Vesper

Tomas Soucek is a beast

Premier League | Manchester United vs West Ham United http://hdstreams.club/hd/ch5.php http://www.sportnews.to/sports/2020/premier-league-manchester-united-vs-west-ham-united-s1/ https://www.totalsportek.com/manchester-united-football/

not that many (15 or who truly would piss me off) offensive players left who could possible move to get jelly over (and some like Mbappe and Neymar are out of all but RM and Barcas's league, as I doubt Shitty would drop that level of coin, same for Manure and Juve or Bayern) again these are only ones who MAY move, many others are going nowhere no true order (bold are the ones I would be most pissed over going forward, ones who just moved are not placed in bold) CMF/AMF/Winger/CF Mbappe Neymar (last year on here) Mane (last year on here) Salah (last year on here) Sancho Håland Icardi (already moved) Saúl Ñíguez << just too expensive but wow, would I love to have him, thank FUCK Manure failed (so far) Richarlison Sergej Milinkovic-Savic Lautaro Martinez Firmino (last year on here) Dybala <<< Juve fans are just cunts for givng hm so much stick over the years, what a player Leroy Sane (already moved) Ferran Torres <<< best young teen winger (potential wise) on the planet atm Houssem Aouar Jude Bellingham (already moved) Ryan Gravenberch Victor Osimhen Dominic Calvert-Lewin Nicolò Zaniolo Dominik Szoboszlai <<<< the next Havertz perhaps Mohamed Ihattaren Weston McKennie <<< Pulisic could help pull (lol) him, he is the 2nd best yank footie player on the planet Rayan Cherki Jeff Reine-Adélaïde Corentin Tolisso Federico Chiesa Lucas Ocampos <<< great Willian replacement, he is completely ambipedal, can play anywhere up front, he is a 1.87m winger/SS and strong as a bull Gabriel Veron Myron Boadu Alexander Isak Donyell Malen Defensively the only ones I would get jelly over would be if they moved (many others are not moving, no chance) GKers Oblak (simply too expensive though, it is madness money, £203m or so for 5 years, £240m for 7, counting salary) Gianluigi Donnarumma André Onana Predrag Rajkovic Thomas Strakosha Ugurcan Cakir CB's (this is the biggest list and I will wince when each one of these moves, if they do move, and some will soon be off, either due to age or they simply do not pan out, as I (obviously) and not infallible on predicting the young ones) the two in red are who I would buy now now now, instant monster CB upgrade and they are realistic, not crazy hard like ones above them Varane José Giménez Marquinhos Skriniar Romagnoli de Ligt Nikola Milenkovic Lukas Klostermann Stefan de Vrij Kalidou Koulibaly (too expensive for his age, but still, ffs what could have been) Ibrahima Konaté Ozan Kabak Nico Elvedi <<< Swiss German Marash Kumbulla Evan N'Dicka Edmond Tapsoba Caglar Söyüncü Merih Demiral Rúben Dias Boubacar Kamara Pau Torres Mohammed Salisu Benoît Badiashile Strahinja Pavlovic Dan-Axel Zagadou Wesley Fofana Tanguy Nianzou (already moved, on a damn free and to fucking Bayern, grrrrrr) Left Backs Theo Hernández <<< deffo the most David Alaba Ben Chilwell (only if he goes for a fair price, if Manure or someone dumps £80m on him, I will laugh) Alex Telles Lucas Digne Robin Gosens Rayan Aït Nouri Right Backs Nordi Mukiele (BY FAR my number one RB target, atm no one else is close, a fullback pair of Nordi and Theo would be a terror both ways) Achraf Hakimi (already moved, what a fuck-up by Real madrid <<< a very common thing heard these days, lolol) Ricardo Pereira (Leicester will rape clubs on the price though, they are the English version of Juve with the fuckabouts, other than us stealing Kante off them, which I think woke them up) DMF's Declan Rice <<<< deffo the most Eduardo Camavinga <<< close second as those two (Rice and Cama) would be my dream double 6 pivot in a 4 4 2 Sandro Tonali <<< his absolute refusal to leave italy softens the blow, and his only team wanted (Inter) makes me so happy Thomas Partey Denis Zakaria Rúben Neves Marcelo Brozovic Florentino Boubakary Soumaré Aurélien Tchouaméni

Those thick cunts will give him a 3 year deal too, at £130K PW or so. He doesn't have to leave London and gets £20m shoved his way, pre tax. Ffs, I SO hope he doesn't come back to haunt us. I really think he has 2 solid years left in the tank (and we all know how I am with players over 30.)

We can always come back and pay £80, £100m for him in 5, 6, 7 years, lolololol.

Ole Gunnar Solskjær refuses to talk about David de Gea’s erratic form Solskjær will not say if goalkeeper will play against West Ham ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ says Manchester United manager https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/jul/21/de-gea-mentally-strong-job-to-perform-solskjaer-manchester-united Ole Gunnar Solskjær has refused to confirm whether David de Gea will retain his place when Manchester United host West Ham on Wednesday. The goalkeeper is again under scrutiny after the error that allowed Mason Mount to score Chelsea’s second goal in the 3-1 FA Cup semi‑final defeat on Sunday. This followed other mistakes from De Gea; Bournemouth’s Junior Stanislas and Tottenham’s Steven Bergwijn beat him with shots that could have been stopped since the Premier League’s restart. Solskjær was asked to confirm De Gea would start against West Ham. “No, because I don’t want to talk about it,” the manager said. “We stick together as a group. And he’s mentally strong. We’ll stay together and we’ll see the team on Wednesday night.” snip

on paper perhaps (and we are still really shaky on depth at winger if Willian leaves due to CHO's regression and Pedro also gone) let us see also what the other clear challengers (Victimpool, (ZERO depth though and weak MF) Shitty (Aguero is ageing and injured and they will (and did) miss Sane a lot), and Manure (IF they bag Sancho, then eeeeek) to that claim do to improve/replace. (and those claims are not just in the EPL, but globally for all 4, as there are only 4 other teams, Bayern (they just added a top 5 on planet LW in Sane on top of what they already have), Barca (only because of Messi atm, take him away they are fucked unless they somehow can pull back Neymar), PSG (only if they keep both Neymar and Mbappe, which they probably will) and (only IF they keep Sancho and Håland continues to skyrocket), Dortmund, who can lay that claim as well) Real Madrid is not in the mix unless Hazard explodes next year and they can pull another great year out of an ageing Benz, and have some other player (probably Vinícius Júnior or Rodrygo) step up or they (pretty much impossible atm ) add Mbappe

and Bayer shitting their pants and blowing CL means staying there yields the same (or worse) as going to Chels, THAT was the big one although my tummy is still churning until we clinch CL (much more cash and easier time to recruit overall) it always is my number one thing once it appears we have no chance to win the league (omg, I have turned into a late noughties Arse fan, sob )

well, let's just win and end it now I don't give a toss if we are 3rd or 4th, especially if we also win the FA Cup I would take 4th and FA Cup all day long over 3rd and no FA Cup or even 3rd and a League Cup also, I am NOT saying West Ham do fuckall, but this season, anything is possible, I have never seen so many 10th place to 3rd place teams smash up the other top 10 teams and yet then absolutely shit their pants against utter dregs, hell even Shitty is doing that

biggest cunt on a team well stocked with absolute twats (and the worst fans on the planet, although manure is close,as are RM, although RM is well over 3/4ers foreign front running plastics, same for Barca)

yep, if Manure draw or lose tonight and we simply draw (not even win) v the dippers we clinch CL it would (going into the final game) Chels 64 Manure 63 or 62 Leicester 62 impossible for both then to overtake us even if we lose to Wolves of course a win v the dippers clinches no matter what anyone else does, and if manure lose, it clinches 3rd, so around £2m more in prize money (versus 4th)

David Squires on … Dirty Leeds Leeds Leeds being back in the Premier League Our cartoonist looks at the return of Leeds to the English top flight, after years of Bates, Evans, Hockaday and many more https://www.theguardian.com/football/ng-interactive/2020/jul/21/david-squires-on-leeds-leeds-leeds-being-back-in-the-premier-league

That would be very smart business by both Leverkusen and Real. Rare to see Real actually thinking for once. Shocking even. Lol

IF we had the rest of the defence (CB, LB, RB, DMF) sorted, then sure, go for the insane luxury buys of luxury buys in Oblak. But alas, we do not. What is also insane is to go into 2020/21 with our keeper situation exactly as it is now. Willy is 39 years old in 2 months. He is not good enough to be the starting keeper on ANY EPL team. If we do nothing, and IF Kepa collapses (Lampard CLEARLY does NOT trust him for shit) we will be stuck with the worst starting keeper in the league, all after spending hundreds of millions elsewhere. Rajkovic is inexpensive insurance who quite likely becomes our number one. The other, even cheaper, option is to go after a proven 31 to 35yo vet for the number 2. Someone better than Willy. Fraser Forster (2.01m as well) Salvatore Sirigu Samir Handanovic (IF Inter would sell him he would be fucking IDEAL) Vicente Guaita Tim Krul Sven Ulreich (now the number 3 at Bayern) have Cech deep dive all 6 and bloody buy one if we are not hellbent on buying an instant number one/Kepa replacement It isn't rocket surgery ffs

The limbo takeover: A boa constrictor around Newcastle’s necks https://theathletic.com/1938941/2020/07/21/newcastle-takeover-ashley-staveley-saudi-premier-league/ The fun stopped a long time ago; the games of fantasy football, the jokes about signing Neymar. As one season limps to a close and the next looms into view, what should have been the most exhilarating episode in Newcastle United’s recent history has become both exhausting and debilitating. “The takeover is like a boa constrictor around our necks,” a senior source at St James’ Park tells The Athletic. This is how many people feel about Newcastle’s summer of creeping frustration, whether they are already working there, trying to buy it or watching on from home. With the Premier League now in the 15th week of their owners’ and directors’ test, the uncertainty which is always a feature of life under Mike Ashley is now a straitjacket. They are so close to something and yet, it remains out of reach. Existence carries on. On Monday morning, Newcastle announced a “long-term agreement” to continue their sponsorship arrangement with Fun88, the betting company. Their kit deal with Puma has been extended. They have already signed Mark Gillespie, the goalkeeper, on a free transfer. These are decisions which simply could not be delayed any longer. The same applies to the new contracts handed out to Javier Manquillo and Andy Carroll, shoring up positions in the squad which otherwise would have needed filling over the next month or so. It is less about strategy or the long term than getting by, with Steve Bruce, the head coach, acting to cover himself in the event of the takeover being blocked or dragging on indefinitely and then funds being restricted. “We can’t plan anything,” the source says. “It’s just horrible.” Emotionally, Ashley has gone, agreeing to sell to the consortium led by Amanda Staveley, the financier, and 80 per cent funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and signing all the necessary paperwork. If the Premier League give the go-ahead, the transfer of money becomes a formality and a £300 million deal will be complete. But because they have not, he is still there. Limbo feels more like purgatory. The high-level agents from Italy and Spain who were bombarding Staveley’s camp with telephone calls are now ringing less regularly; so much is unknown. Less than a week before the transfer window opens, some early targets have moved on. Staveley has always wanted to hit the ground running but the resolution is now a matter of urgency. The wait is impacting on everybody. Agents who are used to dealing with Newcastle’s present hierarchy are similarly torn. “Who are we supposed to be offering players to?” one asks The Athletic. “Is it the current people in charge or is it someone else? You can speak to Lee Charnley (the managing director) and you just aren’t sure he can actually give you any answers with any certainty. “But it’s also players at the club at the moment. Do they push for new contracts? Do they wait and see? Do they demand an exit? As their representatives, uncertainty makes it almost impossible to try and negotiate because you’re essentially having several different conversations based on several different scenarios, with none of them providing any sort of clarity. “I’ve heard of agents and clubs adding a premium to their clients if there’s interest from Newcastle because they think the club could be backed by very wealthy owners soon and they don’t want to be short-changed. But, equally, if the takeover doesn’t happen, it’s the opposite scenario at Newcastle, so then they risk becoming priced out of signing players they’d normally have been able to comfortably afford.” Matty Longstaff, the young midfielder courted by Udinese, signed a short-term contract extension thinking that fresh conversations with new owners could have taken place by now. Valentino Lazaro, the on-loan winger, is set to return to parent club Inter Milan due to a lack of game time if the current regime continues. Both of their futures now appear inextricably linked to the custodianship of the club. For supporters wearied by Ashley’s toxic 13 years of ownership, excitement about the approach of a new era has been tempered by months of waiting and the public nature of the bid, with concerns about Saudi Arabia’s human rights record, wider geopolitical issues and the future of Middle Eastern television rights leading the conversation a long way from sport. While Staveley’s group have always been confident that their bid will be passed — a confidence that has barely flickered in spite of the relentless grind of the news cycle and the months ticking by — those who oppose it, including beIN Sports, the Qatar-based broadcaster, are equally adamant it should fail and will fail. It is a basic contradiction. All nuance has been lost and so has objectivity. Everybody just wants a decision. Competing agendas have filtered into the mainstream media and on to Twitter, where bot accounts promote misinformation. There have also been “rival” bidders, like Henry Mauriss, the CEO of US media company ClearTV, who continues to be talked up (and down) behind the scenes. In recent days, The Athletic has learned of a fresh broker, who claims to be acting on behalf of yet another potential purchaser, reaching out to prominent figures. In the middle of it all; an underachieving football club in the north east of England and a weary fanbase crying out for change, desperate for better, bouncing between daily updates both positive and negative, and wondering what it all means. This is not about takeover good or takeover bad. And this is not about takeover on or takeover off — for all the talk of “green flags”, “red flags”, “imminent” and “close”, the Premier League are the only arbiters who matter — and despondency could be swept away at any moment. This is about how it feels at Newcastle at 8pm on Monday, July 20, 2020, moments after the Brighton result. This is about how liberation can also feel like the boa constrictor, whose grip is tightening. Whenever Newcastle players are asked about the takeover, their stock answer is that they “can’t affect it” and “have to just focus on the football”. But, privately, is it really the case that they have been entirely unmoved by the noise surrounding the club? “Whether you’re on £100 a week or £100,000 a week, these things affect our lives,” Jay Spearing, the former Liverpool midfielder, who went through takeover sagas at both Bolton Wanderers and Blackpool, tells The Athletic. “The players will say it doesn’t play on your mind but of course, that much uncertainty does. We’re human beings at the end of the day.” Takeover is the only topic of any significance on Tyneside. Yet, as has so often been the case throughout the Ashley era, Newcastle have failed to communicate. Charnley has not spoken publicly about coronavirus, the furloughing of staff or the prospective sale since football was paused in March. His first utterance came on Monday, accompanying a press release about Fun88’s sponsorship renewal, yet another development which brought with it more questions than answers. Instead, for the past few months, Newcastle have left Bruce to face queries about a takeover he has repeatedly admitted he is “in the dark” over. At first, Bruce claimed his squad were conditioned to takeover talk, given that it has dominated the agenda for years now, and insisted it would not affect them. Last month, however, following the pitiful performance against Manchester City in the FA Cup quarter-finals, his facade finally slipped. Bruce demanded that the Premier League provide “clarity” on the status of the takeover, stressing the situation is “not healthy for anybody”, a plea he has since repeated on several occasions. After the 2-2 draw against West Ham United, he snapped at a reporter over Zoom, replying: “I am asked about this (the takeover) every press conference. I am bored and fed up of answering it. Can we move on?” Then, earlier this month, he said the takeover is “hanging over” the club and a decision is “certainly needed”. “Why don’t you guys get stuck into the Premier League?” he told reporters. “Get stuck into them and demand a decision — that would give us a bit of clarity.” Spearing certainly has empathy for Bruce’s position. He has experienced the anxiety an unpredictable future brings at Bolton and Blackpool, both of whom changed ownership while he played for them. At Bolton, Spearing was club captain when Eddie Davies decided to sell the Championship club “almost overnight” in late-2015. Players were left “worrying about their mortgages” when wages went unpaid one month. Even though the Newcastle squad are on Premier League salaries, he believes they will have justifiable concerns of their own. “Every interview for those six weeks at Bolton, all that we were asked about was the ownership situation. Newcastle players and Steve Bruce are facing the same thing now,” the 31-year-old says. “You can’t escape it, yet you don’t have the answers and that can’t help but affect you. It did play on our minds at Bolton and it will at Newcastle, albeit for different reasons. “At Bolton, we were worried about paying bills and putting food on the table. At Newcastle, the talk is that the owners coming in will splash the cash and buy players. That will be affecting players, who’ll be thinking, ‘Do I really want this to go through as it may put my position at risk?’ or, ‘Is there going to be a new manager?’ and, ‘Will this be the end of my time at Newcastle and do I need to think about moving my family?’. “All sorts of things, positive and negative, will be going through their minds and they’re all distractions from just concentrating on football. We’re all human beings with families and we all want certainty, no matter what level we’re at.“ Protracted takeover sagas are nothing new at Newcastle. There has been speculation about Ashley selling for a dozen years but ownership battles predate the retailer’s involvement with the club. From 1988 to 1991, the “share wars”, as they became dubbed, raged on Tyneside between the historic shareholders, led by chairman Gordon McKeag, and the Sir John Hall-fronted “Magpie Group”. During that three-year period, the club almost ceased to exist — with off-field affairs influencing on-pitch matters, just as they are now. “As a business, you’re paralysed if you can’t make decisions for the future,” Sir John, Newcastle’s former owner, tells The Athletic. “That was part of the problem when we were trying to wrestle control from the old shareholders in the early 90s. Then it was because decision-making was fragmented. It was only when we got control that things changed and we could plan. If you don’t know if you’re going to own a business, you cannot plan for the long term. That is the issue facing Newcastle again.” The current situation is exacerbated further by COVID-19. The financial impact of the pandemic and the short period between seasons, with the 2020-21 campaign expected to begin around September 12, means genuine forethought is unfeasible. “As a business owner, with coronavirus and everything that’s happened, you’re looking not one year ahead, but five,” says Sir John. “You can’t take a short-term view if you want to succeed but, if you’re at Newcastle at the moment, how can you take a long-term view? “The prospective owners will have identified players, managers, personnel for all levels of the club. They want to sweep in with a new broom and set out their five-year programme. But they can’t act because they don’t own the club. And, as the current owner, you can’t allow them to make those decisions yet in case it doesn’t get approved.” When Ashley bought the club in 2007, the deal took two months from the start of negotiations with Sir John, the majority stakeholder, to the day he assumed 100 per cent control. That is less time than it has taken the Premier League to merely conduct their owners’ and directors’ test, which started on or around April 9 in 2020. Nobody involved on either the buying or selling side expected to reach the final week of the restarted top-flight season without clarity on who would own the club going forward, particularly considering they were advised the checks normally take around four weeks. “There’s nobody there in command by the looks of things because it seems that, as far as Ashley’s concerned — and most people in this situation would feel the same — the deal is done and he’s moved on,” Sir John says. “Once the contract was signed, that’s the deal done, but the Premier League’s test has complicated things.” Internally, “business as usual” remains the message — but this is an anything-but-usual scenario. Planning for the long term is practically impossible. “It’s damaging the club,” says Sir John. “Steve Bruce is in a terrible situation because he knows he needs to improve the squad but he doesn’t know if anyone is going to give him any money, nor indeed how much. “The Premier League needs to put the purchaser and the club out of their misery as soon as possible, with either a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. Then, the purchaser can move on and, more importantly, the club can move on. From the fans’ point of view, it is excruciating and every passing day leads to greater uncertainty and more missed opportunities.” On Tyneside, Newcastle fans are craving their #cans moment, desperate to celebrate the end of Ashley’s 13-year-and-counting tenure. During his time at Blackpool, Spearing experienced the transition from a despised regime — supporters even led a four-year boycott of the club’s stadium in protest against the Oystons between 2015 and 2019—– to fresh ownership and the transformative effect that has. “It was incredible,“ Spearing says, recalling the 2-2 draw against Southend United on March 9, 2019, which saw thousands of fans finally return to a sold-out Bloomfield Road for the first match since Owen Oyston was removed as owner. “As players, we’d kind of felt like middlemen previously, between the fans and the owners. “So when supporters finally came back, it was like a breath of fresh air. It was like the club had a new lease of life. Everything just changed overnight. Everything just seemed to get a lift. It was madness. It’s hard to explain that change in atmosphere. It’s just really, really positive when you have the players, fans and owners all on one side and it feels like the club is healed.” That is where Newcastle want to get to but they are not there yet. Their matches mirror the takeover. After three consecutive defeats, their goalless draw at Brighton was 90 minutes of nothing. As @NUFC360, the Newcastle fansite put it, “This is limbo football. A representation of the club’s current state. There will be no end.” For now, the boa constrictor continues to squeeze at Newcastle’s neck. Only when, and if, takeover certainty arrives will it ultimately relinquish its grasp and finally allow the club to breathe again. To move on.

‘Jude Bellingham has everything to become the most complete player in the game’ https://theathletic.com/1939766/2020/07/21/jude-bellingham-birmingham-dortmund-pep-clotet/ “Jude is one of those players who when he plays, is teaching you things,” says former Birmingham City manager Pep Clotet of Jude Bellingham, the star midfielder who has become the most expensive 17-year-old in history after completing a potential £30 million move to Bundesliga runners-up Borussia Dortmund. It was March 2018 when Clotet arrived at Birmingham as No 2 to their new manager Garry Monk. At that time, Bellingham was a 14-year-old, playing for the club’s under-18s side, and when Clotet watched him, he immediately knew the teenager was different from his young peers. “He was well ahead in terms of development from his age group,” Clotet tells The Athletic. “He had a lot of the details that you need in order to make quick steps to go into the men’s team.” Over the next two years, Clotet and the club’s academy staff and coaches oversaw Bellingham’s transition from youth-team player to the youngest man ever to play for Birmingham City. Last August, he made his first-team debut under Clotet (who took over as manager after Monk’s close-season departure) at the age of 16 years and 38 days and by the time his big move to Germany was announced, he had amassed 40 appearances in the Championship this season, starting 31 games, scoring four goals and notching three assists. Here, Clotet reveals what that development journey has looked like from the inside and why he believes Dortmund are getting a player who is capable of “touching the sky.” Early signs “The summer after Gary and I arrived at the club, Jude was promoted to the under-23s. Straight away, I was keen to have him training with the first team but Garry (Monk) was more conservative about it. When I was in the position to make decisions, the first thing I did was to put Jude in the team for the whole pre-season. Why? I’ve had a lot of experience developing players and with a talent like this. You see similar things. For example: the way that they look at their own performances; being a perfectionist and understanding they have to show the best side of themselves constantly, in the way that they deal with failure and then, of course, their technical ability. In the beginning, he still had to develop a lot physically but from the technical side, everything was there. Usually, when a player is young, he needs to see the ball all the time because he gets information with his eyes — he sees where the ball is and what it is doing. But as soon as he reaches a higher level, he gets that information from his own body, developing a level of kinaesthetic control. Once he has tha,t he knows if he touches the ball like this, the ball will stay here. If he touches it another way, it will go there. As soon as a player gets to that level of kinaesthetic control, he can start lifting his head and see what is around him more. He can start learning the tactics of the game. It’s like when you can play the piano and you don’t need to look at the keys. Jude was already at that point. He was already playing music. Having this kinaesthetic technical ability means that while other players receive possession of the ball and need to take some seconds to focus on it, Jude was able to focus straight away on what was happening around him. He could see the opposition coming, the movement his striker was making and process all that information immediately. That’s the ultimate in technical development and Jude had it, which was great for us because it gave him the ability to be able to adapt to different positions quicker than other players, because he’s constantly putting his attention on the game.” Positional matters “My main worry was for him to understand that the demands of the position are different from when you’re playing in the youth sides. And there are some positions on the pitch that have a higher level of responsibility than others — they throw you more into situations where there can be more failures. I chose a way of playing that was similar to the way Manuel Pellegrini had played with Villarreal, Real Madrid, and when I worked with him in Malaga. He was using a back line of four and two defensive/organised midfielders. He gave the two wide midfielders a lot of freedom offensively. They could come inside, drop and get in possession and make attacking moves, allowing the player to try and create things up front, and then use the ability of pressing afterwards. Jude would have been perfect in a 4-3-3 playing in front of the deep-lying midfielder but in the way we were playing, that (left-sided) wide midfielder role was the closest one to that. So I taught him, ‘From here, you have the freedom to come inside and express yourself offensively. Defensively, it’s more simple work and you’re going to be less exposed to where the opposition have stronger players and that will allow you to bed into the style’. This is nothing new. Barcelona did it with Lionel Messi in the beginning; they played him as a winger coming inside in a 4-3-3 and now he takes more of a determined role up front. It’s a good way to bed academy players into the first team — put them into positions on the pitch where they can express themselves and they are away from mistakes that can be costly for the team. Jude puts a lot of pressure on himself to do well and I never wanted him to be in a position where a mistake of his could undermine his confidence. People might not agree but playing in that position was key in his development. Later on, I tried him in the middle too because I wanted to give him the feel of the difference in role and learn that you need to sacrifice yourself to the role. The role is always above every player — it was important for him to see that. So in some of the games where we wanted to try to have something a bit different and help creation from the midfield, I put a defensive-minded midfielder with Jude in the centre. In terms of his future, I see him playing best in a midfield three, as one of the two offensive midfielders in front of the deep midfielder — which is exactly how Dortmund play.” Stepping up “I heard so many times from former colleagues, ‘He’s too young’ or ‘he will not cope with it’ but I believe that talent always finds a way through. And Jude is in a club where everyone believes in him, so it was about managing him, showing him that this step was the most important one he’s going to make in his career but that with all the support of his family and the club he will make it. So last summer, I put him into pre-season with the first team and started treating him like the rest of the professional players. I took him with us to Portugal for the pre-season camp, where he played his first friendly games for us, and you could see he was just like another one of the team. That was very good for me because the only thing I wanted from those first two weeks was for him to become ‘one more’. It would not be easy for him to start out being a star from the beginning but I knew if we could get to the point where he was just ‘one more’, he would be at peace and we could start using him in games. I could see that his drive and focus was excellent. When we were in the hotel, he was spot on with his food choices. When we had down time, he was resting or working on injury prevention plans — he was working constantly, chasing a dream. His first dream was to play for his hometown club and on that trip I could see that, 24 hours a day, he was chasing that. As soon as we put him into first-team training, you could see this was a player who takes on information. He’s a player you don’t need to tell things three or four times. You tell him once, you show it to him, prove it to him, work with him on the pitch and then he takes it on board. There were two main things we had to work on. He’s a very aggressive player and very good in a one-v-one defensively. We put a lot of work in with him to be able to delay that position — not to always try to win the ball. In a defensive one-v-one situation, you either win possession or you win your team time. We said, ‘It’s very important, Jude, that when you can win possession in a one-v=one, make sure you win us time, so we can get back into defensive organisation’. He developed that very well. Offensively, we put a lot of work into him to understand the wall plays; the one-twos, the one-two-threes. How a player coming from a deep position like him can create problems; how to use the link between himself and the strikers, when to support the midfielders, the link between himself and the other wide midfielder. This season, a lot of his goals or goals of the team have involved a wide midfielder coming inside, getting the right support from the midfielder, playing a one-two with the full-back and then finishing with the opposite wide midfielder. And he did that very well. I never put a target on him for goals but I did put a target in terms of telling him, ‘You need to be a player who will bring offensive power to the team, so you need to learn all these relationships; how to play offensively with the full-back, with the midfielder and with the striker’. He became important for us as well on set plays, which is one of the details no one puts attention to but it’s so important at the high level. We worked a lot on developing his kick of the ball so he can take corners the way that we wanted. The development training was part of our first-team training. We highlight weaknesses that the player has from footage of the games, show them to him, and then take that onto the pitch and create a little activity for him to correct these things. Afterwards, we show him when he does it well in games. It keeps the player motivated; keeps them thinking they need to do things better to help the team and pushes them to never get to a comfortable position. Clotet gave Bellingham his debut last August and says he has the physicality, mentality and talent to be a world star (Photo: Clint Hughes/Empics/PA Images via Getty Images) Jude is very ambitious and wanted to work as much as possible on these details. Alberto Escobar (Clotet’s assistant from December on) also worked with him a lot on the video side, helping us get to the point of correcting mistakes that he was making in the second part of the season and turn them into strengths. This is the way to create value; to highlight things a player can do better and correct him and help him to be a better player in that position. This way, you have a better product than the one you started with.” Physical attributes “He’s right-footed but his weaker foot is not weak. His father (Mark) put in a lot of work with him when he was young to develop this technical ability. Jude’s technical level was one of the best we had in the team and you could already see that his level of quality on both feet was very similar. And that continued to develop throughout this season. Early on, you could see that when he was playing on the left, he was more comfortable coming inside and using his right foot but later on, he was using his left foot a lot as well. The level of the player obviously comes down to his skill level, his technical level and his tactical ability. But the physical element of the game is important, too. That’s not only in competition but being able to recover quickly from efforts, being able to cope with the strength side and being able to train every day — not missing sessions with little niggles and injuries. Jude had a good size for his age but developing the physical side was very important so we had a development programme for him — not only for the technical and tactical side through small group training but a physical programme too, to make sure he kept progressing physically. Everyone at the club has done a fantastic job on the physical side — and his family too, who have been on top of his nutrition to help him cope with the immense amount of training and playing time that a player gets in the Championship. If you compare him now to the player in the beginning, he’s much quicker, much stronger and possibly a bit taller. He’s managed to cope very well with the demands of the work.” Game time “His first big game was against Portsmouth in the Carabao Cup. I put a young side out for that game and Jude was a driving force of the team. He worked very hard to create problems for the opposition. We didn’t have many options up front but he managed to be one of the strong players for us offensively. It was a reassuring game for me because I was always very worried about rushing him too much. That’s why I preferred to start him in the Carabao Cup. But that game (though Birmingham lost 3-0), I saw clearly that he was ready for more. Afterwards, I thought straight away, ‘He’s ready to start playing in the Championship’. For me, his big game was his home debut, against Stoke in the league. Stoke had a lot of good players, most with experience in the Premier League, so it was a huge test. He came on in a difficult moment (after 30 minutes, when Jefferson Montero had to go off injured) and like a big player, he took a lot of responsibility on himself to try and win us a game at home. He was a bit raw in the beginning because it was his only his second game in the Championship and he could be a bit nervous but he tried to overcome that and always had that drive to get us going forward and chasing a result. And we ended up winning (2-1) thanks to his goal. The way he celebrated is a video I like to see because it felt like he’d been playing on that pitch for 10 years. The way he celebrated with the fans, too — he showed a lot of confidence. I was so happy. That’s when I said. ‘He’s ready’. Straight away I thought, ‘Wow, we just signed a good player today’. He was outstanding at Fulham this month. I used a 4-2-3-1, with Jude as a No 10. It was his most complete time on the pitch because his defensive duties were superb, his tactical understanding was superb and his offensive work was very good as well. He had clear chances to win us the game — we could have been winning 3-0 at half-time and Jude would have had a major impact on that but unfortunately, we didn’t score those chances. Even so, offensively and defensively, he was superb. I had to sub him after an hour because he’d been playing a lot of games but that had been his best performance. During this post-lockdown time, he’s been a driving force of the team — he’s never relaxed at all. Every game he’s played after the break, he’s taken two steps forward. Against Hull, we were losing 2-0 and we managed to get back and draw 3-3 — Jude was a driving force for all these kinds of important moments.” What kind of player are Dortmund getting? “He’s a physical player who copes very well with physical stress and always gives 100 per cent for the team. Even though he’s an offensive player and can get himself into a lot of dangerous positions, he’s very good defensively. He’s complete — offensively and defensively. For the nature of the player he is, he possibly has a higher level of defensive intensity than other players in that position. Physically, he’s grown a lot and got himself very strong and psychologically, he has the drive and the ambition to keep progressing. I would like him to keep working on putting the opposition into more problems, especially around the box, because he can be really dangerous. He’s good now but when he gets older, he’s going to be even more of a player who can score goals and give assists. He’s already a bit like that but we’ve only seen the beginning of it. I want him to keep going that way because he can be a decisive player on both sides. In my view, he has to fight to become the most complete player in the game. He has everything in his hands to do it. He can touch the sky as a player — he has no roof.”

‘I’d love to prove myself and come back to Chelsea’ – Nartey https://theathletic.com/1939316/2020/07/21/richard-nartey-chelsea-rio-ferdinand-tore-flo-release/ You would think it’s the worst phone call a Chelsea youngster could ever have. Richard Nartey had just been informed by his agent that the club he has been at since the age of nine didn’t want him any more. “I didn’t feel down or have any ill feeling towards them,” Nartey tells The Athletic. “Chelsea have done a lot for me over the years. I was just excited to look on to next season and keep progressing with my career. My family felt the same way when I told them.” Some may find that hard to believe. After all, it would be understandable if Nartey had some bitterness. Fellow academy graduates Mason Mount, Callum Hudson-Odoi, Tammy Abraham and Reece James, people he had once played alongside, were all at Wembley on Sunday helping Chelsea reach an FA Cup final. Another six have also been given their debuts under coach Frank Lampard this season and seem to have a bright future at Stamford Bridge. Meanwhile, Nartey is without a club of any kind at a time when the game is struggling to cope with the financial losses caused by COVID-19. The 21-year-old didn’t hear the news from anyone at Chelsea in person, either. With the training ground reserved for only a select number of people, the traditional face-to-face chat in these situations didn’t take place. Instead, the grim message from head of academy Neil Bath was passed on via his representative. But Nartey isn’t the type of person to dwell on negative thoughts — quite the opposite. “I didn’t have a problem with the way I found out. My agent was talking to Neil about my situation in May and that was when Cobham was still on lockdown, so I couldn’t see him. “Despite what people may think, when I got the news, it just made me feel that this is the first time I can go out and show everyone who I am, to progress my career; to go to a club for two, three years and prove myself at a team instead of the uncertain situation of not knowing if I’m going on loan or something else. “I wasn’t sad at all. Chelsea helped me to get where I am but I want to go out and be in the football world myself, to show I can start for a team as a member of a squad, not just as a loanee. “Everyone who has grown up there; of course your dream is to play for Chelsea but the amount of top players they have — my thought process has been there for a while that I might have to leave. But, if ever there is a chance to come back after proving myself somewhere else, that would be my end goal. “I have got to train with the first team over the last few years. I have seen the level the players are at. When you train with them, your level doubles — triples — due to the intensity they play at. You understand that these players are some of the best around. “The academy players who are in the squad now; they have had to go on loan first to do it. Then, you look at people like Declan Rice, who was released by Chelsea at 14, and look at what he has gone on to do at West Ham.” It’s not as if he has had no other contact from Chelsea. Tore Andre Flo, who acted as Nartey’s loan technical coach, has been in touch to say he will try to help him find a new club if required. The club also paid for some special insoles a consultant recommended to him for a calf injury, even though they’d already released him by that point. If you’re thinking Nartey, who spent this season on loan at Burton Albion, sounds mature under the circumstances, you’d be right. Mind you, it helps that he has so many experienced voices to turn to for guidance. His representative is Max Ferdinand, who works for NewEra Global Sports. The agency counts his cousins, former Manchester United star Rio Ferdinand and West Ham defender Anton Ferdinand, as mentors. They are on hand to talk too if anyone needs it. Nartey has made the most of the opportunity. He explains: “I asked for Rio’s number a few months ago and asked for advice and tips on how he managed to maintain being at the top level for so long. He was saying as a defender, you have to work on your game harder, that your body is the most important part. He made it clear to me that you have to always look to do more to stand out from the rest. “I also spoke to Anton after he came to watch me play for Burton at Portsmouth. He gave me advice on things I have to work on, things I did well. When it comes from people like them, you have to take it on board. A lot of the tips helped me get better throughout the season.” Nartey played 29 times for Burton this season (Photo: Alex Davidson/Getty Images) It was on the back of the conversation with Rio that Nartey took up pilates during the lockdown in order to improve his physical condition. “Pilates was one of the things Rio recommended to me,” Nartey continues. “I wanted to focus on a lot of injury prevention kind of thing and strengthening areas that were weak for me. “He gave me a list of things. Last season, I started yoga when I was up at Burton. I was going to continue with that and Rio brought up pilates out of the blue. It has been really helpful for me. “My parents have been doing it just to keep them in shape and they gave me the teacher they use called Harvey. I started doing Zoom calls with him. He used to be a dance teacher and what I have learnt is that there is a bit of a link with dancing and football. Dancers use a lot of rotation as well. Their legs are strong. I learnt about muscle groups and how they all work together to help you maximise your strength, speed and core stability.” Nartey hasn’t played a competitive game since mid-February. He picked up a calf injury and then the League One campaign was brought to a premature end, apart from the play-offs, due to the pandemic. But he has kept himself in shape by doing pilates up to twice a week, plus he goes running and cycling on a daily basis. He has also been seeing a chiropractor. One would have thought five months without 90 minutes under his belt would be to his detriment. Far from it. “I have got to rest and recharge my body,” he explains. “I had a few injury issues bothering me, so I was able to take a break from the high intensity and fix my body. “I’ve spent the time off finding out more ways how to look after my body, what I should be eating, asking for as much advice as possible. I feel a lot better now physically, strength-wise — everything — than I did during the season. “When you’re caught up in the season, as a young player, you’re learning. This period has made me appreciate it even more and get into a rhythm in doing all of this. Wherever I go next, I will keep maintaining it.” So what are his chances of securing a move to a professional club? Well, Nartey has the benefits of coming through Chelsea’s much-respected stable. He won the FA Youth Cup and Under-18 Premier League with them in 2016-17. This season, he made 29 appearances in all competitions for Burton Albion, starting 20 games in League One. That is some achievement, especially when the coach you were working for is Nigel Clough, who naturally knows a thing or two about talent. Clough left the club in May to help ease the financial burden on the club caused by the coronavirus. Nartey sent a message thanking the former Nottingham Forest, Liverpool and England midfielder for giving him a chance — he soon got a call back. “Nigel said if I ever needed a recommendation for a prospective club, that he would be happy to give it,” Nartey says. “I loved playing under him. He played football like Chelsea do, playing out from the back. “When he rang to convince me to join on loan last year, he said there would be no favouritism. You got in the team if you deserved it. He would shout at you if you did something wrong and would tell you if you did things well.” Obviously, this is the worst year for any footballer to find himself unemployed. With clubs not benefitting from match-day revenue for several months, money is tight. “I was speaking to my parents about this,” he says. “If all this had happened a year ago, before proving I can play men’s football on loan in League One — one of the toughest physically to get used to — I’d be a lot more worried than I am. I’d understand teams not wanting to take a risk on someone who hasn’t played any professional games “I feel reassured after what happened at Burton. The fact I’m a free agent will help too; will boost my chances. Clubs will have seen me play and know I’ve come from Chelsea, which has a great reputation for developing players. It is one of the best academies in the world. “I’m being patient. Until recently, a lot of clubs didn’t know when seasons were ending and when the transfer window was starting and so on. Now there has been more clarity. Once all the leagues are done and every club has their budgets, and decide what they need, I know my agent will find the best opportunities for me. “Given the situation, I’d not rule anything out in terms of where I go. As long as a club say I will be with the first team and it’s up to me to prove myself, I’m happy with that.” It doesn’t sound like he will have too long to wait.

How Chelsea usurped Liverpool. And how Liverpool fought back https://theathletic.com/1927659/2020/07/21/chelsea-liverpool-mourinho-benitez-gerrard-torres-houllier-ghost-goal/ When Roman Abramovich turned up to his first competitive match as a football club owner, he was stopped by the doormen at Anfield’s boardroom. Around his neck was a lanyard, which confirmed his accreditation. Not around his neck was a tie. It says much about the way things were at Liverpool, where longstanding traditions were followed, that one of the richest men in the world and soon to be foremost influences in the game was held back because he did not look like he was there on business. “There was a kerfuffle with stewards,” Rick Parry, Liverpool’s former chief executive, explained in 2018. “David (Moores, then chairman) went over and told them to let him in but Abramovich was full of apologies, saying something like, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t realise; I’ll find a tie’, which one of his people went and got from somewhere very quickly. In fairness, he was quite decent about it, he didn’t say, ‘I’m not following your rules’. He tried to adapt. He seemed quite humble, smiled, but he didn’t say very much. He certainly didn’t appear arrogant – though after that game, he didn’t come very often.” The period is the most significant in Chelsea’s modern history. The ripple effect of Abramovich’s arrival in football was dramatic and it also, to a large degree, explains Liverpool’s path ever since: a club who were trying to catch up to Manchester United and Arsenal but suddenly had a new, more aggressive, competitor, meaning they would have to think and act differently or risk falling further behind. This was five years before Sheikh Mansour bought Manchester City and shifted football’s money table again. In 2003, Moores was Liverpool’s principal owner and he had already agonised over whether he was the person to take the club forward. He was sensitive and would get upset if he ever read a negative letter about him in the Liverpool Echo. He was a wealthy man but not in Abramovich’s league. When the Moores family’s Littlewoods retail company was sold in 2002 – a year before Abramovich bought Chelsea – it went for £750 million. Considering Abramovich’s resources have reduced in the 17 or 18 years since and at the start of 2020 he was worth £12 billion, you can understand why Moores’ anxieties about what he was up against increased. Within six months, Moores had decided it was time to sell Liverpool. Considering the club’s potential and history, it seems incredible that the sale was not completed until three years later. Due to delays, false promises made by prospective buyers and the necessity to finance materials for a new stadium, this sent Moores and Liverpool hurtling towards an agreement with George Gillett and Tom Hicks, whose reign was brief and catastrophic. It proved to be a sequence of events that contributed enormously towards Liverpool’s slide on the pitch and it has taken the club, under a second round of new stewardship, almost a decade to wrestle the initiative back towards something anywhere near like it was before an unshaven Abramovich got the knock-back at Anfield’s board room. “People forget, Chelsea were a bit of a pest,” Roy Evans told me in 2014. The former Liverpool manager was describing the pressure he started to feel when other clubs – but particularly Chelsea – started signing exciting foreign footballers. That was when the conversation really ramped up about Liverpool’s place on football’s map. Before a visit to Stamford Bridge for an FA Cup fourth round tie in January 1997, Liverpool were top of the Premier League and believing that a first title in seven years was not far away. Confidence oozed in a first half performance which saw them open a 2-0 lead inside 20 minutes, with goals from Robbie Fowler and Stan Collymore. Yet the final score that day was Chelsea 4 Liverpool 2. In the second half, Gianfranco Zola equalised then Gianluca Vialli scored twice. While Chelsea would end that season as FA Cup winners, Liverpool slumped to a fourth-place finish – another trophyless campaign despite promise. The conversations about Liverpool’s capacity to deliver when it mattered centred around the personality of the team, and this involved concentration levels. Professionalism at other clubs was supposedly improving because of the arrival of experienced foreigners such as Zola and Vialli. In that 4-2 cup victory, Chelsea also had Roberto Di Matteo, Frank Leboeuf and Dan Petrescu in the starting XI. For Liverpool, much of the hope fell on Bjorn Tore Kvarme, a recent recruit from Rosenborg of Norway. Could he solve the team’s defensive problems? He and fellow Norwegian Stig Inge Bjornebye (you can include Birkenhead’s Republic of Ireland international Jason McAteer at a push) were the only non-Brits in Liverpool’s starting XI that day. Evans admired Fiorentina’s Gabriel Batistuta as well as Alen Boksic of Juventus and the way he spoke about the two centre-forwards, you could tell he’d watched them closely. Ajax’s Jari Litmanen was another he attempted to sign, because he felt Liverpool relied too heavily on Steve McManaman’s creativity and wanted someone else who could help link the midfield with the attack. Yet he was never tempted to emulate what he called a “Chelsea-type” signing just for the sake of it. “I didn’t want to go and get someone just to put more bums on seats — we filled Anfield anyway,” he explained. “You saw (Ruud) Gullit and Vialli (go to Chelsea), they were both well into their thirties and cost a lot of money. How long did Chelsea get out of them? If the chance had come to sign an older player – maybe in his late twenties, like Teddy (Sheringham) – I would have done it. But I wasn’t someone who wanted to fill the place full of foreigners. I thought there was enough talent in this country at the time.” Attendances had shot up at Stamford Bridge because of the club’s new and exciting recruitment drive. At the end of the 1995-96 season, the average home gate was 25,598. By the time Abramovich bought the club, it had risen to 39,781. In the corresponding period, crowds at Anfield had risen also but much less sharply, from 39,605 to 43,243. Matchday revenues in this period were not defining but they did have a major impact on possibilities in the transfer market. Chelsea, indeed, had almost caught up with Liverpool by 1998 – that summer, both clubs tried to sign new World Cup winner Marcel Desailly, who decided he’d prefer to live in London. Evans stressed that the relationship between Liverpool and Chelsea had shifted quietly before Abramovich’s arrival in England, emphasising that Chelsea’s increased capacity to compete with Liverpool in the transfer market and the greater desire of foreign players to move to the capital rather than a major provincial city impacted on the mood across Merseyside. It was around that point Evans stopped listening to the phone-ins on the drive home to Ormskirk, even after games Liverpool won. “The ones who complained had the loudest voices and they always seemed to want a sexy foreign name,” he said. “Somewhere along the line, what Chelsea were doing featured in the conversation.” On the pitch, Chelsea were now competing with Liverpool, who did not win a trophy of any kind between 1995 and 2001 – a period in which Chelsea lifted two FA Cups, a League Cup and a Cup Winners’ Cup. There were nevertheless limits to Chelsea’s growth and this was largely down to the size of Stamford Bridge, a stadium with just over half the capacity of Manchester United’s Old Trafford. It later became clear that Chelsea’s spending post-2000 was reliant on Champions League qualification and that without that, the club was in trouble. Had Liverpool, now under Gerard Houllier, held on to another lead at Stamford Bridge — 1-0 this time — on the final day of the 2002-03 season, they would have qualified for European football’s elite competition at Chelsea’s expense. Instead, inside 17 first-half minutes, Chelsea had seized control of the match and finished fourth, avoiding financial turmoil by a whisker. Without Champions League football featuring on Chelsea’s schedule the following season, Rick Parry is not alone in wondering whether Abramovich would have overlooked what was happening in west London and decided to spend his money elsewhere. “I had no concept of how important Abramovich would become, or even the immediate significance of his investment,” Parry admitted. “Why would an oligarch or billionaire have any interest in football, particularly a football club from a country that wasn’t his own? The mega-mega-rich buying football clubs was still new. At this stage, someone wealthy with an interest in football was Jack Walker at Blackburn. “This took it onto a whole new level.” In the 33 seasons before Abramovich, Chelsea had only twice finished above Liverpool – and each of those occasions were in two of the previous four campaigns before the start of 2003-04. Both his impact and Liverpool’s toil between owners who failed and owners in Fenway Sports Group who have taken the long route back to the top, have meant that in 11 of the 17 seasons since Abramovich’s arrival, Chelsea have finished higher. In the same period, Chelsea have been above Manchester United at the end of eight seasons. Back in 2003, United were the club to beat and those in charge at Liverpool were confident of catching them. Parry outlined the challenge in front of him by acknowledging Liverpool did not have the resources of United “but at least we knew what the resources were”, which mainly came from the income they generated. Parry believed that if Liverpool could build a new stadium and increase revenues, it would be easier to compete with United. “It was more of a level playing field, to that extent,” he reflected. “Then, all of a sudden: wham, here comes Abramovich. It was back to the drawing board because we had to stop and think about the long-term impact of a new rival with unlimited funds.” The new-found negotiating positions of Liverpool and Chelsea were reflected by the transfer of Damien Duff. His club, Blackburn Rovers, had finished one place and four points behind Liverpool in 2003. Twelve months earlier, Liverpool had tried to sign the winger but the maximum they could afford was £12 million. Blackburn did not want to sell because they did not need the money and, in the meantime, Duff agreed a new contract. Parry and Houllier knew that Duff was a Liverpool supporter and hoped that they’d eventually be able to win him around. His new contract had a £17 million buyout clause, which proved in Parry’s words: “just about the least helpful thing that could happen,” because Chelsea paid it straight away, making Duff the club’s most expensive signing in a groundbreaking summer where they also bought established players from United, Real Madrid and Inter Milan. “Immediately we were thinking, ‘Oh no – is this how it’s going to be from now on?’,” Parry recalled. “There was going to be one market for Chelsea and another for the rest of us.” In the Premier League’s new world, where oligarchs and sheikhs compete against US investment firms for titles, Liverpool’s rivalry with Manchester City has developed a sharper edge in more recent times because the teams are competing directly against one another for trophies. Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola might disagree on the purpose of significant issues such as Financial Fair Play but a respect exists between the pair. Similarly, friendships spread across both teams. Jordan Henderson and Adam Lallana remain in regular contact with Raheem Sterling, while the Brazilian contingents at each club socialise together. Such relationships never existed between Chelsea and Liverpool, where supporters considered themselves as opposites and each manager made no attempt to hide their resentment for the other’s success. In an alternative universe, Jose Mourinho could have taken charge of Liverpool and there are varying accounts of what happened when his representatives approached Parry in the spring of 2004. Mourinho was ready to move on from a Porto team he would soon lead to Champions League success and Houllier’s time at Liverpool was almost over. It has been claimed Mourinho had agreed to join Liverpool before Porto knocked out Lyon in the April quarter-finals. Parry allegedly told Mourinho’s adviser, Jorge Baidek, he needed 15 days to agree a severance package with Houllier and, in the meantime, Jorge Mendes approached Mourinho with a more lucrative offer from Chelsea even though the pair had never worked together. This led to meetings with Abramovich ahead of Porto’s semi-final with Deportivo La Coruna and then on the billionaire’s yacht in Monaco the day after Porto lifted the trophy. Parry tells a very different story, where he received an unsolicited knock on his door at Melwood the early March afternoon before Porto played at Old Trafford in their last 16 tie’s second leg. Though he never revealed the name of the agent standing there, The Athletic believes it was Frenchman Bruno Satin, who had spent the previous hour discussing players he could sell to Houllier. Parry concluded it summed up the ruthlessness of the transfer market that in one conversation an agent could be trying to help a manager and in the next he might be attempting to undermine him. “I was told at the meeting that Jose Mourinho was very interested in managing Liverpool and asked whether Liverpool might be interested in appointing him for the following season,” Parry recalls. “It tasted badly. The agent had been to meet Gerard trying to sell him players with one hand, but then moments later was ostensibly trying to get him fired. It was classic football. There has to be a more dignified manner, surely? “I said, ‘Look, we do things a certain way and we are not going to make an appointment behind Gerard’s back, a) out of respect to him, and because we are still in contention for the Champions League and we do not want to make a decision in March’. Had we done so and it had derailed the campaign entirely, we might not have qualified for the Champions League that season and 12 months later we mightn’t have had Istanbul under Rafa Benitez.” That evening, Porto knocked United out 3-2 on aggregate after a 1-1 draw in Manchester and Mourinho reacted to Costinha’s last-minute equaliser by running down the touchline to join in the celebrations with his players. “We all share the euphoria of beating United and nobody (feels it) more than me. But one of our core values was respect and that includes treating other clubs and people with respect,” Parry said. “There are limits and ways of doing things. Seeing Mourinho celebrate like that reinforced my initial belief. The way he behaved sowed another seed of doubt. Of course, I’m sure he’d have been a great manager for Liverpool – there is no doubting his qualities. But was he really a Liverpool manager – did he characterise the club’s values?” Parry figured that Benitez did; someone who could not hide his disdain for Chelsea’s spending power, which accelerated under Mourinho after he announced his appointment at the club by declaring himself as the “Special One.” In the summer of 2004, Mourinho splashed out £100 million on new players while Benitez sold one of the team’s two world-class players in Michael Owen and still had less than £20 million to spend. The first sign of developing tension between the clubs came in that season’s League Cup final when Mourinho shushed Liverpool supporters after Chelsea took the lead and clinched the first silverware of the Abramovich era. Three months later, Liverpool got the better of Chelsea in the Champions League semi-finals despite finishing 37 points behind them at the top of a league table which meant a first title at Stamford Bridge for 50 years. Fifteen years on, there are still debates whether Luis Garcia’s sole goal of the tie crossed the line. Mourinho was the first person to call it the “ghost goal.” Parry thinks of that second leg as Anfield’s greatest night. “What made it even better was the Eidur Gudjohnsen miss really late in the game, which was kind of a repayment for all of Chelsea’s evil over the years. You just thought, ‘Great!’” The regularity of the games between Liverpool and Chelsea led to a new rivalry. Over five seasons from 2004-05 to 2008-09, the clubs met a staggering 24 times in all competitions and this familiarity bred more contempt. The acrimony increased because of Mourinho’s pursuit of Steven Gerrard across two summers, the second of which led to Liverpool’s captain submitting a transfer request barely a month after leading them to improbable Champions League success in Istanbul. Gerrard felt that Liverpool didn’t really want him to stay at the club because of the way new contract negotiations were handled. Though fans assembled outside Melwood and Anfield and burned shirts with his name on the back, he retreated from the decision when he realised what it would mean for his legacy at the club, as well as his family’s reputation in his home city. He described the night when it seemed like he was on the verge of leaving as “the most emotional of my life,” where he was reduced to “eating paracetamol like Smarties.” While Gerrard played 39 of his 710 Liverpool games against the club who tried so hard to sign him, Jamie Carragher turned out 45 times against Chelsea. Gerrard would never win a title with Liverpool but Carragher believes that Gerrard realised “the satisfaction of one with Liverpool, no matter how long it took, would always eclipse three or four at Stamford Bridge”. Carragher came to think of fixtures against Chelsea as having an importance in line with derby games and sometimes, “maybe even above United” for significance. “Sometimes I would watch United against Chelsea and I’d want United to win. That’s how much Chelsea used to wind me up. So when we used to play them, you don’t just want to win, but you want to stop them winning. “The two managers had an ego where they thought they were the best. I think that when Abramovich came in and he had all that money, the arrogance kicked in. They were a bit cocky.” After he’d retired, Gerrard described the rivalry as being “bigger than what people thought. “Being a Liverpool player and a Liverpool fan, to get any kind of success at some stage, we had to knock Chelsea out,” he said in 2017. “For us to get any kind of success we knew we had to get the better of them. It’s almost like hatred for 90 minutes.” The feeling was mutual. On England duty, both Carragher and Gerrard say the clubs’ players got on fine but whenever Frank Lampard and John Terry came to Anfield, they were reviled figures. Lampard was especially a target in the early years after his tackle on Xabi Alonso in 2005 left the Spanish midfielder with a broken ankle. “Going to Anfield was horrible,” Terry recalled. “You drive from the hotel, just a 30-minute bus ride, they’re all on the streets winding you up, throwing stuff at the bus — it was a nightmare. “Jose knew exactly what he was doing. He knew he could wind Rafa up. He would sometimes have a joke that he was going to say this, he was going to say that. Everyone hated us because we had money, we were the new kids on the block. That siege mentality was from him, from his staff and from everyone. The whole world was against us.” Lampard saw the relationship similarly: “Chelsea’s traditional rival, outside London, was Leeds. Then we started playing Liverpool regularly and it grew from nowhere. For five or six years, it was so intense. “When Jose came in and Abramovich took over, we became the money team and people disliked us. There is a natural divide from Liverpool — a working-man’s club that’s had a lot of success off the back of tradition. We were the new kids on the block who had a few quid and signed a load of players. “Jose puffed his chest out, and then we kept playing each other. It was a clash of two ideals.” Mourinho was sacked by Chelsea (the first time) in September 2007 but the battles between the clubs continued under Avram Grant, Felipe Scolari, Guus Hiddink and Carlo Ancelotti. When Benitez labelled Didier Drogba a diver, the Chelsea striker responded by telling the Liverpool manager he lacked class. Drogba would score twice in a 3-2 extra time win in the 2007-08 Champions League semi-finals as Chelsea advanced at Liverpool’s expense. The following season, as Liverpool finished above Chelsea for the first time in the Abramovich era, they became the side to end Chelsea’s 86-game unbeaten streak at Stamford Bridge thanks to Alonso’s winner. Liverpool, however, fell away after that second-place finish and in 2009-10, a comfortable 2-0 Chelsea victory at Anfield in the second to last game of the season put the visitors in pole position for a third title in six years. It proved to be Benitez’s last home match in charge and he would not return to Anfield in any working capacity until nearly three years later, when he was managing Chelsea. That story is worth an article on its own, given how unpopular Benitez was at Stamford Bridge. Though his relationship with Abramovich was as healthy as it has been with any owner in his career, the same could not be said about the one with the club’s board, whom he criticised publicly for labelling him an “interim” manager though he held the job from November until the next summer. Following an FA Cup game at Middlesbrough and after only three months in charge, he confirmed he would leave at the end of the season due to the sustained protests against his appointment. Many supporters never forgave him for some of the comments he’d made about Chelsea from his Liverpool days. Despite winning them the Europa League, Benitez was called a “Fat Spanish Waiter” by Chelsea’s fans. Benitez had inherited Fernando Torres – a player he’d signed for Liverpool in 2007. Three and a half years later, Torres moved on to Chelsea for a British record fee, which made him a traitor on Merseyside. While Liverpool supporters tended to sympathise with Benitez, whose time at Chelsea was separated from his Anfield reign by six months at Inter Milan and almost two years out of football, Torres got the same treatment as Gerrard when he threatened to leave, with shirts being burned outside Melwood. When the striker made his Chelsea debut, it was against Liverpool, and former team-mate Daniel Agger welcomed him to the game with a thumping challenge which left him in a heap on the floor. Torres never reached the same standards with Chelsea he’d achieved on Merseyside but he was a part of the squad that beat Liverpool in the 2012 FA Cup final at Wembley – denying Kenny Dalglish’s team a domestic cup double. Almost a year later, there was the Luis Suarez biting incident on Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic, which earned the striker a 10-game ban. That suspension ruled Suarez out of the first six weeks of the 2013-14 season, where Liverpool finished above Chelsea for only the second time since Abramovich and nearly won the title for the first time in 24 years. It was in Liverpool’s hands until Gerrard slipped at Anfield, allowing Demba Ba through to slide Chelsea into a lead which extended to two goals after Liverpool failed to break down a weakened team led again by Mourinho, who relished his role as pantomime villain, marching down the touchline towards the away end, beating his chest in celebration as the ground lay otherwise silent. That result allowed Manchester City to take full advantage, and Liverpool’s title wait would last for another six seasons. Gerrard played his final game for Liverpool a year later and Chelsea fans were always quick to remind him of his heartache. Despite granting him a standing ovation in his final appearance at Stamford Bridge having derided him for the entire game, Gerrard could not resist a dig. “The Chelsea fans showed respect for a couple of seconds for me, but slaughtered me all game so I’m not going to get drawn into wishing the Chelsea fans well. It’s nice of them to turn up for once today.” Gerrard was left to wonder what it would have been like to play for Mourinho. Despite his best form for Liverpool being under Benitez, the pair’s relationship at best could be described as businesslike. In 2015, Mourinho described Gerrard as “one of my favourite enemies”. Today, Mourinho’s reputation has shifted, but there was a time when his man-management was believed to better than anyone else’s. “He is the best manager in the world for me,” Gerrard said. “I’d have signed for him three times if I wasn’t a Liverpool fan. He is the reason why my head was turned on a couple of occasions, but he understood why I couldn’t do it and it’s because I love Liverpool Football Club. “I always said to myself when I sat down with my dad and my brother that if I win a couple of trophies at Liverpool, it will mean an awful lot more to me than if I won 10 at Chelsea or Inter Milan or Real Madrid. “It always means more when you win for your people.” Over the last decade, Chelsea have had a habit of hijacking Liverpool’s transfer plans. Liverpool wanted to sign Willian from Shakhtar Donetsk but he went to Stamford Bridge, via a brief spell with Anzhi Makhachkala. There were similar moves for Mohamed Salah and Diego Costa but both opted to pursue their careers away from Anfield. A sign that the landscape was changing came when Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain chose to move to Liverpool in 2017 instead of Chelsea, who were then reigning champions under Antonio Conte. The midfielder had also supported Chelsea as a boy and was offered more money to move across London from Arsenal but he plumped for Liverpool because of the presence of Jurgen Klopp, having received glowing references from Jordan Henderson and Adam Lallana about how Klopp had helped improve their games. Liverpool were emerging as a force again. The clubs met 42 times in 12 years between August 2003 and October 2015 – the month Klopp was appointed at Anfield. Chelsea’s record in that period was superior, winning 18 games to Liverpool’s 13. There were also 11 draws. Under Klopp, the balance has shifted, with Liverpool winning five times, three Chelsea wins and four draws. For the first time since Abramovich bought Chelsea, Liverpool will finish above them for three seasons in a row. Off the pitch, Liverpool have also moved ahead of Chelsea. The most lavish investment by Abramovich came before Financial Fair Play was introduced at the start of the 2011-12 season, a measure introduced partly because of what was happening at Chelsea where the club was spending considerable amounts above its own income. Chelsea’s success meant they were also able to push their revenues above Liverpool’s and when Fenway Sports Group bought the club in 2010, Chelsea were one place above Liverpool in the Deloitte Money League having generated £25 million more in revenues in 2008-09. John Henry believed in FFP and it was a contributing factor behind his decision to pursue Liverpool. The commercial operation at the club in 2010 was skeletal considering its history and this is where the most dramatic changes originally took place – with new offices opened in Liverpool city centre as well as London in a bid to attract new partners and further investment. This was before Klopp’s arrival in 2015, when Liverpool had slipped to ninth in the Deloitte rankings (they were seventh in 2010), one place behind Chelsea who were still generating £80 million more a year in revenues. The swing under Klopp has been gradual over the last five years, with Liverpool becoming Champions League finalists twice, winners once – as well as Premier League winners. In that time, Chelsea have secured one league title but have slipped behind Liverpool according to Deloitte in their latest report, which was released in January. In 2018-19, Liverpool’s revenues were £75 million higher than Chelsea’s, and this was before a new kit deal was brokered with Nike, which could be worth as much as £20 million more per season than Chelsea’s agreement with the same company. In short, Liverpool have finally got their act together off the pitch and this has helped them surpass Chelsea through a period of transition at Stamford Bridge where a transfer ban has made the club focus on nurturing talent from the club’s academy. Conversations are happening across corridors of power at Anfield about how the terrain will re-shape after UEFA’s failure to punish FFP sanctions on Manchester City. Though Chelsea have continued to post losses since its implementation, Abramovich has complied with the system. Yet if rules are not going to be enforced, will it prompt him to think again and act the way he did in summer 2003? Their successful pursuit of Timo Werner was possible because of the deal that took Alvaro Morata to Atletico Madrid. Should Kai Havertz move to Stamford Bridge for a fee that could be twice as big as Werner’s, concerns about the threat to Liverpool’s position will understandably grow.

TV: Zlatan strikes again - Milan leads again https://www.fotbollskanalen.se/italien/tv-just-nu-zlatan-slar-till-igen---milan-leder-pa-nytt/ 2 great goals 1 2 FT

lol at AFTV arguing with spuds fans over who is more shit (not even who is BETTER) lolololol

trying to find out, Romagnoli injured too and so was Theo Hernandez wtf the 3 players I most wanted to watch (plus Zlatan)

Substitution, Sassuolo. Filip Djuricic replaces Jeremie Boga because of an injury.

Sassuolo 1 2 AC Milan 75th minute Zlatan on a hat trick 2 months away from turning 39yo http://www.sportnews.to/sports/2020/serie-a-sassuolo-vs-milan-s2/

ermmm