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There was a lot riding on the result of the North London Derby at the weekend. Alongside the usual battle for bragging rights was the far more important issue of the Premier league table. Tottenham’s win meant that they leapfrogged Arsenal in the table and finished the weekend just one place below the coveted 4th spot.

For many seasons, Tottenham have threatened to take Arsenal’s position as the most successful team in North London. For the past five Premier League campaings, Tottenham have finished within at least two places of Arsenal’s position, constantly threatening to overhaul the Gunners. Although there is still a lot of football left to be played this season, Spurs are really starting to take shape under Pochettino’s leadership – successfully replicating the high-pressing game that made the Argentine’s Southampton team so difficult to beat.

Spurs face a vital few weeks if they want to maintain their push for the Champions League. Europa League ties against Fiorentina as well as a League Cup final against Chelsea could shape the outcome of Tottenham’s season as Pochettino will want to continue the positivity growing within the squad. It will be interesting to see whether the Lilywhites can maintain their form as the business end of the season approaches.

Harry Kane and Christian Eriksen need to be kept fit if Tottenham are to fulfil their potential this season. Eriksen has won Spurs a number of points this season through strikes in the dying moments of games. As well as the Dane, Harry Kane has excelled since the manager has shown a lot of faith in him. Regular football has really paid off for the 21-year-old, who now has 23 goals in all competitions. Keeping Kane fit has to be one of the top priorities for Pochettino as the team has really evolved around Kane’s ability.

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The only worrying issue for the manager is the fact that Tottenham’s strength in depth is not great. Without Kane, Tottenham are left with a dejected Roberto Soldado and Emmanuel Adebayor, a player who the club were trying to offload in January. Like all success in football, Spurs will need a little bit of luck if they are to finish above Arsenal this season. Judging by the North London derby at the weekend, the players will be brimming with confidence and will feel like they have enough quality to make this season a one that Spurs fans will remember for a long time.

In terms of Arsenal, Wenger will be doing all he can to ensure that the Gunners not only finish above Tottenham but also qualify for the Champions League. Previous seasons suggest that Wenger will pull it out of the bag and lead Arsenal to another fourth-placed finish at least. However, the manner in which they respond from their loss to Tottenham will be absolutely vital. The win against Manchester City was a massive step in the right direction as Arsenal were absolutely superb that day. Nevertheless, the loss against Tottenham is something that has really halted their progress, nullifying the positive effect of the result against City.

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Wenger will be hoping that the derby result was simply a blip in what could be a strong finish to the season for Arsenal, who are still in the FA Cup and the Champions League. Their excellent goal difference is also a massive advantage considering how tight the top half of the league is at the moment. Arsenal fans may be anxious about the prospect of Tottenham finishing ahead of them this season but there is still a lot of football left to be played. It is going to be an intriguing battle to see what North London side comes out on top at the end of this campaign. One thing’s for sure, the result at the weekend will be leaving Tottenham fans elated and Arsenal supporters wondering whether this may be the year Spurs finally catch them.

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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.

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With Jack Wilshere’s contract situation at Arsenal still unresolved, the talented but injury-prone midfielder is considering his options ahead of next season.

The playmaker has been with the Gunners for his entire career but as it stands, he could leave the Emirates on a free transfer at the end of the season.

One club who had an interest in signing Wilshere in January – and who may return again in the summer, provided they are still a Premier League club – is West Ham United.

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Their central midfield options over no shortage of graft and while they do have players in Pedro Obiang and Cheikhou Kouyaté with an eye for goal, there is a lack of craft and guile.

Wilshere, when fit, offers the ability to dictate play from deep and control a game. However, one stumbling block could potentially be his wages.

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West Ham already have one injury prone star who flirts with the England squad but can’t stay fit – Andy Carroll – so they may be unwilling to commit to spending big on the wages of another.

Nevertheless, we’re asking you; would Wilshere – valued at £16.2m by Transfermarkt – be a good signing for the Hammers? Let us know by voting in the poll below…

What a difference a summer makes. Last season, Everton were amongst the Premier League’s most impressive entities, transforming their playing style from attritional to aesthetic overnight and majestically marching their way to fifth in the English table.

Resultantly, manager Roberto Martinez, the mastermind behind it all, was linked with some huge jobs, including Barcelona, Arsenal and Manchester United.

This year however, neither the Toffees nor their impressive boss are in particularly high demand. Following a 1-0 defeat to Manchester City at the weekend, the Goodison outfit are now in 12th place – seven positions worse than this time last season.

So where’s it all gone from for the Merseysiders? Our FIVE reasons should shed some light on the issue.

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The Full-backs

Standing still can often leave you dangerously exposed in the Premier League, but Everton’s philosophy and tactics haven’t really developed from last season.

Last term, full-backs Leighton Baines and Seamus Coleman were the Toffees’ most important players; the focal points of the starting Xi and amongst Everton’s most influential going forward:

It’s a similar case this year, as detailed below, and you can hardly blame Roberto Martinez – Baines and Coleman are well amongst Europe’s attacking full-back elite, let alone the Premier League’s.

Resultantly however, the pushed-up full-backs are becoming a rather dogmatic ploy for the Toffees. Centre-halves Slyvain Distin and Phil Jagielka are often left exposed on the counter-attack, whilst opposition are now setting up defensively with deliberate intention to limit Baines and Coleman’s influence as much as possible.

There needs to be more variation to Everton’s play and greater protection for the back four. They’ve become hugely dependent on Coleman and Baines over the last few months for goals, chances and fluidity to their play, and that’s made the Merseysiders dangerously predictable.

Injuries to John Stones and Ross Barkley

They may be amongst the youngest in the Everton squad, but Roberto Martinez clearly had huge plans for John Stones and Ross Barkley this season. Unfortunately however, both have endured considerable spells on the sidelines.

Stones started virtually every Premier League fixture for the Toffees at the start of the season, with his regular involvement even believed to have caused somewhat of a rift between Martinez and centre-back veteran Sylvain Distin, but the England international was stretchered off the an ankle injury against Manchester United in October and isn’t set to return until the New Year.

Not only is the 20 year-old a fantastic prospect but his style of play is vital to the Toffees. He compensates for Phil Jagielka’s limited pace and also brings the ball out of defence with magestic ease. Here’s a look at Stones’ stats this year compared to Everton’s other centre-back options.

Likewise, although Ross Barkley has recently returned from a two-month knee injury lay-off, he’s still yet to rekindle the form that saw him bag six Premier League goals last year, which are all veiwable below:

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Statistically, this is actually the midfielder’s strongest season for the Merseysiders:

But experimentation with his position, as detailed below, has limited the 21 year-old’s ability to affect matches – and particularly, the scoreline – in quite the same way:

EUROPA LEAGUE

Harry Redknapp described the Europa League as a ‘killer’ and a ‘nightmare’during his final season at Tottenham Hotspur – indeed, Europe’s second tier competition does have a way of chewing up and spitting out it’s participants, often destroying their domestic form.

Take a look at this infographic for example, produced by Whoscored.com last week, showing the league positions of Europa-League-involved clubs across Europe’s top five divisions:

Pretty grim reading unless you’re a Napoli or Wolfsburg fan, and the Toffees have particularly struggled to prioritiese between continental and domestic success.

They’re flying high in the tournament itself, currently undefeated in Group H despite facing some challenging opposition:

But Roberto Martinez isn’t blessed with the biggest squad, resulting in the likes of Leighton Baines, Phil Jagielka, Romelu Lukaku, Gareth Barry and Tim Howard already making 18 appearances or more this season, which has undoubtedly contributed to the Toffees’ continuous injury problems.

Likewise, neither Martinez nor Everton as a club are particularly experienced in European football, so it’s no surprise they’re struggling to cope with it’s added demands this year.

Investment in Barry and Lukaku

Everton found themselves in a rather unique situation this summer, in that they invested £32million – equalling 84% of their entire summer transfer budget – on players already at Roberto Martinez’ disposal last season.

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Indeed, Gareth Barry and Romelu Lukaku both emerged as integral performers for the Toffees last season, the former excelling in his anchor-man-come-third-centre-back transitional role, and the latter finishing up as the club’s top scorer in the Premier League with 15 goals – viewable below. Understandably, that convinced Roberto Martinez to purchase their services outright at considerable cost.

//www.youtube.com/embed/M5MmtvNaXjU

Statistically, both are yet to match the form of their loan spells – although that’s largely expected, considering the Toffees have only bagged four wins this season.

But the real issue is once again a question of progression – whilst the rest of the Premier League spent the summer improving their sides, or at least attempting to, the Goodison outfit spent £38million but have been left with virtually the same squad and starting XI as last season.

Age taking its toll?

They say age is just a number, but you have to wonder whether Everton’s squad age is linked to their league form this year. As shown below, the Toffees actually boast the third-highest average age in the Premier League:

That’s hardly surprising, considering Sylvain Distin, Phil Jagielka, Tom Howard, Gareth Barry and Samuel Eto’o – all of whom have started regularly this season – are all 32 years of age or older. The Frenchman for example, is an incredible 37.

Perhaps a speculative point but nonetheless one to consider; are Everton’s most dependable players, such as Barry and Jagielka, in addition to Steven Pienaar and Leon Osman, simply too far past their best?

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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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Leeds manager Paul Heckingbottom has heaped pressure on January signing Yosuke Ideguchi to force his way back into the Japan team.

Ideguchi signed at Elland Road in January with big expectations. The 21 year-old midfielder has gone through the youth teams for Japan, and drew lots of praise for his performances with J-League side Gamba Osaka.

The young midfielder hasn’t had a chance to make an impression at Leeds though, as he was immediately loaned out to Spanish side Cultural Leonesa on arrival.

He has now been dropped from the Japan team, after making just five appearances since moving to the Spanish second tier club. Leeds fans joked yesterday that the club had already ruined his career, but Heckingbottom said it’s up to the 21 year-old to force himself back into action.

“That’s down to the manager and the player,” said the manager in his press conference yesterday.

“The player has to perform well enough to get picked, it doesn’t matter where you are or what club you’re at, that has to be the case. You can force a manager to pick you through performance, through understanding and getting a clear idea of what the manager wants from you and going out and delivering.

“We’ve sent a player there and does he need game time? Yes, but it’s down to him. If that impacts on his international career then so be it but it’s no different to any other player.”

Ideguchi has struggled to adjust to life with his loan club and even told Marca he was struggling with the cold weather… in Spain.

The 21 year-old already has 11 senior appearances for his country and will be desperate to force his way back in before the World Cup.

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Leeds fans, what do you think of Heckingbottom’s comments? Let us know in the comments below…

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Manchester City’s new central defender Eliaquim Mangala was always going to be under monumental pressure when City forked out £32m to secure his services from FC Porto in August.

But after a well documented slow start at the Etihad, Mangala is just starting to show signs that he is adapting to the English game and that he could eventually live up to his star billing. City made Mangala the Premier League’s most expensive defender when he made the switch to Manchester in August. Manuel Pellegrini went on record in the summer saying he wanted a defender to come in and partner his captain Vincent Kompany in central defence. The fee undoubtedly came as a surprise to most, considering he’s only been capped a handful of times by France, and he didn’t feature in any of his countries World Cup games.

Nonetheless, the champions went ahead with the astronomical deal anyway, and the 23-year-old made his belated first appearance in a City shirt – in the 1-1 home draw with Chelsea in late September. Despite Mangala having a very solid debut for the Citizens, things went down hill pretty drastically in City’s following Premier League game at Hull. Goals from Edin Dzeko and Sergio Aguero put Pellegrini’s side 2-0 up after 11 minutes at the KC Stadium – only for Mangala to score an own-goal and then concede a soft penalty before halftime to allow Hull to draw level at the break. The defender’s blushes were spared though, as Edin Dzeko scored again and Frank Lampard added a fourth – for the champions to run out eventual 4-2 winners.

Mangala endured more heavy criticism following the 2-1 defeat to West Ham United and the 2-2 draw at QPR. He was then sent-off for two yellow cards in the 3-0 victory over Southampton – which all culminated in his career at the Etihad starting in pretty disastrous fashion. But a sign of a good player is to perform well under scrutiny, and to be fair to Mangala he has done exactly that since.

Despite being lucky not to see red with a high boot on Samuel Eto’o in City’s 1-0 win over Everton last week, Mangala showed his class in a near faultless and dominant display in the final Champions League group game against Roma on Wednesday. The Citizens, who only needed a draw to qualify for the knockout stages, won the game 2-0 – with Mangala putting in a stunning display next to Martin Demichelis in the heart of the City defence.

The City fans will be hoping they see more of the Mangala who performed so expertly well out in Italy – rather than the inconsistent one they have seen on occasions in the Premier League. There’s no doubt that the Frenchman has still got a lot more convincing and improving to do before he can become worthy of his astonishingly high price. Mangala is still in the process of getting used to the Premier League. Not only has he already seen red, he’s also picked up five yellow cards in his 13 league and cup appearances since joining the club.

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But the signs are there that Maybe Manchester City and Manuel Pellegrini could have well pulled off a worldie of a signing.

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.”

According to The Sun journalist Alan Nixon on his official Twitter account, Birmingham City are interested in bringing Swansea City defender Kyle Bartley back to St Andrew’s this summer, and some Blues fans have been quick to react to the rumour.

Nixon says that Championship sides West Bromwich Albion and Leeds United are both keen on the 6ft 4in tall centre-back, and that their Midlands rivals are also keen if they can raise the cash with Garry Monk having worked with him at Swansea and Leeds previously.

While the Brum boss clearly likes the 27-year-old, strengthening at the heart of the defence perhaps won’t be a priority should the money not be available for City, who had Bartley on loan during the 2013/14 campaign, considering they already have the likes of Marc Roberts, Harlee Dean and Michael Morrison in that position.

These Birmingham supporters, who are looking forward to seeing a 23-year-old star in action in a Blue shirt, took to social media to give their thoughts on the Bartley interest, and while one said he “was brilliant at Leeds the season before last”, another said “Bartley excellent at this level”.

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Here is just a selection of the Twitter reaction…

Manchester United picked up a vital victory over Liverpool at Old Trafford on Saturday, winning 2-1 in the English Premier League.

The three points mean the Red Devils have significantly strengthened their hold on second place in the league, moving five points clear of the Reds.

Marcus Rashford was the hero of the win, scoring two superb first half goals in his first league start of 2018.

While he’ll grab the headlines and fans were certainly impressed, it was another player that had supporters hugely excited – midfielder Scott McTominay.

The 21-year-old bounced back from a less than stellar performance against Crystal Palace to help take control of the midfield at Old Trafford up against more established talents like Emre Can and James Milner.

Making six starts since the start of February, he’s emerged as a clear favourite of Jose Mourinho, whose trust in him for such a big encounter against Liverpool paid off.

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Fans are massively optimistic about his future and took to Twitter to share their thoughts…

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