Arsenal fans have been disappointed in the lack of transfer activity by the Gunners board but it seems like the club are finally making moves. The north London have been nearing a deal for Lyon forward Alexandre Lacazette and AFTV discusses when that is expected to be completed.
The 26-year old has scored 129 goals in 275 games for the Ligue 1 club and at a rate of over 20 league goals in the past three seasons. Arsene Wenger has been looking to make a splash in this summer’s transfer window and the France international could be exactly what they need.
The French manager is also rumoured to be interested in a wide player and AFTV discusses the possible signings of a pair of top class wide players. And then of course, it would be impossible to talk Arsenal transfer rumours without mentioning Alexis Sanchez.
The Chilean attacker said he would make known his decision after the Confederations Cup, which ended on Sunday with Germany defeating Sanchez and Chile 1-0 in the final.
Watch all the latest Arsenal transfer news in the video above.
Turning 27 today, Danny Rose is widely revered as the best left-back in the Premier League – to the extent that he claimed the No.3 slot in last term’s PFA Team of the Season, for the second year in a row, despite not making a single appearance from February onward due to injury.
Consequently, he’s now England’s first choice in that position when fit and rated by many as one of the best left-backs in Europe.
But just four years ago, aged 23, that wasn’t the case at all. In fact, having followed a sensational debut in the north London derby that saw his volley from long distance embarrass Manuel Almunia with just 16 Premier League appearances in three seasons for Spurs, Rose was very much on the fringes of the first-team squad, seemingly fitting the criteria of relatively young, English and expendable that, once upon a time, Daniel Levy would feel incredibly tempted to cash in on.
That was in part due to injuries and in part due to a number of loan spells away, some more successful than others. But even after what can be considered Rose’s first true full season in the Spurs first team – 2013/14, when he managed the same number of Premier League appearances as Kyle Naughton, 22 – he was hardly considered a future two-time PFA Player of the Year member or potential part of England’s strongest starting XI. Far from it; Rose didn’t actually make his Three Lions debut until March 2016.
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The dramatic transformation in Rose’s stock during the intermittent period is a lesson to us all, about how young players and particularly young English players are built up and knocked down far too soon in the Premier League. In truth, there’s nothing miraculous, spectacular or unique about Rose’s rise, although Mauricio Pochettino’s utilisation of offensive full-backs and their increased popularity in general has certainly helped. He’s simply come into his peak years at the age most footballers should, between 25 and 27.
Yet, the Premier League is overflowing with examples of young English players not being allowed that time to develop. Raheem Sterling has been written off as a £50million flop at the age of 22, Calum Chambers has become Arsenal’s forgotten man at the same age, Luke Shaw’s lost in the wilderness at 21 and at the start of last season, Ronald Koeman warned a 23-year-old Ross Barkley that he’d no longer be treated as a young player, before dropping him from the starting XI due to a bout of poor form.
It’s certainly true that the aforementioned names were fast-tracked to the top end of the Premier League much quicker than Rose and of course, that players who are already producing at a young age – such as Dele Alli and Harry Kane – have a bigger chance of reaching the very top of the game at some stage in their careers.
But to judge all players on the same time-line of development and deciding so young whether they will or won’t make the grade is hugely detrimental in its superficiality; there can be no ‘one-size-fits-all’ in a sport with so many different types of athletes from so many different backgrounds who have taken so many different journeys.
It’s required a decade at White Hart Lane for Rose to reach the full extremities of his powers after being one of the stars of the youth team at Leeds; Dele Alli stepped into the first team with immaculate ease after arriving from League One outfit MK Dons. Both, however, will be crucial to Tottenham’s efforts next season.
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In fact, there’s an argument thatRose’s path to the first-team was a much safer one than Alli’s, who has been playing in excess of 35 games a season since he was 17 years of age. The demands on Rose have steadily increased as he’s naturally developed the physicality to cope, whereas Alli’s been thrown into the deep end – albeit, he’s done far more than simply stay afloat.
At Athletic Bilbao, one of the best producers of young players in Europe considering the slender size of their self-imposed catchment area, even the most promising young players are sent out on loan to feeder clubs first – meaning they usually don’t feature at senior level for Bilbao until they’re 21 or 22. By that time, in the Premier League, most young players will already have been painted as an overrated prospect who will never reach the potential suggested or a world-beater in the making.
Perhaps Rose benefited from slipping under the radar during that point in his career, meaning he wasn’t under quite the same pressure as some of his contemporaries. Likewise, there is no doubt Pochettino’s appointment was a watershed moment for the England international; whereas Harry Redknapp and Andre Villas-Boas never seemed wholly convinced, Pochettino’s embraced Rose completely, using a philosophy that further amplifies his individual strengths.
Yet, you have to wonder how many young players are out there in the same position as Rose three years ago, written off, or at the very least unfancied, before reaching anywhere near their peak years, just waiting for the right manager and the right opportunities to coincide with their natural development.
It’s time we all stopped expecting all young players to be the finished article at 22 or 23 and condemning to careers of mediocrity those who aren’t. Rose, a two-time PFA Team of the Year member who wasn’t even a guaranteed starter at Tottenham three years ago, provides the prime example as to why.
According to Fanatik, West Ham are close to signing Senegalese international Badou Ndiaye from Turkish side Osmanlispor.
What’s the Story?
Turkish reports have suggested that Senegal international ‘Badou’ Ndiaye is close to a move to West Ham, who are looking to get their summer window moving again after just one signing so far.
Osmanlispor, the Turksih club who Diaye has played for over the last two years, have all but confirmed the 26-year-old’s departure from the club. The teams general manager Ender Yurtgüven turned to social media to announce that a deal had been agreed. It is thought that the midfielder will cost the Hammers around £8million.
How good was Ndiaye last season?
Solid. Ndiaye featured 36 times for Osmanlispor in all competitions last season, netting seven times and providing three assists.
However, it was his dominance of the midfield position that caught the eye of a number of watching scouts. The powerful player was a comprehensive threat going forward, with an (almost) Yaya Toure-like mentality.
Ndiaye has subsequently thrust himself into the European spotlight and it looks as though West Ham are the ones who will be taking a gamble on the 8-cap Senegalese international.
Would Ndiaye be a good signing for West Ham?
A tough call. While Ndiaye has all of the qualities that make up a decent Premier League football, he would be battling for a place in the middle of the park with a number of similar players, including Cheikhou Kouyate, Mark Noble and Pedro Obiang.
The 26-year-old will need to make an instant impact to ensure that he gets the game time needed to establish himself in the Premier League.
Southampton manager Mauricio Pellegrino confirmed on Friday that captain and Liverpool target Virgil van Dijk was training on his own after telling him that he wanted to leave the club.
The Dutchman has been heavily linked with a move to the Reds throughout the summer but the Merseyside outfit were forced to issue an apology on their official club website after being accused of tapping the 26-year-old up.
However, they could reignite their interest in the Saints skipper following the recent developments, although BBC Football claim that the south coast outfit are adamant that he will be staying.
Liverpool supporters were quick to have their say on the latest twist in the transfer saga via social media, with some saying that now the player has done his bit, the club must do theirs and make a suitable offer, while others believe that if the deal goes through it could be the biggest signing since they signed Fernando Torres from Atletico Madrid.
Chelsea were beaten 4-1 on penalties in the Community Shield against Arsenal at Wembley on Sunday, and Blues fans were particularly critical of former Gunner Cesc Fabregas.
Following the departure of Nemanja Matic to Manchester United and with new boy Tiemoue Bakayoko not yet ready to play because of injury, the Spaniard was named alongside N’Golo Kante in the middle of the park despite often finding himself on the substitutes’ bench last term.
The 30-year-old struggled to deal with the likes of Granit Xhaka and Alex Iwobi in the middle of the park as Victor Moses’ opening goal for Antonio Conte’s men was cancelled out by a header from Sead Kolasinac, when Fabregas played a number of the Arsenal players on-side at a free-kick.
Chelsea supporters were quick to have their say on the performance of the midfielder via social media, with some describing him as the “weak link” and others saying he isn’t good enough to play against decent opposition.
Everton defied concerns that an unaccommodating fixture list – facing four of last season’s top six in the space of four games – would create a sticky start to the season with a strong performance against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on Monday night.
The Toffees failed to take advantage of the title-hoping hosts going a man down after Kyle Walker incurred a second yellow card but still came away from Manchester with a huge point, especially considering Pep Guardiola’s side are expected to battle it out at the Premier League’s summit this term.
Vital to the result was the effectiveness in which Dominic Calvert-Lewin lead the line, causing problems for City’s back three on the break while providing the physical presence and creativity in the final third to bring Wayne Rooney into the game – epitomised by the 6 foot 1 Englishman assisting his compatriot for the second time this season.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, therefore, it was Calvert-Lewin who ran away with our poll when we asked Everton fans earlier this week to vote for their Man of the Match. In a fine display from the 20-year-old, he created four chances, completed two dribbles, won two aerial duels and two fouls.
One of the biggest fixtures in the Premier League calendar, Liverpool v Arsenal pits two of English football’s most successful clubs, but over the last 10 years, these two giants of English football can count just four trophies between them: Arsenal’s three FA Cups in four years, and Liverpool’s 2012 League Cup triumph.
Despite the relative lack of success, though, the Premier League has changed dramatically over the last two seasons, and that means both of these teams are fighting with the rest of the top six for every domestic honour – not to mention a place in the top four and a spot in the Champions League.
Last season, Liverpool beat Arsenal twice, and if either one of those games had even ended in a draw, it would be Arsene Wenger’s Gunners in the Champions League this season, with Jurgen Klopp’s Reds having to settle for a place in the Europa League. Such are the fine margins the Premier League comes down to these days.
Head-to-Head
Since the inception of the Premier League, this fixture has been incredibly closely fought overall, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.
The stats say that no side has had the upper hand in this fixture, but from March 1994 to August 2000, Arsenal failed to beat Liverpool in 14 attempts in all competitions, 12 in the Premier League and two in the League Cup. Since then, the tables have been turned and it’s Arsenal who have been the dominant side.
Until last season.
Last time, Liverpool did the double over Arsenal for the first time since the 1999/00 season. Is this a sign of things to come? Or just a quirk of Liverpool’s odd record last season where they seemed to beat the top sx teams but drop points to sides lower in the table?
Top Scorer
Football – Liverpool v Arsenal – F.A. Premier League – 28/8/99 Mandatory Credit : Action Images / Darren Walsh Liverpool’s Robbie Fowler scores the 1st goal
Top scorers in Liverpool v Arsenal fixtures in the Premier League tell the same story of Merseyside dominance in the 90s and north London dominance in the 00s.
Robbie Fowler is the top marksman in this fixture in the Premier League with 10 goals, whilst Thierry Henry is just behind him with nine.
But that just shows the quality of this fixture – both sides’ top scorers against the other is a bona fide Premier League legend, though an honourable mention has to go to Andriy Arshavin, whose five goals in this game puts him just one behind Steven Gerrard, even though four of those goals came in just one game.
The Unforgettable Match
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That one game, though is the unforgettable epic that was the 4-4 draw at Anfield in April 2009.
That year was without doubt Liverpool’s best chance to win the Premier League until the 2013/14 season when Steven Gerrard’s memorable slip against Chelsea saw Manchester City pip the Reds to the post.
The draw with Arsenal at Anfield was a classic for the ages, where the lead changed hands plenty of times on a tumultuous afternoon.
A 90th minute Andriy Arshavin goal – his fourth and final goal of the game – looked to have won it for Arsenal and gifted the title to Manchester United, but Yossi Benayoun, who would later go on to play for Arsenal, popped up with a late equaliser.
It wouldn’t have mattered in the title race anyway. The draw was Liverpool’s only dropped points since February, but so consistent were United that they still won the league by four points. The extra two for beating Arsenal may have put added pressure on Alex Ferguson’s side, but we’ll never know if they would have cracked.
The Shared Hero – Kolo Toure
Despite his last-minute equaliser to cancel out Arshavin’s last-minute strike, Yossi Benayoun could hardly be described as an Arsenal legend, having spent a season at the Emirates on loan and even captained the Gunners in a League Cup tie against Manchester City.
Outside of the Premier League era, figures like Ray Kennedy – who played over 200 times for Arsenal and nearly 400 times for Liverpool, winning multiple league titles and European honours with both clubs – and Michael Thomas – who famously scored a last-minute goal at Anfield to win the title for Arsenal, before going on to represent Liverpool with distinction, winning an FA Cup and a League Cup with the club.
But in the Premier League era, Kolo Toure stands out as a player who played for arguably the defining sides of both clubs’ Premier League history.
For Arsenal, that’s an obvious one, as Toure played in the Invincibles side of 2003/04. But for Liverpool, perhaps it’s more debatable.
In the Premier League era, however, most of the Reds’ most memorable success has come in Europe, and for that reason, the 2013/14 side which almost won the title under Brendan Rodgers has to be considered the defining Liverpool side of the Premier League, having scored over 100 goals and looked for so long like they were going to finally bring the Premier League title to Anfield.
Before Manchester City demolished Liverpool at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday afternoon, the Reds’ clash with Spanish giants Sevilla looked like a test of the progress Jurgen Klopp’s side had made since their defeat in the 2016 Europa League final. Now the tie looks to have taken on a different dynamic altogether.In the moments prior to Sadio Mane’s red card just before half-time at the weekend, the prevailing view was that Liverpool were at least holding their own, if they weren’t even the better team outright. The scoreline already read 1-0 by the time the Senegalese international’s boot connected with Ederson’s cheek and jaw, but Mohamed Salah – withdrawn strangely by Klopp at the break – had Nicolas Otamendi on a booking and City’s defence didn’t look like it was capable of holding out for 90 minutes against the Reds at their full complement. No-one knows how the game would have ended if the sending-off hadn’t happened, of course, but 5-0 to the hosts seems like a stretch of the imagination.And yet, coming on the back of such a heavy defeat, no matter the circumstances, you always wonder how the team will pick itself up. Notwithstanding the fact that most onlookers aren’t treating Liverpool as they treated Arsenal after the Gunners’ thumping at Anfield just before the international break, the professional pride of Klopp’s players must have taken something of a battering at the weekend.The problem is you can’t mitigate such a defeat by simply pointing to the fact that the entire Liverpool squad – from management down – waved a bloodied white flag in the face of the frighteningly pointless exercise that was a second half against Manchester City away with only ten men. Even with the score already at 2-0. You can’t mitigate such a defeat in that way because when you think about it, that’s actually worse.In the short term, Liverpool aren’t as bad as 5-0 suggests, and that knowledge should mean another collapse of similar proportions is unlikely against Sevilla. But in the long term, just how can a group of professional footballers justify their day’s work if that’s the conclusion they draw?There’s no accusation that they did ‘give up’. Not anything other than what was visible from the second half performance, at least. But if it is tempting to use that as an explanation of why the scoreline was so high, it should also come with an explanation as to why a group of players with that mentality shouldn’t be slated for a heavy defeat away to a top six rival.The first half against City showed us nothing new. Liverpool are a side who, last season, proved they have the setup to beat any other top six side. They are frightening in attack, but also suspect at the back, too.And yet, the second half raised questions which should be extended beyond the caveat of a red card which undoubtedly changed the game. Liverpool’s character should be called into question, even if they aren’t actually as bad as the scoreline made them out to be.But one other question was raised on Saturday, and we didn’t see an answer to it. We won’t see it answered on Wednesday night at Anfield either, because Sadio Mane’s suspension won’t take effect until the next Premier League game, but it will be intriguing to see just how Liverpool will cope with the absence of a player they couldn’t live without last season.That’s why the substitution of Mohamed Salah against City was so strange – though mitigated by the fact that Liverpool may well have sensed the situation was unrecoverable. The Egyptian was bought seemingly with the intention of providing the same impact as the Senegalese attacker, but just on the other side. The implication being that Salah would provide the Mane threat in the absence of the man himself -something that was sorely missing last year.So in the end, Liverpool’s defeat at the weekend both taught us nothing new, and yet raised so many big questions which will need to be answered very soon. Over the last few months, progress at Anfield has been called into question. After 72 games in charge, the German has won fewer games and fewer points than his predecessor Brendan Rodgers, despite bringing the side to a Europa League final and qualifying for the Champions League in his two-or-so years at the club.
But if the idea of meagre progress wasn’t enough of a metaphor for the entire Jurgen Klopp era, the arrival of Sevilla at Anfield means Liverpool once again pit themselves against the Spanish side who beat them to the Europa League crown in 2016 and also effectively knocked them out of last season’s edition Champions League.
It is, by anyone’s standard, a game to be seen as mark of progress. But on the back of two mixed results – a heavy victory and a heavy defeat – there are legitimate issues to be raised concerning Liverpool’s progress. Are they better at the back than they were before? Are they genuinely better-off under Klopp? And, to a lesser extent for now, has this season’s summer business done enough to prepare the club for a Champions League campaign and an assault on a first trophy since 2012?
This game is still a test of progress, but instead of feeling good before the measure up, Liverpool should be worried about finding out they’ve stood still.
Crystal Palace’s season has consistently been going from bad to worse. Not only are the Eagles rock-bottom of the Premier League table without scoring a goal, but their club-record signing and star striker Christian Benteke will now be sidelined through injury for the next six weeks.
Aside from being their most talented player, the real problem is that Palace don’t have an obvious understudy for the Belgium international, with Connor Wickham also on the injury list.
With that in mind, we asked Palace supporters earlier this week to vote for who they’d like to see fill Benteke’s void in the coming weeks and it was Freddie Ladapo who won our poll with 38% of the vote.
That is despite the 24-year-old being yet to make a competitive appearance for the South Londoners after moving to Selhurst Park from Margate back in 2016 and scoring just six times during two loan spells in League One.
But perhaps the bigger surprise is how poorly Andros Townsend fared in our poll. Despite being a borderline forward by trade as one of Palace’s wide-men, just 6% would like to see the England international fielded up front – a third of the amount willing to give centre-back Scott Dann a chance.
The rivalry between Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur is a fierce one, but on some occasions, the feud is put on the back-burner.
It seems that Arsenal legend Ian Wright decided to do just that when he praised Spurs striker Harry Kane for receiving a prestigious nomination.
The 24-year-old has been named within a 30-man shortlist for the Ballon d’Or, which has gone back and forth between Barcelona star Lionel Messi and Real Madrid hero Cristiano Ronaldo over the years.
The latter is favourite to nab his fifth award, but it is a special achievement for Kane, who is the only Englishman on the list.
Wright has a strong loyalty to Arsenal given that he spent seven years of his career playing for the North London outfit.
However, the 53-year-old decided to give a special mention to Kane after the striker was announced as one of the nominees.
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The homegrown Tottenham player has scored 11 goals in all competitions for his club this season.