Manchester United are keeping tabs on Porto’s James Rodriguez with negotiations over a new contract with Nani yet to be concluded, according to the Sun.
The Portuguese winger’s current deal is not due to expire until 2014 and he is yet to commit his long-term future to the Red Devils, despite the club offering a reported wage hike to £130,000 per week. Therefore United have begun lining up contingency plans, with the 20-year-old topping their list of targets.
James earned a glowing reputation whilst playing for Argentine side Banfield and was brought to Europe by the Porto in 2010. But this season has served as his breakthrough year as he scored 13 goals in 26 league appearances as Portuguese outfit won their second consecutive league title.
Despite his youth he has already forced his way into the Colombia team and has represented his country five times at senior level, scoring his first goal in the 1-0 win World Cup qualifying group win over Peru.
Sir Alex Ferguson has frequently had scouts watch the energetic winger and he has been impressed with his development since moving to Europe. Should the Red Devils wish to launch an official bid to bring him to Old Trafford however, they could expect to pay no less that £20m.
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Tottenham midfielder Scott Parker is potentially set to miss the start of the 2012-13 Premier League season, with an operation in the offing according to The Daily Mail.
The veteran battler played in all four of England’s Euro 2012 games in Ukraine and Poland, but has been carrying an Achilles knock that has taken its toll over the summer.
Parker may well opt to go under the knife in the off-season to sort out the problem once and for all, and as such would miss the start of Spurs’ campaign.
Tottenham start next term against Newcastle, and will look to get off the mark with a positive result.
Meanwhile, The Daily Mail also indicate that Andre Villas Boas may well be winning the race to become Spurs boss.
The Portuguese trainer is supposedly in direct competition with Laurent Blanc for the vacant White Hart Lane hotseat, but is said to have impressed Daniel Levy and the Tottenham board in recent talks.
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Liverpool recorded a comfortable 3-0 victory over FC Gomel in the Europa League qualifiers on Thursday night.
First-half goals from Fabio Borini, Steven Gerrard and a second-half Glen Johnson strike made it an easy night at Anfield in Brendan Rodgers’ first competitive home fixture.
The Northern Irish manager picked Luis Suarez and Fabio Borini for specific praise after the victory.
“Luis is an incredible player. He has come back to us and looked great in training,” Rodgers confessed to Sky Sports.
“He is so creative in the box but he also presses very well when he doesn’t have the ball.
“He is the type of player I love. He is in love with football. He has such passion for the game.
“His combination work with Steven Gerrard and Fabio Borini was excellent.
“It is important for any striker to score because they are judged on their goals. But I brought Fabio here because I know he can score.
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“He is only 21 and has a lot of improvement left in him. But with his work-rate and his ability on the ball I think he will fit in very well to our team,” he concluded.
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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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.
It doesn’t matter at what level of football you play, being a goalkeeper can be a really unpleasant job.
Even on the school playing field, it has always been the position that nobody wants to play. You pick sides one player at a time. You slowly pick off the best players until eventually your team is left with the weakest, least competent member of the group. So what do you do with them? Well, it’s obvious. You stick them in goal in a vain attempt to keep them out of harm’s way. Then when your team wins, the focus is on the goalscorer and the goalkeeper’s efforts go unnoticed. When your team ends up losing, there is only one person to blame, isn’t there?
But in the professional game, is it any different? When people think of the greatest goals of all time, they think of Diego Maradona vs England (not the first goal, obviously!), Marco Van Basten vs USSR, Cantona vs Sunderland, Bergkamp vs Newcastle, Henry vs Manchester United, Zidane vs Bayer Leverkusen, Di Canio vs Wimbledon… the list goes on.
On the other hand, when people think of the greatest saves of all time… well, you’ve got Gordon Banks vs Brazil… and that’s about it. Take nothing away from goalkeepers such as Schmeichel, Zoff, Yashin, Khan, Van Der Sar, Buffon and Casillas. They have all produced mind-blowing saves during their careers, but it’s only ever Banks’ physics-defying save from Pele’s header that truly sticks out in the minds of the footballing public.
Sadly goalkeepers are rarely remembered for their heroics in front of goal. If anything, they are remembered for the exact opposite. If you type ‘great goalkeeping saves’ into YouTube, you will receive over 18,000 videos in response. But type ‘goalkeeping errors’, and the number of responses is almost trebled!
Yes, we all enjoy watching the old blooper every now and again (as long as it doesn’t happen to your team!), but it’s of little wonder or surprise that being a goalkeeper is one of the most stressful jobs in any sport. There is simply no margin for error. If a team has an off day and fails to score, the best they can hope for is a draw. But if the keeper has a bad day, his team could end up with nothing at all.
And the pressure just doesn’t go away. The new Premier League season is only just over a week old, and yet we have already witnessed no fewer than seven goalkeeping howlers. Even the League’s most reliable goalies, most notably, Petr Cech, David De Gea and Shay Given are amongst those to have fumbled already this season.
In the modern era, when every single match that is played is scrutinised right down to the finest details, goalkeepers always remain subject to criticism, scepticism and mockery.
The cynics amongst us might say that ‘they’re only job is to stop shots from going in to the back of the net. How hard can that possibly be?’ But being a goalkeeper is about so much more than that. It is about being a master of your own state of mind. It is about conquering your own self-doubt. It is about not letting your mistakes affect your ability as a player.
The question is how does a goalkeeper deal with all of these issues? Well, nowadays the biggest clubs have all kinds of facilities to help players psychologically, however most players are apparently too reluctant to commit themselves to dealing with their own self-doubt, for fear of what their manager and team-mates would think of them.
One of the biggest fears for a footballer is rejection. One week, you think you are playing well, but the next week you find yourself on the bench. This can have a massive psychological effect on any player, but for this to happen to a goalkeeper, where there is only one place in the team up for grabs, the thought that your manager favours another player over yourself can be very damaging to the psyche.
Back in March, former England goalkeeper David James wrote an article in the Observer about the lack of psychological support in football:
‘There’s a misconception that all footballers are very confident, but it is the opposite for most.
‘It is a great irony that in a game where we routinely talk of confidence on the pitch, psychological support off it is so appallingly neglected. When I was going through a bad time at Liverpool I approached the club for some support. Back then, I was told, “Shut up and deal with it”. Sadly, I don’t think football has moved on from that position.’
Every goalkeeper suffers from self-doubt, even if they won’t admit it. Even Edwin Van Der Sar, one of the greatest keepers of all time, has admitted to being prone to this. But the best thing they can do is simply try to brush it off, learn from that mistake and try not to let it happen again. Some are able to brush off their mistakes and move on even if their reputation takes a hit as a result.
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Robert Green’s reputation has been completely tarnished by his error during England’s match vs USA at the 2010 World Cup. Massimo Taibi seemed to completely disappear off the radar following his howler for Manchester United against Southampton in 1999. Even David James has suffered a similar fate, inheriting the nickname ‘Calamity James’ during a torrid spell at Liverpool. But the truth is all of these players did not let their mistakes get to them. Despite another error recently, Robert Green is still a top flight goalkeeper at QPR, Massimo Taibi went on to have a successful career in Italy, and David James, despite not currently being attached to a club, is still playing in his 40s.
Sadly, some goalkeepers are never able to fathom the amount of responsibility that they have to deal with. The most prominent and tragic example being that of German goalkeeper Robert Enke, who committed suicide in November 2009. In Ronald Reng’s book, A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke, we examine the life of a man struggling to battle with his own personal demons and are given an insight into the pressures and fears of playing sport at the highest level. Enke’s story is a shining example of how it could all go wrong for today’s professional goalkeeper.
It’s easy to say that clubs could do more to support their players psychologically, and there is no doubt in my mind that they should. But players need to take it upon themselves not to let their self-doubt get the better of them. Thankfully, the example of Robert Enke is one of a kind. But all goalkeepers, regardless of how good they are, should learn from him.
Goalkeepers simply need to learn one thing: they are only human. The chances are extremely high that a goalkeeper will make more than one mistake in his career. But this doesn’t mean that his reputation has to suffer. One mistake or one bad performance doesn’t define a goalkeeper. It’s how they bounce back from this mistake that defines them.
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.
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.
Aston Villa striker Darren Bent has admitted he is frustrated with Paul Lambert’s rotation system but is working hard for his place in the team.
Bent has scored just two goals in 10 appearances this season and at an open training session at Villa Park today he confirmed that he’s unhappy with the situation.
He told Sky Sports: “Obviously any player who values themselves wants to play week in week out and when you start playing rotation systems it is difficult to find a rhythm, especially when you’re a front man.
“But that’s the manager’s decision and we live by that. We have to keep working hard in training and show him that we want to play.”
Villa have suffered a poor start to the current season having won only one of their opening eight Premier League matches and find themselves just a point above the bottom three following their 1-0 defeat away to Fulham at the weekend.
But Bent is confident that Paul Lambert’s side can improve and begin climbing the table sooner rather than later.
“Sometimes you will run right and the ball will go left, but that is just one of those things. I’m sure that once we blend as a team and start creating chances I’ll start finishing them,” he added.
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Aston Villa’s next top-flight game is at home to fellow early season strugglers Norwich City on Saturday before a difficult November sees them travel to Manchester City in between home ties against Manchester United and Arsenal.
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.