TRANSFERS
Matty Phillips (QPR to West Brom, £5.5m)
We bitterly regret not being at West Brom’s training ground on the first day back after the summer, and seeing the look on Phillips’ face when he’s picked by Tony Pulis in a training team with eight central defenders. “Bbbbut bbbossss, couldn’t I get a bit of help here?”
In fairness to West Brom, it was quite a coup to sign Phillips. The Scotland international was touted for more glamourous climes than The Hawthorns when QPR were relegated, but a season in the Championship has lowered that potential fee to the same one Newcastle will pay for fellow Scot Grant Hanley. That gives me a headache.
“There’s nothing like getting a full pre-season behind you,” said Phillips on Tuesday. “The gaffer’s pre-seasons are notorious now.” You just wait until you see his central-defensive modern art.
Marten de Roon (Atalanta to Middlesbrough, £12m)
At the end of every summer we look back on a list of names to have joined the Premier League, and our eyes settle on one or two that we can’t recall reading a thing about. This summer, that name will be Marten de Roon. What’s more, he cost £12m. Twelve million?!
There can be no bigger indication of the new broadcasting deal’s impact than this fee, the second highest in Middlesbrough’s history. De Roon is 25, has never really come close to the Dutch national team and moved for £1m only a year ago.
Some summers you get a song in your head, a cheery tune that nags away at you until you want to scratch out your brain (cheers Bob Sinclair). This summer all I can remember is Marten de Roon, £12m, repeated on loop until I see him play. Goodness gracious he better be good.
Havard Nordtveit (Borussia Monchengladbach to West Ham, free)
Nordveit’s deal was one of those sneaky ones that was announced so early it passed everyone by; May 16, to be exact. There is also a tendency to ignore free transfers as nothing more than squad signings who will sit on the bench for two years before joining PSV, Hamburg or Anderlecht.
This one might be different. Nordtveit, who had three years at Arsenal and so is used to life in England, started 27 Bundesliga games for the side – Borussia Monchengladbach – who finished fourth in the table despite a dreadful start. He also started four Champions League games last season and has 28 international caps for Norway.
Add in Nordtveit’s ability to play at right-back, centre-back and in central midfield, and you have yourself a very handy little freebie. Like condoms in Freshers’ Week (right, LADS?). Oh, I’ve still got one in my wallet.
Steve Mandanda (Marseille to Crystal Palace, £1.5m)
You have to hand it to Marseille; they really are trying to set themselves a challenge. In 2014/15 they sold Mathieu Valbuena, Jordan Ayew and Morgan Amalfitano. In 2015/16 they sold Giannelli Imbula, Florian Thauvin and Dimitri Payet. This summer they have sold Michy Batshuayi, Benjamin Mendy, Steve Mandanda and are in the process of selling Georges-Kevin N’Koudou. Eat your hearts out, Southampton.
In the case of Mandanda, Marseille’s loss is Crystal Palace’s gain. The goalkeeper represents an enormous step up from Wayne Hennessey yet cost just £1.5m, or 12.5% of a Maarten de Roon. No, I still can’t stop thinking about it.
Mandanda is 31, has 22 caps for France and has the experience of 74 matches in European competition (43 in the Champions League, 31 in the Europa). Bargain of the summer? Hell yes.
Nolito (Celta Vigo to Manchester City, £13.8m)
Manchester City beating Barcelona to the signing of a player with 25 goals and 20 assists in his last two league should be big news, but Nolito’s arrival in Manchester didn’t cause too much of a stir. That’s at least partly because it came slap bang in the middle of the Euro 2016 quarter-finals, when England was still mourning its exit from the Euros and the EU.
It’s also because Nolito isn’t a particularly sexy arrival. He turns 30 in October, and is expected to give Pep Guardiola strength in depth rather than become a certain first-team starter. Still, he has a handsome face, worked his way up through the lower leagues to play for Barcelona in 2010/11 and scored for Spain at Euro 2016. This *could* turn into something special.
Finally, lookalike time. Nolito looks like the lovechild of Graziano Pelle and Joe Ledley, a fact he should be truly proud of.
Let’s take a look at France Football for updates on Leicester’s midfield. They claim that a) Chelsea have submitted a £30m offer for N’Golo Kante and b) Leicester could be interested in Zenit St. Petersburg’s Belgian midfielder Axel Witsel. Everton have long been linked with Witsel, but this is a new suggestion for Leicester. Witsel could be available for as little as £17m as he has just a year remaining on his contract in Russia.
Update:
BALOTELLI HEADING TO CHINA?
It will be a really quite wonderful bit of business if Liverpool manage to recoup the £16m they spent on Mario Balotelli by flogging him to a Chinese club. That’s the scenario presented by Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, who say Balotelli’s representatives have been holding talks with a host of CSL clubs in the hope of negotiating a big-money deal for the striker. The slight problem is that the Chinese Super League transfer window closes in a few hours so they had better get a move on.
DORTMUND GETTING GOTZE AND WANT TWO MORE
There is the small matter of a fee to be agreed – but reports in Germany suggest that Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich are only a couple of million apart in their valuations of Mario Gotze. We unashamedly wanted him to join Tottenham, but Gotze has apparently agreed personal terms with BVB and will return to Dortmund. Boo.
He could be joined there by Moussa Sissoko with L’Equipe claiming that the German club are interested in France’s best player from the Euro 2016 final. Will they still be interested when they realise that Newcastle want £35m. Another name mentioned – by The Sun – is Stoke’s Xherdan Shaqiri, with the German club apparently seeing him as the natural replacement for Henrikh Mkhitaryan.
AND THE REST
Diego Costa has told Chelsea he wants to leave & return to Atletico Madrid…Manchester United will have to fork out £14m to axe flop midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger…Georginio Wijnaldum’s preference is to join Tottenham if he leaves Newcastle but the Magpies want more than £25m…Middlesbrough have agreed an £8m fee with Borussia Dortmund for Neven Subotic…Hull City manager Steve Bruce has warned Italian sides Fiorentina and Sampdoria away from striker Abel Hernandez…Eintracht Frankfurt want to take Manchester United youngster Guillermo Varela on loan…Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has reportedly told forward Joel Campbell, 24, to look for a new club, with some interest from Spanish side Valencia…Nottingham Forest are one of 10 clubs hoping to sign Manchester United goalkeeper Sam Johnstone…
…Burnley are interested in Crystal Palace midfielder Lee Chung-yong…Stoke City have made enquiries about Everton midfielder James McCarthy…Leonardo Bonucci’s move to Manchester City could move closer with Mehdi Benatia joining Juventus…Hull are lining up a £6m bid for Cardiff keeper David Marshall…Southampton are to offer Dusan Tadic a new contract to keep him at the club…Bournemouth striker Tokelo Rantie is wanted by Leeds and he has refused to go on the Cherries’ pre-season tour…Liverpool striker Mario Balotelli, 25, could head to the Chinese Super League – if a deal is completed before the Chinese transfer window shuts on Friday…The Foxes have submitted a third and final £15m offer for Burnley defender Michael Keane.
Wijnaldum has been attracting the interest of Premier League clubs since Newcastle’s relegation and is believed to want to move back to the top flight.
However, the Liverpool Echo is reporting the fee would have to be paid in one lump sum, potentially causing problems for the deal.
Tottenham were interested in the 25-year-old Dutchman, but are believed to have pulled out of the race to sign him.
Wijnaldum was one of the few bright sparks in an otherwise disastrous season for the Magpies, scoring 11 goals, following a £14.5million transfer last summer.
Manager Rafa Benitez is resigned to losing Wijnaldum and other key players such as France Euro 2016 star Moussa Sissoko, saying: “We maybe have to sell some players, but that is normal.”
Latest squeeze
Sam Allardyce is set to be appointed England manager. Big news. The 61-year-old oversaw Sunderland’s pre-season friendly with Hartlepool on Wednesday, the news breaking at the same time. See if you can spot the common theme in how some of the nation’s newspapers reported his appearance.
‘Sam Allardyce squeezed into his seat in the dug-out at Hartlepool last night with his Sunderland kit on,’ wrote Simon Bird of the Daily Mirror.
‘He then squeezed into the cramped Hartlepool dugout,’ quipped Dave Coverdale of The Sun.
He isn’t called Big Sam for nothing, fellas.
Money matters
But how much will Allardyce be paid to become England manager? And how long will his deal with the national team be for? Let’s find out.
* The Sun claim he will be offered two-year contract for £5m, so £2.5m a year.
* The Daily Mirror and Daily Star say he will be offered a three-year contract for £7.5m. Different length, but still £2.5m a year.
* The Daily Telegraph say he will be offered a two-year contract, but are rather more vague on his wage. They confirm it ‘will be less than’ the £3.5m a year Roy Hodgson earned.
* The Times say he will be offered a two-year contract, and will earn a wage ‘similar’ to Hodgson’s £3.5m a year.
Conclusion: Nobody truly knows.
Phoney
‘Can Allardyce make football come home?’ asks Dave Coverdale in The Sun. ‘That is now his sole aim – not what he was witnessing last night at The Vic.Simon Bird of the Daily Mirror adds that: ‘Allardyce was a coach waiting for his phone to ring.’
‘A clear sign of Allardyce’s mind being elsewhere came when he took a phone call half-an-hour into Sunderland’s clash with the League Two minnow [Hartlepool].’
‘Man takes phone call’. Maybe it was his wife just asking what he wanted for dinner?
Hoddle twaddle
Said Gary Lineker on June 29:
“If you go English, it is really difficult. There are two or three in the top flight, Sam Allardyce, Eddie Howe and Alan Pardew – but they have not won the trophies you would anticipate.Said Gary Lineker on July 21:
“Do you go back to perhaps Glenn Hoddle? He was one of England’s best coaches.
“Hoddle has been out of the game for a while, but he understands the game technically. He is the kind of guy who understands how to get over to players how to play in various systems.”
Complex sentence
Compare the following two quotes. The first is from Shaun Custis of The Sun on Allardyce:
‘He has never had an inferiority complex…’The second is from the man himself.
“I won’t ever be going to a top-four club because I’m not called Allardici, just Allardyce.”That sure sounds like an ‘inferiority complex’. Just maybe not to Allardyce’s ghostwriter, eh?
Big time
The national newspapers are seemingly delighted at Allardyce’s imminent appointment, but Mediawatch simply cannot forgive The Sun for their coverage.
‘Mr BIG’ reads the back-page headline, accompanied with a picture of a smiling Allardyce.
We suddenly don’t fancy lunch.
Reade all about it
Writes Brian Reade in the Daily Mirror:
‘Strange goings-on at Southampton again after the great achievement of finishing ahead of Chelsea and Liverpool last season and making it into Europe.’Can Southampton selling their main assets in the summer really still be described as ‘strange goings-on’? They have been doing it for almost a decade now, yet have improved their league positions in each of the last seven seasons. It is clearly a formula that works.
But Reade goes on, undeterred.
‘They lose their manager to a team who finished five places behind them, seemingly because they weren’t prepared to get close to what Ronald Koeman was being offered at Everton, replacing him with the relatively-unknown Claude Puel, who hasn’t won a trophy for 16 years.’Are we prepared to criticise Southampton for not spending swathes of money to keep their manager? And a reminder that ‘relative unknown’ Claude Puel carved out a successful career in France, managing Monaco, Lille, Lyon and Nice, before moving to England. He reached the Champions League semi-finals just six years ago.
If only Southampton had appointed a ‘relative unknown’ in recent years. Such as Mauricio Pochettino, who had won no trophies and managed just one club for three years before being appointed boss in 2012. That seemed to work out alright.
But anyway, please continue Brian.
‘They lose Sadio Mane to Liverpool, who finished two places behind them, the fifth player they have allowed to go to Anfield in three years. And they sell Victor Wanyama to their old manager at Tottenham, while allowing Graziano Pelle to toddle off to China without a fight.’Southampton signed Sadio Mane for £10m in September 2014. In under two years, they have sold him on for a £24m profit. Victor Wanyama was in the final year of his contract, and was sold for £11m. Graziano Pelle joined for £8m in July 2014, and was sold to Shandong Luneng for £13m. He became the sixth-highest paid player in the world at the Chinese Super League club, so probably pushed for the move himself.
Mediawatch wonders which of the three aforementioned transfers Reade feels Southampton have made a mistake with. But he has not quite finished.
‘This before a season when, due to Europa League demands, they’re going to need all the quality they can get their hands on.People have been wondering the very same about Southampton since they were promoted four years ago. Perhaps this is the moment that people stop underestimating the effectiveness of ‘the finest selling club in the country’?
‘You have to wonder if this is the moment that the finest selling club in the country’s luck runs out.’
Then again, perhaps not.
Shaw thing
In a week where John Stones confirmed his move to Manchester City by going shopping, Mediawatch thought that nothing would surprise us in terms of transfer reporting.
We were wrong.
Woah. So what are the ‘shock developments’? Has he handed in a transfer request? Does he keep hiding in Marouane Fellaini’s hair? Has he bought his mum a house? No to all three – although the last one is close.
‘Luke Shaw’s mansion in Cheshire up for sale for £2.6million, sparking rumours he could leave Manchester United this summer,’ reads the headline in a story from Sunni Upal.According to Upal, Shaw’s future ‘has been in doubt ever since Jose Mourinho was announced as new United boss’. Has it? The Portuguese said just last week that:
“The kid was great in the summer. He worked every day at the training ground to try to be ready for this.”Sounds ominous.
But yes, Shaw putting his house up for sale ‘means he may be on his way out of Old Trafford’. Not that a 21-year-old man is simply moving house.
Lesson learned
As one of many unimpressed (or should that be impressed?) by those who ‘learn’ five things from even the most arbitrary of matches, Mediawatch must doff its cap to David Anderson of the Daily Mirror.
Anderson watched Manchester City’s 1-0 pre-season defeat to Bayern Munich courtesy of a late goal, and was required to teach us five lessons. The only problem: Nothing much happened.
Except that Yaya Toure ‘looks leaner and meaner’ of course. And that ‘Guardiola doesn’t like fuss and he kept his return to Bayern distinctly low key’.
That, by the way, is the total sum of lesson five. All the lessons combined comprise of 128 words.
This is not a criticism of Anderson, far from it. Sometimes lessons are simply not there to be learned, particularly from a boring 1-0 pre-season friendly defeat.
Pep talk
Mediawatch cannot help but notice a flaw in Anderson’s report on the game, however. He writes:
‘Bayern put a ‘welcome back’ sign above the entrance to the away dressing room, but Guardiola did not want any fuss. He made a deliberately low-key entrance from the tunnel, nipping into the away dug-out, past the battery of photographers.’A reminder that yesterday, Anderson claimed that Guardiola’s return to former club Bayern Munich had barely received a mention from the Bundesliga champions. Twenty-four hours later, and there is a ‘welcome sign’ and a ‘battery of photographers’, with Guardiola himself seeking to avoid the fanfare.
One too many
Mediawatch would like to make a plea to journalists around the world. This is important.
‘Jose Mourinho became the ‘Generous One’ on Manchester United’s flight to China by taking a seat in economy in order to ensure all of his players were able to take advantage of the flat beds in business class’ – Mark Ogden, The Independent.Hey, guys. That thing you’re doing? Yeah, stop doing it.
‘Add to that near 40-degree temperatures and sweltering humidity and the Special One is set to be a hot one out here’ – Neil Custis, The Sun.
Don’t let The Sun go down on me
‘POG IN BAG’ reads the back-page headline on The Sun. They are positively crowing. ‘Manchester United have sealed a world-record £105million deal for Paul Pogba – just as SunSport told you on Saturday.’Of course, what they fail to disclose is that the story in question, from their Saturday edition, actually said that negotiations are ‘expected to be completed this weekend’. Call Mediawatch pedantic – because it often is and has been called far worse – but Thursday is not the weekend. In fact, it is now closer to ‘next weekend’ than ‘this weekend’ as of ‘last weekend’.
Weekend.
Crack down
‘The rulers of English football have declared a crackdown on bad behaviour and promised a blaze of yellow and red cards to end ugly scenes like last season’s Battle of the Bridge between Tottenham and Chelsea’ – Matt Barlow, Daily Mail.Good to see the FA are ‘declaring crackdowns/war’ with a new ‘zero tolerance approach/policy’ for ‘players/managers’ who ‘abuse/intimidate/swear at’ officials. It’s about damn time. But oh, what’s this?
‘A zero-tolerance crackdown has been promised across professional football next season in an attempt to finally end the culture of abuse of referees at every level of the game’ – Jeremy Wilson and Harry Yorke, Daily Telegraph.
‘English football will renew its war on bad behaviour next season with a zero-tolerance approach to swearing and referee intimidation’ – Darren Lewis, Daily Mirror.
‘English football has finally decided to target bad behaviour by players, promising a zero-tolerance policy to any abuse of officials’ – Tony Banks, Daily Express.
‘A new crackdown on bad behaviour is promising zero tolerance for players who abuse officials’ – George Scott, Daily Star.
‘If the latest plans to crack down on ‘intolerable behaviour’ by players and managers in English football look familiar, it is because they are,’ writes Phil Jiggins.Spoilsport.
‘Yesterday’s announcement in a West End hotel near the London Palladium may have sounded like a new dawn.
‘But the truth is, referees have always had the power to punish players and managers for swearing or kicking off in the technical area. It is just that they have been instructed not to do so.’
Cringeworthy intro of the day
‘Jose Mourinho travelled ‘economy’ on his way here to underline he means business as he prepares Manchester United for the season ahead’ – Richard Tanner, Daily Express.But what’s this? A late contender from Tim Gray of the Daily Star…
‘Jose Mourinho travelled ‘economy’ on his way to China but he definitely means business with Manchester United.’You’re both as bad as each other.
Worst headline of the day
‘Jeff on the Pul’ – The Sun attempt to make sense of West Brom (and Tony Pulis) bidding £9m for Jeffrey Schlupp. But what does ‘Jeff on the Pewl’ even mean?
Mind you, it is not a patch on ‘Mr BIG’. That’s your lunches ruined, too
No comments:
Post a Comment