Raheem Sterling scored a hat-trick as Manchester City recorded a 5-0 win over West Ham United on the opening weekend of the 2019-20 Premier League season.
It was yet another terrific performance from the 24-year-old, who has now netted four times in two appearances this term following his effort against Liverpool in the Community Shield last weekend.
Sterling scored 25 goals and provided 18 assists in 51 appearances in all competitions for Pep Guardiola’s side during the 2018-19 campaign.
But he looks capable of beating that total this time around.
And a number of Manchester United fans have taken to social media to comment on the England international.
Despite the immense rivalry between the two teams, the United supporters cannot help but appreciate the player that Sterling has become under Guardiola.
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Meanwhile, there are those who wish that their side had a talent like him.
A selection of the Twitter reaction from the Red Devils fans can be seen below:
Wolves are merely one game away from making history and qualifying for the Europa League group stage for the first time ever.
They even have one foot in the next round already after they downed Torino 3-2 in Italy last week meaning they need to get a result that is at worst a 1-0 defeat to progress.
The west Midlands club fate isn’t determined yet, although one fan account on Twitter has speculated Wolves could be in pot three of the draw when it takes place.
That means there will be two groups of clubs coming out before they do and in theory, they should be of higher quality as it is decided on coefficient rating – usually, the sum of all points won in the previous five years.
Find out which Premier League stadium has been ranked the worst in the video below…
This means Wolves could face any one of these clubs – Sevilla, Porto, Roma, Basel, Sporting Lisbon, Wolfsburg and Lazio, which has left many fans at Molineux debating where they would like a trip to.
Two of the aforementioned clubs pop up considerably more than the others.
The first being La Liga side Sevilla, who have won the competition a record five times, including three straight from 2014 to 2016 under current Arsenal boss Unai Emery.
They are also seventh in the coefficient rankings above PSG and even Liverpool, making them, technically, the strongest side in the competition.
Porto is the other club, as many Wolves supporters seem to fancy a mini-break to Portugal at some stage this season. They are two-time winners of both the Europa League as well as the Champions League.
Ruben Neves, Joao Moutinho, and Diogo Jota have all played for the Primeira Liga side in the past, whilst Nuno Santo was among their playing ranks and has even managed them.
This article is part of Football FanCast’s Transfer Focus series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent transfer news…
West Ham United are keen to sign Mario Mandzukic from Juventus in the January transfer window, per The Daily Mirror.
What’s the word?
The Croatia international was heavily linked with a move away from the Serie A giants in the summer transfer window, with Manchester United reportedly interested.
No deal was struck, however, though the Hammers could give him the opportunity to move to England at the turn of the year, per the report.
Indeed, Manuel Pellegrini is short of options up front; Sebastian Haller and Albian Ajeti are their only two out-and-out forwards after Javier Hernandez, Marko Arnautovic, Lucas Perez and Andy Carroll were all allowed to leave in the summer.
Mandzukic has yet to play for Juventus in Serie A this season.
Ageing striker
There’s not much sense to this.
Mandzukic might be a proven goalscorer – he has scored 44 goals for Juve in 162 appearances and also netted 53 for Dinamo Zagreb and 48 for Bayern Munich in 112 and 88 games respectively – but he is also ageing.
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He will turn 34 next year and one has to wonder whether or not it is worth the Hammers splashing out on a player who is edging nearer and nearer to retirement.
Their recruitment in the summer was smart, with the acquisitions of Sebastian Haller and Pablo Fornals adding excitement and star quality, plus the promise of improvement.
Bringing in Mandzukic would do the very opposite of that, even if it did plug a hole in the squad.
أكد البلجيكي روميلو لوكاكو، مهاجم إنتر ميلان، أن فريقه يريد إثبات وجوده للخصوم، كما علّق على ترتيب هدافي الدوري الإيطالي، حيث يتصدره كريستيانو رونالدو نجم يوفنتوس بفارق هدف عنه.
لعب البلجيكي دورًا رئيسيًا في فوز إنتر ميلان 3-0 على جنوى وسجل هدفه بعد دقيقة واحدة، ليتصدر الفريق الدوري الإيطالي بفارق 10 نقاط عن يوفنتوس و7 عن ميلان.
وقال المهاجم لشبكة “سكاي سبورت إيطاليا”: “نحن نتحسن، نحن على قمة الجدول، إنه شعور جميل، لكن يجب أن نستمر”.
وأضاف مهاجم إنتر ميلان: “واجهنا بعض الهزائم في مثل هذه المباريات الموسم الماضي ونريد أن نتطور، أنا سعيد حقًا بالفوز، الآن يجب أن نركز على مواجهة بارما، لن تكون مباراة سهلة”.
اقرأ أيضًا.. كونتي: إنتر لم يستحق وداع دوري الأبطال.. وقللنا الفجوة مع يوفنتوس بعد وصولي!
وتابع لوكاكو: “نريد أن نظهر لخصومنا أننا هنا، يجب أن نركز على مباراة واحدة في كل مرة، كانت مباراة مهمة بعد انتصارين متتاليين، سجلنا ثلاثة أهداف وحافظنا على شباكنا نظيفة”.
وأكد: “أريد دائمًا أن أتطور، تمامًا مثل العديد من اللاعبين الآخرين، باريلا، وباستوني، وسكرينيار، ودي فريج، نحن شباب ولدينا مجال للتحسن، نريد الفوز بهذه المباريات”.
لوكاكو لديه الآن 18 هدفا في الدوري الإيطالي، أي أقل من كريستيانو رونالدو بهدف واحد، وعن ذلك أتم معلقًا: “أفكر دائمًا في الفوز، أنا في لحظة جيدة من مسيرتي، لكن إنتر هو الشيء الوحيد الذي يهم”.
This article is part of Football FanCast’s Opinion series, which provides analysis, insight and opinion on any issue within the beautiful game, from Paul Pogba’s haircuts to League Two relegation battles…
Andy Cole, Dwight Yorke, Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer in the late 1990s. Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez and Dimitar Berbatov in the late 2000s. And now, Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial, Alexis Sanchez and Mason Greenwood in the late 2010s. How the mighty have fallen.
After the confirmation of Romelu Lukaku’s £73m exit to Inter on deadline day, coupled with Manchester United’s failure to sign a replacement, the Red Devils head into the new season with a set of forwards who arguably aren’t even recognised number nines.
Financially, off the pitch, the deal with Inter makes perfect sense. Inside those white lines however, it’s a total disaster.
All four of Solskjaer’s current options are essentially hybrid winger/forward players, and none have led the line up front on their own for an entire campaign. That is mind-numbing.
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That alone would have been a difficult prospect in the pomp of United’s years of success, but in this climate of disappointment and relative mediocrity, it just feels nigh on shambolic. Simply put, how have one of British football’s most successful sides ended up in this predicament?
Indeed, the situation feels far worse when considering the kind of attacking stardust the club’s rivals in the big six can boast.
Manchester City have Sergio Aguero. Liverpool have Mohamed Salah. Tottenham have Harry Kane. Arsenal have Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. And yet, quite conceivably, United may have to rely on a 17-year-old Greenwood to fire in the goals for the upcoming season if things really do go from bad to worse. It all speaks to a lack of forward planning and risk management from both Solskjaer and the Red Devils’ hierarchy.
It’s almost become the norm for the likes of Ed Woodward and the Glazer family to get hammered from pillar to post in recent years, but their failures in allowing a situation like this to fester is the height of incompetency. United’s total of 65 goals in the Premier League was only above Chelsea in the top-six, whilst their noisy neighbours smashed in a further 30 in comparison.
For all of Rashford’s potential, the England international has featured in just over half of his career matches as a central striker (101 in 184), whilst United’s now second-choice option up front, Martial, has played there just 87 times in 248 games. Not the kind of out-and-out centre-forward that United have been crying out for.
After the early arrivals of Daniel James and Aaron Wan-Bissaka, this summer felt like it had the potential to really build a new era under Solskjaer. Instead, the Red Devils head into the new season with an ominous cloud hanging over them. A Manchester United side without a proper number nine will be a genuinely bizarre sight, and only further highlights how far they have fallen.
[ad_pod ]Ah, Michael Owen.Who’d have thought that a man with as much charisma as a milk-less bowl of Weetabix could ruffle so many feathers?For those who haven’t yet caught up with Owen’s recent biography release ‘Reboot,’ and why it’s recently captured a fair bit of publicity, the ex-Premier League forward had some very harsh words for his former employers.Watch Newcastle United Live Streams With StreamFootball.tv Below
Here’s a short taster (courtesy of The Mirror): “My move to Newcastle was one I really regret – I should have followed my gut instincts from the start. I didn’t want to go there – my heart was still set on a return toÂLiverpool.
“NewcastleÂmanager Graeme Souness called me roughly every two weeks for almost the entire year I was in Spain and I can’t deny I liked the attention.
“As the year wore on, he’d call me and say things like: ‘Michael, I see you didn’t start last weekend. Would you think about coming to Newcastle?’
“While I don’t think I led Graeme on, with hindsight, I might have handled his first phone call differently.â€
Bear in mind, these are the words of a Ballon d’Or winning 39-year-old, not a high school student wading through the trials and tribulations of puberty and relationships.
Needless to say, Newcastle legend Alan Shearer wasn’t particularly pleased with his former teammate’s attempts to besmirch his beloved club. So championing the Magpies, he took to Twitter for the latest episode of Shearer and Owen’s 10-year feud…
Advantage Owen?
Gary Lineker couldn’t help himself…
And another big nibble from Michael to finish it off…
So there we have it – two of England’s greatest ever strikers taking digs at each other on social media. Cheap entertainment at its finest.
Tottenham Hotspur were serious about signing Paulo Dybala from Juventus this summer before their Premier League rivals got involved.
Sources told Football FanCast that there was genuine interest from Spurs in bringing in the Argentina international as they looked to add to the signing of Tanguy Ndombele from Lyon.
However, Manchester United were also interested, per the Daily Mail – but a deal is said to have collapsed over the weekend over the player’s demands.
That has essentially left the door open for Spurs to lead the charge for Dybala’s services should they wish to and Sky Sports Italia (via Football Italia) even claim a fresh €70m (£64.5m) bid has been tabled.
But going back in for the Argentine would be a fatal mistake.
The potential overall cost looks to be extortionate – the previously linked Daily Mail piece claims that his agent demanded a £15m payment simply to buy his image rights, while Dybala’s wage requirement was £350k per week.
But more importantly, the Spurs squad has a number of deficiencies that have to be addressed before nearly that kind of money is splashed out on another attacking player.
One has to point out that Dybala would likely be an excellent signing – this is a player once likened to Lionel Messi – and he would supplement the threat offered by Harry Kane very well as a second striker.
But he would also be a vanity buy. Indeed, with Christian Eriksen still at the club, Mauricio Pochettino has the Dane, Dele Alli, Heung-min Son, Lucas Moura and Erik Lamela as his attacking midfielders. There is also interest in Sporting Lisbon’s Bruno Fernandes, Giovani Lo Celso and Philippe Coutinho.
Bringing in Dybala, then, would be to ignore the squad’s most glaring deficiency: defence.
Kieran Trippier has departed for Atletico Madrid, leaving Spurs with Serge Aurier and Kyle Walker-Peters as their specialist right-backs. Aurier is currently sidelined with a hand injury after reportedly smacking a table in frustration during an Ivory Coast fixture at the African Cup of Nations and, really, that says more to his lack of discipline than any kind of statistic.
As for Walker-Peters, he has yet to really be given a chance at Spurs. He has made a total of 19 appearances for the club and seems to constantly be on the precipice of a breakthrough, only to be yanked back by his shirt collar.
FFC understands that Juan Foyth could be installed as the first-choice right-back in Trippier’s stead but, really, he is a centre-back and he has a lack of discipline that has cost him at the highest level, while his injury sustained against Bayern Munich has been a setback.
Over on the left, Danny Rose was left out of the pre-season tour of Asia to explore opportunities with other clubs. It did not come about prior to the Audi Cup, as he was included in the starting XI for the friendly against Real Madrid, but one imagines that Spurs actually want him to leave the club.
There have been links with Ryan Sessegnon, the Fulham full-back-cum-winger, but he is more an attacking player than a defender and talks are dragging over the deal, which has yet to be sealed.
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Ben Davies, the other option, has not enjoyed a pre-season, missing the trip to Asia and the Audi Cup with injury after undergoing surgery in the summer so it is difficult to imagine the Wales international being fully up to speed when Spurs take on Aston Villa in their opening fixture of the 2019/20 season.
At centre-back, meanwhile, Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen are both into the final years of their contracts. If they aren’t going to be renewed, then a succession plan needs to be in place that spans wider than potentially promoting Foyth alongside Davinson Sanchez.
In the backline is where investment is needed. Of course, if Eriksen departs, then by all accounts, Spurs should be looking at goalscoring attacking midfielders.
But now, it feels like a dereliction of duty, particularly with Fernandes, Lo Celso and Coutinho already being targeted. To bring one of those in and then still swoop for Dybala wouldn’t just be misguided, it would be downright stupid.
Spurs need bodies at the back. Pochettino may feel that he can turn Foyth into an excellent full-back and he may well be right once he recovers. He could enjoy a breakthrough season.
But it’s a risk, particularly with Aurier and Walker-Peters as his deputies.
And if Rose leaves, the situation is all the bleaker on the other flank. Spurs simply cannot head into the season with one senior left-back, especially not one who has spent the entirety of the summer recovering from surgery.
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Buying Dybala would be the kind of coup that spawns its own hashtag. It would create real excitement.
But, really, it would be like putting a cherry on top of an unfinished cake mix. Spurs need to bake it before they start adding the decorations.
Indeed, Mauricio Pochettino has always been very good at that. Since his appointment in 2014, the club have been reserved in the transfer market.
They have bought Ndombele and Jack Clarke this summer but, previously, they have simply filled gaps that needed filling; very rarely have they indulged in vanity signings, players coming into the club simply because they are available.
Perhaps the last real example came in the 2014/15 season when Benjamin Stambouli joined the club. A defensive midfielder, he joined in the same window as Eric Dier, with Spurs already boasting the likes of Etienne Capoue, Mousa Dembele, Ryan Mason, and Nabil Bentaleb as their midfield options.
Stambouli ended up making just 25 appearances for the club and, while Dybala is clearly a better player than the Frenchman, who is now at Schalke 04, the similarities are there.
Dybala would join an already crowded attacking field.
[ad_pod ]Fly like a butterfly, sting like a bee.Ah, boxing. The art of two athletes punching each other into oblivion. Loved by millions, watched by more. A simple but noble profession – hosted in front of thousands, or outside the local kebab shop on a Friday night between two bruisers fuelled by one shandy too many.Football isn’t too dissimilar in its simplicity. Two teams of 11 face each other for 90 minutes and try to put a padded sack of air between some posts more times than the other.Watch Newcastle United Live Streams With StreamFootball.tv Below
So, why are we telling you this?
Well, it all comes down to the hurtful words of a single man, Mr. Michael Owen, and his adversary, Newcastle United legend Alan Shearer.
For those who do not know why this pair of mischief makers hit the headlines recently, it’s fairly simple: Shearer wasn’t too pleased with the things being said about his darling Magpies in Owen’s new biography ‘Reboot,’ and aired his thoughts about the ever-so charismatic (not) striker on social media. No one likes a keyboard warrior, Alan.
Naturally, this little exchange opened up an opportunity and being the innately violent creatures we are, that could only be one thing: a good old fashioned fisticuff, white-collar boxing style.
Imagine that. Shearer windmilling his god-like palm fast enough to split the atom straight into the chin(s) of dumpling Owen – it’s television gold.
Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn tuned into talkSPORT to talk about the possibility of the bout happening…
Bernard scored the only goal of the match as Everton recorded a 1-0 win over Watford at Goodison Park on Saturday afternoon.
It was not the most entertaining of Premier League affairs to be honest – Everton will mind, though, as Bernard’s 10th-minute effort secured all three points.
Somewhat surprisingly, it was just the Brazilian’s second Premier League goal for the club since arriving on a free transfer ahead of the 2018-19 campaign.
According to WhoScored, the 26-year-old had two shots, five dribbles and won four tackles during a successful 90 minutes on the field.
Everton are being tipped to potentially challenge for the top six this season.
And it has been a decent start to the 2019-20 campaign with four points from their two games, which sees them occupy eighth spot in the division.
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There is no question that Bernard was a key contributor to collecting all three points against Watford.
And the club’s fans have lavished the South American with praise:
It seemed like a done deal halfway through last season. Barcelona and Ajax are two clubs with comparable values and their respect for one another has even prompted discussion that a collaboration agreement could be struck to benefit both parties in the transfer market.
For that reason, the signings of both Frenkie de Jong and Matthijs de Ligt seemed more like a formality than a soap opera in the making. And sure enough, after some initial hiccups, concerns and paper talk, De Jong was officially announced in January, with the move officially materialising at the beginning of the summer.
Now, he already dons the Blaugrana and it didn’t take long for him to capture the fans’ hearts.
And for the majority of last season, it was widely expected that his partner in crime and best friend would follow sooner rather than later. Fast forward a couple of months and the coveted youngster is in Turin playing alongside Cristiano Ronaldo as opposed to Lionel Messi.
The fans were quick to suggest it was actually the Portuguese who sealed the deal with a mysterious handshake and a devious whisper in the ear when the duo met in the Nations League final. The same final De Ligt ended up losing shortly before his move to the Old Lady was made official.
A reported £67.5m was allegedly what it took to secure the signing of one of the most promising centre-backs on the planet. Barcelona were beaten and not even their relationship with Ajax nor the prospect of playing with Messi and his best friend could make the necessary difference. The deal was done, the contract penned and the 20-year-old was flying over to Italy.
Sure enough, this was perceived as a huge loss for the Catalan giant. But while it’s difficult to deny that missing out on a generational talent, the youngest captain Ajax have ever had was a tough pill to swallow, it just may not have been such a gruesome scenario after all.
From the financial side, a deal of £67.5m doesn’t look like a huge hit on Barcelona’s bill. After all, the Catalans have spent more than double those amounts on several players in the last couple of transfer windows and are looking likely to continue the trend going forward. But the wage bill was apparently the problem. The Dutchman’s notorious agent, Mino Raiola, was reportedly demanding extraordinary wages and Barcelona just couldn’t keep up with the rest of the big boys in football. Not after their recent purchases left them dry.
And while sacrificing some of the wage bill for a generational talent doesn’t seem like a crime, especially if you’re putting in enough effort to sell and free up some of that money in the not so distant future, buying him just so others won’t kind of is.
Had he arrived at the Camp Nou, Barcelona would’ve had a total of five centre-backs competing for two spots in the team: Samuel Umtiti, Gerard Pique, Clement Lenglet, Jean-Clair Todibo and finally De Ligt.
More importantly, three of those four are still young, in their early twenties and with big careers ahead of them. Todibo is only 19 and, with the Dutchman arriving, he would no doubt have to be shipped out, loaned or just chained to the stands. Either way, that’s far from ideal for a talented youngster with a dream to chase.
So yes, it was a great loss to miss out on De Ligt but it was hardly a necessity. The centre-back position is a spot well covered in Catalonia and further investment would have been frivolous.
Finally, we have that famous Barcelona motto to round things off. “The one who has doubts about playing at Barcelona is no longer needed by us”, stated Johan Cruyff in the days now gone by and this is something the Catalans have been living by for a long time.
Of course, the appointment of Antoine Griezmann and the alleged chase of Neymar contradict that since both have either rejected or abandoned Barcelona in the last couple of years.
But this is very much still something the fans regularly dig out when it fits their agenda and their cause. Regardless of how true on untrue that may be, maybe it is a sign of integrity after all. A statement that reads quite well with a message that they will survive and prosper, with or without De Ligt at their side.
So this choice might have been a difficult one to make for Barcelona but not entirely career-deciding. In fact, once he develops and grows up to be a player who could slot into the Catalans’ gala 11 with no effort, that transfer could make even more sense.
Was this transfer the right choice for the youngster in question, however? His words might say so but the alleged release clause in his contract might not agree with that and it hints that Turin was not his preferred destination after all.
Who knows, maybe there’s still a chance “De Twins” will one day be reunited under the lights of the Camp Nou.