Vesper

No Premier League midfielder has made more interceptions than Declan Rice (61) this season

we need to sell him or swap him back to a La Liga team

Chelsea flop Kepa Arrizabalaga backed to "prove everybody wrong" with return to form Kepa's high-profile errors led manager Frank Lampard to bring in a new goalkeeper over the summer, but a former Blues shot-stopper has backed the Spaniard to be a "huge success" https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/chelsea-flop-kepa-arrizabalaga-form-23020131 Asmir Begovic has thrown his weight behind Kepa Arrizabalga by backing the out-of-favour Chelsea goalkeeper to "prove everyone wrong". The Blues signed Kepa from Athletic Bilbao for £71million - a world-record fee for a goalkeeper - in 2018, securing his services on a seven-year contract. But buying the Spaniard has so far proved to be a costly error, as he has struggled to replicate his impressive La Liga form in the Premier League. Kepa, 26, has made a string of high-profile errors as Chelsea No.1 - including in the 2-0 defeat to Liverpool in September - prompting manager Frank Lampard to sign a new first-choice goalkeeper in Edouard Mendy. The out-of-form man has not featured on the bench for the Blues in recent fixtures after sustaining a shoulder injury last month. But Begovic believes Kepa can still be a "huge success" - though it may take a move away from Stamford Bridge for him to live up to his potential. “These situations are never straightforward. If you spend a big transfer fee it doesn’t mean everything is going to work out; there are a lot of factors into making a move work and making an impact at a club. “Mendy has come in and done really, really well, I think he’s really solidified that position. He’s been impressive, he’s been a joy to watch to be honest and he’s someone I really enjoy watching. snip

War Minus the Shooting George Orwell’s famed essay of football shows how little he understood it https://www.theblizzard.co.uk/article/war-minus-shooting George Orwell did not like football. He was, throughout his life, largely dismissive of Britain’s great pastime. It was rarely mentioned in his work, but when the topic of football – and indeed any of the country’s other various popular sports – did crop up, he approached it with a general disdain. “Football,” he wrote, “is war minus the shooting. It has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence.” That is just a short extract from Orwell’s 1945 essay “The Sporting Spirit”, in which he decries the tribalistic, overly aggressive nature of a sport that had, for most of Britain’s working-class population, only recently made a welcome return. For Orwell, football could not be detached from the political climate of the time. Just a few months after the end of the Second World War, Dinamo Moscow had been invited on a tour of Britain. There was, for fans of the sport, a sense of intrigue, of curiosity. This was eastern Europe’s most dominant team, a team filled with some of Russia’s most gifted players, among them the prolific forward Vsevolod Bobrov, who had joined temporarily from CDKA Moscow. In Britain, very little was known about the opposition. It was not clear when the tour would begin, nor which team would land in London. There was speculation, an air of anticipation. For Dinamo, the intention was to prove a point. Their players had been told to visit Joseph Stalin shortly before departing for Britain. Alongside his sadistic chief of Soviet Security, Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin gave them a simple message: do not lose to the capitalists. There was, then, an underlying politicisation surrounding the tour: England, still considered football’s elite, would be knocked off their perch by the rising power in the east. That is how Stalin saw it, and that is what concerned Orwell. He did not approve of entertaining a totalitarian state, even given the role the Soviet Union had played in the conclusion of the war. In November 1945, Dinamo arrived, their players all wearing the same blue coats. They carried briefcases, the contents of which were the subject of much speculation. Some suggested they had been used to smuggle an atomic bomb into the country. The reality, though, was that they had simply contained the players’ food. There was a mysteriousness about Dinamo. No one knew what to expect. But the assumption was, of course, that the British teams would win. At this point, the English hubris, which would be shattered a decade later following the visit of the great Hungarian side, was as prevalent as ever. Dinamo took everyone by surprise. At a packed Stamford Bridge – filled to capacity with 85,000 supporters – they adjusted to the noise and intensity to earn a 3-3 draw. Then came a 10-1 victory over Cardiff and a 4-3 win against Arsenal at White Hart Lane. A draw with Rangers in Glasgow meant Dinamo returned to their homeland unbeaten. They had earned the respect of football’s founding nation. The USSR’s reputation had been enhanced and Stalin was content. Orwell, meanwhile, had watched on, unwilling to be drawn in by the furore of the crowd. “I am told that the match in Glasgow was a free-for-all,” he wrote in a letter to a friend. “Those bloody Scotchmen again, eh? What are they like, mate?” Orwell, of course, was writing in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Football was back, and it had been a long wait. Attendances spiked: in 1938-39, the final season before war put an end to the football calendar, average attendances in the Football League stood at 16,413. That figure rose to 21,642 during the first season back. There was, clearly, a huge demand to watch football after this enforced hiatus. According to Orwell, though, it simply offered an outlet for those with any left-over anger, a conduit through which they could channel their pent-up aggression. He did not approve of these “orgies of hatred”. There is an element of Orwell’s critique that appears almost tongue in cheek, deliberately exaggerated. It is written from the perspective of someone with no appreciation for the sport, although the argument could be made that this allowed him to cast a more objective eye over its shortcomings. That, though, is not the belief of Dorian Lynskey, author of The Ministry of Truth: The Biography of George Orwell's 1984. He has, in his own words, “read every word” of the writer’s work. And he describes Orwell’s pontification on football – which would, had it been written in the modern day, almost certainly have earned him the abuse of hundreds of anonymous Twitter dwellers – as “a kind of proto-trolling”. “Orwell often had strong opinions about things he didn't appreciate or understand,” said Lynskey. “One was Hollywood movies, another was sport. He saw football as inherently violent and an arena for destructive nationalist rivalry, which is quite an extreme view. In his Tribune columns he liked to exaggerate for effect and enjoyed goading his readers. Of course, international sport can foster xenophobic hostility but it's the safest vessel for it. ‘War minus the shooting’ is better than the other kind.” Of that there is little doubt. Orwell’s denouncement of football – and, more specifically, of Dinamo’s tour of Britain – could justifiably be dismissed as little more than an overreaction, the curmudgeonly views of a man who simply placed too much significance on the role of sport in foreign relations. And, as Lynskey points out, Orwell’s intention might not have been for his essay to be taken entirely seriously. “This is a great example of how Orwell valorised the common man but looked down on things that the common man enjoyed,” Lynskey said. “He was oblivious to the positive aspects of sports fandom, especially football. All he saw in football was a lot of shoving and shouting. He was repelled by anything that pitted nation against nation, even if almost everyone else thought it was harmless fun.” In Orwell’s 1937 book The Road to Wigan Pier, an exploration of the living and working conditions of the working classes in Lancashire and Yorkshire, football barely warrants a passing mention. There is a brief mention of the Pools, a pastime he lumped in with fish-and-chips, the movies, the radio and strong tea as “cheap luxuries which mitigate the surface of life”. It is likely he had the same opinion of football itself. Some of his observations in “The Sporting Spirit”, though, are worthy of further observation. Some remain pertinent even now. And some of his objections – the inherent tribalism, xenophobia and hostility – have grown only more severe in the decades since. The opening of Orwell’s essay is, perhaps, the neatest summation of his overarching point: “… sport is an unfailing cause of ill will, and that if such a visit as this had any effect at all on Anglo-Soviet relations, it could only be to make them slightly worse than before. “… At the Arsenal match, I am told by someone who was there, a British and a Russian player came to blows and the crowd booed the referee. The Glasgow match, someone else informs me, was simply a free-for-all from the start. And then there was the controversy, typical of our nationalistic age, about the composition of the Arsenal team. Was it really an all-England team, as claimed by the Russians, or merely a league team, as claimed by the British? And did the Dinamos end their tour abruptly in order to avoid playing an all-England team? As usual, everyone answers these questions according to his political predilections… No doubt the controversy will continue to echo for years in the footnotes of history books. Meanwhile the result of the Dinamos' tour, in so far as it has had any result, will have been to create fresh animosity on both sides. “And how could it be otherwise? I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common peoples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Even if one didn't know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles. “Nearly all the sports practised nowadays are competitive. You play to win, and the game has little meaning unless you do your utmost to win… At the international level sport is frankly mimic warfare. But the significant thing is not the behaviour of the players but the attitude of the spectators: and, behind the spectators, of the nations who work themselves into furies over these absurd contests, and seriously believe… that running, jumping and kicking a ball are tests of national virtue.” Orwell’s main qualm about football was obvious. The “ill will” it encouraged was, in his view, simply not worth it. Why could the game not be played more amicably? Why was it so tied up in nationalism? Why did it induce such anger and such derision towards the opponent? Many would argue that these sentiments are simply part of the game – that to remove tribalistic behaviour and a distrust of the opposition would take the edge off football. That, it could be argued, is what makes the sport interesting. It is what draws people in. The culture of supporting a club, the rivalries, the ultras, the feeling of winning, the schadenfreude when another team doesn’t. “The words of a man who never played competitive sport - a perplexed observer,” wrote Brendan Gallagher in a 2004 piece for the Telegraph. “A solitary, introvert man who had no concept of teamwork and no comprehension of the passion which motivates sportsmen and women.” But base tribalism has become such a pervasive and insidious problem over the last decade that Orwell’s comments seem almost prescient. Things were relatively tame back in 1945. In the decades since, social media has brought partisanship to the forefront of football’s discourse; almost normalised it. Xenophobia has, in many instances, become blatant racism, too. It would have been fascinating to read Orwell’s take on the advent of the Premier League, to see what he would make of football’s unapologetic embrace of hyper-capitalism. He would probably not have been very surprised with the way things have gone. Of course, his essay might still strike some as a sanctimonious and slightly hyperbolic attempt to belittle a sport he considered beneath him. But there is no question that he raised issues which, 75 years on, have only grown more concerning. Orwell might not have understood football, but he understood what it could do to people. Perhaps, in football, the focus should be on the simple pleasures it brings, and a little less on the “savage combative instincts”.

A culture that demands success – what’s it like to play for Chelsea Women? https://theathletic.com/2197573/2020/11/14/chelsea-women-what-like-play-for Bill Shankly’s legendary claim that the best two teams in Merseyside during his time were Liverpool and Liverpool reserves carries a growing resonance in one corner of Surrey. Chelsea Women may not have quite reached the same level of unrivalled dominance just yet — the top of the Women’s Super League (WSL) is too strong for that to be the case — but these days some of the most intense tests for a player in manager Emma Hayes’ star-studded squad occur between match days, at their Cobham training ground. “We have a lot of games against each other (in training), and sometimes they’re harder than some of the actual games we play,” Drew Spence, Chelsea’s longest-serving player, tells The Athletic. “I know that sounds a bit disrespectful, but it’s just because of the quality we have in the squad. We can field two very strong XIs. “It’s tough, it’s competitive and everyone’s fighting for positions, so it can get a bit ratty. But that’s what you want in the team, that competitive nature.” The training matches take different forms. Hayes constantly mixes things up with rondos and small-sided games, while an adapted transition exercise involving three teams has become a Chelsea tradition the day before a game, with the aim of scoring as many goals as possible and defending with frantic desperation. “Whatever it is, it’s about winning,” says goalkeeper Carly Telford. “Players will go into a dressing room after a session a bit angry if they’ve been on the losing team, and some new players haven’t experienced that before. It’s the realisation of how competitive it is, that we’re here to win every day.” Hayes’ philosophy throughout her eight years in charge has been to build and build and build some more, constantly challenging the players she already has with new signings who raise the bar of quality and experience. The result, in addition to an impressive list of trophies won, is a squad including four national-team captains — Maren Mjelde (Norway), Sophie Ingle (Wales), Sam Kerr (Australia) and Pernille Harder (Denmark) — and 14 players with at least 30 international caps. “It’s crazy — I saw a picture on the internet with all the captains from the national teams and we have so many of them,” says Melanie Leupolz, a Germany international who was Bayern Munich skipper before joining last summer. “Of course, Magda (Eriksson, the Sweden defender) wears the armband but we have so many leaders, and that’s really important for being successful in the league and in the Champions League. When the pressure is getting higher and higher, you just need leaders who can help younger players and each other, and make the right decisions.” Spence is regarded as one of the leaders in the squad, despite occupying more of a squad role these days. She has been at Chelsea for the entirety of her 12-year professional career, and Hayes said that she “underpins all of the values of the club” when handing her a two-year contract extension in March. No one knows more about what it takes to play for the dominant team in English women’s football, and how the standard required has grown more formidable over the years. “You have to take it in your stride, because (the new signings) are going to make you better,” she insists. “This is the most (international stars) we’ve ever had at the club, so there are now a lot of big players not starting every week. Some don’t make it onto the pitch, some don’t even make it into the (match-day) squad. “This is the toughest team we’ve ever been in, but they’re here to make us win. We have to take things from them every day, seeing what other cultures bring (to the team)… it just makes you a better player.” Simply getting into Hayes’ starting XI is a significant achievement but, for those who do, what is it like to play for Chelsea Women? For starters, there are few surprises on a match day. Hayes and her coaching staff — the biggest and best-resourced in women’s football — prepare exhaustively for every opponent, tweaking the team’s attacking, defensive and set-piece instructions accordingly during intense training sessions that usually last 90 minutes. Around those, players are expected to do the prehab and rehab work laid out in their tailored fitness and nutrition plans which, as of this year, also factor in their menstrual cycles. “It’s an expectation when you come here that you’re going to be doing all of that (extra work) and if you’re not, there’s going to be someone texting you or ringing you and asking you why,” Telford says. “You’ve got no excuses not to be doing the right things. We’re also one of the only teams that has only one day off per week in a normal week. Most teams have two, so players need to adjust to that. It’s a big adjustment, but it’s usually worth it at the end of the season when there are a couple of trophies to celebrate.” The unrivalled resources directed at ensuring Chelsea Women players are physically, mentally and tactically prepared for every match ensure there can be no excuses for poor performance. Hayes has specific demands of her team with regards to style of play, particularly in matches they are expected to dominate, but she also encourages her players to feel empowered to take ownership of the game plan on the pitch. “You should read the game and see what tactics we should play, because the manager can’t have a big impact during the game,” Leupolz says of Hayes’ approach. “It’s harder for the coach to change something, so you need players who can see something on the pitch and deal with it. She always says she wants to have thinking players, and she gives us exercises where we have to choose our own tactics. “We have to see what the opponents do and find a solution. In midfield, that’s really important for the game. We have to decide if we should play fast or if we need a balance, if we need to play long or short balls. I think it’s a lot about managing the game.” Chelsea’s frequent superiority, coupled with Hayes’ demand that all of her players be capable of thinking independently during games, presents specific challenges for the goalkeeper. “I might have one shot or no shots to save in a game, but 50 or 60 passes because I’m recycling the ball and starting attacks,” Telford says. “It’s the Chelsea philosophy and the modern game for the goalkeeper to become the 11th outfielder. “It’s about seeing pictures and being more challenging, not just hitting long balls or balls to the centre-backs. Can you hit the No 4s, the No 8s, the No 10s with through balls, round balls, balls over the top? We work on that every week, because we’ve got to find ways of breaking down mid and low blocks, which I’d say is 60 to 70 per cent of our opponents. The goalkeeper has a massive part to play in that, so I’ve spent a lot of my three seasons here working on different ways of breaking opposition defences down.” The effectiveness of Hayes’ approach has been borne out by the results since 2012: four league titles in the WSL era, two Women’s FA Cup triumphs and a Continental (League) Cup victory last season. Draws are rare, defeats even rarer, and how Chelsea Women deal with occasional disappointment is a key factor in maintaining the culture of winning that powers their consistent success. “Everton was a tough one to take,” Spence says, referring to their 2-1 defeat at Goodison Park in the Women’s FA Cup quarter-final rolled over from the disrupted 2019-20 season to this September. “It was a semi-final opportunity in the FA Cup — a trophy we haven’t won for a couple of seasons. But we can’t win all the time. When we lose, I think it makes us take a step back and realise there is stuff we need to work on more. “We thought the draw at the beginning of this season against Manchester United (in the WSL) was one of the worst things ever, but when you look at it in hindsight after a few more games it was a good point taken. Sometimes it is good to lose. When you win all the time, having that one loss does make you realise something isn’t right and you need to fix it. Ever since that Everton loss, we’ve been outstanding.” Leupolz adds, “It’s never nice to lose, especially when you play for a club like this one, but it just reminds you that you have to work even harder. You have to learn from these situations. Of course, it was disappointing (against Everton), but we have another FA Cup that we can win and that should be the goal. We need to focus on the games we have ahead and not the one we lost.” At the other end of the spectrum, even the most impressive individual victories — most notably last month’s 3-1 home win over title rivals Manchester City at Kingsmeadow — are kept firmly in perspective. “It’s more a case of, ‘OK, that was good, but we still have things to improve’,” Leupolz says. “It’s more about having this process and being better every day.” The ultimate goals are reinforced daily; as Hayes’ players enter and exit the Chelsea Women building at the back of the Cobham complex, their eyes are often drawn to a wall outside that lists the trophies won in previous years. For new signings, it serves as a swift reminder of what is expected of them. “The culture of our club is just to win,” Spence says. “If they’ve come from a culture where they’ve won before then it’s good, because they can just add to that. If they haven’t, then it’s a case of learning this is where we’re at, this is what we do and this is how we do it. For players like Niamh (Charles), who came in this year or Sophie (Ingle), who came back, Emma’s embedded it into them that we win and this is how we go about doing it.” Dedication and discipline during the season make the trophy celebrations all the more cathartic, and Chelsea Women are generally good at taking a step back to enjoy the moment — though the surreal nature of last season, when they were awarded the title on points-per-game after COVID-19 cut short the campaign, proved something of an exception to the rule. “We had a big Zoom call (when it was announced), but then we got back to pre-season and it was almost like it hadn’t happened,” Telford says. “It wasn’t fake, but it didn’t feel real. “When we did the double (in 2018) it was mad — we definitely didn’t forget to celebrate that one. It was sad that we couldn’t do that last season, but it motivated us to make sure we do so well this season. With six trophies up for grabs, it’s a unique opportunity for us to stamp our authority. By the time it’s over, hopefully we might be in some sort of normality where we can celebrate. That’s the aim for us now.” Given the unrelenting pressure at Chelsea Women — to win, and even to play regularly — it is testament to the work of Hayes and her backroom team that the atmosphere remains startlingly positive. Every player gets a weekly meeting with a member of staff in which concerns can be aired, taken on board and quickly dealt with. The chances of a malcontent in the dressing room are also greatly reduced by the fact Hayes and assistant Paul Green recruit players with personality in mind. “The most important thing (to play for this club) is just being a good person,” Spence says. “Emma’s always recruited good people and that’s helped us, because we’ve always had a family environment. Players who come from abroad feel like it’s their home from home, and that’s always been key for us. Take Ji So-yun; she’s been away from her family (in South Korea) for years, and she wouldn’t have been here so long if she didn’t feel like this was her family. “Making sure we have good people is key in the club, and the more good people you have around you, the more you want to play for them.” The atmosphere cultivated by Hayes and long-standing squad members such as Spence helped Leupolz settle quickly when she joined earlier this year, even in the midst of the pandemic. “Magda (Eriksson) was texting me as soon as I signed and her messages were really kind. They also added me to the Chelsea group which all of the players are part of on WhatsApp a long time before I went there (Chelsea announced Leupolz’s signing in March). That was a good sign from the team that I would be part of things. “Ann-Katrin (Berger, the first-choice goalkeeper) is also German and I knew her from the national team. She helped me with the moving company when I moved into my new flat, and we went for dinner early on. The whole team was really nice at the beginning. Even at the training ground, they came and asked me lots of questions. “I wasn’t afraid, but you also have in mind that there are so many world-class players and you don’t know what they’re like as people. But when I came here everyone was so nice, it was overwhelming. I really enjoy it and I’m trying to use every training session to get better. I also hope I can improve as a person because of all these nice people. I can learn a lot from the girls.” Leupolz is merely the latest international star to be won over by a culture that builds close personal bonds and drives the highest professional standards, all in service of one thing. “This is a club that’s known for winning trophies, so you know when you come here that you’re not just here to become a better player and a better person,” Telford says. “You’re here to win things. We know that pressure comes but it’s welcomed, always.”

Gareth Southgate needs to be sacked ASAP. The fact of the matter remains that in five Nations League games since September, a manager with some or all of Harry Kane, Jack Grealish, Marcus Rashford, Mason Greenwood, Tammy Abraham, Jadon Sancho, Danny Ings, Phil Foden, Raheem Sterling and whoever else The Fiver has forgotten at his disposal has seen his team score just one goal from open play – and that was a spawny deflection.

the issue with him is that he only is effective to an adequate level with a lead the line, WC ball playing and positionally superb CB partner like Thiago Silva even if we get 2 more years of of Thiago (and that last year, with Silva turning 38yo in the beginning is iffy) we still need to find a partner of similar skillsets for Zouma that is going to be insanely hard unless we are talking about dumping £80m to £100m or so for a José Giménez type. those types of players are incredibly rare, look at how long it took us to get one, and we only got him because he is 36yo we had better start hunting for one summer 2022 is surely the last window to bag one before Thiago starts to be phased out (as he will be 38yo for most all of that coming season) or at least playing his last full season as a starter I do not see Malang Sarr becoming that type, unfortunately Xavier Mbuyamba is only 18yo, and also had a bad knee injury, and probably will not be truly up to (IF he indeed as good as he appears) being a line leading CB for at least 3 years. or so (who really knows, it is so murky atm)

CIES Football Observatory n°313 - 16/11/2020 Weekly Post Performance Best heading defenders: Zouma at the top, Maguire 3rd https://football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/b5wp/2020/wp313/en/ Issue number 313 of the CIES Football Observatory Weekly Post presents the 100 players from the 10 best European leagues who won the highest percentage of aerial defensive duels since the start of the season. Chelsea’s centre-back Kurt Zouma tops the table with 26 aerial duels won out of 27 (96.3%). Berat Djimsiti (Atalanta) and Harry Maguire (Manchester United) complete the podium. Often criticised by his own supporters, the English international Harry Maguire lost only three defensive aerial duels out of 30. With 90% of defensive aerial duels won, he has the second best ratio in the Premier League ahead of Yerry Mina (Everton), James Tarkowski (Burnley), Jonny Evans (Leicester City) and Tyrone Mings (Aston Villa). The five youngest footballers in the top 100 are all born in the year 2000: Loïc Badé (RC Lens), Matteo Lovato (Hellas Verona), Arthur Theate (Ostende), Sven Botman (LOSC Lille) and Tommy St. Jago (Utrecht). Only players having won at least 20 defensive aerial duels were included in the rankings elaborated using the data of our partners InStat. Percentage of aerial defensive duels won Top 10 European leagues (UEFA ranking). At least 20 defensive aerial duels won since the start of the season.

Thiago Silva has 2 year left max I would assume. Cannot see him going beyond 38yo (he turns 37yo 2 months into next season, and 38yo 2 months into the one after that) at an effective level as an everyday starter. Lead the line WC CB's as rare as fuck, unfortunately. Sergio Ramos may leave RM in January He is 34yo now, is almost exactly a year and half younger than Siva, so he has 3, maybe 4 years max left, and thus is not a long term option either, but would be a hell of stop gap for 3 and half years or so. Not sure if he would even come here, plus PSG is really up to grab him in January. I certainly think that a CB pair of Thiago and Ramos would give us 2, maybe 3 years (depending on Thiago) of a CB pairing good enough to win the CL. It is short term thinking, but there it is. I know this is so against my stances since I joined here but these are (atm) truly world class CB's. I guess it depends on how the club feels about partially going for it all over the next three years or so versus building for the long run. It is only one position, the rest we are all in on youth. Remove Ramos and it is truly slim pickings, especially if I accept your positing that neither Rice nor Marquinhos are lead the line type CB's. I will say that neither have shown they could NOT be such. So what is left, and actually available and also proven WC? The one that I put down with Marquinhos as my only other real interest. the very expensive José Giménez I highly doubt Juve will sell Matthijs de Ligt , and if they did, he would cost as much as Giménez (or more perhaps, not sure on that) PLUS he has, ffs, dirtbag Mino Raiola as his agent now, so super trouble even if we wanted him Romagnoli is so not leaving AC Milan (and he ALSO has the ratfucker Raiola for his agent, who is (as an aside) a large reason why we bought Kepa, as we preferred Donnarumma above all others, save Oblak, BUT we refused to deal with Mino from all that I recall) I also just realised that another of my very few dream signings left is with that cunt Mino as well, Håland, ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh next (and this goes against my younger player maxim as well) Kalidou Koulibaly, who turns 30yo over the coming summer, and thus should (who knows with the poison dwarf) be far cheaper than the £100, £120m napoli were demanding 2 years ago or so he has rebounded from a slight dip last year, and probably has 4 good to great years left (I do not see him as a Ramos and Thiago, play until you are 37, 38 at a high level type) Alaba is not a lead the line type of CB, and zero chance we will pay him his salary demands of £350K PW or so. Milan Skriniar could be had for a fair price, but again, I do not see him as a lock for a lead the line type, Conte has frozen him out, and his play has suffered as a result Stefan de Vrij is playing far better than Milan, but he turns 29yo in 2 and half months, and will cost more than Skriniar, even though he is 3 years older Inter (lol, they are loaded at CB) has a CB, young, who would be my 3rd choice (for a long term play) if we cannot do Marquinhos or Giménez and we use Rice at DMF : Alessandro Bastoni (21yo, LEFT FOOTED,1.90m, great on the air and on the ball) Matthias Ginter is another option IMHO, although I do not think (atm, things can change) you would call him truly WC, like Giménez or Marquinhos PLUS he turns 28yo halfway through next season (he turns 27 in January 2021), so he is not a player we can wait a couple of years to truly go WC level on (that is just my opinion). If we do not buy him next summer, he goes off my board as first level, must buy target. He is close to his dead prime now, and I doubt he takes it to another level if we are talking about a post 28, 29yo.Ginter. final remotely acceptable option in terms of proven high quality CB, Caglar Söyüncü (Leicester will want a lot, but we have a fairly friendly relationship with them) Dayot Upamecano has fallen off a cliff, he has been TERRIBLE for the last 2 months, super risky play IMHO, we shall see, he was my number one target for ages (as he is doable with little effort and less cost compared to some) but damn, has he been shite, which makes me nervous AF that's it atm the rest not listed are all non proven WC or near WC players OR are simply not available I guess the bottom line (assuming we buy Rice for DMF, and do not get Ramos or Marquinhos) José Giménez is the play (but I will admit, his injury record is troublesome) The main question is will we drop that much on a CB? followed by Alessandro Bastoni (I cannot see Inter coughing him up though, grr, unless we flash monster cash, far beyond Skriniar or De Virj) Matthias Ginter Caglar Söyüncü or as a wildcard Kalidou Koulibaly (only if for a very fair price, which is so not going to happen I wager)

damn 1 nil Teliemans

2020-21 UEFA Nations League, Group Stage Belgium England http://www.sportnews.to/sports/2020/nations-league-belgium-vs-england-s1/ https://www.totalsportek.com/england/

FIFA set to pay Liverpool £2 million in compensation after Joe Gomez injury The defender's season could be over after he suffered a knee injury on England duty https://www.fourfourtwo.com/news/fifa-set-to-pay-liverpool-pound2-million-in-compensation-after-joe-gomez-injury FIFA will reportedly cover Joe Gomez’s £80,000-per-week Liverpool wages for the rest of the season after the England defender suffered a knee injury on international duty. Jurgen Klopp’s side were already struggling with a defensive injury crisis after losing Virgil van Dijk and Fabinho, but their situation worsened last week when Gomez picked up an injury that could rule him out for the rest of the season. According to the Daily Mail, world football’s governing body FIFA will pay around £2 million in compensation to the Premier League champions. The FA confirmed to the newspaper that the injured centre-back’s salary would be covered by FIFA.

Real Madrid: Florentino and Sergio Ramos to speak about captain's contract renewal on Monday The Real Madrid captain and president will speak publicly - Ramos from his hometown Seville, where he will be on duty with the national team. https://en.as.com/en/2020/11/13/football/1605284781_421910.html

Rice would be great he can pass and defend is not afraid to move the ball forward at all via dribbling if need be I am so oki with Kante as the DMF deep sitter in a 4 3 3 atm it has rejuvenated him and he is finally healthy again Thiago takes a shedload of pressure off Kante in terms of playing out from the back as well Thiago was immense in a back 2 CB combo with Marquinhos Friday versus Venezuela clean sheet, dominated the hell out them so hoping for Agent Siva to convince Marquinhos to come here, especially if PSG lose Mbappe to Real Madrid and Neymar to Barca as unless they sign Håland and Sancho then, they are taking a serious dive from top 6 or so non EPL teams on the planet (those being the big 3 in La Liga, PSG themselves, Juve, and Bayern, with Dortmund or AC Milan or Inter sorta banging on the door) Marquinhos and Rice give us great flexibility as well, as both can play CB and DMF

Mbappé: Real Madrid pursuit of PSG star reaches crucial stage PSG are set to step up their efforts to get Kylian Mbappé to renew. If he doesn't, Real Madrid are confident of signing him for a reasonable price next summer. https://en.as.com/en/2020/11/13/football/1605288699_332445.html Real Madrid’s pursuit of Kylian Mbappé is entering a key period, judging by Paris Saint-Germain sporting director Leonardo’s recent comments in which he confirmed that the Ligue 1 giants are stepping up their efforts to tie down a group of players, including Mbappé, to new deals. Real Madrid set to find out if Mbappé waiting game will bear fruit “We’ve started talks on several fronts over the renewal of certain players,” Leonardo told a Q&A session on social media this week. “We have to adapt to the reality of the current economic climate, but we have started discussions over the renewals we have in mind - [Ángel] Di María, Neymar and Mbappé, as well as [Juan] Bernat and [Julian] Draxler - and we’re going to intensify these negotiations in the coming days.” These are therefore crucial moments for Madrid, who will find out for certain whether the strategy they have been following in their bid to sign Mbappé is to bear fruit. The club have been playing a waiting game that depends on the 21-year-old resisting PSG’s attempts to extend his current contract, which runs out in June 2022. AS understands that Mbappé has rejected as many as three offers from the Parisians. Now, it appears, PSG are going to throw everything at persuading the star to commit. If he doesn’t, Madrid are confident they’ll be able to snap him up for a reasonable price next summer, when PSG would be under pressure to sell to avoid losing him for free 12 months later. Los Blancos estimate that fee would be about 180m euros. Mbappé could yet sign new PSG deal with Real Madrid release clause Mbappé’s only doubts about not renewing at PSG surfaced in the wake of the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic, which forced football to temporarily shut down. At that point, the player’s camp began to question the wisdom of running his deal down, given that a longer contract would offer him greater security. AS was told that Mbappé would only be willing to pen a new agreement with PSG if it included a clause allowing him to depart for certain clubs for a set amount. That would be a problem for Madrid, as this fee would likely be higher than the price they’re aiming to pay. Such a deal between Mbappé and PSG remains a possibility, given that it could be a good solution for both club (who would be assured of keeping hold of the striker or banking a healthy transfer fee) and player (who would have greater security were he to suffer a long-term injury, for example).

A next-level talent with the desire to be different: The rise of Jude Bellingham https://theathletic.com/2197603/2020/11/14/jude-bellingham-england-birmingham-city-borussia-dortmund/ Birmingham City were widely ridiculed for the decision to retire their No 22 shirt when Jude Bellingham left for Borussia Dortmund in the summer aged just 17 and having made a grand total of 44 first-team appearances for them. But the midfielder then chose the same number at the German heavyweights, and No 22 appears to mean more to the player and his old club than the critics of that gesture may be aware of. The story of the teenager and that number goes back several years and is woven into his past and, he hopes, his future. “I’ll never forget when we went through one of his reviews and we were talking about what he wanted to identify himself,” Mike Dodds, Bellingham’s long-time academy coach, tells The Athletic. “He said he wanted to be a No 10. I said, ‘I think you can be a 22’. He asked what I meant and I said, ‘You can be a No 4, a No 8 and No 10 — someone who can do it all’. “We spoke about Paul Gascoigne. We said he could do the not-so-nice bits of the game; breaking play up, running around, making tackles, so he could play in deeper areas as a ‘4’. The ‘8’ would be the box-to-box player, getting up and down with energy and driving the team on. And your ‘10’ would be scoring and creating. “So I told him he was doing himself a disservice by wanting to be a 10, because I thought he could do it all.” That conversation happened five years ago. Bellingham might not have managed it all in the half a decade that has followed, but for a player who only turned 17 in June he has come closer than most. On Thursday, he made the latest history-making step by becoming England’s third youngest full international ever — after Theo Walcott and Wayne Rooney — when he came on as a substitute against the Republic of Ireland. It has been an extraordinary story already in a career that began with him watching his goalscoring father, Mark, at home. Gary Hackett remembers well seeing two young brothers playing their earliest football in a park in Hagley, near Stourbridge in the West Midlands. The former Shrewsbury Town, Stoke City and West Bromwich Albion winger had a particular interest in Jude and Jobe Bellingham as a neighbour, family friend and manager of Mark, their prolific-goalscorer dad. “I first knew Mark when he signed for Halesowen at 20,” says Hackett. “He was very raw then but you could see at the level he was playing at he was always going to score goals. “If he hadn’t had as good a job as he did in the police force, he might have been able to play professional football. I used to see Jude and Jobe over the local park and it’s fantastic to see what Jude has been able to achieve. “Mark used to do coaching with a good friend of mine, Phil Wooldridge, and his lads would always come along and have a ‘kick-in’. Even if they weren’t involved in the session, they would be running and kicking a ball and you could just see they had a passion for football. One thing you could see is they were naturally gifted athletes. They could run and they had good technical skills as well.” Mark, a sergeant in the West Midlands force, was a well-known figure in non-League football in the region. Estimates suggest he scored more than 700 goals in a stellar semi-professional career, including 60 in one season for Hackett when he managed Stourbridge. “He was focused, driven and just wanted to score goals,” says Hackett. “His overall contribution did improve over the years in terms of bringing other people into play but I never got too concerned about that, I was happy to let other people do that for him.” Halesowen Town and Leamington were among the other area clubs to benefit from Mark’s eye for goal and his gift for sport was passed down to his sons, not to mention his drive. “At 11, Jude just stood out,” remembers Fady Jadayel, a long-serving coach at Hagley Cricket Club, where Jude and Jobe, his younger brother now aged 15, nurtured their love of sport. “He stood out as unbelievably talented. He had a raw sporting ability. It’s difficult to express it without sounding a bit weird but he moved with a poise and a grace. His co-ordination was unreal. “We were doing an indoor session once and he took a one-handed catch. It was only a tennis ball but he threw himself and dived and took it and you just saw he was an unbelievable athlete. We didn’t know how good he was at football. People said he was at Blues (Birmingham City) but there are tons of kids who are at Blues at 11. It doesn’t really mean a great deal. “I can’t remember much about his batting but he had a really natural bowling action. He looked like he was going to be able to bowl quickly. His pure cricket was quite raw, but it was his fielding that made him stand out and made you realise that this kid was next-level talented.” Bellingham’s time at Hagley Cricket Club ended after a couple of summers when he left the village where he’d spent his earliest years. His football was beginning to get serious and Birmingham were beginning to think they had a special talent on their hands. “I signed him at seven in our pre-academy,” says Dodds. “At under-sevens he was just like any other boy, really. He was just a local boy playing at a local club and one of our scouts quite liked him. We liked him but if someone had said he would be in the England squad at 17 we’d have thought that person was crazy. “He loved the game, had a real enthusiasm for it and always had a big smile on his face but it wasn’t until possibly 12 or 13 that we started to think, ‘Hmm, this boy might have something different to everybody else’. The rest is history. “It was his ability to take and retain information and his desire to do more that made the difference. He put pressure on me as a coach to pressure and stimulate him but I put pressure on him as well. “Being a kid, there were times when he didn’t want to run around and there were times when he went over the top with his competitive edge. But that’s no different to a lot of boys. That’s about learning in the game. We reflected on it when we did his review just before he left and he said, ‘I’ll never forget getting back in the car after that 22 conversation’. “So he asked for 22 as his squad number at Birmingham, and when he went to Dortmund he asked for 22 again. “So the biggest thing I take from my 10 years with him is that conversation about identity. That’s what set him apart from the other boys — he wanted to be different.” It became clear to Birmingham that Bellingham was different. The family had moved to Bromsgrove, with Bellingham leaving Hagley’s Haybridge secondary school to attend the Priory School in the Edgbaston area of south Birmingham, one of the schools with close links to the Birmingham City academy. Odin Bailey and Geraldo Bajrami, two more youngsters from the academy, also moved to Priory. Bellingham’s progress was so quick that even when still a schoolboy he was being considered for first-team duty, with Birmingham chief executive Xuandong Ren taking a special interest in the midfielder. References about the youngster’s character and attitude are universally positive. Birmingham staff recall a polite, well-mannered player and FA coaches still recall how the Bellingham brothers turned up at an England Under-16s game played at Solihull Moors’ Damson Park ground last year despite Jude being rested before Championship fixtures with his club. “It’s a measure of his character that he comes along to support his team-mates even when he isn’t playing,” then-England Under-16s coach Kevin Betsy told The Athletic. Jadayel says, “He was a lovely kid. It’s easy to say it after the end, but I said it at the time, when he was 12 or 13, that he had a good chance of making it because he came from clearly a good family. His parents were obviously good people and he was a really nice kid, really respectful. He had such a good head on his shoulders.” “He’s an unbelievably humble boy, down to earth and so career-focused,” adds Dodds. “He’s had this call-up but he will want 100 call-ups and that thought process helps to ground him. “He’s articulate and bright, so he processes things quickly, and he’s got high emotional intelligence. “He actually makes you sick. He’s got a lot going for him! I would be lying if I said I wasn’t proud of him, of course I am, but I’m more proud of the boy, and the man he’s turning into. “He’s an ambassador for a charity and he’s still doing his A-levels. He’s a real people person and his character as a boy is what I’m most proud of.” Paul Robinson was still a fixture in Birmingham’s defence when he first heard the name Jude Bellingham being spoken of in the corridors of Wast Hills, the club’s training ground. “You could always hear the murmurings of Jude going around,” says Robinson, the former Watford and West Bromwich Albion defender who retired as a Birmingham player in 2018 then had two years coaching the club’s developmental sides. “You heard the academy staff talking about him but you never thought much of it because he was a young lad. When they’re young lads, you want to see them develop and grow and if they turn out to be exceptional players then it’s meant to be. “But the first time I really got to know Jude and got to see how good a player he was was when I worked with him when he was 15. Then he was involved with the under-23s, when I coached them. “He was an exceptional talent. He could see a picture before the ball got to his feet, so he could see where his next pass was going to be. His range of passing with both feet was great and so was his awareness and his body position, so he was strong at holding players off. For a 15-year-old boy, it’s very rare to have those qualities. “They come around once in a blue moon. To see the way he was and the way he used his body and his feet as a 16-year-old, you could see there was potential for him to go on and do great things.” Garry Monk, then the first-team manager, had reservations about throwing someone so young into the attritional arena of the Championship. But Bellingham was being accelerated through England age groups by FA coaches, had become a regular in Robinson’s under-23s side and seemed destined for the senior ranks sooner rather than later. “Players of that ability need to be stretched,” says Robinson. “They need to be challenged, so Jude always played above his age group. He needed to be playing against players who were bigger than him, who would challenge him physically. “He wasn’t physically strong. You could see he was quite a lean, skinny kid going through the age groups but I saw him working in the gym and he showed great dedication to strength and conditioning. “You can see now how he looks and he’s mentally tough as well. It’s quite scary to still be calling him a kid, but he’s only 17. “I always believe if you’re good enough then you deserve your chance and he was a game-changer for us sometimes, even as a teenager playing against men. He would sometimes get pushed off the ball too easily, but that was him learning and developing and working out how to use the ball and protect the ball better. “You could see in under-23s football that he had a great chance of playing for the first team by the end of that season, and that was nearly two years ago. Then, last season, he made a name for himself in the first team. “You could see his talent in training with the way he would leave people lying on the floor. He could just move the ball so quickly. I remember we played in a Premier League Cup game at Fulham and he started in a No 10 role off the striker. He did this unbelievable bit of skill where he left two or three players on the floor and then banged the ball in the top corner with his left foot. “He would produce those bits of quality that made you think, ‘Wow, I’ve never seen skill like that from a kid of 16’.” When Monk was sacked in the summer of 2019 to make way for Pep Clotet, who has been his assistant, Bellingham’s first-team chance came. With Bellingham developing tactically, technically and physically, and with the club under a transfer embargo, Clotet was persuaded that the time was right. “It was challenging because we needed to get him up to speed with a lot of details,” the Spaniard told The Athletic in a detailed assessment of Bellingham this summer. “The club was not in the best situation, because that (2018-19) was the season that we got a nine-point deduction. “I was telling Garry Monk many times that it would be good to speed him up, to fine-tune all the details that he needs to because it would be good for the fans and the club in a tough moment to have one of their own coming through. Garry was more conservative about it, so Jude had to wait a year.” Bellingham was not simply blooded in Championship football. He became a mainstay of Clotet’s team at 16, playing in 41 of the 46 league games last season and starting 32 of them. Inevitably, speculation about his future escalated quickly, and with good reason. Some of England’s biggest clubs had tried to lure him away from Birmingham even before his first-team breakthrough and they were soon joined in the chasing pack by sides from the continent. Tottenham Hotspur expressed a strong interest, perennial Italian champions Juventus too and Manchester United came closest to beating Borussia Dortmund to his signature. But it was the German side who emerged as favourites to sign him for an initial £25 million as Bellingham continued to enhance his reputation. “I watched him in the Championship religiously and you had to pinch yourself and say this was a first-year scholar playing in the Championship, one of the most brutal leagues in the world, and not only surviving but thriving,” says Dodds. “We used to watch him play for England when he was a schoolboy and he played with a level of maturity that blew us away. He played for England like he was almost in first gear. “So there were points along the way when you almost had to check yourself and think, ‘Wow, that was special’.” Eventually, with the pandemic-delayed Championship season finally over in July and the impending move to Germany one of football’s biggest open secrets, Bellingham flew to Dortmund to complete his life-changing move. Already, his debut season has brought four starts in the Bundesliga and another in the Champions League, plus last week’s unexpected elevation to the England squad after a couple of withdrawals and that 17 minutes against Ireland. The move to Germany has brought its own challenges. Unable to legally drive on the country’s roads, Bellingham is taken to training each day by one of his parents. Either Mark or mum Denise will be with him in Dortmund while the other is back in England where Jobe, still in Birmingham’s academy ranks, is hoping for his own breakthrough in the next few years. “Maybe I come across as mature, but when you’re in the environment that I’ve been in last year and the start of this season, you have to grow up quickly,” Bellingham said last week. “You have to leave behind childish habits because you’re expected to be at a certain level that’s similar to your team-mates. Otherwise, you’re letting them down, you’re letting yourself down; you’re not going to maximise your own ability.” Bellingham continues his academic studies remotely having worked towards his A-levels in the evenings in the final year at Birmingham but football is the 17-year-old’s immediate future, complete with expectation, pressure and unavoidable attention. “God knows how he copes with the amount of press he gets and the social-media stuff that is always thrown towards him,” says Robinson, who remains in contact with Bellingham. “He has to be able to switch off and concentrate on what he loves doing, which is playing football. All you can do is make sure your family are safe and well and then, when you play football, make sure you love it. “He is always going to get this publicity just because of how good he is; from the age of 15 and 16, he has had the media spotlight on him. It helps that he has great people around him. His family are there for him and they’re very grounded, he knows he can always bounce stuff off me and he’s got other people too. It’s about having trust in those people.” “His parents have been phenomenal,” adds Dodds. “Have myself and the parents fallen out at times? Yes, of course. Over a 10-year period, it’s not all going to be smooth sailing. But we’ve always had common ground. I’ve always wanted what was best for both brothers and I’ve always respected Mum and Dad for the fact that, in every decision they make, both boys are always at the forefront of their mind. “They could have left the club long before Jude left but Jude was happy and they felt it was the right place for him. There will be a lot of people who haven’t been in their situation, being told by 1,001 different people, ‘Come to us, come to us, we’re the best decision for you’. But they made their decision based on their boys’ happiness.” All of which leaves an obvious question. As a first-team regular for one of Europe’s leading clubs, a Champions League player and an England international well before his 18th birthday, just how good can Jude Bellingham become? Can the lad who kicked a ball around the parks of Hagley with his brother and watched his dad rattling in non-League goals maintain his steep trajectory and become one of Europe’s top stars? Can the player who was unremarkable at seven but special by 12 become the ultimate ‘22’? “He can play at the highest level for as long as he wants to, but Jude is the only person who can make that happen with his dedication and his will and desire,” says Robinson. “He was still growing when I first worked with him and when you’re a lad of 15 taking hits from lads who are 20 or 21, that will hurt. But he dedicated himself with the strength and conditioning sessions we put on for him and when you look at him now, he’s a strong lad. “He was given a pathway. If you’re at an academy and you’re given a pathway, you know you’ve got a possibility to play for the first team of that club you love and care about; that’s the goal for everybody. “Jude was dedicated and switched on, so he knew the right time to get his head down and focus and work. If he wants to go on and be one of the best players in the world then he can, but Jude has to answer those questions with the way he performs week in, week out. I can see where he should be and where he wants to go.” “As soon as we’d had that ‘22 conversation’, we were always reviewing him on that,” says Dodds. “I’d say, ‘What were you today’ and he’d say, ‘I was a 4 and an 8 today’ or, ‘I was more of a 10’. “We always reviewed him around being a 22 and what set him apart was that desire to be different. The rate of his physical development over the last 12 months has been astonishing. I don’t think anyone could have predicted it, because he was just an average 15-year-old. “I’m happy for him playing for England but, knowing Jude the way I know him, he’s so career-focused he will see this as a very small dot in terms of the career he wants to have.”

England’s Grealish and Mount showed they can co-exist – and be fluid and fun https://theathletic.com/2194851/2020/11/13/england-grealish-mount-together/ It never felt on Thursday evening at Wembley as if there was any great need for this game to take place. It was yet another match jammed into a crammed schedule, one that required Gareth Southgate to pick a 29-man squad just to protect his best and busiest players from having to play in it. England strolled to a comfortable 3-0 win, just as they did against Wales last month, another game played at the start of a three-match international window, simply for the benefit of ITV and the FA. But Southgate can still take some encouragement from the events of the game: the win, the individual performances, no new injuries and, best of all, one new piece of information that England did not have before. Mason Mount and Jack Grealish, the two rising creative stars of this set-up, are not mutually exclusive within this team. They can play well together, in slightly different roles, improving one another’s game rather than detracting from it. After a few months when the attention has largely been off the pitch, that is not nothing. The past few England camps have seen off-the-pitch stories largely drown out anything they have achieved on the field. Harry Maguire in Mykonos, Phil Foden and Mason Greenwood in Reykjavik, Greg Clarke on Zoom in front of the DCMS select committee. Southgate has had to solemnly weigh in on all of these, just as he has to on everything else. And these, you suspect, will be the stories people remember from this autumn. Ask an England fan if they can remember the scores or scorers in the recent games against Iceland, Denmark, Wales, Belgium, Denmark and now the Republic of Ireland, and they might struggle. If there has been one genuine footballing story around the England team this autumn, it has been the duel between Grealish and Mount, two of the most exciting young attacking midfielders in the Premier League, to force their way into Southgate’s plans for next summer’s Euros. It felt, at least before this evening, as if Mount and Grealish were two similar players competing for one place in the England team next year. One of them might start England’s opening group game against Croatia, but there was no way they both could. The two men’s trajectories are not quite the same. Grealish is three and a bit years older than Mount. When Grealish made his Premier League debut, Mount was just 15 years old. Both are creative midfielders, not quite classical No 10s, but closer than many English players of their generation. Both players have been tested in the Championship and are now doing it at the serious end of the Premier League. Crucially, neither Mount nor Grealish was part of the first phase of Southgate’s England tenure. Neither player went to Russia two years ago. Mount did not make his debut until September 2019, Grealish not until 12 months later. Both players, then, could be cast as the men to improve this England team, to give it the creativity and craft that it lacked at the last World Cup. So much of Southgate’s team for next summer is settled, but that one wild card role has still felt up for grabs. We all know that Harry Kane is going to start up front, and we would expect Raheem Sterling to join him. Declan Rice will probably anchor midfield alongside Jordan Henderson. There are not many spare spots left. When England drew 0-0 in Copenhagen on September 8, both players came on in search of a winner. But at the start of the next international break, when England beat Wales 3-0 here, in a game very reminiscent of this one, Grealish made his first full international start. He was brilliant, helping to tear Wales apart, giving England a glimpse of his off-the-cuff individualistic magic that endears him so much to fans and neutrals. But when Mount started as that link-man between the midfield and the front line against Belgium and Denmark, making his third and fourth competitive start for England before Grealish had made one, it looked as if he was taking his place at the front of the queue. Southgate’s trust in Mount was read by many to be a sign of his preference for a more obedient, systematic and controlling player rather than the maverick charisma of Grealish. Villa fans on social media were crestfallen when it looked as if Grealish would not get a chance. Southgate even joked about this in his press conference on Wednesday night, saying that Mount’s “only crime is not to be Jack at the moment”. But the 50-year-old, always looking for a diplomatic answer, said it was “not fair to compare”, as the two are “different players”, and that Mount might play in a “slightly different role”. Sure enough, Southgate did come up with a solution that not many would have expected, but one that changed the way that we conceive of England’s options in this area. Rather than choosing between Grealish and Mount, he picked both of them. Mount was playing in central midfield, alongside Harry Winks at the heart of England’s 3-4-3. Grealish was in his favoured inside-left role, driving forward, taking opponents on, trying to make things happen in the final third. Grealish was more eye-catching than Mount, playing the pass through to Reece James that nearly set up Dominic Calvert-Lewin early on, combining well with Jadon Sancho throughout, testing the Irish backline down the outside and in behind. By the end, Grealish was playing with the same grace and ease he showed against Wales, skipping past every available opponent, treating international football as if he was wearing a Villa shirt — with swagger. It was great to watch but maybe it was nothing new. The story of the evening, if there was one, was that Mount was intelligent enough to be effective in a deep role, just as he is high up the pitch. Southgate has tried using him there before for England, for a few minutes in Copenhagen and in the last break, but this was probably Mount’s best game for England in that more central role. “The two midfielders used the ball well,” Southgate said in his post-match press conference. “The combinations with the wing-backs and the three forwards were very exciting. We got players in between the lines, turned, and running at their defence.” This was not England’s strongest team but there is no reason, fitness aside, that Mount and Grealish cannot play in these roles against Belgium and Iceland in the next five days and beyond. We know that Southgate is trying to find the right balance between creativity and control, moving back to a 3-4-3 system that secures the defence but takes one man out of the attacking positions. If you stick with this 3-4-3 system, replace Calvert-Lewin and Sancho with Kane and Sterling, and Winks with either Henderson or Rice, then you have a defensively solid team that can create chances too. They might look one man short in midfield but you cannot simultaneously dominate in every position. The other option is to go back to the 4-3-3 that served England pretty well for two years before Southgate decided to ditch it. That way, you can have Mount in midfield alongside both Rice and Henderson, giving you an extra body in that area. And you can still have Grealish alongside Kane and Sterling (or Rashford or Sancho) in that front line. The cost would come in the defence, with Kyle Walker being the obvious man to give way, leaving most likely Harry Maguire and Eric Dier as the two centre-backs. Now that system might not be the best way to come up against France or Portugal or Germany in the round of 16 — not many would want Kylian Mbappe or Timo Werner running at Dier and Maguire — but England are going to spend much of the group stage dominating possession against Scotland and the Czech Republic, probing to find a way through. So will Southgate stick with this new arrangement when the Euros do start next June? You might want to bet on it, with only one more international break left after this one. The temptation will be to replace Grealish with someone more predictable and formulaic. But the point that we learnt here is that Grealish and Mount can co-exist within a nominally cautious system, and England might well be more fluid and fluent and fun if they do. Maybe not a totally wasted evening after all.

Werner with a brace Leon Goretzka is close to the best CMF in the world IHO, superb passes many times in the game. I might take him over Saúl Ñíguez, it is close. Certainly would take him over Aouar. Ñíguez v Goretzka for me is close to becoming a coin toss, and shading to Leon. Saúl can play LB to a very high level as well (so could be our Chilwell backup/rotation),, but Goretzka is far better on offence (accounted for 35 goals/assists in the two seasons 2018-2020, tracking to 30 or so goals/assists this season, which blows Ñíguez away, although Leon has far better offensive teammates).Either one would be a monster grab (but both are basically or fully impossible, barring dropping £100m plus, which is not happening)

crazy game The Swiss were up 1 nil for most of the game Sergio Ramos missed TWO pens after that but then Reguillon had a great pass to Moreno to tie it in the 89th minute highlights https://yfl.viditnow.com/player/html/ctdMXtIEnftG0?popup=yes&autoplay=1

Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp 'identifies Ruben Semedo' as £18m transfer target https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/1359710/Liverpool-news-Jurgen-Klopp-Ruben-Semedo-Joe-Gomez-transfer-news

Matteo Guendouzi told "he won't play for Arsenal again" after Mikel Arteta decision Matteo Guendouzi joined Bundesliga outfit Hertha Berlin on a season-long loan, after being deemed surplus to requirements by the Arsenal boss https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/matteo-guendouzi-arsenal-mikel-arteta-23008674

our starting CB pair next season 4 Marquinhos 3 Thiago Silva

2022 World Cup Qualifying - CONMEBOL Brazil Venezuela http://www.sportnews.to/sports/2020/world-cup-qualifying-brazil-vs-venezuela-s1/ https://www.vipleague.cc/brazil-streaming

most are garbage now (Özil was WC, now is shut out and so dimished) only ones I rate are Auba (and he is in a huge slump) Partey (superb player, great signing) and the youngster they are fucking about, Saliba the rest are dogshit

one of their big 3 up front will get injured I can feel it in me bones they are lucky they bought Jota