The English Football Thread

[NikkiCFC 7,578]

‘End Premier League season by July 1 or it will be chaos’

Majority of clubs ready to halt Premier League

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/half-of-premier-league-clubs-are-pushing-for-july-1-finish-to-season-0smzk7v9d?wgu=270525_54264_15870524165066_0f457fc5cb&wgexpiry=1594828416&utm_source=planit&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_content=22278

Will clubs vote? FA cannot make any decision without government and clubs. 

I can see why majority of clubs would be happy with null and void scenario.

All mid table teams will outvote Liverpool and teams in relegation battle...

[Fernando 6,375]

Exactly,. because of the contracts is best to finish the season before July 1st. 

If you can't do it is best to finish the season and let contracts run like normal. 

[Fulham Broadway 16,390]

Norman Hunter and Frannie Lee having a disagreement

 

[Laylabelle 9,296]

Premier League clubs remain committed to playing the 92 remaining fixtures of the current season but did not discuss a deadline by which play must resume at a meeting on Friday.

Clubs were expected to debate a 30 June deadline to end the season but instead discussed "possible scheduling models".

The Premier League said it "remains our objective" to complete matches but currently "all dates are tentative".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52326617

[Vesper 27,301]

Friday April 17 2020 Football Nerd

Were Leicester really the best Premier League team in 2015-16? By Daniel Zeqiri Leicester pulled off one of the great shocks in sporting history CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES Through football's coronavirus hiatus, we are committed to providing a weekly newsletter of facts, analysis and retrospectives. If there is a topic you want us to cover please email [email protected]. Above all, stay safe.     The league table never lies. It is one of football's oldest adages that we have all parroted when listening to another fan's hard luck story about their team's season. Except, it is not really true. We know this instinctively at the end of August, when a three-game sample size and the vagaries of the fixture list render it meaningless. Yet even across a 38-game sample, relatively small compared with the historical span of the game and our football watching lives, there is room for variance and unpredictable outcomes. Leicester's Premier League title win at 5,000-1 was certainly one of those, and a look back at the numbers from the 2015-16 season hammer home what an against-all-odds achievement it was (with apologies to the Phil Collins averse among you). Claudio Ranieri's team had the second-best attack in the Premier League with an Expected Goals tally of 69.31, only slightly more than the 68 they actually scored through Riyad Mahrez and Jamie Vardy shredding teams on the counter-attack. However, according to xG their defence was only the eighth best in the league - allowing 46.10 xG against but only conceding 36 - giving them an xG difference of +23.21. Expected Goal difference is just one imperfect measure of a team's abilities, but does offer a strong impression of which teams are striking a balance between defence and attack: creating a healthy volume of chances and not exposing themselves at the other end. According to this measure, Leicester were the fourth-best team in the league in 2015-16 as the below graphic demonstrates. Premier League table 2015-15 based on xG difference:     The disparity between the metrics and Leicester's 81-point championship-winning season is due to their defensive overperformance, conceding 10 fewer goals than the data 'expected' them to. A confluence of factors can explain this: good fortune; poor opposition finishing; some outstanding goalkeeping by Kaspar Schmeichel. It may also have been a consequence of their deep-lying defensive strategy. Teams who cede possession and look to soak up pressure tend to concede more shots than those seeking to dominate territory higher up the pitch. The cumulative effect of conceding a higher volume of shots can sometimes inflate a team's xG against figure. The number of bodies barricading a striker's path to goal are not always considered in xG models. When defenders of Wes Morgan and Robert Huth's frame are throwing themselves in front of shots and making last-ditch blocks, good chances can become average ones. What cannot be disputed is that Arsenal and Arsene Wenger have reason to sorely regret the 2015-16 campaign. According to xG, they had both the best attack and the best defence in the division albeit in a year when Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City all fell below expectations. How different things may have been had Arsenal signed an outfield player in the summer transfer window, Santi Cazorla not torn his knee ligaments in the autumn or striker Olivier Giroud not gone on a 15-game scoring drought after January. Arsenal underperformed their xG in attack by a shade more than five goals that season. Elsewhere, the value of using data to make predictions about future performance is clearly demonstrated. Although Manchester United finished fifth and won the FA Cup, their miserable xG difference of +4.53 shows they were right to part ways with Louis van Gaal. West Ham challenged for the Champions League places with Dimitri Payet producing several goal of the season contenders, but were ninth on xG difference and over-performed in attack by a full 10 goals. Their numbers were more akin to a mid-table team, and despite hubristic talk of challenging for Europe at the London Stadium the following season, they finished 11th. Sunderland produced another great escape, but according to xG had the most porous defence in the league and xG difference placed them 19th. Their luck would finally run out the following season when they were relegated. Chelsea and Liverpool both sacked managers during the 2015-16 season, but the data suggested they were not as bad as their league finishes of 10th and 8th suggested. Based on xG difference, Liverpool were a comfortable fifth with +14.49 and Chelsea clawed their way back from a disastrous start under Jose Mourinho to be sixth. Jurgen Klopp would use this season as the foundation for reaching the Champions League places the following season, when Chelsea won the title under Antonio Conte.

[Vesper 27,301]

Like a bunch of drunks dancing on a stag do – the Premier League’s ‘pub team’

https://theathletic.com/1751277/2020/04/17/leicester-premier-league-pub-team-memories/

The 50,000 plus Manchester United fans inside Old Trafford must have looked on in bewilderment as Leicester City warmed up.

In front of them was what looked like a rag-tag team conducting their own spontaneous warm-up without any coaching staff in sight and looking like a bunch of drunks dancing on a stag do. This would surely be easy meat for their star-studded side, who were being put through their own coordinated and professional-looking preparations.

And as David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and the rest of the Class of ’92 looked over at the shenanigans of their opposition, they too must have thought they would make light work of Martin O’Neill’s side.

“Honestly, it was the most shambolic warm-up you have ever seen in your life,” recalls striker Tony Cottee of that Premier League game in January 1998. “There were balls going everywhere.

“We made a little circle where everyone was allowed to do a little warm-up dance. Matt Elliott did this dance like Baloo the Bear from Jungle Book, Muzzy [Izzet]was doing The Worm. Honestly, if you had seen us you would have said we were a non-League ‘pub team’, turning up to get walloped at Old Trafford. But we had so much fun in the warm-up that by the time we had Martin’s motivational speech, we were ready to go out and perform.”

“It was instigated by [midfielder] Garry Parker,” former Leicester captain Elliott explains. “We would get in the circle and then we would all do a stupid dance. Muzzy would do the caterpillar, ‘Parkes’ would do the Moonwalk. I would do this stupid dance where you lean forward and kick your legs up at the back, a bit like Baloo.

“Parkes used to call me that [Baloo]. If we had a practise match at training and I would go and get the ball off the keeper and start sauntering out from the back with it, because I had some space, he would be shouting, ‘Here comes Baloo Bear,’ because I had a big arse and legs.

“The Manchester United players and fans would have been looking at us thinking, ‘What are these idiots doing?’ The next minute one of their balls came near us as we were doing the warm-up and it was Gary Pallister, who knew Parkes a bit. He shouted, ‘Garry, kick the ball back, will you?’ Parkes told him to fuck off and get it himself. We all went, ‘Wahey! Go on, Parkesy!’”

“We would do this Turkish or Russian dance, where you squat down and kick your legs out,” adds midfielder Izzet. “I remember it started at Old Trafford. It relaxed us and the spirit was there. We would do spontaneous things and Martin liked it. Steve [Walford, the assistant manager] as well. That was why they were such a great partnership.”

Leicester went out and beat then-champions Manchester United 1-0 – which remains their only win at Old Trafford since 1973 – with Cottee scoring the goal, and the strange pre-match routine, which may had fed some complacency within the United ranks, became a regular occurrence, adding to the mystique of O’Neill’s uncouth and unfashionable battlers.

They were dubbed “The best pub team in the country”, a reputation that was fostered by O’Neill himself and relished by his players as they finished in the top 10 of the Premiership in four consecutive seasons from 1997-2000.

“We revelled in that,” Cottee says. “That tag of us being a pub team may have even come from Martin O’Neill himself. He may have said that. We deserved to win that game and we played on that tag. It wasn’t an issue for us. We knew on our day we had good players and could potentially beat anyone. There were some great teams in that era with Arsenal and Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Spurs. It was hard to get results in the Premier League so for us to finish four years on the trot in the top 10 was a great achievement.

“It was, in its own way, as good an achievement as winning the cup and getting to cup finals.”

It wasn’t just the warm-ups that earned Leicester the “pub team” tag, it was also the fact that O’Neill had built a side with players signed from the lower leagues, like Elliott from Oxford United, Gerry Taggart from Barnsley, Neil Lennon and Robbie Savage, both from Crewe Alexandra, plus raw youth including the home-grown Emile Heskey and Izzet, who couldn’t break through at Chelsea, mixed with players who were considered washed up, like Cottee, who was 32 when he joined and had been playing in Malaysia.

A more eclectic mix of players you could not find in the Premier League, but it was all part of O’Neill’s plan and formed the identity of a side that remains embedded in Leicester City folklore.

“First and foremost, we had an outstanding manager, a man who motivated the players,” Cottee adds. “He had a great eye to attract players to the club other teams didn’t want. I was an example. I was stuck out in Malaysia and no one wanted me. Martin took a chance.

“These players were really good players but they just needed a manager who believed in them and gave them a license to perform. The manager was inspirational in most of what went on.

“Having said that, we had a good bunch of players and if you look back now it was, pretty much, a team of internationals. If you look at the players who weren’t internationals, like Steve Walsh for example, he was club captain and a fantastic player. Ian Marshall was another underrated player. Steve Claridge scored hundreds of goals in lower-league football and was now getting his chance in the Premier League. The management recruited really well.”

Goalkeeper Kasey Keller became one of the first Americans to play in the Premier League when he was recruited from Millwall. He believes the secret to O’Neill’s success with Leicester was the simplicity of his recruitment philosophy.

“He was brilliant at finding a way to play that suited the players in his side,” Keller tells The Athletic. “Then he would buy someone who would fit into that system and play the way they play in that position, which fits the overall tactics of the side.

“I have heard managers say to someone they want them to play with their back to goal, when the player is 30 years old and never played that way in his life. Wouldn’t it be easier just to bring in someone who naturally plays that way? That’s what Martin did. That is where he was truly at his best — finding a player who could fit perfectly into that side, playing the way he liked to play.”

The game plan was simplistic too. O’Neill would give his teams clear instructions on how he wanted them to play and while it may not have been the most attractive style, with Arsenal counterpart Arsene Wenger amongst their biggest detractors, it was effective.

Famously, O’Neill would tell the other players not to pass to Savage, as his role was to be combative and feed the ball to playmaker Izzet, and Keller remembers being given strict instructions not to play out from the back as well, as is the modern trend.

“We were away at Tottenham in the first season I was there [1996-97],” Keller recalls. “Neil Lewis came in at left-back because of injuries and Martin told me specifically in front of the whole team, ‘I don’t care if he is 30 yards open, you don’t throw him the ball.’ He was adamant.

“We were 1-0 up and in time added time before the break I had the ball in my hands. Neil was open by about 50 yards. Walshy looks at me and says, ‘Roll him the ball.’

“I was like, ‘No.’

“‘Roll it out.’

“‘No.’

“Walshy is like, ‘Come on!’, so I rolled Neil the ball.

“He dribbled about 20 yards and tries to nutmeg the Spurs player closing him down. He lost the ball and they nearly scored. I knew what was coming, and so did Walshy, who was apologising to me as we walked off.

“Martin starts going off on one at half-time. He says, ‘I know he was 30 or 40 yards open but I don’t care if he is 60 yards open. You do not pass him the ball.’ I think Neil hardly played for the club again but I am sure he was told many times what to do. ‘You shouldn’t be dribbling in these areas and trying to do these things.’ It is the reason why he didn’t play again. If you know what your strengths and weaknesses are and everyone on your team plays to those, you have a very good opportunity of doing what we did. That was some of the real reasons for our success.”

Izzet stood out as the most naturally gifted player in O’Neill’s side, a player who would have been a huge hit in the modern era where the focus is on the technical side of the game. He laments the lack of diversity in the playing styles of Premier League sides.

“I look at football now and everyone is playing the same,” Izzet says. “It is crying out for a team like Leicester, Wimbledon or Stoke City. It would cause modern teams all sorts of problems.

“No one seems to be playing those styles. Everyone seems to have to play the Pep Guardiola way or whatever. It was interesting when Wimbledon played Manchester United or we played Liverpool because we weren’t as good technically, so you had to think about another way to beat them.

“Everyone now is jumping on the technical bandwagon. Managers like Martin, Sam Allardyce or Tony Pulis won’t get a job now because they are not seen to play a certain way. It is a shame. They are even looking at Jose Mourinho now and saying he is old-school. Blimey, if he is old-school, what chance have we got? It is crazy how it has gone.”

While the technical abilities of O’Neill’s Leicester were far greater than they were given credit for, the “best pub team in the country” possessed a commodity even the technically gifted sides of the modern era cannot be successful without. It was their true strength and the source of their relative success.

“We had was a fantastic team spirit,” says Cottee. “There is a lot to be said for what goes on in the modern game but the one thing that doesn’t change is if you don’t have a good team spirit and get on, if you don’t have a joke and a laugh with your team-mates, then you are not going win anything as a team.

“All the best teams have a great team spirit and we certainly did.”

[Vesper 27,301]

Who should be the Premier League’s Young Player of the Year?

https://theathletic.com/1745237/2020/04/18/premier-league-young-player-of-the-year/

We asked five of our writers to nominate five different players as the Premier League’s Young Player of the Year. We will reveal our shortlist next week but here is some inspiration in the meantime of possible candidates. Players have to be below 24 years of age at the start of the season.

Plenty of them wanted to write about Trent Alexander-Arnold, but where would the fun be in that?

Here are their picks…

Wilfred Ndidi (Leicester City)

It takes a special type of holding midfielder to play behind an attack-minded duo like James Maddison and Youri Tielemans, but Ndidi has performed that role excellently throughout a fine 2019-20 campaign.

On first viewing, he feels like a simple, disciplined defensive midfielder capable of protecting his centre-backs with solid positioning and energetic ball-winning. And that does remain Ndidi’s primary task.

The more you watch him though, the more you realise Ndidi has more to his game. There was his sudden dribble forward in the memorable 2-1 late win against Everton, which led to Jamie Vardy’s equaliser. There was also a fine headed equaliser from a corner away at Chelsea.

Ndidi is more than a pure holding midfielder: he’s comfortable in possession and happy to push forward and join attacks, while his ball-winning isn’t limited to deep midfield positions — he can go searching for the ball high up, helping Leicester press in advanced positions. He’s an intelligent player who reads the game well — perhaps not surprising for a footballer who spends his spare time studying for a degree in Business and Management at De Montfort University.

His performances in a 2-0 home victory over Arsenal, and in 5-0 and 3-0 wins over Newcastle stand out as particularly impressive. A knee injury means Ndidi hasn’t played regularly since the turn of the year, but his performances in the first half of the campaign means the 23-year-old deserves to be recognised as among the best players in his position.

Michael Cox

Jack Grealish (Aston Villa)

There are probably a dozen stats that underline how important Grealish has been to Villa this season. He has scored more goals, had more touches, created more chances, completed more dribbles, won more fouls and made more successful passes than any of his team-mates.

He is streets ahead in pretty much every one of those categories, too, to the extent that the rest of the squad couldn’t really have any complaints if Villa’s badge was simply replaced with a stylised cartoon of his face. This is the house that Jack built; the rest of them are just living in it.

But really, the raw numbers are not necessary — perhaps not even that useful — when it comes to appreciating Grealish’s sui generis excellence. He is a player who elicits feelings, properly tugs at the heartstrings. Not because he’s some brave hero archetype, but because he’s just so bloody cool.

Grealish wears his socks around his ankles, daring you to hurt him. His shinpads aren’t worthy of the name, and he sometimes wears boots that are literally falling apart. His haircut is objectively stupid, but his commitment to it is admirable, even charming. I would happily follow his disembodied calves into a war zone without a second’s thought. We saw hints of all this in his previous stints in the top flight, but Grealish is now fully realised as a concept, irreversibly himself. The Premier League is a much better place for his presence.

Above all, Grealish is simply a study in frictionless grace, a thousand No 10 fantasies made flesh. He floats around, reorganising the game on the fly. He runs at people. He is raffish, happy to try things others won’t. He strikes the ball with outlaw glee. He is two-footed, patient and very, very clever. He is brilliant fun to watch and has been all season long, even when playing out of position in a team with all the menace of a candy-floss cutlass.

Villa don’t deserve him, but maybe none of us do.

Jack Lang

Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool)

As it says on the mural at the corner of Sybil Road, a block away from Anfield, Trent Alexander-Arnold is “just a normal lad from Liverpool whose dream has just come true.”

Those were the words he uttered, breathlessly, after Liverpool won the Champions League final last June. He was a Champions League winner at the age of 20. Where could he go from there?

Well, to Alexander-Arnold’s best season yet. His crossing ability has been clear from the moment he first broke into Liverpool’s first team, but his influence has grown to an extraordinary degree. It is not just his delivery from the right-hand side. It is the way that, as he explained to The Athletic earlier this season, he has learned to dictate matches from right-back.

His contribution is most commonly measured by his number of direct assists for goals. There were 12 of them in the Premier League last season — other than team-mate Andy Robertson, the next-highest total from a defender was six — and he had already equalled that total when 2019-20 was suspended with nine games still to play. Next highest by defenders? Robertson’s seven, then Everton’s Lucas Digne with five.

A debate persists over whether, in time, he might revert to the midfield role he occupied when he was coming up through the academy ranks. But, as Jurgen Klopp’s assistant manager Pep Lijnders suggests, “he plays as a playmaker on the right. He plays like a central midfielder there, how he puts passes.”

For all Liverpool’s dominance in this season’s Premier League, there have been many matches when they have found themselves needing to find another gear, another angle, another dimension to their play. Whether it is a pinpoint set-piece delivery, a menacing cross on the counter-attack or one of those probing crossfield passes, Alexander-Arnold has consistently come up with answers.

On top of all that, he has remained humble. He speaks with a maturity that has led many to propose him as a future captain of club and country. He’s still just a normal lad from Liverpool whose dreams keep coming true.

Oliver Kay

Adama Traore (Wolverhampton Wanderers)

Traore only just sneaks into this category, mindful that he turned 24 in January. If it was a race, he’d have been first through the door by a distance. The boy they nicknamed ‘Usain Bolt’ at Barcelona’s La Masia academy, where he signed as an eight-year-old and went on to make four first-team appearances, has come of age this season in the old gold of Wolves.

The physical attributes — blistering pace and extraordinary power — were always there. But now there are numbers too — and numbers that matter. Seven assists (only Kevin De Bruyne, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Riyad Mahrez have more in this season’s Premier League) and four goals from 28 top-flight appearances, 22 of them starts — an impressive return for a winger who has been turned into a wing-back.

Traore’s progress over the nine months before football pressed pause had been startling. That rawness — there were times last season when you sensed he knew as much as you about what he was going to do next when he set off on another burst down the right — has been refined. There are brains to go with the brawn and, in football parlance, end product. Traore has attempted more than 200 dribbles and seven out of every 10 (69.6 per cent) are completed. The defensive side of his game has improved markedly too, all of which is testament to Nuno Espirito Santo’s coaching.

The sense of trepidation among opponents is almost tangible when Traore comes into view. By the middle of December, an incredible 24 players had been booked for fouling him. It is almost the only way that people can stop a player who would walk/run into any Premier League squad in the country right now.

“Unplayable” was the word that Jurgen Klopp used to describe Traore after Liverpool’s game at Molineux in January. “What a player — it’s not only him [at Wolves] but he’s so good.”

Stuart James

Daniel James (Manchester United)

On numbers alone, Daniel James does not have a compelling case to be the best player in the Premier League aged 24 or below this season. Yet I often feel this award should be recalibrated to champion breakthrough talents or chart rapid individual development in players, rather than provide further cause for celebration in those players capable of winning the grander individual prize. James’ growth has been clear, particularly when we consider that he was nearly sent out on loan to Yeovil — then of League Two — by Swansea City only a year before joining Manchester United in the summer of 2019. His playing style and personality also offer a signpost for what Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s United could and should resemble in happier times ahead.

James’ progression is particularly evocative when set against the heartache of his father’s passing shortly before he signed for Manchester United in the summer of 2019. Yet James made a blistering start to life at Old Trafford and his emotions were encapsulated by the celebration that marked his first goal for the club in the 4-0 debut victory over Chelsea. James scored three goals in August alone and remained a significant threat in the autumn, even if the goals dried up.

Indeed, his fourth goal of the season came in United’s final match before lockdown against LASK and there were certainly stages of the campaign where it appeared Solskjaer had over-burdened James, who at times looked fatigued both mentally and physically. This, I would argue, was not the fault of the player himself but of United’s haphazard recruitment policy, which left young players such as James and Marcus Rashford carrying United’s efforts on four fronts until reinforcements arrived in January.

James has room for improvement, particularly in his final ball against lesser opposition, but his raw pace and devil on the counter was central to United’s two outstanding home performances of the Premier League campaign against Liverpool and Manchester City, while his diligence and ball-carrying quality carried United to two away victories at Chelsea (one in the Premier League and one in the Carabao Cup) and particularly the league win at City’s own ground. Should United qualify for the Champions League, his speed and direct play will terrify Europe’s finest defences.

James’ season has not been perfect but his hunger, desire and appreciation for life at United has been sharply at odds with several of the expensive disappointments of recent years and his style will be essential to the development of this United team in the coming years; high-octane, playing with a smile, he gets you off your seat and he is capable of dazzling quality. James offers a reassuring reminder of how Manchester United are supposed to approach the game.

Adam Crafton

[Vesper 27,301]

Daniel James on there is a joke, and Grealish turns 25 in September, so it is a stretch to call him a 'young' player IMHO.

I would have had Marcus Rashford (21/22 this season) and either James Maddison (22/23) or Richarlison (22, turns 23 in May)

 

Honourable mention (no order)

Tammy
Reece
Rodri
Declan Rice
Youri Tielemans
Gabriel Jesus
Rúben Neves    
Caglar Söyüncü    
Ismaïla Sarr
Diogo Jota

[NikkiCFC 7,578]

13 hours ago, Vesper said:

Daniel James on there is a joke, and Grealish turns 25 in September, so it is a stretch to call him a 'young' player IMHO.

I would have had Marcus Rashford (21/22 this season) and either James Maddison (22/23) or Richarlison (22, turns 23 in May)

 

Honourable mention (no order)

Tammy
Reece
Rodri
Declan Rice
Youri Tielemans
Gabriel Jesus
Rúben Neves    
Caglar Söyüncü    
Ismaïla Sarr
Diogo Jota

I also laugh when I saw D. James.

The other day they go over the top with praising Mount now James. 

They are good website but they live from subscriptions. I guess this is coming from... 

https://www.transfermarkt.com/stellar-football-ltd/beraterfirma/berater/190

[Vesper 27,301]

5 hours ago, NikkiCFC said:

I also laugh when I saw D. James.

The other day they go over the top with praising Mount now James. 

They are good website but they live from subscriptions. I guess this is coming from... 

https://www.transfermarkt.com/stellar-football-ltd/beraterfirma/berater/190

wow, so many players linked with us or already on the team at that link

 

Saúl Ñíguez    
Mason Mount   
Ibrahima Konaté   
Ben Chilwell  
Maxi Gómez   
Jack Grealish    
Jordan Pickford   <<< thank fuck we did not buy him, regardless of Kepa's struggles
Ruben Loftus-Cheek    
Thomas Strakosha    
Kieran Tierney 
Sergiño Dest   
Lewis Cook   
Lewis Dunk   
Joachim Andersen   
Unai Simón
Dean Henderson
Nick Pope   
Lloyd Kelly
Ezri Konsa   
Jayden Bogle
Billy Gilmour 
Juan Familia-Castillo 

[11Drogba 2,000]

 

[NikkiCFC 7,578]

Captain.

[Vesper 27,301]

On 22/04/2020 at 5:50 PM, NikkiCFC said:

Captain.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8249273/Extraordinary-rap-sheet-former-Liverpool-Senegal-winger-El-Hadji-Diouf.html

Now, Florent Sinama Pongolle has recalled the time the pair almost came to blows at half-time during a pre-season friendly, with Diouf asking then manager Gerard Houllier to tell Gerrard he'd 'fuck his mum' before adding: 'I'd do him in straight away.'

Their tit-for-tat exchanges continued long after Diouf moved to Bolton in 2005.

In his 2007 autobiography, Gerrard wrote: 'Diouf was just interested in himself. His attitude was all wrong. I felt he wasn't really a***d about putting his body on the line to get Liverpool back at the top.'

Diouf responded five years later, saying: 'Gerrard was jealous of me back then as I had the world at my feet. There's no one more selfish… he doesn't care about anyone else.

'Gerrard would rather Liverpool lost and he scored. The old Liverpool guys can't stand him.'

In 2015, Diouf was reported to have claimed on Senegalese radio that Gerrard 'has never liked black people' which the former Reds captain immediately rebuked.

And in 2017, in a BBC interview, Diouf took a swipe at Gerrard's international achievements. 'People like him in Liverpool but he never did anything for his country,' he said.

'I am Mr El Hadji Diouf, Mr Senegal but he is Mr Liverpool and Senegal is bigger than Liverpool and he has to know that.'

[Vesper 27,301]

The lockdown takeover: What Newcastle’s proposed new owners plan to do first

https://theathletic.com/1759832/2020/04/21/newcastle-takeover-bruce-charnley-transfers/

“We’ve been planning this for well over two years, on and off. All of those plans have effectively gone out of the window.”

This is not just the takeover of Newcastle United, this is the lockdown takeover. Although all of our lives have changed beyond recognition over the past few weeks, for those sketching out the existence of a football club beyond Mike Ashley’s ownership, it has presented challenges and obstacles that are without precedent. One person familiar with the deal compares it with “buying a house and then being told you can’t move in”.

The biggest of big pictures consumes all of us. Containing and coping with coronavirus is about far more than football, but as Newcastle supporters await official confirmation of Ashley’s departure and fantasise about what might happen next, there should be realism as well as excitement. As things stand, with government restrictions to remain in place “at least” until May 7 and probably longer, Amanda Staveley’s consortium will not be able to set foot in St James’ Park, let alone implement far-reaching changes.

Where do things stand? The Athletic has been told that all necessary documents have been exchanged between the two parties and that a deposit has been paid, with the Premier League now working through the owners’ and directors’ test, which effectively represents regulatory approval. Once that has been granted — it began around April 9 and they have been told it could take up to four weeks — completion of a £300 million sale becomes automatic. “There’s no stopping it now,” says one source, who insists that the owners’ and directors’ test has not yet raised any red flags.

There has been no public word from either party, although a detailed document lodged at Companies House last week presented for the first time the existence of an agreement between Ashley and Staveley. Given Ashley’s record of contentious decisions at Newcastle and his previous failures to sell the club, a section of the fans will not believe it until they see it and that cynicism is understandable as well as ingrained.

Yet there are no reservations from the people buying the club and preparations are underway accordingly, even if a lot of those preparations are, by necessity, being tweaked. As The Athletic reported at the end of last month, a board of directors is in place, with Staveley and her husband, Mehrdad Ghodoussi, joined by Jamie Reuben and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF). Staveley and the Reuben family will each own 10 per cent of the business, with PIF holding the remaining 80 per cent. Al-Rumayyan, below, would be chairman, but Staveley would have responsibility for running the club.

Ultimately, the aim is to transform Newcastle into a club capable of challenging in the upper echelons of the Premier League and to guide them back into European competition. The Reubens — worth £16.6 billion, according to the 2019 Sunday Times Rich List — already own property in the city and, along with the Saudis, further investment in the region forms part of their strategy. They view Newcastle in terms of its potential and hope to transform it into “the club of the North”. They will look to improve and enhance the training ground and academy.

For now, however, their impact can only be limited — current travel and social distancing measures mean that they cannot take physical ownership of the club. Staveley first attempted to buy Newcastle in the winter of 2017-18 and renewed those attempts around a year ago, so this is a long time coming, but with football and so much of normal life paused, a handover period will be necessary.

The Athletic has been told of a number of developments:

A mission statement is being worked on, which would be released either when the Premier League gives its approval or earlier (in the unlikely event that Ashley releases a statement of his own). This would set out the new ownership’s aspirations. Original plans had featured the block-booking of specific hotels in the city ahead of a media blitz but, for obvious reasons, that has now been shelved.

Newcastle’s non-playing staff would be taken off the government’s furlough scheme, mirroring U-turns already made by Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur. Doing the right thing will be about more than words.
Lee Charnley, the managing director, will be asked to remain in his post for the time being, to coordinate the handover and maintain dialogue with the Premier League and other authorities over the coronavirus. In these exceptional circumstances, some form of continuity, however temporary, will be vital.

Steve Bruce would stay in charge of the first team. There has been no contact with the head coach, either officially or otherwise, but with nine games still to play this season (theoretically, at least), there is no need to make a decision on his future now. For all the speculation about the hiring of a more-illustrious manager — Rafa Benitez was an integral part of Staveley’s previous bid, but is now tied to a £12 million-a-season contract with Dalian Professional, the Chinese club — nobody is lined up. There is appreciation for the job Bruce has done and the way he has handled difficult circumstances, although whether he is the man to take Newcastle forward is another matter. In any case, potential candidates may become available in the summer. There is no rush.

Informal overtures have already been made to some supporters, former players and other key figures in the city. Staveley did this last time. After 13 years of limited communication between Ashley, the club and the wider community, this is another indication of change. There is a desire to make the club better and more in tune with its surroundings and history. That dialogue is taking place.
A gesture in support of the local NHS hospital is being considered. What form this would take is still to be decided.

A root and branch reform of Newcastle’s operation will take place. As part of the process of buying the club, Staveley’s group have conducted due diligence and studied the financial situation. In that sense, there should be no surprises. They do lack knowledge on how the club has made decisions and who takes on certain responsibilities. Do staff need to be supported? Will some need to be moved or replaced? What about contract negotiations? Notes and employment files will be released on takeover.

The same applies to other staffing decisions. They cannot make offers to people already in jobs or with contract notices to see out at other clubs until they are in situ.
They have already received contact from player agents. This is not surprising. But, again, too much is unknown, not least when the transfer window might reopen and what the market will look like when it does. Will financial fair play rules be relaxed? Will wages and fees be depressed? Two years ago, when she admitted to having financial backing from sovereign wealth funds, Staveley planned to invest £100 million on players over the first two transfer windows and the same again on infrastructure. But Saudi involvement and COVID-19 have changed the environment.

Remote meetings are being held regularly. This a long-term investment and there is an understanding that Newcastle will not be able to go toe-to-toe with Liverpool and Manchester City from the outset. What they can do is work quickly and work smartly, although how they do that efficiently with their complex ownership structure is not straightforward. Streamlining their decision-making is being discussed.

There is huge excitement about what they can do and how they can do it but, as with everything else, it is tempered by the coronavirus crisis. Staveley’s group have always had a clear idea about how they want Newcastle to look under their ownership, and yet that vision must now be a little more fluid.

Football, like society itself, may be forced to change beyond recognition and they are working to change with it.

 

Newcastle Takeover, Arteta Targets Defender & Young Player Award Shortlist

Mark Chapman and David Ornstein are joined by The Athletic's Senior North East football writer George Caulkin to bring the latest on the proposed takeover of Newcastle United.

David brings the detail behind Arsenal players and coaches agreeing to take a 12.5% cut to wages and the centre half targeted by Mikel Arteta once the transfer window opens.

Michael Cox & Tom Worville take a deep dive into the numbers that make Trent Alexander-Arnold a hot favourite to be crowned The Athletic's Young Player of the Year and counter with reasons why other players would also make worthy winners.

 

https://theathletic.com/podcast/144-the-ornstein-and-chapman-podcast/?episode=66

[Jase 43,479]

 

[milka 3,307]

 

[NikkiCFC 7,578]

 

Can someone explain to me why all this drama over money if league is going to resume? Clubs will not lose TV and sponsor money just money from tickets for 4 or 5 home games which is like 10m so no issue there.

[OneMoSalah 8,613]

1 hour ago, NikkiCFC said:

 

Can someone explain to me why all this drama over money if league is going to resume? Clubs will not lose TV and sponsor money just money from tickets for 4 or 5 home games which is like 10m so no issue there.

They will lose money because of empty stadiums. The amount of merchandise etc too that will be sold on match days too theyll lose that because nobody will be going to games. Lets not forget for weeks they havent been playing, the tv havent been showing games so the clubs will have suffered. Also they've been paying players in full, as well as on reduced pay as well as maintaining the jobs of their other staff and it is quite plain and simple as not every PL club is owned by a Sheikh or a Russian multi billionaire so their will still be a lot who will stand to lose still without match day revenue, merchandise, even things such as stadium tours and whatever else they do etc to boost their incomes. Why do you think there is talk of only 3 PL clubs being able to go and spend in the transfer market this summer if it opens?