All posts by h716a5.icu

Many Southampton fans were far from happy with a photo from manager Ralph Hasenhuttl as the club continue their preparations ahead of the 2021/22 campaign.

The Saints are ramping up their plans ahead of the new season. Last term, they fell to a disappointing 15th-placed finish despite a positive start, and they will duly be looking to improve significantly this time around.

However, so far they have made just one signing in the form of Romain Perraud (southamptonfc.com), and they will likely be hoping to add more fresh faces to their squad.

They were in action against Fulham over the weekend in a behind-closed-doors friendly, with the match ending 1-1. However, it was Hasenhuttl’s attire on the touchline which was the topic of debate, with many questioning why he chose such an outlandish ensemble.

A photo of his garish clothing was shared on Twitter by Southampton’s official channel, and it attracted plenty of attention from Saints supporters. These fans took to the social media platform to share their thoughts.

Let’s see what these fans had to say about the Hasenhuttl photo

“Terrible!”

Credit: @RussTimms1

“That’s a more sackable offence than losing 9-0”

Credit: @rcdH94

“He’s lost the plot”

Credit: @sfcjamo

“we’re getting relegated, aren’t we”

Credit: @bruhsound1111

“I mean some kind of bet has been lost, right?”

Credit: @SaintsinBrum

“OMG it gets worse”

Credit: @richargr001

In other news, many Southampton fans loved this contract update.

Glasgow Rangers fans are not best pleased with an official club update ahead of fans being able to return to stadiums in the Premiership this coming weekend.

The Gers will kick off their 2021/22 campaign on Saturday afternoon against Livingston at Ibrox. Rangers, of course, won the league in style last term and will therefore be looking to defend their title – unfortunately, fans were unable to attend grounds across Scotland due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Fortunately, this season, some fans will be able to watch the games at stadiums – 23,000 will attend for the opener at Ibrox (The Herald). However, the pandemic is not yet over, meaning there will be a number of restrictions and rules still in place. This does not seem to have gone down too well with the supporters at all.

The news of the rules were shared on Twitter by Rangers’ official Twitter account, and it attracted plenty of attention from the Gers supporters. They took to the social media platform to share their thoughts.

Let’s see what the fans had to say about the news below

“But at end of game everyone can leave at same time. Don’t understand that lol.”

Credit: @dave_n84

“Then come full time ye see everyone pile oot together”

Credit: @darin1872

“Looks like something Nicola Sturgeon would put out as her roadmap out a lockdown.”

Credit: @StevenWFox2

“Shocking the way tickets are distributed all fans or no fans unfair on the ones left out. All paid season tickets and getting nothing but rtv which i can get cheper than a season ticket. Playnig on the fact we love our club”

Credit: @robertarthur83

“I do what I want mr rangers”

Credit: @troikadeus

“Complete nonsense”

Credit: @Agchef1

In other news, this pundit slams Alfredo Morelos after a recent update.

The Champions League Twenty20 has become the highest valued cricket tournament on a per-game basis after EPSN-Star Sports secured the ten-year commercial rights for US$900 million

Cricinfo staff11-Sep-2008The rising graph of TV rights1976: The Australian Cricket Board signs a A$210,000 three-year deal with Australian Broadcasting Corporation, turning down Kerry Packer’s offer of A$1.5m and unwittingly setting in motion the era of big-money TV deals.1994: BCCI inks a ground-breaking five-year deal with Trans-World International estimated at US$35m to end Doordarshan’s monopoly over cricket telecast rights in India.1998: Channel 4 becomes the prinicipal broadcaster of England’s home Test matches – the preserve of the BBC since 1938 – after paying £103m.2002: Sony sign a five-year deal with the ICC worth more than US$200 million for rights to two World Cups and other ICC events.2004: BSkyB and Channel Five pay £220m for telecasting England’s home matches for four years starting 2006 – for the first time, live cricket coverage comes off terrestrial television and goes on satellite.2006: Nimbus win the telecast rights to Indian cricket for four years after bidding US $612 million.2006: The billion-dollar mark is breached: ESPN-Star shell out US$1.1 billion for a nine-year deal with the ICC.2008: Sony-World Sports Group pay $1.03 billion to secure the rights to the Indian Premier League for ten years.2008: ESPN-Star pays $900 million for the Champions League, making it the highest valued cricket tournament on a per-game basis.The status of Twenty20 cricket as the sport’s most lucrative avatar has been confirmed with commercial rights to the Champions League being sold for US$900 million to broadcasters ESPN-Star Sports (ESS). This makes the Champions League, promoted by the national boards of India, Australia and South Africa, the highest valued cricket tournament on a per-game basis.The ten-year deal, which includes an additional $75 million for marketing the tournament, gives the network the global commercial rights to every Champions League match from this year’s inaugural event in December until 2017.The organisers confirmed the deal when they opened all the bids in Dubai on Wednesday. ESS was preferred ahead of DIC, who offered $751.3 million, and the Abu Dhabi Sports Club, whose bid was disqualified for being conditional.The deal marks ESS’s entry into the specialized Twenty20 market; it had lost out on the bid for the Indian Premier League after what seemed like a miscalculation on its part. The IPL rights were eventually sold to a consortium, including Sony Entertainment Television and the Singapore-based World Sports Group, for more than $1 billion. It had seemed like an outrageous price to pay at the time; now, after the overwhelming success of the inaugural IPL, it seems a steal.ESS are the ICC’s television rights holder until 2015 – they acquired the rights in 2006 for $1.1 billion over nine years – but the postponement of the Champions Trophy, originally due to start in Pakistan tomorrow, left them facing a long spell without a major series.Lalit Modi, the IPL commissioner, said the bidding process had been “fair and transparent”. “We have what we believe to be the best commercial deal for the inaugural Champions League Twenty20 season and for cricket fans across the world,” Modi said. “All the bids received were of a very high standard.”Modi told Cricinfo that Mumbai and Bangalore were the new “confirmed venues” for the 2008 series, while a suitable third venue will be finalised in the “next 2-3 days”. The organisers had previously scheduled the tournament in Mohali, Delhi and Jaipur, but Modi said the venues had to be changed taking into consideration the dew factor that may affect the night games in northern India during winter months.The Champions League this year will feature eight sides from India, South Africa, Australia, England and Pakistan, before expanding to a 12-team competition in 2009.

Dilip Vengsarkar, the BCCI’s former chairman of selectors, has said he will respond to Sourav Ganguly’s criticism of his selection committee at the end of India’s series against Australia

Cricinfo staff10-Oct-2008
Dilip Vengsarkar: “I won’t answer him now as this is not the right time because India are in the middle of a Test series and it might affect the focus of the team” © AFP
Dilip Vengsarkar, the BCCI’s former chairman of selectors, has said he will respond to Sourav Ganguly’s criticism of his selection committee at the end of India’s series against Australia and give him “more than what he asked for”.”I won’t answer him now as this is not the right time because India are in the middle of a Test series [against Australia] and it might affect the focus of the team,” Vengsarkar told .Ganguly had criticised the selectors saying if the new selection committee had been in place three years ago, today his situation would be different. “If there is a gun to your head all the time, how long can you bear this?” Ganguly told a Bengali daily. “I was tired of being humiliated again and again. I don’t want to play cricket at the mercy of others.”Ganguly was dropped from the Indian squad in 2006 for the home series against England and the tour of West Indies but made his comeback during Vengsarkar’s tenure that December on the South Africa tour. Ganguly said what hurt him more than being overlooked for India was the exclusion from the Irani Cup last month.Sunil Gavaskar, the former Indian captain, said Ganguly’s outburst was understandable but untimely.

Liverpool have been linked with a move for West Ham United forward Jarrod Bowen this summer as manager Jurgen Klopp looks to strengthen his forward line.

What’s the story?

The Reds were first credited with an interest in the versatile 24-year-old last month by The Athletic’s James Pearce, and now The Mirror’s David Maddock has substantiated those claims.

Maddock has stated (as relayed by The Anfield Buzz Twitter account) that Liverpool could sign Bowen before the end of the current transfer window, adding some much-needed firepower to Klopp’s first team squad.

Jurgen Klopp would love him

After bagging 52 goals in 117 Championship appearances for Hull City, Bowen earned a move to the Premier League in January 2020 when the Hammers splashed out £20m to secure his services.

During his time at the London Stadium, the stocky winger has impressed with his stamina and incredible work rate, assets which would make him an ideal fit for Klopp’s unique gegenpressing system.

With fringe players Xherdan Shaqiri and Divock Origi rumoured to be heading for the Anfield exit door, the enigmatic German is believed to be in the market for another attacking option this summer.

As the 20-time English champions are working with a limited transfer budget, Bowen could be a decent value for money option.

Klopp would surely love his pressing ability, playing style and versatility, even if some doubts remain surrounding his quality on the ball.

Despite Bowen finding the back of the net on a regular basis in the Championship, he has struggled somewhat to replicate his form in front of goal in the Premier League. A return of nine goals and ten assists in 53 appearances for West Ham is a respectable return, but not one expected of a Liverpool player brought in to fire them back to the top-flight summit.

However, the £27m-rated maestro has plenty of potential and Klopp could be the ideal manager to mould him into a ruthless goalscorer at the highest level.

It remains to be seen whether Liverpool’s director of football Michael Edwards makes a concrete offer for Bowen, but with the resources available, he could be an astute purchase perfectly suited to Klopp’s demands.

In other news… James Pearce reveals transfer update which will leave Liverpool fans gutted

Not everything went smoothly as Toronto hosted big-time cricket for the first time in nine years

Cricinfo staff10-Oct-2008
Canada was the hotspot for India-Pakistan contests in the 1990s © Picturecare
In the late 1990s it looked as if Canada was set to become North America’s home for visiting international sides. A large, primarily Asian, expat audience turned up in big numbers to a succession of tournaments, usually held in September.The presence of India and Pakistan was crucial to the viability of the ventures, but as the political tension between the two escalated, the cricket sides became caught up and eventually India were forced by their government to pull out rather than face Pakistan. Without the prime draw, interest waned and the Toronto project was doomed. Soon after, the whole match-fixing saga broke and offshore venues for matches lost their appeal as the authorities looked to clamp down on bookmakers’ opportunities.But nine years later on, and Toronto is again hosting major cricket. Some would argue it’s too late in the year – early-morning temperatures struggle to hit 50 degrees – but with the international calendar jam-packed, you take what window you can get.The event has been made possible by substantial sponsorship by a Dubai-based company. However, the build-up has been anything but ideal. West Indies were on the original cast list, along with Canada, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, but they pulled out as their board signed a deal to make all their players available to Allen Stanford. They were replaced by Zimbabwe, hardly an A – or even B-list – attraction.Promotion has been scratchy, not helped by rumbling uncertainty over the visa positions for two of the visitors. As late as Monday, both Pakistan and Zimbabwe were reported to be having difficulties. In the event, both made it, albeit with little time to spare.Temporary stands, accommodating up to 10,000, have been built in recent weeks, and the organisers have been bullish in their predictions of the turnout. In the event, there were never more than 1300 inside the ground today, with the bigger audience for the Pakistan match. The earlier game was not so attractive, either in terms of teams or time. The 9.30am start on a chilly autumn morning doesn’t appeal to many.The ground looks pretty good, the replay screens are big and the sightscreens impress. But the behind-the-scenes operation was hardly slick, with power outages and limited internet access for the media. What an event like this needs is publicity, and the PR machine has been, at best, spluttering into life. With a slicker operation, many more tickets might well have been shifted. Oh, and given that a picture is worth a thousand words, someone might have thought to ensure that there were photographers on the ground who would feed the world’s media.The hope is that the weekend will bring much bigger crowds, and talk is that when Sri Lanka play Pakistan tomorrow at 1.30pm in what should be a dress rehearsal for the final, there will be several thousand inside the hastily-constructed ground.Despite the glitches and grumbles, just getting top cricket to Canada is an achievement, and the organisers deserve credit for that. What they now need is three days of good weather, more spectators and some great cricket.

Aston Villa must look to sign PSG midfielder Rafinha this summer amid a recent transfer claim.

What’s the story?

According to reports in Spain, the French giants – who have just signed Lionel Messi – are ready to let Rafinha leave this summer in order to raise some funds and Villa could come in for the Brazilian.

And now, speaking exclusively to FFC, Ligue 1 expert Adam White said: “I think he has already been pushed quite significantly towards the exit at PSG and he would be a good signing for Villa.

“The Premier League is a little bit of a step up and he wouldn’t be playing in such a dominant team, so that’s perhaps something that Villa fans will need to think about. PSG would be keen to sell.”

Messi rates him highly

Talking about the 27-year-old, former Barca defender Andreu Fontas once said: “Rafinha is a great player. Physically, he is a beast and, technically, he is superb.”

As per Whoscored, the midfielder boasted an impressive 90.9% pass accuracy in Ligue 1 last season (considerably better than any Villa player with more than one start), while he also averaged 2.3 tackles per match as well (only Matty Cash fared better with 2.5).

The £13.5m-rated play-maker could bring that same fearlessness and intensity both on and off the ball to Villa Park should Smith land his man this summer.

And, given reports have previously claimed that now PSG superstar Messi rates the Brazilian very highly and was completely on board with seeing the midfielder become a prominent part of Barcelona’s side, is a real indication of just how talented he is.

Villa could strike gold with a deal for Rafinha.

Meanwhile, Ashley Preece has dropped a new Aston Villa transfer update…

Manchester United are not interested in re-signing Paris Saint-Germain midfielder Ander Herrera, contrary to reports.

What’s the story?

The Reds Devils were linked with a shock move for the experienced 31-year-old campaigner by The Guardian following Lionel Messi’s arrival at the Parc des Princes in recent days.

However, according to well-known reporter Jonathan Shrager, United aren’t looking to bring the Spaniard back to Manchester this summer.

He tweeted: “In terms of today’s report which proposed a possible return to United for Ander Herrera, I am told that there is currently nothing in it”.

Fans will be delighted

United manager Ole Gunnar Solkjaer is thought to be desperate to bolster his engine room options with a new defensive midfielder in the current window.

The likes of Ruben Neves, Saul Niguez and Eduardo Camavinga have all reportedly caught the eye of the club’s hierarchy, but a formal offer has yet to be made for any potential target.

News of the Old Trafford outfit’s proposed interest in Herrera came as a shock, though. The tough-tackling dynamo enjoyed five relatively successful years on English shores before departing for Paris in 2019.

He scored 20 goals and provided 27 assists in 189 appearances for the Red Devils during his time at the club, winning the FA Cup, Europa League and League Cup along the way.

During a tricky time on and off the field for the 20-time English champions, Herrera’s honest, consistent and full-blooded displays endeared him to the supporters, earning his status as a fan’s favourite at the time.

However, talk of his potential return would have done little to excite the United supporters. At 31, the former Athletic Bilbao ace is entering the twilight years of his career and is not the solution to Solskjaer’s midfield conundrum.

The Norwegian tactician is thought to be keen on a holding midfielder capable of providing the necessary support to Bruno Fernandes and Paul Pogba, allowing him to drop the ‘McFred’ double pivot.

Whether such a player even exists is up for debate, but the answer certainly doesn’t lie in Herrera’s ageing legs, and a large section of the fanbase will surely be delighted that a return appears to be off the cards.

And, in other news…Man Utd plot big-money move for £36m-rated “conductor”, Ole would love him 

If he is still alive – and this is a very big if – then CotaRamaswami, who was born on this day in 1896, will easily be,at 104, the oldest living Test cricketer

Partab Ramchand29-Oct-2008If he is still alive – and this is a very big if – then CotaRamaswami, who was born on this day in 1896, will easily be,at 104, the oldest living Test cricketer. The doubt remainsbecause he has not been heard of or seen since he walked out ofhis house in Chennai one day in 1985, at the age of 89. A littleover a year before that, I had interviewed him for the sportsmagazine I then represented. He spoke fairly clearly, consideringhis age and except for a hearing aid did not seem to have anyhealth problems. He remembered quite a few things about hisplaying days and could recall a lot about when he was manager ofthe first Indian team to the West Indies in 1953 and when he wasa national selector in the late fifties. On occasions, he falteredwhile trying to remember a person or a particular detail of anevent and had to be prodded. But he was standing tall and erectas I took leave of him and there was certainly no indication ofany kind of problem which would force him to just walk out ofthe house not long after that interview took place.Since that day, some 15 years ago, there has been no word abouthim though his family members tried frantically to find him andsent out police search parties. The unexpected happening wascertainly unfortunate for Ramaswami was quite a character. Talland sturdily built, his appearance was almost magnetic, asbefitting the son of Buchi Babu Naidu, a pioneer of the gamein Madras in the early years of the 20th century. Of coursehis claim to fame on his own was as one of the few double internationals in sport. In the 1920s he had represented Indiain the Davis Cup while studying in England and in 1936 he wasselected to tour England with the Indian cricket team.In his autobiography, `Ramblings of a games addict’ Ramaswamiclaimed modestly that he was convinced he had been chosen `forreasons other than cricket’ as he had become `bulky and slow.’But his performance on the tour suggested otherwise. For not onlydid he score 737 runs (average 30.70) in first class matches healso topped the Test averages, ahead of contemporaries like CKNayudu, Vijay Merchant and Mushtaq Ali. He made his Test debut inthe second Test at Old Trafford at the age of 40 years, 37 years, making him the second oldest Indian cricketer to play in hisfirst Test. But he scored 40 and 60, knocks which helped Indiato draw the Test. This was of course the game in which Merchantand Mushtaq shared their famous first wicket stand of 203 runs.With two more valuable contributions of 29 and 41 not out in thefinal Test at the Oval, Ramaswami finished with 170 runs at theaverage of 56.66. That however remained the extent of his Testcareer but he remained a stalwart for Madras for many more years.In a first class career spanning 25 years, the left handedRamaswami made 2261 runs (28.26) at a time when opportunities werevery limited. A free stroking batsman with a particularlypowerful drive on both sides of the wicket, Ramaswami played forthe Hindus in the Bombay Quadrangular and Pentangular tournaments.In later years, Ramaswami maintained his association with the gameby managing the team to the West Indies in 1953. It proved to beone of the most popular sides to visit the Caribbean. In the late fifties, Ramaswami became a national selector but this tenure wasnot a very happy one and culminated in the fiasco of the 1958-59series against West Indies, when four captains led India in fiveTests and there was much bickering over the team selection and thepoor performance of the home side. He continued to be a popular cricketer in Madras cricket circles till well into his 80s and wasan engaging conversationalist. Since his death has never beenconfirmed, cricket annuals have for the last decade or sogenerally put against his details “missing since 1985, presumed dead.” But just in case he is alive…

A potential power-struggle is looming over the fate of England’s Test series in India as the team travels home following the terrorist atrocities that have rocked Mumbai for three days

Cricinfo staff28-Nov-2008
Kevin Pietersen won’t make any England player tour India if they are uncertain © Getty Images
A potential power-struggle is looming over the fate of England’s Test series in India as the team travels home following the terrorist atrocities that rocked Mumbai for three days. The squad is due to arrive at Heathrow on Saturday evening and have a very short time period to decide what to do next. The first Test is still scheduled to start in Ahmedabad on December 11 and there is an issue over where England would practice.Officials from both England and India are adamant that the Test series will go ahead, particularly after the BCCI agreed to shift the second Test from Mumbai to Chennai after a request from the ECB. According to Kevin Pietersen, however, the situation is not so cut-and-dry. If his team-mates have reservations about taking part, he will not be forcing them to re-join the tour.”We need to make sure the security’s right – but if it’s not safe then we won’t be coming back,” Pietersen said. “People are their own people, I’ll never force anyone to do anything or tell them to do anything against their will. On the field I may ask people to do things in a certain way but people run their own lives. We’ll have to see how the security is.”I do think the BCCI will make every single effort to get us back here playing Test-match cricket in India. There are TV rights and financial considerations and they run world cricket don’t they? But we will not come back to India if it’s not safe. My life means more to me than anything else and I won’t come back if it’s not safe.”Sean Morris, the chief executive of the Professional Cricketers’ Association, said the ultimate decision on the tour will rest with the ECB. “It won’t be down to the players, it’ll be down to the ECB ultimately, and we are comfortable with that,” he told Cricinfo. “We have worked very well with our board in the past, so we are confident of the processes involved and with the people who provide the information.”However, Morris insisted that there would be no extra pressure to reach a resolution despite the huge influence that India currently wields in world cricket. He confirmed that the security report will be compiled partly by the team’s security consultant, Reg Dickason, along with input from an independent body and cooperation from the board.There is the strong possibility of a weakened England side returning to India if players make individual decisions on whether to tour. There is a precedent for that, as following the 9/11 attacks in 2001 Robert Croft and Andrew Caddick opted out of the India tour.A spokesman for AKE Group, a leading UK-based security firm, told Cricinfo that the level of risk faced by the England team “should not be overstated”. He did, however, concede that the high-profile nature of the team, coupled with the fact that their itinerary is widely publicised, could be a justifiable cause for concern. “India is not Iraq, it is not a naturally hostile environment,” said the spokesman. “But Britain is a front runner in the war on terror, and therefore an attack on one of their sporting teams would be high political capital, and a fair strike, so to speak.”England are still scheduled to take part in a planned warm-up match in Baroda on December 5-7, which effectively means that the players will have no more than five days to reach a consensus and return to the country. The possibility is being discussed of England preparing in either Dubai or Abu Dhabi and then flying straight into India for the Test series.In the opinion of Michael Vaughan, the former England captain, there is little chance of England feeling safe enough to return to India in the foreseeable future. “It’s getting closer,” he wrote in his column. “I remember watching on TV a few weeks ago as the lorry-full of bombs went off at the Marriott hotel in Islamabad, where England were due to stay for the Champions Trophy, and thinking crikey, it’s getting close. Now it’s Mumbai, where the Middlesex players were due to stay on Thursday night. There seem to be these triggers, or warnings, that it is getting closer to cricket.”I didn’t think we were under threat in Bangalore,” Vaughan continued, “and history to date says cricketers are safe. But our security man said we couldn’t go in our England kit to the hotel where we eat 60 yards across the road from the stadium, and we’d have to go in cars, we couldn’t walk. We were told we couldn’t go to any of the hotels in Bangalore that westerners use.”Another former England captain, who preferred not to be named, told Cricinfo that he believed that the Test series would have to be postponed in the wake of the atrocities, although he predicted a tricky round of negotiations between the English and Indian boards before the matter could reach a conclusion. If previous political stand-offs were anything to go by, the two boards were likely to present conflicting security reports, with the players caught very much in the middle.One significant voice in support of the tour, however, is Michael Atherton, another former captain, who wrote in his column that he intended to travel for the Test series unless the Foreign Office advice changed in the meantime. “While it may seem inappropriate to say so right now, I hope the Test series in two weeks’ time can still go ahead,” he wrote. “One thing is for sure, however: since 9/11, much of the fun and spontaneity of watching sport has disappeared beneath an avalanche of security requirements. Sadly, sport, long regarded as a playground for those who want to abscond from the grim realities of daily life, is no longer immune.”