All posts by h79snht.top

The circus surrounding Virgil van Dijk continues as the Southampton defender’s future hangs in the balance.

Manager Mauricio Pellegrino left the Dutchman out of his squad for a recent pre-season trip to France, but it is still unclear what will transpire with regards to a possible transfer.

Sky Sports recently claimed that the player expects to join Liverpool before the transfer window slams shut at the end of August.

This is despite the Merseyside club publicly withdrawing their interest and apologising to the Saints after being accused of tapping up Van Dijk.

Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City have also been touted as potential suitors, but one thing is for sure, the defender wants to call time on his two-year spell at St Mary’s.

The Guardian reported that Van Dijk has effectively gone on strike in order to force through a move, and that is not sitting well with the club’s former manager Nigel Adkins.

The 52-year-old, who coached the Saints between 2010 and 2013, believes that footballers nowadays have too much power when it comes to contracts.

He told Sky Sports:

“We’ve got a situation in football where it’s too easy for a player to say ‘I am unhappy’. Well, the player was not unhappy when he signed a contract not so long ago. He has to be respectful of that contract as well and if business gets done, get it done privately and done behind the scenes. If Van Dijk does go, Southampton will get the asking price, which seems very expensive at this point in time.”

Southampton captain Virgil van Dijk finally handed in a transfer request on Monday following a summer of speculation surrounding his future.

The Saints skipper has been linked with moves to the likes of Premier League rivals Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester City throughout out the summer, with the former forced to issue an official apology and say they had ended their interest in the player in June after the south coast outfit accused them of tapping the 26-year-old up.

Now the Dutchman has told the club that he wants to leave, but the latest reports in The Telegraph suggest that Southampton still aren’t willing to sell the centre-back as they look to hold on to their key stars.

Nevertheless, manager Mauricio Pellegrino may feel that he needs to bring in a new defender as a successor to Van Dijk in case the situation changes later this month, and Toulouse centre-half Issa Diop could be the perfect candidate.

Here are three reasons Diop would be the ideal Van Dijk replacement…

Defensive abilities

While the 20-year-old is obviously far from being the finished article due to his tender years, neither was Van Dijk when he moved to St Mary’s from Celtic in 2015.

Diop has certainly shown that he has the defensive capabilities to be the Dutchman’s replacement though as he was part of a Toulouse defence that conceded just 41 goals in 38 Ligue 1 matches last term – they conceded three in their first game of the 2017/18 campaign against Monaco without him as he was on the sidelines with a back injury.

The Frenchman made 117 clearances and 50 interceptions in 30 French top flight appearances last season while he also successfully won 37 tackles.

Aerial presence

One of the things that Southampton would miss the most if Van Dijk did leave would be the height and aerial ability he has brought to the backline.

The 26-year-old won an impressive 96 aerial duels in just 21 Premier League appearances last term and Saints may look to replace the Dutchman with a player that has a similar presence and strength in the air.

Diop certainly has that as he stands at 6’4″ tall – the same as Van Dijk – while he successfully won 42 of the 68 aerial duels he faced in 30 Ligue 1 appearances last term.

While it may not be a perfect record, it is certainly something to work with and would also allow him to be a threat in the opposition penalty area too.

Potential

Southampton love to bring new players to the club that they can develop and increase the value of and they would have the perfect opportunity to do that with Diop.

The 20-year-old has shown with his performance in the French top flight for Toulouse that he can have a bright future in the game, and he may not even have stopped growing physically because of his age.

The France Under-21 international has shown his ability on the ball by successfully completing 14 of the 17 take-ons he attempted in 30 Ligue 1 appearances last term, and with a bit of fine tuning on many aspects of his game he could easily go on to become their next central defensive star – after the likes of Toby Alderweireld and Van Dijk – if he does move to St Mary’s.

Do you agree, Saints fans? Let us know below.

Manchester United centre-back Phil Jones has said that he has improved as a defender training alongside the likes of Romelu Lukaku, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Marcus Rashford on a daily basis.

Jones has been one of the Premier League’s most impressive defenders this season, whilst the 25-year-old has also seemingly nailed down one of the two centre-back positions with England.

The former Blackburn Rovers youngster has struggled with injuries over the last couple of years, but he seems to have the confidence of Red Devils boss Jose Mourinho.

Jones has revealed that training alongside Man United’s incredible wealth of attacking talent has allowed him to develop into a more-rounded defender.

Jones told Man United’s official website:

“As a defender, you want to play against the best strikers in the world. You want to test yourself and prove to people that you’re good enough to do that.

“Playing against these players in training every day makes me a better player. It gives me a better understanding of how to deal with these types of players when they’re on the opposing team.”

Man United will look to make it four straight wins at the start of the new Premier League campaign when they visit Stoke City on Saturday afternoon.

Jones has won one Premier League title, one FA Cup and one Europa League during his time at Old Trafford.

In a career spanning an incredible 21 seasons, Billy Bonds made 793 first-team appearances for West Ham United.

The phrase ‘legend’ is often over-used, especially in the modern game, but there is no question that the Englishman deserves such a title following his time at West Ham.

Bonds, now 70, also managed the Hammers between 1990 and 1994, spending a total of 27 years with the London club.

On Thursday morning, West Ham’s official Twitter account posted a message revealing that it had been 35 years since Bonds became the club’s record appearance maker.

The current crop of players are lacking characters in the shape of Bonds, and it did not come as much of a surprise when the comments section on Twitter was filled with praise for the club’s former representative.

This West Ham have lost each of their first three matches at the start of the 2017-18 Premier League campaign, and they are under immense pressure ahead of Monday’s clash with Huddersfield Town at the London Stadium.

If the supporters had it their way, Bonds would be in the West Ham team on Monday night.

According to reports in The Scottish Sun, Everton are lining up a January move for Celtic right-back Anthony Ralston, who is also a target for Premier League rivals West Ham United and Tottenham Hotspur.

What’s the word, then?

Well, The Scottish Sun says that the 18-year-old caught the eye with his performance against Paris Saint-Germain forward Neymar in the Champions League on Tuesday night, even though he was involved in a controversial incident with the former Barcelona man at the end of the match when the Brazilian refused to swap shirts with him.

The Scottish Sun says that Toffees scouts have been watching Ralston ever since he came through the youth system and broke into the Bhoys first team at the end of last season, and he has already made a handful of outings for the team this term, including his debut in the Champions League against PSG.

The report adds that West Ham and Tottenham are also keen on the right-back, who could be a wanted man during the January transfer window.

Why do Everton want him?

While the Toffees have Seamus Coleman to come back from injury following his double leg break while on international duty with the Republic of Ireland in March, Ronald Koeman may feel that he needs another option at right-back.

Summer signing Cuco Martina has struggled to make an impression in the early stages of the season and while Mason Holgate has played there, he prefers to operate at centre-back.

Ralston has certainly made a big impression in his five outings for Brendan Rodgers’ side this term, and he scored once and provided a further two assists from right-back in the 5-0 win against Kilmarnock in the Scottish League Cup last month.

With less than two years left on his Celtic contract, the highly-rated teenager could also be available for a good price if he doesn’t extend his stay with the Scottish Premiership leaders.

What’s the verdict, then?

Well, the performances of Martina in recent times would certainly suggest that Everton need to start thinking about bringing in a new right-back not only for now, but also for the future, with Coleman also not guaranteed to be the same player he was before his injury.

Ralston looks to have a bright future in the game, and he could be the next talented youngster that the Toffees snap up.

When Brendan Rodgers first arrived at Celtic, he knew the task ahead of him. It was to revitalise a squad that had plateaued under Ronny Deila, ensure domestic dominance was maintained against newly promoted Rangers and forge ahead with efforts to make the Hoops a competitive force in Europe once again.

He’s made two of these tasks look easy, but the Europe question has yet to be answered. Everyone’s going to get a good look at how much progress has been made on this front on Wednesday night when the Scottish champions travel to Belgium to face Anderlecht in the UEFA Champions League.

There’s an argument to be made that Rodgers made the most important decision of his Celtic career so far in those opening days of his reign as Hoops boss – reinforcing that Scott Brown is the beating heart of the club on the pitch.

Rodgers flew Brown down to London and invited him for dinner in his home to discuss his future as captain. It might have been easy for Rodgers to write off the 32-year-old, as most people did at the end of the 2015/16 season. He could have slowly transitioned the midfielder out of regular first-team action and brought in fresh blood to lead the team forward. Even Brown himself has admitted he might not even have lasted six months more had the former Liverpool boss not arrived last summer.

Instead, Rodgers re-iterated how important Brown was going to be to his Celtic side and sparked a renaissance that saw the captain reach the heights required to arguably be their best player during last season’s invincible treble-winning success. It was genius management and foresight.

The benchmark

Heading into Wednesday night’s match with Anderlecht, the Celtic captain is just as important as ever. No outfield player has made more starts than him this season, which is remarkable when you consider he is now well into his thirties, came out of international retirement and has a well-documented history of injury problems.

Far from slowing down, he’s become the benchmark and the pinnacle of how a Celtic player should conduct themselves on the pitch. He sets the tone for every positive Celtic performance and that was never more evident than in Saturday’s derby at Ibrox. He dominated the 90 minutes against Rangers, with Pedro Caixinha’s new midfield trio of Carlos Pena, Graham Dorrans and Ryan Jack unable to get close to him.

He’s in his element in these big pressure encounters. He looks for the ball, he brings teammates into the game, he covers his defenders. He becomes a true, classic captain.

It’s clear in the domestic environment he thrives, but the questions is, can he make the step up to European competition against Anderlecht?

Celtic’s European spoiler

In Europe, Brown plays a very different role in Rodgers’ side than he does in domestic action. He sits much deeper, right in front of the back four and acts as the team’s midfield spoiler. Last season he played his role perfectly, despite some heavy defeats and his side finishing bottom of their group.

He made 30 interceptions across the six group stage matches against Manchester City, Borussia Monchengladbach and Barcelona. That was more than any other player in the competition, a record which was held until well into April, despite Celtic going out in December.

Of course, there’s a truth this was because the Hoops had so much defending to do in a tough group, but it also highlights how important he is to those defensive efforts, which will be required away from home in Belgium on Wednesday.

Winning the ball and providing the basis for which Celtic’s more attacking, creative players can flourish will be his task and in arguably the best form of his career, he’s well placed to be the team’s stand-out man once again.

In attitude and application, he’s peerless in Brendan Rodgers’ eleven and it’ll be his leadership that defines what the Hoops get out of Anderlecht. A draw is a must, with a win possible.

Can the Celtic captain live up to his billing as one of the best in the club’s history?

Wales and Ireland’s all-or-nothing World Cup qualifier last night was one of the most emotionally charged international clashes we’ve seen on British shores for some time. The sheer force behind the acapella version of the Welsh national anthem was telling enough of what was on the line – both sides needing a win to advance to the playoff stages in a straight-up shootout.

It had the feeling of a one-off cup final but the Dragons entered the encounter one notable man light, with talismanic forward Gareth Bale, who had already scored four times in qualifying, absent through injury. The Real Madrid star had to settle for watching from the stands.

Before kickoff, many looked to Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsey – Wales’ second-biggest talent – to fill Bale’s almighty void. And although the Gunners midfielder certainly didn’t let his country down last night, he eventually fell short of that challenge.

In fairness, Ramsey can’t be expected to do it all on his own and his job became even harder when Joe Allen was forced off through injury in the first half, meaning the 26-year-old was pushed into a deeper midfield role.

Despite this, he was still the biggest threat to Darren Randolph conceding, taking four efforts at goal, laying on three chances for his team-mates and launching ten crosses into the box. But it just wasn’t enough to replicate the talismanic effect Bale has on the Welsh national team by getting Chris Coleman’s side over the line.

Arsenal fans will be hoping Ramsey can overcome his Monday night heartbreak by the weekend, when Arsene Wenger’s boys travel to Vicarage Road to face Watford in the Premier League.

When Mohamed Salah stepped up to take a late penalty for Egypt, the eyes of the world were on what happened next.Not only did he score, but the Liverpool forward shook the world.It wasn’t the penalty that made people sit up and take notice, but it was the reaction: a footballing nation that hadn’t been in the World Cup finals since 1990 had, thanks to a last-gasp penalty, finally qualified. That, in itself, was enough to make this special, but the fact that this was Egypt – a country of nearly 90m people, and the third largest country in Africa which has undergone some traumatic political periods over the last decade – made it all the more incredible. Indeed, since the last time the country qualified for a World Cup finals in Italy 27 years ago, they had been to five African Nations Cup finals, winning four of them.It’s not like they were never good enough to qualify.The pressure was immense, unlike anything footballers normally have to deal with. In football, you don’t just let yourself down, you also let your teammates down if you miss. For Salah, he was also letting down a nation of tens of millions, plus those around the world willing them to qualify. When you think about it, scoring that penalty was vital in every conceivable way.And so when he stepped up to take a penalty against Huddersfield last weekend at Anfield, Salah inexplicably, it seemed, forgot what he was doing.With others like James Milner on the pitch, who are usually super reliable from 12 yards, it was also inexplicable to Liverpool fans why Salah had taken the penalty. They may also be wondering if he’ll be taking the next one. The answer isn’t automatically positive, according to Jurgen Klopp.

“I thought it made sense after the Egypt penalty – obviously the pressure is bigger in Liverpool than in Egypt to qualify for the World Cup.ÂI’m not sure that he is [the penalty taker] anymore… I think Daniel would have been a safe number in this group of players.”

All of this is really rather strange: the cut-throat world of modern football at its most short-termist. Salah clearly isn’t an unreliable man. Indeed, he’s shown in the very near past that he’s able to withstand the most fervent pressure from his own country’s fans in what really were fever pitch circumstances in order to score a penalty. And now, he’s fallen down the pecking order.

Football is a strange game, but the only thing that’s certain is that footballers are humans: if you treat them as anything other than imperfect entities who make mistakes, miss chances and even penalties, then you’re going to be dropping players every week.

Sure, Liverpool may have more important things to worry about, and taking the Egyptian off penalties doesn’t mean taking him out of the team. But just days after seemingly throwing Dejan Lovren under the bus – by claiming that he, all of 50 years of age and wearing trainers would have defended better than the Croatian – Klopp now appears to be less than charitable to Mohamed Salah. And that’s surely not healthy.

There’s not much in this just yet, but it’ll be worth watching how Klopp deals with setbacks over the next few weeks. Even if it was only mild, Salah shouldn’t have been questioned at all. And although Lovren’s mistakes were terrible and all too public, Klopp must have understood the implications of taking him off before half-time and then trash talking in the media. If these are the early stages of the pressure mounting on the Liverpool manager, then the early signs aren’t too good.

Another day, another coach linked to the vacancy at Everton, and this time it is former Chelsea boss Guus Hiddink.

According to The Mirror, the Dutchman has been sounded out by the Merseyside outfit as one of a handful of options.

The club have been searching for a successor to Ronald Koeman, who was sacked after guiding the team to just two wins in nine Premier League games.

Under-23s coach David Unsworth, who is in temporary charge of the first team, has failed to turn things around following back-to-back defeats under his rule.

Hiddink is currently out of work, but his last role was an interim one at Chelsea, where he helped the club recover after Jose Mourinho was sacked midway through the 2015-16 campaign.

The ex-Netherlands coach oversaw the team until the end of the season, leaving them in a relatively healthy shape for Antonio Conte to take over.

After Hiddink’s name appeared in the media, Everton fans took to Twitter to deliver their thoughts on the potential appointment.

It’s impossible to ignore the influence Toby Alderweireld’s had on Tottenham’s emergence as serial Premier League title challenges. Compared to the dark, dark days of Michael Dawson and Younes Kaboul, Alderweireld has been part of either the best or second-best defence in the Premier League (in terms of goals conceded) for each of the last three seasons – harking back to his year-long loan at Southampton.

And yet, in some ways that does a disservice to a compatriot and centre-back partner of incredible consistency in Jan Vertonghen who, at this point, makes an incredibly strong case for being the best left-footed centre-half in the world.

Vertonghen has been nothing short of immense this season, particularly in the Champions League where he excelled as a left wing-back at the Bernabeu and was pivotal in Tottenham beating Real Madrid at Wembley, and Sunday’s 1-0 win over Crystal Palace produced yet another convincing display.

The 97-cap Belgian played a key role in keeping a clean sheet against Roy Hodgson’s plucky side, winning the most aerial duels of any Spurs player while ranking second for tackles, aerial duels won and interceptions.

But it was what Vertonghen – who Transfermarkt value at £31.5million – did on the ball that showed why it’s so beneficial to have a left-footed centre-half as talented as him in the side. Only Eric Dier completed more passes than the 31-year-old, who also created the joint-most chances of any Tottenham star and even ventured forward far enough to have an effort at goal, coming in from the left-hand side.

It’s that combination of not only quality but also left-footed balance in possession, alongside his clear defensive abilities, that makes Vertonghen such an invaluable asset and arguably the one of the best in the world. His form this season has even started to outshine Alderweireld’s – which is quite the statement in itself considering how well he’s performed since arriving in England from Atletico.

Who do you think is the better centre-back, Tottenham fans? Let us know by voting below…