Newcastle fans are missing Aleksandar Mitrovic this morning after the 23 year-old scored both goals in Serbia’s 2-0 friendly win over Nigeria.
There’s more than a few reasons why Newcastle fans would feel infuriated by their club, but the loaning out of Aleksandar Mitrovic has to be one of the more peculiar moves in the club’s recent history.
In a season where the Magpies are struggling to score goals, Mitrovic was sent to Fulham on loan in January, and has now scored nine times in his last 12 games for club and country.
The move has completely split fans. There are those who think loaning the 23 year-old was a dreadful mistake, there are fans who think it was a win for all parties, and there are even some who want the Serbian sold.
Of course, if Newcastle stay up and Mitrovic comes back to the club in red hot form, it can only mean good things for both player and club.
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Still, plenty of fans are annoyed about the decision to loan Mitrovic out, after he scored two lovely goals in Serbia’s win on Tuesday.
Some of the best Twitter reactions can be found below…
Steven Gerrard’s end of season Liverpool exit may be the result of a behind the scene’s power struggle at Anfield, according to former Wimbledon ace Marcus Gayle.
The Reds skipper announced last week that he will be signing for LA Galaxy at the end of the current campaign, where he’s likely to end his glittering career, after opting against penning a fresh contract on Merseyside.
Gerrard’s Merseyside deal is up in just under six months’ time, and the club’s decision to stall on extending his stay beyond 2015 is understood to have been a major factor in the 34-year-old’s impending exit.
WANT MORE? >> Liverpool transfer news | Latest transfer news
And Gayle believes the whole saga may have something to do with a struggle for power off the pitch between the skipper and manager Brendan Rodgers:
“There must be something behind the scenes that has triggered the departure of Steven Gerrard, I am sure of that, because it doesn’t make much sense.” He told Zapsportz.com.
“It is only six months ago that he quit as England captain, retired as an England player, all in order to prolong his Liverpool career.
“Everyone at Anfield applauded that decision; that he put his club before his country, a tough decision for Stevie G. Yet here we are soon after that decision and he has been eased out of the club.
“Many people think that Stevie G might be managerial material, or at least be part of a managerial set up, and that might have happened sooner rather than later if the current manager was replaced in the summer.
“I am not saying this is all down to Brendan Rodgers, but there must be some underlying issues that have yet to emerge.
“There is more to it than we have been told, there is something missing. Because this player is not just a Liverpool legend, he is an England legend, not just an inspiration to his club but has been an inspiration to his country.
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“It doesn’t make sense to allow such a big influence to leave Liverpool, and I can see him back at Anfield before too long.”
Gerrard is set to join LA Galaxy half way through the MLS season, where he will be one of the reigning champions’ Designated Players, alongside former Anfield team-mate, Robbie Keane.
This season has been interesting to say the least.
Currently on the lookout for our 3rd manager of the season, having not sacked anyone, it would be fair to question what exactly is going on at Bloomfield Road. On the pitch, we went from absolutely sublime to utterly terrible in the first two months, and have since been stagnating somewhere in the middle. We have also seen a surface go from football pitch to quagmire and now fans, probably rightly so, are starting to get more than a little irritated.
As an outsider looking in, I’m not sure what you’d think of Blackpool at the minute. Having inexplicably lost Ian Holloway to Crystal Palace, Michael Appleton lasted only 10 weeks in the hot-seat before deciding he would rather ply his trade down the road, at the farcically managed Blackburn Rovers. Not surprisingly, Appleton’s time in charge was actually the shortest tenure of any Blackpool manager.
Since then, we lost at Charlton after a pretty dismal performance and then went out of the FA cup after losing to Fulham in extra time. We were hours away from appointing a manager before Sean O’Driscoll decided he would rather manage bottom of the league Bristol City than have a stint with Blackpool.
And now, well, who knows. We are talking to a lot of managers trying to find the right guy. Probably feeling a little vulnerable after choosing Appleton, who decided to walk out, the board are taking longer to weigh up the options and appoint a manager. However, every time we ask for permission to talk to anyone, Sky Sports say that he is going to be named out next manager and messageboards go into meltdown, writing him off before he has even picked up the phone to speak to us.
So yes, things are confusing and frustrating at the minute, but what we need to remember is that this sort of stuff can happen. It’s football, and we all know how detached from reality football is. Stuff happens, we move on and then more stuff happens. That’s football.
Most sane fans know that despite our varied shortcomings, we do things the right way at Blackpool when it comes to transfers. Same goes with managers. We try out best not to disclose information before a deal is done, we ask permission to speak to players and managers, and we pay what we consider to be what they are worth.
Unfortunately, virtually every other club doesn’t. Almost all of them will contact a player without speaking to his club, or chat to a manager before they have spoken to his chairman. Other clubs or players agents are so willing to give out information that we end up with a million “Sky Sources” stories linking every player west of Australia to Blackpool. And when it comes to money, clubs are far too willing to cave in and pay the player and agent whatever they want.
The thing with football fans is that they just want everything, and want it now. Yet, they spend countless hours down the pub moaning about how much it costs to watch football, how much players earn and how certain players aren’t worth their transfer fee. Well I’m sorry but, in my opinion, you can’t stand there and complain that football players are overpaid, and then in the next sentence say we should have offered a guy more money and he wouldn’t have gone elsewhere.
Who is in the wrong here? Is it Blackpool, and by that I mean Karl Oyston, or is it other clubs? Should we move with the modern game and start spending more money, or should we stick to our principals and not get dragged into the overspending that is so criticised nowadays? To be honest, I don’t know. I can see merit in doing both. I’m quite happy knowing that our players don’t earn ridiculous amounts of money and that they remain quite grounded. I take great pleasure in watching players turn us down to take more money elsewhere and then end up playing League 1 or 2 football. On the other hand, it is a shame when our players aren’t rewarded properly, like the team that gained promotion to the Premier League. And it would be nice to sign a player I’ve heard of who is in form and at a good stage in his career. Like I said, I’m not sure which way is the right way, but I don’t mind either.
I’d love football to be more like what we see at Blackpool, where players are paid reasonable wages (extortionate compared to the real-world) and then get performance related bonuses. I’d love to see transfer fees stay mainly in single figured millions, certainly for the majority of players. Is Daniel Sturridge worth £15 million? Of course not. I’m sure we would all like the game to be more rational, but it isn’t. Does that mean it is right?
What can’t be defended here is the lack of investment in the playing surface. Where transfer fees come down to greed, and I’m more than happy to tell players to shove it, but when it comes to the pitch, it is something which should always have investment. I don’t have a craving for a new training ground, or new seats in the ground, or a new stand, but the very basic thing that the players and staff need is a decent pitch. When you’re a kid all you needed was 4 jumpers, a ball and some grass. We have posts, we have footballs, but we have no grass.
Unfortunately, I don’t think it can be fixed this season. Relaying the pitch now would probably mean we have to have a new pitch every game. Nothing will be able to bed-in during this weather. Nonetheless, if it comes to the summer and there has been no investment in the pitch, I will happily jump on the moaning, groaning bandwagon.
My point, in all this ranting, is that I know there are lots of things wrong about our club, but there are lots of things right about it and at the end of it all, it is my club. I don’t mean it should be in my control, I mean this is the club I support.
And that is where a difference lies. Some people, the ‘fans’, believe this is their club and their opinion should carry a lot of weight. If they don’t like a manager, they should be able to get him sacked. When things start to go wrong, on or off the pitch, they boo and protest and eventually, stop turning up.
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‘Supporters’ on the other hand, support the club and the team. They discuss what is going on, get irate about it, argue about it and even shout about it, but when saturday comes, they will still be there. Supporters realise that even if a player or manager or owner is doing something wrong, they won’t be here forever, unlike them.
I think the best way to put it is that I am a football fan and a Blackpool supporter. I just hope there are more like me and that people can get past the politics of it all and remember why they started watching. Nobody ever came to a game based on the infrastructure and financial standing of a club and its owner, so why should that be a reason to stop going?
Let’s see how things turn out, enjoy the ride and support our club.
There is a common misconception that Sean Dyche’s greatest gift as a manager is his ability to implement a system that allows his players to perform beyond their means.
This Burnley side isn’t constructed of substandard players performing to a level that could clinch them Europa League football; Dyche has improved practically every single player he’s brought to Turf Moor, and teaching them how to play as a cohesive unit of correlating elements has been just a part of that.
Yet, there is no question that Burnley’s old-fashioned principles of relentless organisation and body-on-the-line defending does allow certain players to flatter to deceive at times, particularly the defenders. Compare the role of a Clarets centre-back to one at Arsenal, for example.
The former will usually only need to defend his own penalty box, perhaps the line bordering his final third; the latter will be expected to defend at the halfway line whenever his side are in possession and then make up the ground towards their own goal, before producing some kind of last-ditch challenge, should the opposition break through on the counter.
They’re two incredibly different brands of defending, and while one is all about the routine consistency of clearing crosses, intercepting passes and blocking shots, the other is about the focus to still fulfil those duties to the same standard during the fewer occasions they’re required while also trying to prevent them from happening in the first place, by winning the ball higher up the pitch and keeping the team in possession. In short, replacing Shkodran Mustafi with Ben Mee won’t suddenly improve Arsenal’s modest defensive record.
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Perhaps the most obvious example of that is Michael Keane. Last season, the 25-year-old looked arguably England’s most capable out-and-out defender such was his incredible form for Burnley. Two-thirds of a season on from a big-money move to Everton though, the man who replaced him in the Clarets’ starting XI, James Tarkowski, is now rather ironically replacing him within the Three Lions fold as well.
It would be wrong to claim Keane’s been ‘found out’ at Goodison – there have been mitigating factors, chiefly injuries and managerial turmoil – behind an underwhelming debut season, but he certainly hasn’t assailed parallel heights to his final term at Burnley and has rarely looked like providing the steely, Dychian influence in defence Everton have so desperately lacked throughout 2017/18.
It’s been a tough learning curve for a centre-back who is no longer protected by a deep-sitting midfield four in front and tall full-backs tucked in either side of him. Even with Allardyce at the helm, Everton are a far more open side – especially when Seamus Coleman and Leighton Baines are overlapping down the flanks.
Tarkowski though, is of a slightly different breed. Whereas Keane has always been a rugged centre-back of the traditional English mould that accordingly fitted perfectly into Dyche’s system, Tarkowski by his own admission was considered a ball-playing centre-half in his younger years, particularly at Brentford where an expansive game-plan obliged him to play out of the back and take risks in possession.
Dyche has revolutionised his game at Turf Moor, but the key variation from Keane is that the 25-year-old understands the fundamentals of a different way of defending, albeit practised only at Football League level.
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While that has seen Keane’s career stutter upon joining a team with more open defensive dynamics, Tarkowski’s ball-playing spell at Brentford could well allow him a much easier transition.
But the first key litmus test of that, ahead of a summer transfer window in which there will almost certainly be some interest in his services, comes during England’s coming friendlies with the Netherlands and Italy, with the 6 foot 3 defender likely to start at least one of those games.
“Before I joined Burnley no-one ever said I was an ‘old fashioned English defender’. I was more a ball-playing centre-half. Playing out from the back in a Brentford team that was expansive, open, took a lot of chances. When I went to Burnley it flipped on its head.
“We take a lot less chances but do the basics right. I’ve found that has really brought my game on, keeping it quite simple at times but doing the defending – the most important stuff – right.”
Southgate’s masterplan for this England side seemingly centres around three at the back, utilising the growing breed of modern defender who can step into midfield and carry the ball forward. John Stones and Harry Maguire are the leading contenders for starting roles at the World Cup for that reason, but the third slot remains unclear and will be up to Tarkowski to make his own.
Conquering that challenge though, will require at least one impressive performance in a different setup to the four-man defensive line Dyche has stuck to religiously during his Burnley tenure, with a much greater demand on the centre-backs to contribute in possession.
Keane has looked steady in a back three for England at times too, playing on the left in a 1-0 defeat to Germany and in the centre in a win over Lithuania, yet not exactly commanding or effortlessly comfortable either. If Tarkowski can reach those levels against Italy or the Netherlands, it will provide a key endorsement of his adaptability, which is the ultimate quality the Premier League’s top clubs must question when they consider recruiting from this particularly idiosyncratic Burnley side.
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In terms of who Tarkowski may interest, Manchester United are perhaps the most noteworthy candidates. Many were surprised when Jose Mourinho didn’t bring Keane back to Old Trafford last summer, and the Red Devils look set for a defensive shakeup this time around with Phil Jones and Chris Smalling struggling for significant periods of the season.
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Man United have loosely resembled Burnley at times this season, during their many attritional performances against key rivals, but Mourinho needs a centre-back who can defend high up the pitch and offer quality on the ball as well.
Chelsea too, have reason to swoop for Tarkwoski. Gary Cahill and David Luiz’s time at the club appears to be coming to an end, and Chelsea are in desperate need of more English players if not for the sake of Premier League quotas alone.
Their use of 3-4-3 requires healthy depth in the heart of defence and the Burnley ace – who Transfermarkt value at just £5.4million – could be a shrewd addition to the first team squad, even if he struggles to hold down a starting berth at first.
Before anything concrete comes from those clubs though, Tarkowski must show he can succeed where Keane has struggled by replicating his performances for Burnley in a team that doesn’t offer the same protection. These England friendlies are a vital chance to do that, not only securing a place in the World Cup but also at a top Premier League club next season.
Week in, week out, Sam Allardyce’s West Ham United just keep on defying the odds, and are seemingly going from strength to strength in the Barclays Premier League. Saturday’s 2-0 win over Leicester City, was the Hammers’ fourth win in five league games – with only two points dropped from a possible 15 in the process. The Upton Park faithful are enjoying every minute of what has been an incredible campaign so far, and it seems like the sky’s the limit for Big Sam’s team.
Before the season started, West Ham were predicted for another campaign of struggle and strife, with even Allardyce himself not too sure if he was still going to be the Hammers boss when the season kicked off against Tottenham Hotspur in mid-August. But after a very active summer, where the Hammers brought in the likes of Alex Song (on-loan from Barcelona), Carl Jenkinson (on-loan from Arsenal), Enner Valencia, Diafra Sakho, Mauro Zarate, Diego Poyet, Morgan Amalfitano, Aaron Cresswell and Cheikhou Kouyate – West Ham currently sit fourth in the Premier League table. Nobody, not even Big Sam could have envisioned how successful his new recruits were going to turn out to be. They have all gelled together extremely quickly and are a big part of why the Hammers are flying so high.
Despite the new signings having a major impact on West Ham’s recent success, the Hammers’ existing players have performed equally as impressively too. Sam Allardyce made the decision to play the natural winger Stewart Downing in a more central role. The move has turned out to be a stroke of genius, with the 30-year-old enjoying a new lease of life at Upton Park. Downing has gone on to score four times this season, including the second in West Ham’s 2-0 win over Leicester City on Saturday.
Andy Carroll has returned from injury to find himself in magnificent form. The 25-year-old has scored three times in his last three outings, and is looking more like the £15m player they signed from Liverpool last year. Spanish goalkeeper Adrian, is another player who has been a revelation this season. The 27-year-old stopper has been a Premier League ever-present for the Hammers this term – he’s made four clean sheets – and produced a number of outstanding saves.
Sam Allardyce seems to have the perfect blend of ability and experience. Everything seems to be fitting into place at Upton Park this season, and the Hammers are showing no signs of giving up their Champions League spot anytime soon. After the weekend’s results, the east London club sit two points above Southampton – who occupy 5th, and four points above Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur in 6th and 7th respectively.
The fact that we are even mentioning the Hammers and Champions League in the same sentence speaks volumes of their current success. The sign of a good team is the ability to bounce straight back after a defeat, and every time the Irons have suffered a loss this season, they have hit back with a positive result.
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Nobody can predict just how far West Ham can go this season, but after already winning nine times this term – including home victories over Liverpool and Manchester City, the level-headed Hammers fans are going to enjoy every single minute of it.
After seemingly turning a corner in the season with a few well earned victories, the last few games have made sure our feet have stayed firmly on the ground.
With every defeat comes that feeling of disappointment, and losing to Hull, despite being completely outplayed, was no exception. What was hardest to take was the blatantly obvious difference in class between the two teams. Hull don’t have the strongest team in the division, far from it, but they made us look like relegation fodder.
Understandably, this resulted in mass frustration with a section of the fan base calling for Warnock to step down. The argument here is that with the January transfer window about to open, should we really be letting him spend money when, as it stands, this will be the start of his last few months in the game.
It’s a fair point. The alternative is to get a new manager in on a longer contract and let him start building for next season, or a promotion push at worst. I’m sure if GFH-C decided to do this the majority would understand.
But is that fair to Warnock? This is the guy that stuck with us when we needed him most. Many would’ve walked away over the summer, especially after being promised money to spend only to see a deal worth £400,000 fall through due to a lack of funds.
Warnock’s style of play may not be as pleasing on the eye as some would like, but his hard working ethic has paid off on more than one occasion this season and you cant help but feel that if a few of the lower quality players can be replaced with others of a higher standard then things could change quickly.
It’s easy to look past the facts sometimes, especially in the aftermath of a defeat, but Warnock is a good manager with a good record and he knows what kind of player it takes to get out of this division. For the first time in his spell with us he’ll have the chance to bring in players that he really wants, players that could win us games against any team in the division. Of course, that doesn’t mean that his signings over the summer weren’t players that he wanted in, but you cant help but think that Luke Varney would be playing elsewhere right now had money been available for Craig Makail-Smith.
Regardless of what we all think, the buck stops with GFH-C now and they’re in control of what happens with Warnock, but considering they specifically requested that he stayed on when they took control, it doesn’t look like he’ll be going anywhere soon.
Whether that turns out to be a good or bad move, only time will tell, but with one of the most important transfer windows of our recent history about to open it makes no sense to turn on him now.
As we have done for years now we really need to ‘keep the faith’. If over the next few months we see no progression then it may well be time for Neil to step aside and let someone come in to build for the future, but the season is on a knife edge and a few quality players could make a massive difference, after all, we are only a few points off the playoffs.
2012 has been a year of change for Leeds, but we end it in a good position in the league, new owners who are ready to back the manager financially in the transfer window and a fan base that is slowly but surely reuniting.
It’s early, but I’m quietly confident that 2013 might just be our year.
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Aston Villa are flying high at the moment following their recent win over Championship leaders Wolverhampton Wanderers.The club were slight underdogs, even though they were on home soil at Villa Park.The fans had to witness Nuno Espirito Santo’s side overcome Leeds United at Elland Road 3-0 a few days prior.It is understandable if the supporters were not feeling too confident for the match, but the team did them proud.Steve Bruce’s side ran out 4-1 winners on home soil thanks to goals from Albert Adomah, James Chester, Lewis Grabban and Birkir Bjarnason.The club remain third in the Championship table, but are just four points adrift of second-placed Cardiff City with 10 games left to play.[ad_pod ]Robert Snodgrass has been a fan favourite ever since his move to Villa from West Ham United on loan.The winger joined the club in August and has gone on to start 30 of the club’s 36 Championship games, scoring seven goals and creating 12 assists.Spirits are clearly high in the camp as Snodgrass posted a video on social media of his teammates pulling a dressing-room prank.
Fabio Borini says that he wants to striker up a fruitful partnership with compatriot Mario Balotelli in Liverpool’s attack.
The Reds snapped up the former Manchester City ace over the summer in a £16m deal, while the man whom was Brendan Rodgers’ first signing at Anfield returned to the club after a season on loan at Sunderland.
Borini was expected to be shifted out following the addition of his fellow Italian, yet he opted to reject the Black Cats and QPR to fight for his future – even though rumours suggest he was told he’d be given little playing time.
WANT MORE? >> Liverpool transfer news | Latest transfer news
Daniel Sturridge’s injury woes over the course of the past month have afforded the 23-year-old some opportunities for game time, with a place alongside Balotelli in the loss at West Ham, arguably, his most notable chance to impress.
Although Borini failed to make a genuine impact, he is hopeful of lining up alongside ‘Super Mario’ regularly in the future:
“I have played with him (Balotelli) before and found it really well on the pitch.” He s quoted by the Daily Star.
“Not just because of the language but we were born with the same idea of football, as Italians, so it’s really easy to understand each other even without talking.
“He’s a player that can change the game whenever he wants. It’s a tough league, probably the toughest in Europe – and I think he understands that.
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“In the games, he runs a lot and is really giving himself to the team, being very unselfish.”
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Fulham and Tottenham target Dieumerci Mbokani has insisted that he is unlikely to leave Anderlecht in January, report talkSPORT.
The striker has been linked with the Premier League duo following a series of impressive displays in the Belgian league, in which he has netted 16 times already this season.
He will journey to the African Cup of Nations in the New Year, representing the DR Congo team, and believes that he’ll return to Anderlecht following the tournament, so long as a particularly tempting offer is not received:
“Unless an exceptional offer arrives in January, I will remain here until the end of the season.” He told Sporza.be.
“I am doing well at Anderlecht and I will leave soon for the African Cup of Nations.”
The 27-year-old joined his current club in 2011 from AS Monaco after an unsuccessful spell in France.
He cost a reported fee of just over £2m and cited playing alongside ex-Liverpool attacker Milan Jovanovic as a major reason behind his decision to return to Belgium.
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The 6ft. 1” forward has been widely praised for his combination of pace, power and technique and has been previously linked with a Premier League switch.
It’s unclear as to what fee he would command, but Anderlecht would likely look to make a healthy profit on their investment.
Arsenal have been linked with Sevilla and Argentina midfielder Éver Banega, with The Daily Star reporting that the Spanish side have already signed his replacement.
What’s the story?
With Sevilla confirming the signing of Roque Mesa from Swansea this week, rumours linking new Arsenal boss Unai Emery with Banega have become even more prominent.
The experienced Banega has played for a number of top European clubs including Atletico Madrid, Valencia and Inter Milan and has a release clause of £17.6m.
However, Arsenal are also in for CSKA Moscow’s playmaker Aleksandr Golovin, as cited by Metro, who is rated at €18m by Transfermarkt and their transfer budget may mean it is Golovin or Banega rather than both.
Who should Emery choose?
A more attacking player than Banega, Golovin has quick feet and likes to use his pace to run at defenders whereas Banega will generally sit deeper and attempt to pick out a defence-splitting pass.
Valued at €18m by Transfermarkt, Golovin scored five goals and created four assists in 27 league games for CSKA last season and can play out-wide when needed.
At just 22-years-old, the Russian youngster has been impressing at the World Cup this summer, with a goal and two assists so far from his side’s three group games.
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Banega is clearly a quality player but if Emery wants to build for the future at Arsenal then Golovin may be the better option. With his pace and trickery he could create problems for Premier League defenders and would offer something different to Mesut Ozil and Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
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