Liverpool defender Martin Skrtel is the subject of interest from Zenit Saint Petersburg, according to reports from the Daily Mail.
The Slovakian, who moved to the Premier League from the Russian giants in 2008, has lost his place in the Reds’ starting line-up of late, after a shaky display in the club’s FA Cup defeat to Oldham.
This has prompted speculation that he may be allowed to leave Anfield, alerting his former club.
It is believed that they are willing to offer £13m for his signature, with spending power no issue for the Gazprom-backed outfit.
They would also be free to conclude a deal immediately, despite the January transfer window having closed.
All Russian clubs have until February 24th to conclude their business, with the window open for longer in their country.
It is unclear as to whether Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers will be willing to allow the centre-half to leave, with both he and Daniel Agger forming a solid partnership.
However, the Merseysiders may be tempted to cash in whilst his value is high, and allow Jamie Carragher and Sebastian Coates to compete for a starting berth.
Liverpool have also been heavily linked with moves for Swansea’s Ashley Williams and Modibo Diakite of Lazio.
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If either, or both, were to be signed, it’s likely that at least one of their current defenders would be required to move on.
Signing on Deadline Day in the summer for a reported £2million from Werder Bremen, Marko Arnautovic’s performances appear to have gone somewhat under the radar. But in acquiring the controversial Austrian, did Stoke City actually make one of the signings of the season?
With just one fixture left in the Premier League, Arnautovic has scored four and assisted seven in twenty nine league appearances. Often deployed out on the left, the Austrian is level in the assist charts with the likes of Phillippe Coutinho, Eden Hazard and Jesus Navas. Bizarrely at the age of 25, the forward has just been rewarded for his contribution in his debut campaign by being named as the club’s Young Player of the Season.
Stoke City’s break from the Tony Pulis era is perhaps best epitomised in the signing of Arnautovic. A technically proficient and talented individual without the stature of a rugby player, the now Crystal Palace manager would never have taken a chance on the eccentric Austrian and his almost legendary attitude.
So far though, Arnautovic hasn’t hit the headlines as often as the English media would have hoped for. Upon signing for Stoke, many headlines dubbed the forward as “Mario Balotelli Mark II” in the expectation that he would produce similarly barmy stories. Unsurprisingly, the pair were actually good friends from their time at Inter Milan.
Despite signing the player for just £2 million, Mark Hughes was still seen to be taking a gamble. From his time in Milan, Jose Mourinho labelled Arnautovic as “a fantastic person but with the attitude of a child.” At FC Twente, where the Austrian first showcased his talent, Steve McClaren claimed that he was the craziest player that he had ever worked with.
Up until this season, controversy seemed to follow the Austrian wherever he went. In Milan, Arnautovic was dining in a restaurant when the Bentley he had borrowed from Samuel Eto’o was stolen. The forward once injured his knee ligaments playing with his dog whilst he believes he failed to impress Mourinho at Inter due to the fact he was going out five times a week.
Signed by Bremen as the replacement to Marko Marin, bridges between the club and Arnautovic were finally burnt last season after a training ground bust-up with Sokratis Papastathopoulos. The forward had been dubbed “Arrogantovic” by sections of the German club’s supporters.
A month after signing for Stoke, Arnautovic was sent off for his country after an ugly clash with Sweden’s Johan Elmander. The forward has bemoaned the fact that he is viewed as the “bad boy” of Austrian football whilst Bayern Munich’s David Alaba is seen as the “golden” child.
However, in interviews upon his arrival, Arnautovic claimed that fatherhood had mellowed his eccentricities and that he was no longer the “bad boy” of Austrian football. After a slow start to life in the Premier League, Hughes’ gamble on the Austrian has definitely paid off. Fans’ posts on the club’s fanzine The Oatcake reveal that many believe if the forward worked on his finishing and displayed a greater level of consistency, the former Bremen star would be snapped up by a bigger team in no time.
Arnautovic took slightly too long to adapt to the demands of English football to genuinely be credited as the signing of the season. In November of last year, German newspaper Bild mocked the attacker for a remarkable winless streak that stretched to nineteen matches at both Bremen and Stoke. The wide man had only netted twice in Stoke’s colours by March. The likes of Wilfried Bony, Fernandinho, Dejan Lovren and Alvaro Negredo all arguably boast stronger and more consistent cases for that particular title.
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Similar to Michu though last season, albeit to a lesser extent, Arnautovic has made his £2 million price tag seem a snip and surely the Austrian’s transfer is the bargain of the season. In a season where £30 million Erik Lamela and £27.5 million Marouane Fellaini have failed to impress, the former Bremen attacker has proven to be a reliable creator for his team-mates throughout the entire year.
Hughes was seen to be taking a gamble when he sanctioned the signing of “Mario Balotelli Mark II” back in September. However, the Stoke manager has more than been rewarded for the faith he has shown in the eccentric and controversial Austrian forward.
Manchester City’s Mario Balotelli has agreed a four-and-a-half year contract with AC Milan, according to reports from The Mirror.
The controversial Italian had been widely expected to leave this month, after failing out of favour with the Premier League champions.
Despite fears that a deal may not be reached, the San Siro side have forced through a £19m pound move, with a series of add-ons likely to take the figure to around £22m.
The 22-year-old will undertake a medical on Wednesday ahead of completing the move.
Roberto Mancini has frequently backed Balotelli, insisting that he was not available for a transfer, but is thought to have finally run out of patience with the front-man.
A series of poor displays and off-field issues, including a scrap between the pair at the club’s training ground, has pushed their relationship to near breaking point.
Having sold both Alexandre Pato and Zlatan Ibrahimovic of late, Milan were only too keen to use these circumstances to their advantage to tie up a move.
Balotelli has previously played for their local rivals Inter Milan, but that has not deterred their interest.
City may use the injection of cash to bring in reinforcements ahead of Thursday’s transfer deadline, with the club keen to overhaul Manchester United and retain their Premier League title.
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Arsenal have started the season fairly well in the league but talk of a title challenge has reared its ugly head again and some perspective needs to be attached to how they’ve begun the new campaign, with expectations already been laughably raised to a ridiculous level.
Arsene Wenger’s side currently sit in eighth in the league table after six games having picked up nine points. They’ve not had the easiest of starts to the new season but they’ve picked up a point away at Stoke and Manchester City and all three at Liverpool, while destroying newly-promoted Southampton 6-1 on home turf, which appears to have been the result which has sparked all of the premature title contender talk.
Much like Joe Hart is proclaimed as being world-class simply because he’s better than David James and Paul Robinson and Paul Lambert has been eased in at Aston Villa after a tricky start as Alex McLeish’s predecessor, this Arsenal side appears to be benefiting in the main from the fact that they’ve started the season better than last year.
In their opening six games last season, Arsenal picked up seven points from their opening six league games, which is only two less than this season. The club’s fans are well-known from ranging between ‘the sky is falling down’ to ‘in Wenger we trust’ brigade and while every set of supporters has its extremes, Arsenal’s just appear to be more vocal than most.
The pressure was well and truly on last season after the side’s 8-2 humiliation away at Old Trafford against Manchester United, while they also lost 2-0 at the Emirates to Liverpool and inconceivably 4-3 to Blackburn. They scored nine goals while letting in an alarming 14 which compared to this season’s tally of 10 scored and four conceded is certainly a step in the right direction.
While the result at Old Trafford proved the nadir of last season, it’s worth remembering just how poor defensively the hosts were on that day too and Arsenal, with better finishing in front of goal, could have easily have finished the game with five or six goals to their name too. It was an absolutely crazy, somewhat bizarre match during which Wenger was forced to field a hugely inexperienced back four which struggled to cope with United’s pace and movement.
Of course, Newcastle and Manchester United away, Liverpool at home is far from the easiest of runs to begin your season with, but it was made even worse by the fact that both Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri both decided to leave the club late on in the transfer window. Wenger’s big mistake was simply not planning for either of them leaving, so he was left with a mad supermarket sweep trolley-dash on deadline day to pad out his squad and Jack Wilshere’s injury absence didn’t help matters either.
This summer he appears to have learned from that gross error of judgement which deeply effected the side’s shape, confidence and rhythm earlier on in the campaign by compensating for the inevitable loss of Robin van Persie with the acquisitions of both Lukas Podolski and Olivier Giroud, even if the latter hasn’t quite found his scoring boots yet.
The result has seen them become a much more rounded side, no longer relying solely on van Persie to carry them through big games but there’s been a temptation to get carried away with their results so far, more out of surprise that they haven’t started the season as badly as last year and that they seem to be coping a lot better post-van Persie than they eve did Fabregas and Nasri.
We shouldn’t forget that Arsenal have still only won two league games so far this season, less than Fulham, West Brom and West Ham and the same as Swansea and Newcasle and their start simply hasn’t been as exceptional as first assumed.
While the performance away at champions Manchester City and the maturity of their display at Anfield against a Liverpool side in transition will have enjoyed greatly by the club’s supporters, they were still out-played for prolonged spells by rivals Chelsea at the weekend and they’ve failed to break down both Sunderland and Stoke on home soil.
Indeed, the nature of the club’s defence has been praised to such an extent that Steve Bould is now no longer just a former player with a sound knowledge of how to organise a back four, he’s the messiah. Keeping clean sheets against Sunderland and Stoke, two sides who showed little to no ambition to attack is nothing to write home about, while keeping another against a toothless Liverpool side is hardly surprising either.
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It’s become something of a concerted PR effort on behalf of the club to praise Bould of late. Do they look more organised this season than last? They sure do. Are they still defensively sound? The goals that they leaked against Chelsea show they most definitely are not. Just as the praise sent Bould’s way at the start of the season was hugely over the top, equally, he isn’t now rubbish at his job just after one poor defensive performance.
Arsenal still look far from the finished package; while Cazorla and Podolski have adjusted well and Oxlade-Chamberlain, Arteta and Meresacker have all impressed at times, they still look a way off the two Manchester clubs and Chelsea in terms of a title challenge this season. A top four place should still be their ambition and Wenger has shown in the past that he’s fantastic at achieving that level of consistency, but the fawning praise of what is still quite an inconsistent start, simply because it’s better than last year’s, lacks any sort of context and talk of a title tilt is still a long way away in the future.
David Moyes admits he is needing to become more creative in order to find ways to keep his Everton side winning games this season.
The Everton boss tinkered with his line-up for Saturday’s game with Chelsea, as he moved Steven Pienaar into a central position behind Croatian striker Nikica Jelavic.
South Africa international Pienaar is usually deployed on the Toffees’ left-wing, where he has formed a formidable understanding with left-back Leighton Baines. But in the absence of the suspended Marouane Fellaini, Moyes felt it necessary to change things up somewhat.
The change looked like paying off against Chelsea after Pienaar, playing in a more advanced role, scored in only the second minute, and Moyes has emphasized the importance of having several players capable of getting on the scoresheet.
“I don’t think his biggest thing is scoring goals but we’ve needed to get some goals from different places and he’s managed to get some in recent games which have been important for us,” Moyes told The Daily Mail.
“I don’t want it to become predictable about Pienaar and Baines down the left and I felt it was right we changed it and I think he can do a job for us there.
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“We will look to change it around when we can but we know we have a good thing going with what Baines and Pienaar do so we have to make sure teams don’t clamp onto it too often and we can cause them problems in other ways.”
Daniel Levy’s diligence in the transfer market is to be admired. His bravery too. £85million isn’t a license to be reckless; it’s not a bottomless pit, and much of the same hard work will be needed. But the income raised from the potential sale of Gareth Bale could be used to accelerate the club’s targets and bring renewed hope after what was, in fairness, a good season clouded with disappointment.
Would it sit well with Spurs if they knew clubs like AC Milan were in a similar boat? The Italian giants are not so powerful anymore, having to take a new approach to building through youth. The question for them is whether to sell Stephan El Shaarawy to help further fund the new era at the San Siro.
I’ve been over this before: Tottenham simply can’t afford to turn down a bid of £85 million. It may never come around again. It’s the closest thing the club have to winning the lottery (in a way) without actually landing an oil-rich billionaire. Wouldn’t Tottenham want to talk up their credentials as a club big enough to attract some very reputable stars? This Gareth Bale episode, like so many in the past, raises that old cliché of players never being bigger than a club. It can be difficult to make sense of at the time with heartbreak and emotion taking over. But for the most part, clubs don’t crumble after one sale – especially a club as well run as Tottenham.
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On many levels it makes sense to sell. The club are looking at plans for a new stadium, and local rivals Arsenal are evidence that spending can be hampered by the move to a new home. Spurs have a set of ideals in the market. They’ve made some mistakes, of course; in hindsight who would have permanently signed Emmanuel Adebayor? But there is so much that can be done with £85 million if the club know where to look.
The first port of call is to bring in a couple of new strikers, one of which needs to be something of a marquee name. I don’t think the idea that clubs will try to take advantage of Tottenham’s potential spending power is a universal one. Spanish clubs, for example, have little room to mess about in haggling, especially if very few selling options are open to them.
Roberto Soldado has a good chance this summer to put his name in the shop window with Spain at the Confederations Cup. Tottenham, despite not holding the golden ticket of Champions League football themselves, will be able to use that in their negotiations with the player, citing Valencia’s drop out of the top four – a position they held for three consecutive years. Soldado missed out narrowly in claiming the accolade as the top Spanish goal scorer in La Liga, missing out to Alvaro Negredo on the final day of the season after the Sevilla forward scored four.
But it’s not enough. Both Jermaine Defoe and Adebayor are likely to be on their way out of White Hart Lane this summer. Tottenham also want Christian Benteke, however Aston Villa will do all they can to counter the advances of stronger-placed clubs.
The thing is, Benteke is good but he’s not one in a million. Spurs are capable, both via backroom staff and Andre Villas, of unearthing a gem similar to that of the Belgian. I’m not just talking about a player of similar style, but rather the premise of picking up a bargain name who is capable of scoring in the Premier League. Looking abroad is most definitely an option. Yet looking closer to home may bring some rewards. How much of a future does Romelu Lukaku have at Chelsea now that Jose Mourinho has arrived – as well as Andre Schurrle and most likely another forward? It’s an option that Spurs can look to exploit.
Equally important is the club’s need for another addition to the midfield. Joao Moutinho wasn’t just a big name who could have comfortably replaced Luka Modric last season; he was also a prototype for what Villas-Boas needed in a creative or attacking midfielder. Tottenham, and the rest of Europe, have been beaten by the new money of Monaco. But like the case with the forwards, there are plenty of options available, even to a club without the draw of Champions League football.
Does it need to be a big name? If so and provided Borussia Dortmund can be beaten to the punch, Christian Eriksen would be a fine addition to the midfield. Is it about production and the desire for attractive football; can Mousa Dembele revert to the central midfield role permanently? Hiroshi Kiyotaki is doing very good things in the Bundesliga, while Borja Valero at Fiorentina is a far, far better player than his last stint in the Premier League with West Brom would suggest. Moreover, Erik Lamela, following his excellent season with Roma, would prove to be a good addition to the left side of attack.
Do Spurs need to splash the whole £85 million in one go? Far from it. This team, light a few quality names, were almost able to finish fourth last season. The new signings should help to bridge that gap. As for the rest of the cash: bank it. Save it for a rainy day, or better yet when another bargain or star name becomes available.
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How could AVB best spend the potential transfer income this summer?
Several Championship clubs are reportedly interested in signing Southampton defender, Dan Seaborne on loan. Sky Sports reports.
Seaborne has made only two appearances this season in the Capital One Cup, and Nigel Adkins is considering allowing the centre-back to leave on a temporary basis to find regular first-team football.
He moved to Southampton in January 2010, after starting his career at Exeter City, captaining the side which beat Cambridge United in the 2008 Conference play-off final, before winning promotion again the following season.
The 25-year-old has just come back after 10 months out, suffering from severe head injuries following his assault outside a Southampton nightclub back in September last year.
Nottingham Forest and Millwall are believed to have made enquiries about the defender.
This follows reports that Danny Butterfield could also leave St Mary’s on a temporary basis, with Nathaniel Clyne appearing to be the first-choice full-back at the club.
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Birmingham City and Sheffield Wednesday are said to be keen on a deal.
In 16 years of owning Hartlepool United, on-the-pitch matters have never been more important than this for owners IOR.
In the wake of Neale Cooper’s sad resignation last week, IOR, and especially chairman Ken Hodcroft, must act decisively and make the correct appointment to replace the likable Scot. By that it has be a manager who can shake the current crop of players up, rid the squad of the bad eggs and have no previous links with HUFC.
IOR have done wonders for the football club on a whole, than can never, ever, ever (I could repeat that lexis to my heart’s content) never be underestimated and forgotten. Without IOR, we would no longer be a Football League club. We would be where our neighbours Darlington are, as the familiar adage goes now.
IOR came in 1997 with an ambition: to resurrect a flailing football club and to get them moving. Mission complete. Even when the club returned to the basement tier in 2006, IOR were undeterred. In came in Danny Wilson, a shrewd appointment indeed. Wilson knows his football, he knows the lower-leagues, he knows how to set teams up, he knows good players and he can man-manage. IOR, one presumes, stretched their purse strings to bring Wilson in. They must do the same again if they are to prove they are still owning this football club not just for business purposes.
Why the discontent in my words? Because for five and a bit seasons HUFC have just rode the tide of League One. Twice they have arrested their slide towards the League One trapdoor on the last day of the season, and three times they have bobbled along mediocrity like a bhoy in the ocean: causing no damage whatsoever to the big boys of the league but remaining pesent and one to negotiate around. This time rounds it’s entirely different: Pools are rock bottom of the league, cut adrift of safety and in serious danger of sinking back into League Two. The sinking ship needs rescuing. Quickly.
For that to happen IOR have to respond quickly. They were right to describe their acceptance of Cooper’s resignation as “reluctant” for although he cannot be immune to criticism (three poor summer signings, odd subs and selections), there are far greater worries at the club. But, as always in football, it is the manager who pays for it and takes the flack.
The current squad is not good enough for League One football, that being shown by the fact they have forced three mangers out of the door in 24 months due to there ineptitude. There also seems to be a contingent of that club who are happy to plod along and from the outside looking in with an intriguing eye, there is no coaching system in place. It’s either route-one and back to the opposition with any pressure to regain possession or pass the ball along the defence with the intention of playing from the back. Except with a flat back line and passing the ball across your 18-yard box, the intention, seemingly, is to invite the opposition on to score; that is poor coaching. The team needs to be coached by an experienced coach. Micky Barron and (Sir) Ritchie Humphreys are great club servants, together amassing more than 900 games for the club but persisting with the duo as the club’s only coaches is not going to reap rewards. They need back up.
This really is a crucial time in IOR’s tenure at Victoria Park. Unless they act correctly in bringing in a manager who knows League One football, can operate on a small, restrictive budget, can enable the players to start grinding out wins, HUFC will not be playing third-tier football for a while long yet.
Instead of placing all their eggs in one basket on the ground sale (which is essential for the club to move forward), Hodcroft must spread his basket far wider than the stubborn council and invest in the team or else the consequences could be dire. Time to mirror the desire you showed so eloquently in the late 1990s and pre-2007, IOR.
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West Ham entertain West Bromwich Albion at Upton Park in this afternoon’s early Premier League kick-off. Sam Allardyce has made two changes from his Hammers side that lost 3-1 to league leaders Arsenal on Boxing Day. Jussi Jaaskelainen returns between the sticks with understudy Adrian returning to the bench, and Razvan Rat comes in for James Collins, suggesting a reshuffle at the back.
Meanwhile, manager-less West Brom make six changes from the starting XI that claimed a draw against Tottenham on the 26th. Gareth McCauley, Billy Jones, Chris Brunt, Youssouf Mulumbu, Nicolas Anelka and Saido Berahino all return.
Tottenham have reached advanced stages in talks with Southampton boss Mauricio Pochettino to become their next manager, with reports that his appointment could be made official within the next 48 hours.
But is he the right man to deliver Spurs’ ultimate ambition of Champions League football, or is he yet another Daniel Levy appointment that will inevitably fail to live up to expectations?
No doubt, the Argentine has had a significant impact on the Premier League since his controversial appointment at St. Mary’s back in January 2013. Under his leadership, the Saints have been transformed from relegation battlers into Europa League contenders, all the while championing a high-octane, modern brand of football that would certainly impress the punters at White Hart Lane.
Yet, in my opinion, the ultimate test of the next Tottenham boss will be staying power; Daniel Levy has burned through eight permanent managers since becoming Lilywhites chairman thirteen years ago, including two this season alone. Many of his appointments and sackings have blurred the line between cut-throat and knee-jerk, and although Pochettino’s track record with Southampton is impressive, it remains to be seen whether it will be enough to prevent Levy getting cold feet as soon as results take a downward turn.
After all, although the Argentine will be charged with the task of administering Tottenham’s qualification into the Champions League, the chances of it happening next season remain relatively slim. Manchester City and Chelsea are all-but guaranteed top four finishes next season, Liverpool are a club only moving forward, Arsenal will spend lavishly this summer in the wake of their record-breaking sponsorship deal with Puma and Manchester United will be determined to make up for lost time as they welcome trophy-laden Netherlands coach Louis van Gaal.
It’s no secret that Tottenham’s strongest finishes in the Premier League era have come under Levy’s two longest-serving managers, Martin Jol and Harry Redknapp. But with £110million’s worth of investment from summer 2013 still on the line, if Pochettino can’t provide instant success at White Hart Lane, it won’t be long before his new employer is hit by yet another case of second thoughts.
Mainly because, although Pochettino’s role in Southampton’s sudden rise should not be overlooked – their 56 points this season is the Saints’ highest ever in the Premier League, and the 42 year-old boasts the third-best win percentage, 38.4%, of any St. Mary’s boss in the modern incarnation of the top flight – it’s not as if it’s been a particularly challenging tenure.
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Nigel Adkins had already laid down the foundations for success and Southampton are one of the best-run clubs in the country. He’s brought out the best in the Premier League’s healthiest and youngest home-grown contingent, but who is to say another manager wouldn’t have with paralleled ease under the same, rather fortunate circumstances?
Then again, as the Telegraph speculates, perhaps that is the crux of the attraction from Levy’s point of view. Tottenham’s squad is bursting with youthful players struggling to hit their full potential, ranging from Kyle Walker to Erik Lamela, and much like the Saints, who are expected to lose several key players this summer after a season of unprecedented success, the Lane outfit are still a selling club at this moment in time.
Pochettino has shown a knack for adding significant value to youthful acquisitions over a short period without getting too involved in the business side of things – a perfect fit for Levy’s transfer model.
But will that in combination with Pochettino’s leadership bring the Lilywhites any closer to Champions League football? As a manager whose biggest job to date remains his 18 month stay on the south coast, I certainly have my doubts. David Moyes earned a decade’s worth of plaudits at Everton, but couldn’t last a full season at Manchester United. Likewise, Pochettino is yet to claim silverware as a coach and thus far has absolutely no experience in Europe.
Whilst Rafa Benitez and Frank de Boer – the other leading candidates for the Spurs gig – are well aware of continental football’s requisites and in the former’s case, that of the Premier League’s top four, the Argentine will be working on educated guess-work.
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Pochettino is clearly an intelligent man. Any manager who acts like he doesn’t understand a hint of English in public whilst getting the best out of an almost completely home-grown squad can rightly be considered a bright spark.
But more coveted and proven managers have failed to survive Daniel Levy’s impatience before – my prevailing concern is that, should Pochettino not get off to a flying start at White Hart Lane, the chairman will quickly wonder whether he’s wrongly bought into a managerial fad.
Securing Champions League football at Tottenham will be the biggest challenge of the Argentine’s coaching career, but in my opinion, it remains unlikely that Levy will allow him the time and tolerance to achieve it.