Steve Clarke says he would jump at the chance of taking Albion into Europe – even if it endangered the club’s Premier League safety.
The Baggies face Newcastle, who are still in the relegation scrap, this weekend, with Clarke still keen to emulate them by testing himself and his players with the added demands next season.
Newcastle played 14 matches in the competition before going out to Benfica in the quarter-finals, but Clarke remains envious of Alan Pardew’s men.
“It can be tough in Europe, but I don’t think anything should get in the way of your ambition,” he told ESPN. “If you have a chance to qualify for the Europa League then that’s what you should do, and you should take your chances like Newcastle did.
“They qualified for the quarter-finals, which was a great achievement. I’ve got some friends at Newcastle, and I know they really enjoyed their Europa League adventure.
“They enjoyed the trips, the games and the challenges against players from different countries. Being wrapped into the whole European package is great.
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“If you have the chance to do it as a coach, a player, a manager or a supporter, you have to try to do it and embrace it.”
Italian side Roma are set to beat Liverpool to the signature of Brazilian winger Michel Bastos, as reported by Sky Sports.
Roma manager Rudi Garcia has confirmed that Bastos is set to join them on loan until the end of the season from Al Ain after turning down a number of other European clubs.
Liverpool and Napoli were thought to be favourites to sign the 30 year old Brazilian international at the start of the January transfer window but Garcia’s working relationship with the winger seems to have turned his head.
The pair worked together at French club Lille and Garcia’s knowledge of the player made this a deal that could not be missed out on.
“It’s not done yet, but negotiations are at an advanced stage,” said Garcia.
“He is a versatile player, which is what interests me. He can play on the right or left, has a strong shot, good technique and can also play left-back, so we are covered in many different areas.
“I have been tracking this player since he left Lille, going through Lyon, Schalke and Al Ain.
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“I always spoke to him and knew this was a possibility for us. Above all, he was very eager to come back to Europe, so I am happy.”
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is preparing to spend some money in the transfer window, reports the Mirror.
The Frenchman is yet to sign a player with a transfer fee, with Yaya Sanogo the only new signing for the Gunners on a free.
After recent criticism from some Arsenal fans for the lack of new signings, Wenger is preparing a spending spree as he looks to build a side capable of competing at the top of the Premier League. Wenger wants to sign Real Madrid pair Karim Benzema and Angel Di Maria to strengthen his attacking options.
Newcastle’s Yohan Cabaye, Sevilla midfielder Geoffrey Kondogbia and Valencia ‘keeper Vicente Guaita are all on Wenger’s shortlist too, with the Frenchman keen on taking advantage of the end of the transfer window, with less than two weeks remaining.
Arsenal had a bid for Cabaye rejected by Newcastle, and the Gunners are set to return with an improved offer of around £16million. Wenger could also approach Real Madrid for Angel Di Maria, with Los Blancos happy to sell the Argentine for the right price, despite suggestions that Di Maria wants to stay in the Spanish capital.
Wenger could struggle to sign French striker Karim Benzema, who is set to be offered a new contract at the Bernabeu, extending his stay should he accept the deal.
But whilst the Gunners look for players in, one man who could depart the Emirates is Lukas Podolski. The German could make way for new signings, with Wolfsburg, Borussia Dortmund and Schalke all enquiring about the forward. However, Wenger will only sell Podolski, who hasn’t started a match this season, if he gets at least the £11million he paid to sign the forward, and if they have a replacement lined up.
Wenger has until 11pm on Monday September 2nd to sign new players.
Who do you want Arsenal to sign? Who do they need to match Spurs’ bid for 4th place?
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forward John Guidetti has signed a new three-year deal with the club.
The Swedish attacker impressed last season whilst out on loan at Dutch club Feyenoord, netting 20 times in 23 games for the Eredivisie giants.
Despite not playing a single minute of Premier League action for Roberto Mancini’s men this term, Guidetti has been rewarded for his exploits last term with a new deal.
The Scandinavian striker has stated that he is happy to extend his stay at the Etihad Stadium, and has thanked the club for helping him mature as a player.
“I feel really happy of course, it’s a fantastic football club and to sign a new deal is really, really good,” he told the club’s official website.
“I’ve been here for a long time and Manchester City are the ones who have helped me grow and develop to the player I am today, so I am very grateful for that and I’ve seen how the club has turned into one of the biggest clubs in the world and it is great to be a part of that.”
Guidetti is still recuperating from an illness that has kept him on the sidelines, but has stated that he is almost back to full fitness.
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“It’s going well – I can run, I can shoot, I can pass, so I am definitely getting there, but we have to be a bit more patient and of course I want to get out there every day, it’s what I long for,” he concluded.
Regardless as to whether Tottenham Hotspur manage to climb to the summit of the Europa League this season, supporters can at least rest assured that they’ve managed to reach one cup final this season. Or if Hugo Lloris’ recent sentiments are to be adhered to, you can times that number by eight.
It is of course a cliché that’s wheeled out all too often at this time of the season but given the eerie path of 12 months ago that Spurs’ campaign seems to be treading, there is perhaps little to argue in the feeling that their next eight Premier League games truly do carry the weight of a cup final in amongst them.
What felt like something of a small hiccup in the Lilywhites’ season following their 4-1 mauling at the hands of Internazionale in the Europa League earlier this month, now looks perilously close to developing into a more debilitating wobble that’s threatening to have a far more sinister effect upon their campaign.
Two consecutive defeats in the league at the hands of Liverpool and Fulham have seen Andre Villas-Boas’ side effectively all but throw away the seven-point lead they’d worked so hard to attain. And as Lloris suggests, no one in N17 is taking anything for granted.
“We did very well for 12 games and we lost against Liverpool and Fulham, but the most important thing is the reaction,” the Frenchman told the Daily Mail.
“I think the international break was a good thing for us, to help us find energy for the end of the season. We now have eight games which are like eight finals.”
Certainly, if Spurs really were on the proverbial ropes following Dimitar Berbatov’s 1-0 winner for Fulham during their last league outing, then the recent international break has proved a desperately needed return to their corner. Far from just avoiding a knockout punch themselves when they visit Swansea City this weekend, they need to start matching their rival’s results blow for blow.
With Arsenal having gone to the Liberty Stadium and won during their last league game, while Spurs supporters will be loathsome to add any more pressure than what their side is already having to bear, Saturday’s game against Michael Laudrup’s side is nothing less than a must-win.
But for as prominent as the cup final cliché may be at White Hart Lane in recent days, the notion of a ‘winning mentality’ hasn’t been too far off supporters’ lips either.
It’s something that the team threatened to finally develop following the ground out wins against the likes West Bromwich Albion and Newcastle and the last minute comebacks against the away games against both Lyon and West Ham United suggested that the Lilywhites might finally be developing a new found steel under Andre Villas-Boas.
Three defeats on the spin, however, have cast doubt that the soft-centre will ever be galvanized.
But it’s interesting to hear Lloris describe what’s needed in order for Spurs to not only achieve Champions League qualification this season, but to also push on further and take the club onto a level that many seem reluctant to even contemplate.
“We have ambition to put this club in the top four every year,” the 26-year-old said.
“When you are a player you have to be at the highest level in every game and you have to instil a winning mentality. A good model is Manchester United. They prove every season they have the mentality of winners.”
When Spurs have succumbed to defeat this season, so often the post-mortem has been a forensic examination of the tactical kind, with so much of the weight of blame usually attributed to faulty formations and suspect substitutions.
But with the side having hauled themselves up to third at one point within this division, how much of their fate over the next eight games lies within not what’s going on with the ball at their feet, rather in-between their ears?
No one can preempt what might or might not happen during this weekend’s game against Swansea City and if football was as simple as the team with the best players winning every week, the Premier League wouldn’t of course be quite the product it is today.
But while they have perhaps been dented by Aaron Lennon’s recent absence, this Tottenham side carry no more or no less troubles with them to Wales on Saturday than what they did during the majority of the recent club record 12-game unbeaten run. For as refreshing as it was to see them develop the steel that saw them snatch victory from the jaws of defeat during that run, the club will perhaps never truly progress, until they banish their habit of doing the opposite, for good.
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To quote one Robert South, “defeat should never be a source of discouragement but rather a fresh stimulus.”
The barometer of how much Spurs have progressed mentally this season was always going to be when their undefeated run came to an end – not for how long it would go on for. And for as many strides as the majority of supporters may believe the side have made under Andre Villas-Boas, should Tottenham be unable to overcome their recent run of adversity, then perhaps ultimately this team may not have developed at all.
If they want to out finish their rivals, qualify for the Champions League and push on towards pastures previously thought too giddy to even contemplate, then Spurs are going to have to develop the requisite mentality to dovetail with their footballing prowess.
The next eight games will ultimately decide their fate, but how Villas-Boas’ side react to the gauntlet that Arsenal have thrown down for them at Swansea, will go a long way to determining how far they’ve ultimately come.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has never been one to hold his opinions back when it comes to the transfer market, unafraid to stray from the pack and think on his own, but his latest idea that clubs should be limited in the future during January to no more than two signings per side is so far outside of the box it literally beggars belief and leads to the question, just when did he become so out of touch?
It’s become increasingly clear that the 63-year-old has some kind of aversion to spending money these days, with the club’s £8million move for Nacho Monreal on deadline day in the wake of Kieran Gibbs’ hamstring injury causing many supporters to hail the move for a player they didn’t really need as some sort of masterstroke, coming as a major surprise to most that the club had signed anyone at all. You see, Wenger is on a crusade when it comes to Financial Fair Play (FFP) in such a zealot-like fashion, that even a modicum of movement is hailed as the dawning of a new era.
Wenger took particular umbrage at the volume of Newcastle’s dealings this month, telling reporters: “I think it should be all completely cut out or limited to two players. It is unfair for the league that some teams who have played for example now Newcastle twice already have an advantage on teams who play Newcastle now they have bought six or seven players. You do not face exactly the same team so I believe the number of players you could buy should be limited.”
The world according to Wenger is a very interesting place to be and unless you conduct your business by the values that he’s come to adopt in recent years then you are both reckless and irresponsible. Nevertheless, with just 14 Premier League games to go now in the campaign, just how much of an influence does he expect January acquisitions to have on the fate certain sides and the overall feel of the league table? How does it even directly effect him? To call the competition of the market place ‘unfair’ just shows how detached from reality he has become. Would it even be legal to limit freedom of movement in such a fashion?
Of course, this is not the first time that Wenger has gone off at the deep end over finances this month, when faced with questions on Theo Walcott’s future on January 5th at a press conference when discussing the topic of the club’s wage structure: “We pay well. We pay very well. I’ve spent all my life making sure people who work for us are paid well and I believe if you can do it, you do it, to pay something that makes sense and is defendable in front of every single player.
“We make exceptions sometimes but they are not maybe so high. If you want to keep making profit you have to respect that. We have no players on £200,000 a week and I think other clubs will come down to us with financial fair play. We have a more socialist model.”
Only at Arsenal, currently a club with the fourth-highest wage bill in the entire country, the most expensive average ticket price for fans, and where Walcott earned a £40k-a-week wage hike for dragging his heels, would Wenger call their wage structure a ‘socialist model’. It’s like a Peter Sellers movie; the deluded man at the helm spiralling out of control due to his own insistence that his is the right course of action. This stubborn stance in the face of an undeniable reality and an acceptance of where the game is at, is what has seen the club in irreversible decline under his stewardship in recent years. The real draining force on the Premier League is wages, not transfer fees.
His close alignment with the board has caused problems in the past and it will continue to do so in the future. The club are gambling on their future but in a completely different way to some of the richer clubs in Europe. However, you could argue that it’s just as reckless, by placing all of their eggs in one basket regarding FFP being enforced strictly by Uefa. Many see it as simply the latest step to ensure the status quo is kept at the top, with ambitious smaller clubs prevented from joining the cabal of the elite and spending their way to the top, while the sheer volume of ways at getting around the rules is sure to cause problems further down the line.
Try telling QPR, Fulham, West Ham or Reading fans that what their club have done this month constitutes being ‘unfair’. The January transfer window offers the last chance for many to ensure their top flight status for another year and putting a limit on comings and goings would rob them of the chance to be competitive and address the gaps in their squads. The poorer teams in the division simply wouldn’t stand a chance of turning their fortunes around, punished for not quite getting it right first time around in the summer. Now that would be unfair.
It’s notable that many of the teams above Arsenal in the league did very little in January despite possessing the budgets to adjust their apparent failings. Manchester City signed one youngster, Manchester United clinched a deal for Wilfried Zaha and then immediately loaned him back to Crystal Palace in the Championship for the rest of the season, Chelsea signed just one player, Demba Ba, while Tottenham signed two players for a grand total of £4.5m, with Everton bringing in Barnsley youngster John Stones for £3m. Ironically, Arsenal were the only club to spend upwards of £8m on any one player set to have an impact in the top six for the rest of the season, should we put a limit on how much a club can spend now too?
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The bean counters have been in control at Arsenal for quite some time now, which has just so happened to have coincided with the club falling from the pinnacle of the English game and struggling to make the top four. Arsene Wenger is a man with a wealth of experience in the game but his recent memory is tainted by seeing star players leave for bigger clubs in the pursuit of silverware year after year and his idea is merely a sign of a man trying to make sense of his lack of control and the chaos around him.
Punishing smaller clubs in the name of fairness is not a logical or rational plan by any stretch of the imagination and the self-proclaimed Socialist manager couldn’t have got it more wrong this time around.
Ryan Giggs returned to his hometown on Sunday to the place where he first kicked a ball, coming off the bench in Manchester United’s 2-2 draw with Cardiff City.
United failed to capitalise on a number of chances before a stoppage-time equaliser from Kim Bo-Kyung sealed a deserved point for the Bluebirds.
The sides hadn’t met in the top flight since 1961, and for United stalwart Giggs, it was that little bit special.
Giggs entered the field in the 73rd minute, some 22 years after making his debut for the Reds and helped the visitors get back into the ascendancy after a dominant spell from Cardiff, laying on Danny Welbeck, only for him to lash over the bar. And the miss proved costly with the late equaliser sealing United’s fate, in the week building up to the number 11’s 40th birthday.
It’s a remarkable feat for the Welshman who left his home country at the age of seven to Manchester and even at such an early age, his breath-taking talent was recognised and at one point almost ended up playing in the blue half of the city. Eric Mullender, a Manchester City scout, first saw Giggs at the age of nine, and almost lured him to, at that time, Maine Road.
“He really took my eye. He would just go past players,” the 80-year-old scout remembered, “He had pace, a lovely left peg. He had the skill, good control and he developed from there. I thought he had potential to play for city. He would come in on school holidays.”
Sunday marked his 952nd game for the Red Devils and as he reaches the big 4-0 on Friday, people will no doubt be replaying his finest goals and of course asking, when will it end?
Now acting as player-coach under Moyes’ new regime, many are believing that after 13 Premier League titles, four FA Cups, four League Cups and two Champions Leagues, the most decorated player in football will call time on his illustrious career.
Many except Giggs and Moyes that is. Following Sunday’s game, the United boss thinks there is no reason why the midfielder can’t continue beyond his current deal.
“He doesn’t look like someone who is going to drop considerably,” he told the Telegraph.
“He has made the first step into coaching and management and sometimes when you do that you say: ‘Actually I have had enough of playing now’.
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“He doesn’t look as if he’s at that point yet, so who knows? And it’s only these sort of decisions you would make right at the end. At his age you don’t consider it six months before.”
What is certain however is that when he does finally sign off, he’ll want to do it as a Premier League Champion.
United have picked up their performances considerably in the last few weeks and top the form table, but a disappointing result in the Welsh capital and the Reds still sit outside the top four. It could be difficult for the team who are currently fifth favourite according to Freebets.com.
The managers of both these football clubs entered the doors of sides with rich football heritage following success with newly promoted teams the season before.
They also share common ground in that they have found the expectations difficult to handle with both sides yet to truly hit top gear.
Liverpool have encouragement though to believe that Rodgers’s ideas may be finally getting across with their side looking to win their third match on the bounce on Saturday.
Aston Villa have cause for optimism too, having reached the League cup semi-final midweek and they are starting to collect points to lift them away from the drop zone, slowly but surely.
A trip to Anfield is not exactly a fixture they would have been looking for right now though in their mini revival.
Luis Suarez returns from his one match suspension at West Ham to bolster the Reds. Jose Enrique was taken off in last weekend’s resurgent comeback against the Hammers with a precautionary hamstring injury and should be fit to play, but Downing is expected to start instead. Nuri Sahin could also be set to return to the fold after a spell out. Martin Kelly and Fabio Borini remain away from action for a significant period of time.
Paul Lambert has an ever-growing injury list which will be a concern for the Villa boss. Joe Bennett (knee) missed Tuesday’s Capital One Cup win over Norwich City could feature. Captain Ron Vlaar (calf) and Enda Stevens (ankle) are unlikely to recover after spells on the sidelines.
Darren Bent was forced off at Carrow Road as his manager made the admission that he expect the England international to be out for four weeks. Dunne and Gardener are still long term absentees.
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If Stewart Downing plays this could be a lucky omen for the Reds with him overdue a goal and his last Premier League goal was in this fixture for Aston Villa against Liverpool.
Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers has ruled out the possibility of making wholesale changes to his squad during the January transfer window.
It has been thought that the Northern Irishman may look to bring in a number of new faces during the winter in a bid to improve the Reds’ Premier League performances.
However, Rodgers confessed that he is unlikely to make multiple transfers, despite worries surrounding the depth of his Anfield squad:
“The reality is that there was always going to be a bit of movement this season with the club trying to regain some of their money. This season was always going to be difficult.” He is quoted by SkySports.
“We’ll look to do something in the January transfer window, though. There’s not going to be wholesale changes in terms of players coming in, that’s the reality of where the club is at.
With the departure of Andy Carroll during the summer, and the recent injury suffered by Fabio Borini, Rodgers has only Luis Suarez to call upon in a central attacking role.
Due to this, he claimed that he’ll be searching for alternatives during the next transfer window:
“We’re looking to do business in the striking department in January,
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“We’re looking to grow over the next six months, we’ll get some reinforcements in January and that will support the group who have been magnificent for me so far.
A Twitter outburst by Adam Federici’s girlfriend will not disrupt the dressing room harmony at Reading, according to manager Brian McDermott.
Royals supporters were quick to pick up on comments made on Saturday night after Federici had been told by McDermott that he had been dropped for the 3-1 Premier League defeat to Tottenham Hotspur.
On the social networking site, Micaela Gardner, Federici’s partner wrote: “Football has left me feeling totally numb and empty inside! For once I have NO explanation! #noloyalty #absolutejoke.”
Another of Federici’s friends, Stephanie Gardner, wrote after Sunday’s game: “Reading FC absolute joke of a club unbelievable the way they can treat there [sic] players #lost3-1 tactical decision did not work #badmanagement.”
Reading fans reacted in their droves to the public comments and the two girls were quick to delete their accounts from Twitter on Tuesday. On the surface it makes a mockery of Reading’s ultra-professional approach with supporters fearing unrest in the ranks, but McDermott has told fans that is not the case. The Royals manager spoke to getreading:
“There’s nothing I can do about someone’s Twitter feed. I can’t help what players or their girlfriends put on Twitter – if that’s the case, then it’s a shame.
“The fact of the matter is that I spoke to Adam and made a decision that Alex McCarthy was going to play. No player at the club has a position that means they will play every week – no player.”
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Federici was given a new Royals deal to tie him to the club until 2015 just last month and last summer it was the player himself who upset fans when he declared that he needed to be playing at the highest level for the sake of his Australia career in an interview.
However, current No.1 Alex McCarthy has already been told that he will keep his place for Saturday’s trip to West Bromwich Albion with Federici expected to continue to work on his knee problem over the coming weeks.