always held a naturally comedic place in the structure of English football; Alan Shearer, Paul Gascoigne and Kevin Keegan are but a few of the inadvertent humorous personalities that have plied their trade on Tyneside.
But there’s now a feeling that Ashley has turned the club into a ‘laughing stock’, to paraphrase Shearer himself, and the joke has gone too far following the re-appointment of Joe Kinnear as Director of Football at the start of the summer.
Admittedly, interactions with the press aren’t everybody’s strong point, and even during his days at Wimbledon the former Ireland international wasn’t one for pleasantries. But there isn’t much of a greater public relations faux pas than Kinnear’s ad hoc interview with TalkSport earlier in the summer that pre-dated his official appointment, in which he referred to Newcastle’s French midfielder as ‘Yohan Kebab’ and the Magpies’ former Managing Director Derek Llambias, the man Kinnear was essential replacing, as ‘Derek Lambeze’.
That was embarrassing enough for Magpies fans, considering Kinnear already had an incredibly negative track-record with the supporters from his controversial tenure as Newcastle boss back in 2008, but he then continued by making audacious claims about his ability to attract any player he wanted to Newcastle via his illustrious list of contacts, that included Arsene Wenger and Sir Alex Ferguson.
The proof would be in the pudding this summer, and Kinnear has failed to deliver by epic proportions. Alan Pardew, who remains an almost as unpopular figure as Kinner and Ashley amongst certain sections of Magpies fans, promised new signings in the transfer window working alongside his new Director of Football, but three months’ worth of graft in the transfer market over the summer only saw two signings on Tyneside – 16-year-old Olivier Kemen and Loic Remy on a season-long loan from QPR.
In total, that’s no permanent senior additions to a Newcastle squad that showed it’s intrinsic flaws on more than one occasion last term as they recorded 19 Premier League defeats and finished just five points clear of relegation in 16th place. Rather than admitting defeat however, Kinnear argued in an interview with The Mirror; ” Alan Pardew has signed 16 players costing £60m in the last two years, Newcastle United’s wage bill is now comfortably in the top 10 in the country”, which a Newcastle fan later informed me was untrue.
But to suggest Kinnear’s appointment and actions since are the be-all-and-end-all of the anger Newcastle fans have shown towards Ashley would be incorrect. Their disdain for the running of the club is centred around a combination of issues, including the fact the Magpies owner has continually sold Newcastle’s best players for profit without putting a paralelled level of finance back into the club for new signings. Steve Harper commented after his testimonial that Newcastle require heavy investment if they are to ever get back into the Premier League’s top half, and the fear on Tyneside is that Ashley is now pushing the club to the edge of an incredibly slippery slope that could lead to another shock relegation.
At the same time, Alan Pardew has been a source of intense frustration for the fans. What he actually contributes positively to the first team remains unclear; his tactics are outdated and ineffective, the right to buy and sell players has been taken away from him by Kinnear’s appointment as Director of Football, and his post-match analyses often verge on deluded. It seems the vast majority of what Pardew offers is his ability to produce Tony-Blair-esque sound bites during press conferences. Under Ashley, the Newcastle boss has always appeared little more than a comedic stooge.
Overall, there isn’t much positive to say about Ashley’s leadership in recent years. A team that finished in 5th place two seasons ago is now a shadow of its former self, and for the sake of profit there seems to be little the Magpies owner is willing to do about it. At the same time, the sponsorship deal with Wonga, leading to a fall-out with striker Papiss Cisse, illustrated how little Ashley has considered Newcastle’s reputation and their uniquely vital standing in the local community.
But the problem emerges in imagining life without Ashley. In 2008, the Sports Direct founder put Newcastle up for sale after widespread criticism from the Newcastle faithful following Keegan’s resignation, but a year later he took the Tyneside club off the market after failing to find any potential suitors. A Kuwaiti consortium was linked last summer, but no official contact was ever made.
And history could well repeat itself if Ashley is once again forced to try and sell, with little offers for Newcastle football club on the horizon, despite the outfit’s obvious potential; few Premier League sides can claim a regular maxed out attendance of 52,000, or carry the prestigious history of the Magpies in the English game.
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I share the opinion of the vast majority of Newcastle supporters that it’s time for Ashley to move on. The problems between the owner and the fans seem intrinsic and irreparable, and apart from the occasional strong performance from the first team, there’s been little for the St. James’s faithful to be proud about over the last few years. It’s created a toxic environment on Tyneside, that can only be detrimental to the players’ efforts on the pitch, and thus Newcastle’s future.
But before Ashley can sell, he needs a buyer; one of the main aims of the march ahead of tomorrow’s game is to attract a potential suitor, and if the Newcastle fans can find one, I believe their despised owner would be convinced to part company. At this point, too many bridges have been burned to produce a positive outcome whilst Ashley is still around.
Tottenham are a side devoid of the swagger and adventure that had made them such a popular side in seasons past. The Premier League club have been reliant on an almost impenetrable defence to guide them to their lofty fourth placed position, surely Spurs are operating on borrowed time?
Nine goals from 10 games would be a return to worry any manager, and considering the ambitions of the North London club you would imagine it has given AVB one or two sleepless nights. It would be wrong for me to say this wasn’t a concern, continue in this vein and one or two of the narrow victories could easily turn into defeat, Spurs need to react fast or risk being left behind.
Sunday epitomised this exact trend, large periods of meaningless possession without any apparent drive or end product. Spurs looked directionless, Everton had far fewer attacks but when they did they broke with pace and looked all the more incisive for it.
It seems a little odd therefore that Spurs while being branded unadventurous and defensive minded have both the second best possession share and the most shots in the league. Are Spurs just not being clinical enough?
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For me it is a little more complicated than that. Spurs may well have large amounts of possession and shots, but on the whole they are long-range and pretty hopeful. I would struggle to recall more than a couple of moments on Sunday where Spurs actually had a meaningful opportunity in the box, a serious cause for concern when you have a £26m striker in your line-up.
People seem to have mislabelled Soldado as a sort of Jermain Defoe on steroids, yes he is a potent finisher but Spurs in reality are getting so much more than that. During his time at Valencia he showed his very best when operating on the shoulder of the last man or in and around the penalty spot with players breaking free out wide, food for thought in my opinion.
At Spurs due to AVB’s apparent obsession with ‘inverted wingers’ he simply doesn’t get this service. Narrow and congested, the service, while still there, is woefully inadequate. You can bandy about pass completion stats as much as you like, but the reality is that Soldado’s service is second rate. Often receiving the ball deep with his back to goal, or in other cases an extremely hopefully driven long ball, it isn’t surprising that the Spaniard is struggling.
The bedding in argument is valid, two months isn’t long enough for a team to gel and settle, the relationships between players just isn’t there. This is more a question of patience rather than anything else and by that token it will come of its own volition.
My worry is that there is a more systemic problem at Spurs.
Playing at a pedestrian like pace in the middle of the park, in no small part down to Paulinho and Sandro’s tentative and unambitious passing games, Spurs are predictable and readable. Then you have Lennon and Townsend cutting in off either flank, running almost from one side to the other with no obvious means of breaking through opposition back lines. Teams facing Spurs are all too happy to give up possession in the middle third because unless someone scores an absolute screamer there is little or no risk to their goal. Spurs’ chance creation and shooting stats are misleading in this sense; Townsend or Sigurdsson having a largely circumspect shy at goal doesn’t really count for much in the context of the match.
Spurs need to start stretching opposition. It could be a question of actually settling for less possession and allowing the team to counter with pace. Lennon and Townsend are both menacing when running from deep and when exploiting the flanks, the current blueprint just doesn’t seem to necessitate this.
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For me the jury is still out on Paulinho, I would much rather see someone with a bit more energy and desire to go forward lining up in a deeper role. Spurs look so much more penetrative with either Dembele or Holtby occupying this deep-lying role. Currently those that dictate the tempo for Spurs are doing so at a snail’s pace, something that even the most disorganised Sunday league outfit could probably snuff out.
The concern at Spurs isn’t an overreaction, clearly an inability to score goals is a problem for a side with the aspirations that Spurs have. Yet, this isn’t a question of unrelenting doom and gloom, a couple of tweaks in the coming weeks and we could well see a firing Spurs side asserting their dominance onto the score sheet.
Are a lack of meaningful chances at Tottenham a cause for concern?
We love a period of transition in English football; we simply can’t get away from it. A team goes on a run of five or six bad results; it’s usually because they’re in a transition. A poor transfer window is normally indicative rather than the consequence of a period of transition.
The England national team is no different. Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand and Steven Gerrard, cornerstones of the “golden generation,” are coming to the end of their careers. One or two of those individuals may even move on from their current club at the end of the season. The leaning is now on youth and the next wave. We as a country jump on those who are perceived to be the next big thing: Wilfried Zaha, Andros Townsend. It’s very much a state of transition for Roy Hodgson and the FA.
It’s why I can’t really understand the sense in bringing John Terry back into the fold. Even if thoughts don’t turn into actions, the simple fact that the idea is being discussed is baffling. The last thing Hodgson needs going into a World Cup in South America is negative publicity.
In some respects it’s the easy way out. Hodgson isn’t spoilt for choice ahead of this summer, most notably at centre-back. Gary Cahill and Phil Jagielka for now look to be the first-choice pairing, but beyond that there are no certainties. With Terry back in the fold as a regular at Stamford Bridge under Jose Mourinho, the temptation is understandable.
But it wouldn’t just be for footballing reasons. With Terry it never is. There’s so much baggage that comes with the Chelsea captain that there can be little doubt that he simply doesn’t have a place in the England setup going forward. One of the important questions that need to be asked is whether he’ll feature for England, or even be in the thoughts of the England boss, for the following European Championship in France. At his age, 33, it’s highly unlikely.
You have to wonder how much dialogue there is between the FA and its clubs in the Premier League. Instead of flirting with the idea of players like Adnan Januzaj or Nabil Bentaleb turning out for England five years down the line – of which there isn’t much chance due to the players’ connection with other nations – the FA should be focusing on what they do have and can immediately turn to.
Phil Jones is one of the names who should be given special treatment. He’s comfortably one of England’s very best in his age group and could hold one of the centre-back positions for the national side for the next decade. But do England know what his best position is? Is there communication with Manchester United as to what his long-term future holds? Instead of revisiting problem cases that may or may not work out for the short-term, players like Jones need to be made the priority.
The Manchester United defender has had his injury problems, but based on what we’ve seen of him in the Champions League under Alex Ferguson, he’s more than ready to handle the physical and mental challenges that come with the approaching World Cup. If he’d been a regular fixture at centre-half for United, even for this season, you’d bet that he’d be Hodgson’s third pick behind Jagielka and Cahill. But as of now, would Hodgson be picking a centre-back or a utility man? How much will the fourth choice dictate Jones’ role this summer?
Needless to say, it’s a far more productive line of thinking than bringing Terry back. England have little to no chance of winning the World Cup in Brazil – and far from being pessimistic, it’s simply an acknowledgement of reality. But this summer can act as a very good arena of preparation for France in 2016, where the younger players will have the experience needed to properly tackle a major international tournament both on and off the field.
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Terry’s inclusion simply blocks the development of a player who can be of greater use to England in the future. And that’s completely ignoring all the negative aspects his character brings.
Chelsea went top of the Barclays Premier League after a hard fought 2-0 victory against Hull City at the KC Stadium.
Here’s how Twitter reacted to the game’s biggest talking points…
25 minutes: Yannick Sagbo misses a big chance to take the lead for Hull after John Terry’s fluffed clearance, but he blasts wide
33 minutes: Chelsea’s Oscar finds himself in a golden position to open the scoring, but McGregor some how manages to tip the Brazilian’s effort over from six yards
55 minutes: After a goalless first-half, Chelsea take the lead through Eden Hazards 12 yard effort
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86 minutes: And Fernando Torres secured all three points for Chelsea with a trademark finish, sending Chelsea back to the top of the Premier League