After Wednesday’s disappointing defeat from a young England side to a very tasty looking France outfit at Wembley, we finally got to see messrs Andy Carroll and Jordan Henderson in an England shirt for the senior team as well as catching another glimpse of Kieran Gibbs. The results were mixed with Carroll delivering a decent performance forced to feed off scraps, Gibbs looking comfortable despite his lack of match practice and Henderson looking a little lost in an unfamiliar holding role. With these three and of course Jack Wilshere sure to be playing for the national team for years to come, just what other youngsters are knocking on the door of the squad? Here’s a list of 10 for your perusal.
Some of these English youngsters are likely to be the mainstay of England’s squad at their home World Cup should their bid to host the 2018 World Cup be successful, but which ones will make the grade?
Click on the Back the Bid poster below to see the 10 English youngsters with bright futures:
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Roberto Mancini will offload up to eight of his current squad this summer in a bid to bring new faces to the Etihad Stadium, according to Mirror Football.
The Citizens are on the verge of lifting the Premier League title, and just need a win over QPR on Sunday to lift their first top-flight crown since 1968.
However, with the likes of Eden Hazard, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Robin van Persie in the big-spending club’s crosshairs, Mancini may be forced to sell to abide by Financial Fair Play regulations.
Some of the biggest departures will be out-of-form striker Edin Dzeko, reserve midfielder Nigel De Jong and temperamental winger Adam Johnson.
The newspaper indicate that defensive duo Kolo Youre and Stefan Savic may well also leave the club, whilst there is uncertainty over Aleksandar Kolarov’s future.
Added to this are three players out on loan who will be sold permanently – Emmanuel Adebayor, Roque Santa Cruz and Wayne Bridge.
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Struggling Major League Soccer clubs Chicago Fire and Vancouver Whitecaps both sacked their coaches on Monday.Carlos de los Cobos has been shown the door in Chicago after leading the Fire to an overall 1-4-6 record this season.
The Fire, who have gone winless in their past nine matches, sit second-bottom in the Eastern Conference with nine points from 11 games.
Meanwhile, Teitur Thordarson has paid the price for Vancouver’s poor start to life in the MLS, sacked at the rookie club following a winless streak dating back to their first-ever match in the top-flight.
The Whitecaps have not won since announcing their arrival in the MLS with a 4-2 defeat of Toronto FC in March.
They prop up the Western Conference table with nine points from 12 matches.
Director of Soccer Operations Tom Soehn will take over in Vancouver on an interim basis, while technical director and former Fire player Frank Klopas has been handed the reins in Chicago.
1. Gareth Bale can tear a European Cup winning defence to pieces – The outstanding performer of the night and across both ties, it is difficult to look past the young Welshman. To have completely dominated Maicon, a right back widely regarded as the best in the world – albeit predominantly for his attacking prowess as opposes to his defensive capabilities – so completely demonstrated a truly world class performance from a player announcing himself on the world stage. He continued from where he left of in the San Siro, where this victory really began with such a spirited comeback driven by Bale. Confident in the knowledge that he had the pace to beat the slow and ageing Inter defence. The highlight coming in the 89th minute when he received the ball deep in his own half. He showed tremendous turn of pace with a kick and chase past Nwankwo, giving him a taste of what Maicon had experienced all night. Then to have the ability and composure to roll the ball into the path of the oncoming Pavlyuchenko was from the top draw. A run that demonstrated his stamina, confidence and commitment as well as skill in the dying moments of the game.
2. Younes Kaboul is developing into an assured centre back – At the other end of the pitch there was no repeat of the disastrous start made in the corresponding fixture two weeks ago. Far from being torn apart by a free-flowing Inter attack, the visitors were reduced to few clear cut chances. The defence as a whole put in a greatly improved performance with notable support given by Huddlestone and Modric, who again was involved in the early stages of the majority of Tottenham attacks. But the standout player for me across the backline was Kaboul who played like the mature centre back alongside his vastly more experienced partner William Gallas. It was a performance that signalled the vast improvement made by a player, who has come a long way since he was shipped out the back door of Spurs to Portsmouth in the summer of 2008. I was initially sceptical of Kaboul’s ability as a football player, seeing a powerful quick athlete, who seemed to lack a football brain during his first spell at Tottenham. However during his spell at Portsmouth and second spell with Spurs he has shown himself as a decent young defender, capable of winning the ball and bringing it out of defence to start attacks. This enable players like Modric and Huddlestone more freedom to move forward whilst Spurs are in possession at the back.
3. It is possible to play successfully without an out and out midfield enforcer – The central midfield of Tottenham consisting of Modric, Huddlestone and VDV, consisted of three technically gifted football players who are all confident and capable of passing the ball across the field to switch the point of attack along with excellent touch. However none of these players are renowned for their tackling ability or protecting the back four, which is seen as a necessary player by many in the modern game. Both Modric and Huddlestone worked hard to track back and cover the field, and without a player like Palacios were able with the defence to prevent an extremely talented Inter attack from penetrating the Spurs backline.
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Continued on Page TWO
4. Spurs can raise their game for big European ties – It seems almost a simple observation but after convincingly beating the European Champions, there is obviously sufficient talent there to mix with the cream of the Premiership and Europe. However domestically the consistency is not there. Lacklustre defeats against Wigan and West Ham, both relegation candidates, show signs of a team that are inconsistent and unable to produce to this standard with sufficient regularity. The defeat to Manchester United at the weekend continued a bleak run of 17 years without a win at the so called “big 4”. This is a problem that needs to be addressed as it has formed a tremendous mental challenge to the players going to places where they have such atrocious records makes the game that much harder and defeat at Old Trafford was almost inevitable.
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5. Benitez had no answers to Bale’s attacking presence – Finally a note on the opposition. Despite being given a demonstration of what Bale can do to Maicon when given the opportunity in the second half at the San Siro. Benitez did not address this sufficiently either before kick or at any point during the game. Two weeks ago Everton were able to sufficiently nullify the threat from Bale through Phil Neville and Johnny Heitinga. This was done by reducing the space Bale had and crowding him out of the game. When Lucio was being pulled over from centre back he was unable to stop Bale as he was already rampaging at full pace – a pace much quicker than Lucio could keep up with. The key to Everton’s success was preventing Bale getting to full speed coupled with forcing him onto his weaker foot. Time and again against Inter Bale was allowed all too easily to go on the outside on his favoured left foot. Surely putting an experienced player such as Zanetti on Bale to assist Maicon and showing him on to his right foot would have stalled Bale’s main threat. But Benitez had nothing to offer to deter Bale’s threat.
Did I miss the public announcement declaring football was in a state of turmoil? It seems that with each new day someone is trying to implement a new rule change or tweak the structure of our beautiful game. From where I’m standing football is still without doubt the most compelling, exciting and above all entertaining sport on the planet. So why are we continually seeking to improve it?
The latest topic to kick up a storm is the prolonged debate surrounding goal-line technology. Clint Hill’s header clearly crossed the line in QPR’s 2-1 defeat against Bolton prompting manager Mark Hughes and subsequently the FA to voice their view that the technology should be introduced “as soon as possible”.
Frank Lampard’s ‘goal’ against Germany in the 2010 World Cup is still an open wound amongst many England fans, but let us not forget that there are many who believe Geoff Hurst’s strike in the 1966 World Cup Final should not have stood. We’re often witness to the increasingly common cliché that ‘these things even themselves out over the course of the season’. Is this true? Football is one of those games that exists solely in the present in the eyes of the fans, which is why many of you reading this will be disagreeing wholeheartedly.
On Monday night fans swamped Twitter to condemn Michael Oliver’s decision not to award Fulham a penalty in the dying moments of their defeat at Old Trafford. The age old belief that you never get a penalty at Fergie’s house was dug back up and yet just a few months prior in November, Newcastle were gifted an incredibly dubious penalty in their 1-1 draw with the champions. Perhaps there’s a case to suggest that every team suffers an equal form of ‘injustice’ over the course of their campaign.
Football is a game that is built and essentially thrives on emotion, which is why most of the calls for drastic changes emerge from post-match interviews. A manager, coach or player will often mask their own faults by attributing their failure to win the game to something out of their control, i.e. a refereeing decision. However, the idea that these isolated incidents are the sole reason for determining a result is ludicrous as there is no way of predicting how the game would have evolved as a result of a decision going the other way.
Uefa president Michel Platini remains defiant that he will not allow the sport to mutate into what he calls ‘playstation football’ and has instead implemented two further assistants in Champions League games. Perhaps it is too early to accurately gauge the success of the scheme but I am yet to see these extra officials make a significant impact on the referee’s performance or on the game itself. They just seem to get in the way, highlighted in yesterday’s fixture between Benfica and Chelsea whereby the linesman signalled the ball had gone out of play and yet the extra official remained muted despite being right on top of the incident. It all looks a bit ridiculous, with their batons (that would be better used to restore order at corners), and furthermore this puzzling decision appears to have resulted from a reluctance to make a more logical if rather more drastic decision regarding goal-line technology.
Moving away from the technology argument, another key change that is soon to make its way into English football is the Elite Player Performance Plan, which will have a significant and widely detrimental impact on the football league. The idea has been born out of the belief that the country is failing to produce enough ‘stars of the future’ and yet the academies of Southampton and Crystal Palace continue to flourish, having produced a number of young players who have made their mark in the first team in recent years. Why should the ‘minnows’ be punished because the elite teams in this country are apparently struggling to reap any rewards from their ineffective academies? This is an extreme ‘by an means necessary’ measure that the FA have introduced in their blind pursuit for international glory.
In my previous article a point was raised regarding the introduction of sin bins, the idea being that they would reduce the number of futile dismissals and allow situations to be more easily diffused. Aside from the concern that you are effectively sending someone off for a small timeframe, there is a worry that this would instigate the ‘Americanisation’ of the sport, creating a snowball effect that would see football lose its identity. How long before the media-inspired Super Sunday mutates into a garish version of Superbowl with extravagant halftime shows and a bombardment of expensive adverts?
For a few years now, a number of high-profile managers have called for the introduction of a winter break, claiming that the Christmas period is too hectic. However this set of relentless games is one of the reasons the English top-flight is such a wonderful, engaging spectacle and justifies the reasons clubs have such a large squad. Last week Dalglish claimed his players were too tired after a spell of three games in a week, but this was clearly a poor attempt to disguise their own dismal performance and certainly wont serve them well if they are to return to the European competitions next season. Remember if we do have a fortnight breather in January we’re all likely to be dragged down to the sales and that’s a living hell even a footballers wallet shouldn’t have to endure.
One change that I do hold in high regard is the imminent introduction of the Financial Fair Play procedures, whereby teams will effectively be forced to operate within their means. With an alarming number of clubs slipping into administration, the new regulations should inspire those in charge to act responsibly and ensure a brighter future in the game.
Whilst there are plenty of strong arguments for a number of these adjustments in football, I get the feeling that with any new major change you are simply exchanging old problems for a bunch of new ones. This past week we’ve had a 7-3 scoreline, three 90th minute strikes in Premier League alone and an amazing show of support for a player fighting for his life. Football isn’t on the decline, we just need to allow ourselves to enjoy it more.
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Come and find me on Twitter @theunusedsub where I’ve already fled the beer garden to reserve my seat in the pub for the Barca v Milan clash
You sensed a sigh of relief came out of Anfield at the club’s failure to secure a Europa League spot last weekend. Jamie Carragher in particular believes that missing out will enable the club to focus solely on getting back in the top four without the added interference of Thursday night games to trips all over Europe.
At FFC this week we have seen a mixed bag of Liverpool blogs that includes why Young should move to Anfield; Kenny in £10m battle and Rafa Benitez’s telling contribution to Liverpool FC
We also look at the best Liverpool articles around the web this week.
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The TEN ‘Key Moments’ that changed this Premier League season
Why a move to Liverpool is in his best interests
Rafa Benitez’s telling contribution at Anfield
FIVE transfer disasters of this Premier League season
The one missing ingredient preventing Liverpool becoming great again?
Wenger and Dalglish in £10m battle for Ivorian
Young talented and local – the ideal signing for Liverpool?
Liverpool’s transfer ambition sways opinion?
The Andy Carroll Conundrum
Is Kenny Dalglish right to question the silence?
Kenny set to offer Cole as bait to secure deal
* Best of Web *
Are these the priorities for Liverpool’s Summer Spending? – Live4Liverpool
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Dalglish and Clarke: The Formula is Complete – Tomkins Times
A bright Red future – This Is Anfield
[Video] Top 4 Liverpool goals of the season – Our Kop
Chris Hughton may not have admitted it before kick-off but a victory in last weekend’s Tyne-Wear derby has gone a long way towards securing the Newcastle boss and new deal at St James’ Park.
The constant, somewhat unwarranted speculation around Hughton’s future masked what has been a very decent start from a Newcastle side relying on more or less the same personnel that took them down two years ago. Kevin Nolan’s hat-trick is not the only good news the Newcastle captain has received this week; a court has granted tearaway striker Andy Carroll permission to stay in a hotel as he awaits trial for assaulting a former girlfriend.
On the blogs this week, we ask if former manager Kenny Dalglish has identified the problems surrounding Hughton’s contract saga and Elliot O’Reilly winds the clock back and discovers what happened to one time Newcastle striker, Mirandinha. Also this week, there is analysis of how the same band of disinterested, poorly motivated players that flopped out of the top flight 18 months ago are now back, hungry for the challenges of the Premier League.
There are also some cracking contributions as we scour the best of the web.
Featured Articles
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The Premier League’s New Comic Strip #2
WAG War: Mackems do battle at St James Park…it could get messy!
Who needs more big money signings at Newcastle?
Does Kenny underline the real problem at Newcastle United?
Whatever happened to Newcastle’s Mirandinha?
Are Newcastle hanging him out to dry?
Top ten most controversial Premiership moments
TEN things that we have noticed from the Premier League this season
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Click here to see the Best NEWCASTLE BLOGS around the Web this week
Best of the Web
We are not getting carried away with seventh place- The Newcastle United blog
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Face it Brucey- derby day hammering was in the post- Blog on the Tyne
Four battles that must be won at The Emirates. – NUFC Blog
A month of Saturdays: October 2010- Black and white all over
Are Newcastle fans now more realistic? – NUFC Blog
According to The Daily Mail, Everton are interested in luring Celtic sensation Kieran Tierney to Goodison Park this summer. The 21-year-old has proven to be one of the hottest properties in Scottish football in the last few years and seems destined for a move to the Premier League, and were Marco Silva’s Toffees to get a deal done, it could turn out to be their signing of the summer.
The Breakdown
Ultimately, the left back department could well become a problem area for new Everton boss Silva if current first-choice Leighton Baines leaves the club this summer, what with he recently linked with a move to DC United, who of course signed Wayne Rooney over the weekend.
Yet, at the age of 33 and entering the final year of his contract, Silva is likely already on the lookout for a long-term replacement for the ex-England full back, who has been an outstanding servant to the Merseysiders since his move from Wigan Athletic back in 2007.
The left back has gone on to appear over 400 times for Everton and has scored 38 goals and laid on 66 assists in his 11 years at Goodison Park, with his injury during last season an indication of what life will look like after the 33-year-old, with it fair to say that no one in particular at Everton has what it takes to fill the Englishman’s shoes.
Yet there is little doubting, based on his career to date, that Celtic’s Tierney could be the man to fill that void, in both the short team and indeed the long term.
The 21-year-old already has 130 appearances for the Scottish giants under his belt and indeed nine at international level for Scotland, with it clear that the left back is already reasonably well experienced for someone so young.
And while most of those appearances have come in the Scottish Premiership, Tierney has also proven his worth at European level with 21 games in the Champions League, in which he has certainly proven his credentials to suggest that he has what it takes to go on and become a top-quality left back – there’s a reason several Premier League sides are interested in him.
And were Everton to beat the likes of Tottenham to his signature this summer, it would represent a huge coup for new manager Silva, who will surely be looking to take the Merseysiders towards the top six places this term, in what will be his first season at the helm.
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Thus, with the Toffees clearly in need of a long-term replacement for left back Baines, and Tierney arguably the best suited for such a role, landing the £4.5 million-rated sensation (as per Transfermarkt) could turn out to be their best signing of the summer.
Former Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard says Newcastle would be bottom of the Premier League without Rafael Benitez.
“They’d be bottom without him,” Gerrard said on BT Sport on Saturday, following the Magpies’ 2-0 defeat at Anfield. “I don’t think he’ll be that disappointed because he would have known it was a big ask to come here and win. It was not a fixture he’d have said he’d have to get something from.”
Newcastle face home tests against fellow strugglers Southampton and Huddersfield next.
“They are a Championship team with a Premier League manager,” Gerrard said.
Gerrard worked with Benitez for six years at Liverpool, winning both the FA Cup and the Champions League in that time.
Benitez’s men set up deep as expected at Anfield but couldn’t contain Liverpool’s attacking trio, as Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane found the net in what turned out to be a comfortable evening for the hosts.
Mo Diame did threaten shortly before the interval, but the visitors created little after the break and reverted almost immediately to damage limitation mode after the second goal.
“It’s the gulf between your Manchester Citys, your Liverpools and Newcastle,” Gerrard continued. “Years ago, you played Newcastle here – the 4-3 games and all the battles (my team) had – and it was a lot closer than that.”
Newcastle fans have been reacting to Gerrard’s comments, and for the most part are finding it hard to disagree with him. Some of the best Twitter reactions can be found below…
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Football is, and will always be, a completely amoral sport.
We struggle to comprehend the existence of gay players or even black managers, yet borderline cannibals, convicted felons and racists are continually given second, third or fourth chances in football for one simple reason – the beautiful game is a results-based industry. If your positive influence on results outweighs the bad reception from the press, your prior indiscretions are quickly forgotten.
Of course, everybody deserves a shot at redemption – which is the line Dave Whelan should have taken when unveiling textgate scandaler Malky Mackay as Wigan Athletic’s new manager on Wednesday afternoon. Unfortunately, he went on the defensive.
The Scot caught public sympathy when sacked by Cardiff City’s Bond-villain owner, Vincent Tan, nearly twelve months ago. But that was flipped on its head when, upon applying for the Crystal Palace job in August, it was revealed that the Welsh side had sent a dossier of texts and emails between Mackay and scouting crony Iain Moody to the League Managers’ Association, many of which were homophobic, racist and anti-Semitic.
Some of the highlights included referring to a homosexual club official as ‘a gay snake – not to be trusted’, texting ‘f**king chinkys. There’s enough dogs in Cardiff for us all to go around’ after the Bluebirds signed South Korean international Kim Bo-Kyung, responding to a list of transfer targets with ‘not many white faces amongst that lot but worth considering’, stating ‘there’s nothing like a Jew that sees money slipping through his fingers’, in reference to agent Phil Smith and sending a picture to Cardiff’s staff entitled ‘Black Monopoly’, where every square was ‘Go to Jail’.
One could argue the Latics owner’s bravery in ending Mackay’s tacit banishment from the footballing landscape after just three months is highly commendable – if you’re willing to ignore that Wigan desperately need a proven manager after plummeting into the Championship’s relegation zone and Mackay’s track record in the second tier is solid, having achieved promotion with Cardiff in 2013.
Even so, Wigan are hardly the only club on the lookout for a new boss but Whelan’s probably the only chairman in England that would have extended an arm to Mackay at this point in time. Whelan’s amicability often precedes him. Someone has to give Mackay another chance sooner or later, so why not the Latics right now?
Mackay was apologetic enough in his unsurprisingly tense inaugural press conference, too, insisting he’s ‘not a racist’, is aware of his mistakes and has even taken part in an on-going educational programme – a token gesture perhaps, but symbolic of his wrongdoing nonetheless.
The predominant oversight on Whelan’s part however is that Mackay’s problems have now become Wigan’s problems – as if escaping the relegation zone to get within a respectable distance of the play-off standings wasn’t already a daunting enough challenge for the 2013 FA Cup winners.
In the space of two days, Whelan’s – and subsequently Wigan’s – reputation has already taken an incredible hit. Bizarrely, building upon concerns of his light-heartedness towards Mackay’s crimes during Wednesday’s press conference, arguing the Scot was ‘unlucky’ for ‘doing a little bit wrong’, the 77 year-old millionaire told the Guardian yesterday afternoon; “I think Jewish people do chase money more than everybody else,” before attempting to downplay the offensiveness of the slur ‘chink’.
In short, it’s been a public relations disaster. Two sponsors have already severed ties with the DW Stadium outfit, including shirt sponsors Premier Range, a kitchen firm, describing their position as ‘untenable’. Equality campaigners Kick It Out have publically declared their condemnation and Wigan now have a new enemy in the Board of Deputies of British Jews, who rejected Whelan’s ‘half-hearted apology’ of his controversial remarks.
But things could soon get a lot worse for the former JJB Sports owner and his latest employee; the FA’s official investigation into Mackay and Moody is still several months away from completion. It’s believed the Latics boss will be sacked on the spot should further shocking revelations come to light as part of a clause in his contract, should that be the case, however, what as Whelan gained from his idiotic, poorly-thought defence of Mackay? What have Wigan gained from associating themselves with a racist? How dented will the family club’s reputation be?
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Amid this ongoing debate however, perhaps the most important people have been forgotten. How do Wigan’s black and ethnic minority players feel about answering to a manager that willingly uses racial slurs behind closed doors? How can they possibly trust him?
I wouldn’t be surprised if between now and January, some of the six non-white players to have represented Wigan in the Championship this season decide to hand in transfer requests.