This article is part of Football FanCast’s Transfer Focus series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent transfer news…
Southampton midfielder Harrison Reed has joined Fulham on loan with an option to buy, per the Championship club’s official website.
What’s the word?
The 24-year-old has been sent on a number of short-term deals during his time at the Saints, playing for Norwich City and Blackburn Rovers prior to his move to Craven Cottage.
Reed, a midfielder who has been capped at England youth level, has made a total of 30 appearances for the Saints.
He has not played in the Premier League since 2017, making a five-minute cameo in a 1-0 win over West Bromwich Albion.
However, Reed does have a great deal of Championship experience, having played 72 times in the second-tier.
Permanent transfer inevitable
Reed appears almost certain to eventually leave Southampton.
He does not appear to have the quality required to make his way into the first-team and appears better suited to the second-tier.
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And with Fulham holding the option to buy Reed outright, he has the chance to finally earn himself a permanent move away.
Should Fulham not take up that option, Reed’s contract will have just twelve months left on it next summer – that only further insinuates a permanent departure from Southampton before the start of the 2020/21 season being largely inevitable.
He does not have much hope of making his way at St Mary’s; Fulham is his chance to finally get away from the Saints and kickstart his career.
This article is part of Football FanCast’s Pundit View series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent quotes from journalists, pundits, players and managers…
Speaking on Premier League Productions, Manchester United legend Ryan Giggs revealed the advice he gave Ole Gunnar Solskjaer over the signing of Daniel James.
What did he say?
James arrived at Old Trafford earlier this summer in a £15m deal from Swansea, and got his United career off to a blistering start with a goal against Chelsea on his Premier League debut.
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Giggs said: “Ole asked me about him and I just told him that he is a player with plenty of potential. He’s really quick, a great lad, someone who you want in the dressing room, a great character. So, it was a no-brainer really, because he is a talent.
“From a standing start he is quick and he will beat anyone. It’s just that, like any other young winger, the finishing touches, that final ball, scoring more goals, which he will get better at. I watched him a lot for Swansea last year and he ripped nearly every full-back in that division apart.”
Youth and pace
Having had to sit through years of turgid and slow football under the likes of Louis van Gaal and Jose Mourinho, Solskjaer’s emphasis on implementing a fast-paced game is a welcome sign. The Red Devils showed in the Norwegian’s early weeks in charge they have the capabilities of being a dangerous side on the counter-attack, and James’ arrival has certainly added to that.
Watch how to cross the road like a boss with freestyler Ben Nuttall in the video below…
The Wales international’s lung-busting run to finish off Paul Pogba’s pass against Chelsea proved he could bring some real dynamism and energy to the side. At £15m, the 21-year-old certainly hasn’t broken the bank for United, and in his short time at Old Trafford, is already underlining his status as a shrewd acquisition for the club, just as Giggs suggested.
West Brom’s young Baggies beat Fulham under-23s in their Premier League 2 game on Monday evening, earning new boss Michael Appleton his first three points since taking charge.
Deadline day arrival Chris Willock featured for the full 90 minutes but it was the goal scoring performance of Nick Clayton-Phillips that caught the eye of many of the Hawthorns faithful.
The 19-year-old winger curled home an effort from range on the 25th minute as the under-23s went on to win 3-1.
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He spent the latter stages of last season on loan at Vanarama National League North side Kidderminster Harriers but it seems that some Baggies fans would like to see him involved in the first team this season.
One supporter believed that the first team chance would come soon enough if he continues to work hard whilst another added that he is simply ‘too good.’
A further fan suggested that the duo of Willock and Clayton-Phillips is ‘deadly.’
Leeds fans have reacted negatively to the latest EFL Team of the Week that was posted on Twitter, questioning the decision making.
The Whites managed to fend off the challenge of Stoke with a 3-0 win last weekend but then succumbed to the same opposition on penalties in the Carabao Cup.
However, before their second meeting in four days took place, the EFL posted their TOTW from the latest round of league matches but there wasn’t a single Leeds player in sight.
Instead, Marcelo Bielsa took the award for the manager of the week, taking charge of the side that the EFL created.
With no Leeds players featuring, it left their supporters incredibly baffled. One described the selection as completely ridiculous whilst another suggested it was a joke.
A further fan was puzzled by the lack of Ben White. He helped Bielsa’s side keep a clean sheet, making five tackles and also winning three interceptions.
There were also claims for Pablo Hernandez to be picked.
Leeds are currently top of the table heading into this weekend’s fixtures and are unbeaten in league action.
[ad_pod ]Some Aston Villa fans have taken to Twitter in disgust over Kevin Friend’s decision to book Jack Grealish for diving in the 96th-minute of the 1-0 loss against Crystal Palace.The Villans captain dribbled into the penalty area before appearing to be held by Gary Cahill, who tried his best to get out of the way before Grealish innocently moved the ball on to Henri Lansbury – whilst falling -Â without claiming for a penalty.
Lansbury then slotted home and appeared to grab a dramatic equaliser for Villa – who had ten men after Trezeguet’s red card – but Friend adjudged Grealish to have dived and awarded a freekick to the Eagles.
The decision was clearly wrong, and VAR should probably be used to amend these types of refereeing calls – hence the Villa fans’ outrage on Twitter.
Find out which Premier League stadium has been ranked the worst in the video below…
Dean Smith’s side lost the game after a goal from former Villa player Jordan Ayew, but they can feel rightfully aggrieved by the awful refereeing decision.
Let’s take a look at some of the Twitter reaction to the incident…
This article is part of Football FanCast’s Transfer Focus series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent transfer news…
According to The Daily Mirror, Manchester United are considering Edwin van der Sar to be the club’s director of football.
What’s the word?
Reports in recent weeks and months have suggested the Red Devils are on the look-out for former players to join the club’s hierarchy as they bid to shake things up behind the scenes.
Names like Rio Ferdinand and Darren Fletcher had been mentioned, and now The Daily Mirror claim Van der Sar is “high up on United’s list”.
The ex-Netherlands goalkeeper is currently chief executive at Ajax and has helped the Dutch side to incredible success in recent seasons, most notably their run to the Champions League semi-final last year.
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The report adds however that health issues with his wife have stopped him from moving abroad in the past, and could potentially scupper a move this time too.
Proven experience
Whilst Ferdinand and Fletcher have an established reputation at Old Trafford following their playing careers, neither have the same kind of experience Van der Sar has when it comes to the actual skills for the director of football role.
The Dutchman’s time at Ajax has been an unprecedented success, and he has played a key part in the Dutch side’s revival. The team’s emphasis on youth and attacking football was much-lauded last season, and is exactly the kind of template United are looking to build.
Someone like Ferdinand may be the more romantic choice. After all, he speaks his mind and certainly connects with the Red Devils’ fan-base. But other than sitting on a chair in a TV studio, what has he actually done to stake a claim for a role of such high importance? The logical option would be to turn to Van der Sar, and if Ed Woodward can convince him to return to the club, then it will be a major coup.
The international break is now over, and with that comes the return of Premier League football.
In Crystal Palace’s case, the Eagles make the short trip across London to take on Tottenham Hotspur at their shiny new stadium this Saturday, a repeat of the venue’s first-ever Premier League fixture – Heung-min Son’s goal against Palace last term saw Spurs win that game 1-0.
On paper, you would expect a Spurs win, although Roy Hodgson’s men are currently ahead of their London rivals by two points and are sitting pretty in 4th-place, while Mauricio Pochettino’s side sit 7th.
Let’s take a look at the starting lineup Hodgson should put out against Spurs…
Having gone with the same lineup for the wins over Manchester United and Aston Villa, we think the 72-year-old should make just two changes to his lineup for the trip to north London.
The back four and goalkeeper remain unchanged for us, seeing as they have contributed to the best defence in the league so far this term, having conceded just twice.
Ahead of them, however, we predict that Jeffrey Schlupp – who got the assist for Jordan Ayew’s goal against Manchester United – should drop into midfield to provide pace and energy in the middle of the park, which could prove vital if Palace decide to sit back and counter-attack – the 15-cap Ghana international will be crucial in carrying the ball up the pitch.
In attack, where Schlupp started on the wing last time out in Andros Townsend’s place, we think the former Spurs man should come back into the side for his pace on the break alongside Wilfried Zaha and the in-form Ayew.
James McArthur – who we have stated must step up – is the man who should miss out, making way for Townsend with Schlupp dropping into midfield.
Reputational rehabilitations in sport are rare but not unheard of. In the eighties Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon was an unpopular figure, disliked for his brash and cocky demeanour. But then health issues, including dementia were made known post-retirement and the public notably softened their stance. Australian cricketer Steve Smith, meanwhile, will never be fondly regarded in the UK but after a summer in which he has taken the sport to exalted heights it can be said that he has reclaimed substantial respect following last year’s ball-tampering scandal that saw the team captain ostracised for a year.
Perhaps the most famous example is David Beckham, who underwent a remarkable transformation from sinner to saint in the late nineties. His sending off at the 1998 World Cup resulted in an effigy being hung outside a pub in south London, so strong was the vitriol at the time. But hard work, trophies, and subsequent memorable moments with England saw the Manchester United midfielder turn things round, to such an extent that his pop star wife later admitted that she called him ‘Goldenballs’.
Then there is Raheem Sterling, of course, the most unique instance of this phenomena.
In Sterling’s case his vilification – described as a ‘persecution’ by the Times late last year – was unique because, unlike the others, he had not actually done anything wrong to trigger it. It should be stated here that ‘wrong’ is such a subjective word. After all, Beckham merely flicked out a leg in instinctive petulance.
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In the summer of 2015 the then 21-year-old winger was one of 27 players who switched from a Premier League club to another. The manner in which he agitated for a move understandably riled Liverpool supporters but quite why this aggrieved other fans and the media at large remains a mystery given that it is commonplace these days for footballers to deploy such tactics to secure a transfer.
Nevertheless, the fee was sufficiently high enough to gain headlines and attention for a good while and the odd jibe that he wasn’t worth the money could be heard down your local watering hole simplyÂbecause Sterling was not yet a finished article. On the international stage, meanwhile, the player was one of several to under-perform at consecutive major tournaments for England.
That’s it really. That’s what Raheem Sterling had in the debit column. It’s not a lot and especially when it’s balanced out by other realities, namely that Sterling was clearly a shy and decent lad – that was plain to the naked eye and to any fair interpretation. He was also improving season on season at the Etihad and it was only a matter of time before he transferred that improvement to the England set-up. Furthermore, he never once hid on the pitch and always gave 100%; character traits that are usually highly appreciated in this country.
Alas these truths were of no consequence and very quickly Sterling found himself the poster boy of all that is deemed wrong with modern football. His move from Liverpool had him caricatured as a ‘snake’. Beneath the headline ‘Obscene Raheem’ his purchase of a house for his mother had The Sun using up their entire thesaurus of trigger-words in faux-outrage.
He was a ‘shamed’ winger. He was ‘flaunting’ the ‘blinging’ house (the latter description there being deeply troubling) all the while ‘boasting’. Soon it was open season. Soon we were venturing into some very weird territory. Sterling was castigated for taking an Easyjet flight. He was mocked for eating a Greggs pastie. The ‘penny-pinching’ winger was taunted for driving an unwashed car. He was slammed as a ‘love-rat’ when proposing to his ‘long-suffering fiance’ Paige Milan, a stark contrast to the regal celebration of ‘Posh and Becks’ engagement.
On and on it went, drip, drip, drip into the nation’s psyche; from the vicious to the ridiculous and it shouldn’t be under-estimated how much of a damaging reputational effect this had with the mainstream populace beyond football. I recall my own mother – a person who has no interest in or knowledge of the game – telling me last year: “I see that Sterling is at it again.â€
At it. Again.
What she was referring to was the hyperbolic and hysterical coverage of the England star’s gun tattoo, perhaps the nadir of the entire Sterling media obsession and more importantly the one that turned it into a national conversation where sense eventually entered the fray.
Before we move on to the dramatic change in perception that has occurred this past year as a result of that sense it is worth staying momentarily with that tattoo farrago. People lost their minds. Think of the children. He was a role model after all.
Yet nobody talks about that tattoo anymore, despite the fact that by virtue of being indelible ink it is still there on Sterling’s lower right leg. Nobody frets that an impressible child is going to seek out a real, actual weapon and run amok. To believe so would be utterly ludicrous.
The tattoo is still the same. We are not.
On the pitch this past year – as he was last year but let’s take our victories where we can – Raheem Sterling has been brilliant. Since the start of 2018/19 he has scored 31 times for Manchester City. For his country he has scored eight times in his last eight appearances. He has become a pivotal figure for both.
Soccer Football – FA Cup Final – Manchester City v Watford – Wembley Stadium, London, Britain – May 18, 2019 Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola and Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling celebrate winning the FA Cup REUTERS/David Klein
Off the pitch he has undertaken a media offensive, making himself available for more interviews with the intention of highlighting what a thoroughly nice guy he is while a number of public responses to the plight of racism in our game have been greeted with widespread admiration.
Such positivity has been mirrored. Respected writer Daniel Storey recently called him a ‘cultural leader’.
Trevor Sinclair said last week that Sterling was ‘up there with Messi and Ronaldo’. The Daily Mirror insisted he is a ‘national treasure’. Concerning the Three Lions, where once he was a hate-figure he is now a symbol of hope. Concerning the man, where once he was pilloried he is now loved.
Even as a Manchester City fan who adores Raheem Sterling, I must confess that I find comparisons with Messi a touch far-fetched. Just as I find the elevation of him as a ‘national treasure’ a little silly. Sir David Attenborough is a national treasure.
Perhaps though this lavish acclaim is over-compensation for the treatment he previously received – to go from one extreme to the other – and if that is so it’s an intriguing scenario.
It suggests remorse; it hints at an attempt to redeem ourselves.
Raheem Sterling deserves all the credit in the world and more for how he has turned things around, to go from zero to hero, but regarding the remarkable change in his perception that is on us.
And we don’t deserve any credit for that. None whatsoever.
Real Madrid lost 3-0 to PSG on Wednesday evening in a disappointing Champions League display.
Predictably, Los Blancos fans were not happy with their side’s display and they quickly jumped to social media to identify the players most responsible for a horrible result.
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And one of the players that found himself under fire was newcomer Eden Hazard.
The Belgian arrived from Chelsea for a reported fee of £89m but he turned in a below-par performance on his first European outing for his new club.
He had just one shot on goal, per WhoScored, was dispossessed once, and registered a pass success rate of just 81%. A rating of 6.9 was particularly poor for a player seemingly signed to perform in the marquee games.
And supporters were quick to pile on the Belgium international, with some believing that he is destined to fail in Spain and others comparing him to Gareth Bale, who was pushed towards the exit door by Zinedine Zidane in the summer, with his manager actually claiming it would be good for the club if he left.
You can see some of their replies in the tweets down below:
Talk about things going to script. On a wet and miserable-looking afternoon, Liverpool made it an impressive seven wins from seven in the Premier League after squeezing past Sheffield United 1-0.
Jurgen Klopp’s side were hardly at their best over the course of the game, with their much-vaunted attacking trio of Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino firing a blank from their combined eight attempts on goal.
In the end, it took a howler from Blades goalkeeper Dean Henderson to give the Reds all three points, and eagle-eyed Liverpool fans were quick to point out something.
The 22-year-old’s parent club is Manchester United, and after seeing the shot-stopper’s mistake, they flooded to Twitter to revel in their arch-rivals’ misery.
Many Reds supporters sarcastically thanked Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side for indirectly helping them to another win, and revealed the three points tasted all the more sweeter.
Some fans of the Anfield club further mocked United for Henderson’s gaffe, and urged their fellow supporters to let it “sink in”.
Check out some of the savage reaction of Liverpool fans below: