What does it take to make it to the very top of the beautiful game? A velcro first touch? Great awareness? An array of both pace and power? If you were to make a basic shopping list of attributes an aspiring young pro might need to enjoy a successful career in the Premier League, then you could do worse than pick from any of the above.
Yet while your work ethic and your persona aren’t likely to score a 30-yard missile anytime soon, one should never underestimate the effect what’s going on inside your noggin can have upon your career.
They say that potential counts for nothing if left unfulfilled. And be it through a lack of work ethic, lobster tanks, or the simulated celebration of taking Class A drugs, here are 10 men who are living evidence to that sentiment. Sit back, click through and rejoice in their failure if it makes you happy.
Click on Robbie Fowler to see the ten most unfulfilled talents in football
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Aston Villa are expected to confirm the signing of Chesterfield striker Jordan Bowery later today, with the fee expected to be in the region of around £500,000, according to BBC Radio Sheffield.
Bowery, 21, made his debut for the Spireites at the age of 17 and scored 12 goals for the club in all competitions last season, despite a disappointing campaign for Chesterfield who were relegated back to the bottom tier of the Football League.
It is thought that Paul Lambert will sign Bowery as primarily a signing for the future. However, the striker may have more of a chance of first-team action if a deal to bring Christian Benteke in from Belgian side Genk isn’t completed before the end of the transfer window.
Lambert’s signings certainly appear as if they are part of a long-term project at Villa Park. As well as trying to bring Bowery and Benteke, both 21, to the West Midlands Club, last night the Villa boss confirmed the signing of 22-year-old left back Joe Bennett from Championship side Middlesbrough.
The Villains claimed their first victory of the season on Tuesday night with a comfortable 3-0 victory over League One outfit Tranmere Rovers.
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Manchester City Manager Roberto Mancini has dismissed talk that he was set to become the Monaco boss at the end of last season, reacting angrily to questioning at his most recent press conference.
The Italian was keen to focus on the present rather than focusing on events that may have happened in the past.
Mancini had not previously denied reports linking him with the Ligue 2 club saying he was “close to seven or eight teams”.
That remark had been interpreted in a various amount of ways following the strange admission from the 47 year old.
He gave no indication as to whether the comment was serious, or made in jest, and he was asked to further clarify in Monday’s press conference.
However, the former Inter Milan boss did not welcome the questioning seeing it as highly unnecessary.
Mancini told Sky Sports “I don’t understand why you continue to ask me (about) last year, last month. This is finished.
“Why? Why, for which reason? Why do you continue to ask me, ‘Last year you had a chance to go’?
“I stay here because my work is here. I worked for two years. I built with the chairman and the owner, this team. We won three trophies in two years. For 50 years we didn’t win. Never.”
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City are looking to resurrect their Champions League campaign tomorrow, when they take on Ajax at the Etihad stadium, knowing that only 3 points will ensure that they survive in the competition for the next round of games.
While Andre Villas-Boas may have not re-invented the wheel with his omission of Jan Vertonghen from the Tottenham Hotspur line up on Saturday, he certainly went a long way to reminding supporters about one of the great-lost arts of a Premier League season.
Indeed, following the announcement of the Spurs side yesterday and the rather looming hole that the big Belgian’s name left amongst it, some were initially left almost aghast. Sunderland away, big festive fixture and the manager has left his best defender on the bench? Is AVB tinkering with the backline again? AVB out?
Of course, far from dropping Vertonghen for yesterday’s trip to the Stadium of Light, the Portuguese was in fact resting the ex-Ajax man. Yet what would Spurs supporters remember about rotation?
Taking the tongue firmly out of cheek, supporters in the white half of North London are perhaps more detached than most when it comes to witnessing one of their first team players miss a game besides the medium of injury and suspension.
While some are weary of the continued jibes still aimed at Harry Redknapp since he left the club in the summer, for all the gripes that some supporters carried towards the now QPR boss, it was his seeming reluctance to rest his most important players that many viewed as his biggest failing. And although the popular belief is that Redknapp’s flirtations with the England job preempted the side’s spectacular capitulation during the second half of last season, the abject lack of anything resembling squad rotation may have played just as big a part.
As Spurs entered the back end of the 2011-12 season, they did so with a first XI that had played an awful lot of football with not much resembling the way of rest. While the squad’s fitness over the course of 38 games saw nothing like the sort of injury problems Villas-Boas has had to deal with this term, the lack of major injuries seemed to transcend into an excuse to play the same players week in, week out.
The old adage of playing your best team when fit may fill many with nostalgia, but during a top-flight season in this day and age, that simply isn’t the case anymore. The Premier League is an unforgiving beast and while supporters are filling their boots with the unrelenting festive fixture list, somewhere along the line, it will eventually catch up with the players. And it didn’t half catch up with Spurs last term.
Kyle Walker still hasn’t got over his slump he endured towards the end of last term, but after playing all but one league game at the age of 21, is that necessarily a huge surprise? Maybe not this term, but last term it certainly wasn’t.
Even by his own high standards, Scott Parker seemed to run out of steam from February onwards, but he wasn’t given a minute’s rest since making his debut against Wolves last September. In hindsight considering his age and style of play, were his proceeding late season injury issues a coincidence, or an accident waiting to happen? Furthermore, the talismanic pairing of Gareth Bale and Luka Modric missed only four games between them last term. When Tottenham started to press the self-destruct button, the pair didn’t seem to have enough in the tank to try and change the side’s fate.
Yes, it’s all very well speculating over what might and might not have been last term and what’s done now is done – besides, Villas-Boas has only taken to resting one or two of his defenders in recent days, hardly the entire squad.
Although these are the things that can ultimately make a difference to the Lilywhites come the end of the season. Rotating his centre halves as he has done with Vertonghen, Steven Caulker, William Gallas, and Michael Dawson in recent days may seem like common sense, but it’s something we’ve rarely seen at White Hart Lane in recent days.
Villas-Boas is keeping his backline fresh, fit and ready; with a home game against Reading coming up, the Portuguese has timed it perfectly to perhaps give some of his attacking unit the opportunity for a breather, too. And as the injuries begin to clear up, finally it seems that Villas-Boas is beginning to get a bit of luck along the way, too. You couldn’t pick a better player than the returning Scott Parker to give the outstanding Sandro a breather in the centre of midfield.
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It may seem bordering on the condescending to praise a manager for doing something as basic as switching a few players round during the festive period but considering the failure of the management to do it last term, supporters shouldn’t underestimate the art of squad management.
Many football fans cringe upon hearing sporting philosophies in the mould of Team GB cycling coach Dave Brailsford and his ‘marginal gains’ shtick, but it is the little things which can make the biggest difference in any sport and football isn’t any different. If giving your central defenders one or two games out of the firing line prevents a bit of fatigue creeping in, the emergence of an injury or the regression of concentration, then that’s all that matters.
If Spurs qualify for the Champions League this season, no one is going to attribute much of their success to a bit of squad rotation at the turn of the year. Yet last season serves an only too painful reminder of the taste in the mouth that comes with the over-reliance upon your first choice XI. So while it’s not likely to bag him an LMA gong anytime soon, it’s a well done to Villas-Boas for reminding supporters just how you shuffle the pack.
Barcelona have sensationally accused Premier League duo, Arsenal and Manchester City, of unsettling players at the Catalan club.
The Camp Nou president made the outrageous claim when answering a question about Etihad Stadium manager Roberto Mancini’s reported interest in Sergio Busquets and Cesc Fabregas, then he decided to mention to Gunners: “Manchester City want to remove our players and want to destabilise us,” he is quoted as saying in Mundo Deportivo. “It also happens with Arsenal, who talk to youth players and offer them a lot of money.”
Rosell’s comments may sting Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger particularly, as the Catalan club have regularly poached the best talent out of Emirates Stadium and Highbury since the Frenchman took over at the Gunners. Manchester City’s only business with Barcelona to date was the £24m for Yaya Toure, though the Ivorian was not a regular starter at the time.
Most recently though, was Barça’s pursuit of then Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas over the 2009-10 and 2010-11 season before the transfer was completed, where there were numerous public comments coming out of Barcelona suggesting Fabregas belonged there – the now infamous “Barcelona DNA” comments particularly rile Gunners fans. Alex Song made the same journey this summer, and the comments coming out of Camp Nou, while not quite so open as with Fabregas, were familiar in their tone.
However, there can be no denial that Arsenal are no strangers to taking youth players from the famed La Masia academy, with Fabregas being the most successful outcome and recent acquisitions Jon Toral Harper and Hector Bellerin both tipped for bright futures.
Last summer’s pursuit of £40m men Alexis Sanchez and Cesc Fabregas is not exactly new. Barcelona DNA notwithstanding, both players are examples of raw talent nurtured into world-beaters elsewhere, before being bought with no expense spared.
Without the moral worthiness that’s come with their success – the eulogies to youth teams and the finger pointing towards Madrid and anyone else buying success – there wouldn’t be much of a fuss to be made about either move. Manchester United paid £20m for a 20-year-old goalkeeper last summer and few eyebrows were raised.
But with the moral brand they’ve scrawled all over themselves – too good to buy in talent – even winking at Sanchez, Fabregas and more recently, Alex Song, makes Barcelona rampant hypocrites. And the hypocrisy is all the more blatant this time. Because at 22 and 24, last summer’s targets are marked as ones for the future. They’re being bought primarily as cover for Villa and Xavi, and then as medium-to-long-term replacements for them.
That’s a smear on La Liga’s pin-ups in two ways. First, their sporting domination, alongside a commitment to astonishing salary packets, means they can now afford to buy world-class players without even the intention to play them – which manages extravagance greater than even the Galactico collecting at Real Madrid, where the stars are at least bought to play.
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Then, deeper than that, the pursuit of Fabregas and Sanchez reveals an uncertainty around the club’s structure, on which so much emphasis is placed. Back in March 2011, before his team’s Champions League appointment with Arsenal, Guardiola noted that Barcelona had many reserve team players like Jack Wilshere. Fair enough, Thiago Alacantra proved the point with his displays for Spain’s Under-21s this summer. And yet Wilshere is playing regularly for Arsenal, while Thiago, 20, is set to have 24-year-old Fabregas placed in between him and 30-year-old Xavi’s place in the team.
For all the trust placed in reserve team graduates and the noise made about it, last summer’s targets reveal convenience, not ideology, as the explanation. Like every other club, Barcelona trust their reserves when they’re outstanding talents like Pedro and Sergi Busquets, otherwise they buy in replacements of better quality. The morality brand is a money-spinning lie – and Fabregas, Song and Sanchez grinning and bearing it on their bench will expose it.
Swansea defender Neil Taylor believes that next term will be the biggest test of his Swansea career as they prepare for Europe.
Michael Laudrup’s side have become one of the more attractive sides in British football, showing that dominance in the Capital One Cup final when they dispatched giant-killers Bradford 5-0.
The Welsh club will now prepare for a gruelling season ahead as they look to put up a fight both in the Premier League and the Europa League, but the former Wrexham trainee believes that the squad can handle it.
The 24-year-old has spent the majority of the campaign on the sidelines after sustaining a horrendous ankle injury, but he could be in line to return against Chelsea this weekend.
Taylor said: “The demands it’s going to put on the team, whatever squad we have next season, everybody’s going to play a part.
“It’s going to be a really long season. I think we’re going to have a heavy pre-season because we have to get ready for Europe which comes early.”
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New Liverpool loan midfielder Nuri Sahin believes he can help the Merseyside club get back into the Champions League places this season, according to the BBC.
In a press conference held yesterday, Sahin told the media: “I am looking forward to playing this season and we will do everything to get into top four.”
Sahin, 23, joined Liverpool on a season-long loan to secure regular first team football after a difficult season plagued by injuries at Real Madrid. The midfielder added: “I didn’t play so many games last season so it was important for me to come to a club where I have the chance to play at a high level, and Liverpool is the best club for me right now.”
Sahin decided on a move to Merseyside over Arsenal, and he admitted his decision to join the Anfield club was heavily influenced by what the former Liverpool and now Real Madrid midfielder Xabi Alonso had to say about it. “Xabi said good things,” Sahin explained. “He played a long time for Liverpool and is still in love with the club.”
The German-born Turk added that after watching Liverpool’s performance against Manchester City on Sunday, he is confident that he has made the right decision: “You can see the style of the team is very good. What people told me about Liverpool is what I see now. They are a very big club with a huge history and I think I have made the right choice.”
When asked whether he could envisage a permanent move to Liverpool if he were to have a successful season with the club, Sahin responded by saying “you never know”.
The Turkish midfielder was key to the success of a championship winning Borussia Dortmund side in the 2010-11 season. As a result, he earned a £7 million move to the Bernabeu last summer. However, because of his injury turmoils in the previous campaign, Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho has told Sahin that his options will be limited at the club following the signing of Tottenham midfielder Luka Modric.
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Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers will be hoping that Sahin’s unselfish and dogged style of play in the centre of midfield will allow Steven Gerrard the freedom to press on in attack. Incidentally, Sahin could make his Liverpool debut on Sunday when Liverpool host the team he snubbed to join Merseyside, Arsenal.
Newcastle manager Alan Pardew has confirmed that Fabricio Coloccini will stay with the club until at least the end of the season.
The 31-year-old has been heavily linked with a return to Argentina after requesting to leave the Premier League club for personal reasons.
Speculation that he may be allowed to move on has increased lately, with centre-back Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa arriving from Montpellier.
But, Pardew has confirmed that Coloccini will be staying, and will keep his role as club captain.
“Coloccini is going to stay with us and will remain as captain, which is fantastic news for us,” he told The Guardian.
“We have managed to persuade him that, as much as his family, we need him.
“He has shown fantastic loyalty to come and play and see us through to the summer at the very least.”
This news comes as a real boost for the Magpies, who are looking to move clear of the relegation zone after an underwhelming start to the season.
Newcastle have been very busy in the transfer market of late, with Yanga-Mbiwa’s arrival just one of a handful of additions made by Pardew.
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Mathieu Debuchy, Yoan Gouffran and Massadio Haidara have all arrived at St James’ Park and it is believed that Moussa Sissoko is close to sealing a move to the club from Toulouse.
midfielder Darren Fletcher has admitted that he cannot wait to step out for Scotland again, and that he is fit to feature in both of their World Cup qualifiers over the next five days.
The Red Devils battler has returned to health and fitness after being diagnosed with a bowel condition that threatened his career.
After making a return to action for the Old Trafford outfit, Fletcher is now relishing the opportunity to represent his country once more.
“I feel ready to play both matches. I feel fit, I feel strong and I feel ready for the games. It’s great to be back,” he confessed to reporters, published in The Daily Mail.
“It’s been a while and I’m just desperate for the game to start. Hopefully I’m playing and I can do my part in getting a good result for Scotland.
“I always believed I would be back and fortunately I’m here today.
“It proves that I always had the belief that one day I would be back and helping the lads qualify for a major competition,” he continued.
In-form striker Steven Fletcher has also returned to Craig Levein’s squad to add quality, but the United man feels that a team effort will be needed for the side to beat Wales on Friday.
“If we beat Wales on Friday it won’t just be because me and Steven are named in the team.
“It will need a good team effort. If it can be a boost to the rest of the players that’s great. You look for any small margin you can.
“But knowing the players, they will be ready for this game irrespective of whether me and Steven are in the team.
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“We’ll be looking to win the match and whoever is playing will give their all and hopefully we can get a positive result for Scotland,” he concluded.
Steve Harper admits he feared his career at Newcastle United was over; such was the form of the younger Tim Krul last season.
The 37-year-old’s Premier League appearance in Newcastle’s 2-2 draw with Everton on Monday was his first in over a year. Harper conceded it had been tough and that his motivation was faltering.
Speaking ahead of the Toon Army’s Thursday night Europa League clash with Maritimo, Harper said: “I didn’t think a night like this would come again. It looked a long way away.
“It was probably a little bit my fault as well. When Tim started last season, I admit I got the hump and let standards slip. That’s probably the reason I wasn’t involved.
“But the first morning of pre-season the manager came to see me. He said, ‘have you still got it?’ I said, ‘yes’. He told me if I showed him I still wanted it, there would be an opportunity, so credit to him.”
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Dutch international Krul, is currently missing with an elbow injury suffered playing for his country, giving Harper a chance to prove his worth to Alan Pardew.