CSKA Moscow enter the second leg of their Europa League round-of-32 clash with PAOK Salonika as favourites after a 1-0 win last Thursday.Tomas Necid’s 29th-minute strike ensured the Russian Premier League side would take a healthy advantage into the second leg, which is to be played in Russia.Necid’s goal was his sixth of the Europa League campaign and he now only trails FC Porto’s Falcao on the scoring charts for the second-tier European competition.The odds are stacked in CSKA Moscow’s favour, having won all four of their home games in Europe this season.What makes their record even more impressive is the fact that all four games have been won by at least two goals, with 15 goals scored and just two conceded in continental fixtures at the Arena Khimki.CSKA Moscow are also unbeaten in nine European matches, winning eight of them, with their seven-match run ending when they drew 1-1 with Sparta Prague in their last group stage fixture on December 15.They returned to winning form with their win on Thursday and joined Zenit St Petersburg as the highest scoring sides in the competition this season when Necid struck CSKA’s 19th goal of their European campaign.In stark contrast, PAOK were the lowest-scoring side to make it past the group stage and have scored just five goals in the Europa League so far this season as they qualified out of Group D behind Villarreal.But if anything is in PAOK’s favour, it is the fact that CSKA have lacked regular match-play in recent months.Since the Russian Premier League ended in November, CSKA have been involved in just three competitive fixtures, all in the Europa League.They have also played two friendlies against Real Murcia and Tom Tomsk in the build-up to their first leg clash, but still lack consistent match fitness and it could come back to haunt them in the second leg.While all the statistics point to a CSKA victory, even inside their camp they are not sure about progression.Before the first-leg tie, manager Leonid Slutsky was unsure of how his side would play while captain Igor Akinfeev rated the Russian side’s chances of progression as ’50-50′. All will be revealed on Tuesday night in Moscow, with PAOK still likely to fancy their chances despite trailing by a goal.
Hamburg's Germany international defender Jerome Boateng believes he will sign for Manchester City before the World Cup begins.
City have been in talks with the Bundesliga club since the end of the domestic season and Boateng believes an agreement is now close to being reached.
The 21-year-old centre-half could cost the Eastlands outfit around £10million.
"I am going to sign on before leaving for the World Cup and the deal will be completed," Boateng told German media.
"It has been decided that I am moving there."
Speaking about a recent meeting with City boss Roberto Mancini, he continued:"He came with two representatives to Hamburg and we chatted for one or two hours.
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"He convinced me to make the transfer. He believes that I will definitely need a few months to get settled in once in England, but that he sees so much potential in me that he will improve me.
"Even if many people say that I am going to struggle to make the breakthrough, I am confident that I will. I am not afraid of anybody."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
After a slow start to the transfer window, with murmurings of Huddersfield struggling to attract targets to the club, the optimism has been restored with the completion of our first two signings of the summer. Attacker Sean Scannell has made the switch from Championship rivals, Crystal Palace, whilst full back Paul Dixon has agreed terms, having left Dundee United at the end of last season.
Scannell, a fans favourite at Palace, prefers to play as a striker, despite spending the majority of his career on the wing. The reviews from Palace fans have been positive, the majority being disappointed in their club for allowing him to leave, as he has the potential to become a top player, and displays a down to earth attitude, characterised by him regularly being spotted walking to the ground in his tracksuit before home games!
The statistics don’t represent Scannell in a particularly positive light; 12 goals in 130 appearances doesn’t represent a particularly prolific attacker. However, statistics seldom tell the whole story, as shown by the debate over the sacking of Lee Clark re-emerging after his employment at Birmingham City; many opposition fans are citing statistics displaying Clark in a positive light, whereas Town fans maintain that we simply didn’t look like being promoted with him in charge.
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This week Paul Dixon became Town’s second capture of the summer. The natural left back will offer a more natural balance in defence; last season Town were largely reliant on playing Calum Woods at left back, despite his natural position being on the right hand side of the defence. Woods was an able left back at League One level, and will be a good deputy in full back positions in the Championship, however, it is likely he would have struggled with the better right wingers in the division, had he been our first choice left back.
Like Scannell, Dixon arrives in Huddersfield on the back of positive reviews from his former employers. From reviews, Dixon appears to provide good support going forwards, whilst maintaining solidity at the back. Given that our full back on the opposite side, Jack Hunt, is also an attacking full back, Dixon providing a similar option on the opposite side should offer Town a good attacking threat from deep positions.
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Whilst further signings are still very much a necessity in order for us to be competitive at this level, these two signings are a positive start to our summer spending. A few more additions of similar calibre should see us able to do ourselves justice at Championship level.
When I first read the new that Chelsea were interested in signing Ross Barkley for £20 million I’d have to say I was rather flabbergasted. A 17-year-old and with only a handful of first team game under his belt it seems rather deranged that the new Blues boss Andre Villas-Boas would be prepared to pay that amount of money for such an inexperienced player. With Manchester United also interested in acquiring the teenagers signature and Barkley’s status as a supposed ‘wonder kid’ it seems likely that a bidding war will ensue between the Premier League giants.
It’s plausible to say that Everton will, in all probability, accept any bid for Barkley that matches or exceeds what Chelsea are reportedly ready to offer due to their perilous financial state. With the Toffees latest prodigy likely to leave Goodison Park in the near future and two of the countries leading clubs vying for his services, a big decision will have to be made over who will offer the best platform for him to achieve his potential. Would Barkley be better off moving to Old Trafford or Stamford Bridge?
He has certainly warranted the interest in him after putting in some eye-catching performances in the opening weeks of the season with many fans and pundits already tipping him to reach the pinnacle of English football having already broken into Stuart Pearce’s under-21 side. His stock sky-rocketed since he made his debut against QPR in August where he displayed a feather light tough, razor sharp vision and determined attitude that is absent in a lot of young players these days. With his eighteenth birthday fast approaching it’s amazing to think he is being linked with a big money move just weeks after his Premier League bow. At his age he is still a rough diamond that needs to extensively polished if he is to become the player he is prophesized to be.
With Man Utd and Chelsea on his tail there is only one place Barkley should think about going should an offer from either team ever materialises. It’s a club who has nurtured some of the best players on the planet turning them from hot prospects into world-class footballers. They have a manager who knows the ins and outs of refining young talent, putting them on the right track to global stardom and helping them achieve more in their careers than most others will.
In my opinion Barkley should look no further than Manchester United if he aspire to reach footballs top level. You only have to look at the faces who have graced Old Trafford in the last 20 years that have gone on to be recognized as some of the finest players that have ever stepped onto a football field. Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes, David Beckham, Gary Neville, Cristiano Ronaldo, Nicky Butt, Wayne Rooney, Nani, Darren Fletcher, Paul Ince, Roy Keane and Ole Gunnar Solksjaer are just a few names that roll off the tongue who have come through the academy or signed for the Red Devils at a relatively young age and benefitted from the tutelage of Sir Alex Ferguson. The club is recognized as having one of the finest youth setups in the world along with a clutch of quality coaches and Barkley should take this into account if he ever has to make a decision over who to join.
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Chelsea are a good club but their track record of bringing through quality players pales in comparison to their rivals. The constant chopping and changing of managers in North London won’t benefit Barkley in the long run with Man Utd able to offer him a solid, consistent environment and a manager who knows the club from top to bottom. Ferguson is conscious of exactly what it takes to develop a young player with Barkley’s rare talents after 25 years in the Old Trafford dugout and will take the necessary steps to ensure he fulfills his promise. There are always calls from fans who think it’s imperative hot prospects like Barkley need first team games to gain the imperative experience that will transform them into world beaters.
Unfortunately for a player of his tender years being forced to play too much could result in burnout and injuries, which could then seriously hamper his development. Ferguson isn’t that naïve and Barkley will benefit massively from an approach that will see him given time to develop on the training field before he becomes regularly active in the first team. Just look at Ronaldo and Rooney who were bought when they were at a similar age to the midfielder. The Scot moulded them into world-class players with the former now the best and expensive player in the world after his £80 million move to Real Madrid.
There’s no guarantee that Barkley will reach the same level as the Portuguese winger or that of Rooney but from his early displays at Everton there is cause to say he could should he be given the right platform to flourish. Manchester United have a proven track record of giving young players a stage on which they can mature and prosper as footballers. A move to Chelsea certainly wouldn’t be the worst thing Barkley could do and ultimately the choice will come down to him should both sides solidify their interest. Where he decides to move will determine the direction his career goes. Red or blue?
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Premier League boss Richard Scudamore says that the increased sums of money in English football are being used to good effect.
After a frenetic transfer deadline day last Monday, which saw the likes of Fernando Torres, Andy Carroll, Luis Suarez and David Luiz swap clubs for a combined total of over 120 million pounds, the big-spending tendencies of Premier League clubs amid an economic downturn have come under fire.
But speaking about the Premier League’s corporate and social responsibilities, chief executive Scudamore believes that the surge in spending allows the governing body to play a wider role in the community.
“I wouldn’t want to create anything like the impression that we are suddenly getting involved (in corporate and social responsibility) because of last Monday,” Scudamore said.
“As I say, we’ve had 28 years of ‘Football in the Community’ going in professional football. The Premier League’s got a long track record since it started of community involvement so this is just another extension.”
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“On the left hand side, we have TV rights and transfer fees, we have large amounts of money in the game being used on talent acquisition. And on the right hand side, we have large amounts of money going to some good causes (to) fulfil our corporate and social responsibilities.”
Although the day had been coming for what felt like an eternity now, it still didn’t seem to feel any easier when it happened. As the curtain finally came down on the career of one Ledley Brenton King, Tottenham Hotspur didn’t just loose a club legend. They lost one of the finest central defenders in a generation.
But as macabre as it may seem, King’s decision to retire wasn’t just the correct decision for his own well-being- it was the correct decision for Tottenham Hotspur. It’s an uncomfortable truth, but the club would have struggled to push on with the yo-yoing presence of their former leader in the ranks.
King knew this and his decision personifies both the courage and the selflessness that has adorned his career in N17. A career in which, even if the great man’s modesty would never entertain such a notion, has truly earned the title of legendary.
In the passing days since the club announced that King was set to hang his boots up once and for all, a reflection over the past 13 years has perhaps jolted many supporters as to how long the now former skipper has actually been at the club. After making his debut at Anfield in a 3-2 defeat to Liverpool towards the end of the 1998-99 season, it was the 2000-01 term in which King really began to establish himself under George Graham.
But as bizarre as it may seem that the great man once had the fleeting Chris Perry as competition, it was the dark specter of Sol Campbell that perhaps catalyzed the destiny of Ledley King forever. The comparisons between the two were inevitable. Both were crafted as trainees at Spurs, both possessed immense power and physical ability yet the two also had a rare level of technical excellence with the ball at their feet. There is little need to denote why that passage makes such painful reading for supporters.
As Campbell did the unspeakable, Ledley King no longer became just another player. He was the light, the one constant in an era full of George Graham, Glenn Hoddle and Jacques Santini like variables. Supporters bestowed as much expectation as they did adulation on the thoroughbred centre-half. Suffice to say, King didn’t disappoint.
What followed was a decade of football that immortalized him into the annals of White Hart Lane history. At the risk of sounding condescending, supporters from other clubs who aren’t entirely sure what all the fuss is about, simply haven’t followed King’s career close enough. When supporters talk about ‘club legends’, so often it is the cult heroes who crop up in conversation. Players, who clocked up hundreds of appearances and had great one-off seasons but not necessarily the most talented of footballers.
The thing with King is that he genuinely was one of the most gifted central-defenders to play the game. He had the supreme physical attributes and the body-lunging bravery that we appreciate in this country. But he was a footballer. Dare you say it, he embodied the ‘Spurs’ way of playing. He saw things that other defenders couldn’t see; he read the game in another way. And that gift was perhaps the most poignant one as the injuries took their toll.
Because there was of course, a heartbreaking sub-plot of injury that blighted Ledley King’s career. A vast majority of those who visit White Hart Lane could give you a relatively decent lecture about the degeneration of knee cartilage, such is its documentation in the national press. But as the years went by, even some Spurs fans perhaps took the King’s presence for granted, such was his supernatural ability to play Premier League without any real physical conditioning and a full working knee joint.
That’s not meant in a derogatory term. And again, without aiming another parting shot at Harry Redknapp, his infamous quip about King being so good, it was worth having him if only for 20 games a season, perhaps rings more hollow now.
As last season, King did finally begin to look human. Even then, he was still head and shoulders above most Premier League defenders. But as he began to mistime tackles for the first time in his career, fans knew something was up. The sight of him at times, physically struggling to straighten his knee, was perhaps the final straw.
But it’s the effect on the rest of the team which we often have shunned ,such has been the importance of the man. Spurs haven’t had a stable back four in several years now. Because as good as the team may have been for the game in which King played, it was the next fixture in which another partnership had to conjoin, where the team would suffer.
And as optimism blooms under the new Andre Villas-Boas era, there is a feeling Spurs are on the cusp of something big. But as painful as it seems, surely every team will hit a glass ceiling with a back four that shuffles every other game. Tottenham fans may be mourning, but there is a feeling of understanding at White Hart Lane. When asked if there were any positives to take out of King’s departure, the Spurs community on Twitter seemed to retain the sense of realism.
@Yids Stability.
@KennyPalmer Spurs will now be able to have a regular/stable CB partnership and a defined back four.
@SibsTHFC it’s better that he’s retired with his legs all still in one piece. Better that than witness a very sad slow decline…It also allows a new partnership that will last for years to be formed.
And it is the future that can now be built on at White Hart Lane. Spurs may not have been able to acquire the services of a top-class centre-half, in the mould of someone like Jan Vertonghen, if Ledley King was still looming at the Lane. How could they sell the club to a player on the premise that they would only be able to play every other week?
It feels uneasy to consign Ledley King’s retirement as a necessity. Yes, if he had chose to work another season for the club, you’d imagine he would gain the club several points along the way, such is his phenomenal level of ability. But it could also have been the season where, for the first time in his career, he began to cost the club points. Potentially, at the cost of massive loss himself. The club will never forget, but it had to move on.
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Ledley King will always exist at White Hart Lane in some capacity. For the moment, it’s ambassadorial, but who knows what the future may hold. In the era of perceived Premier League greed, Ledley King was a player who went through genuine pain and put himself at real risk by playing for his football club.
He always wanted what was best for the football club. His decision to call it a day has evoked many emotions, but maybe in some ways, we should be harnessing optimism, not eternal sadness. Tottenham Hotspur can now finally push on.
How do you see Ledley King’s retirement? Right decision for you or do you think the club should have kept him on for one more season? Tell me how you see it, for Spurs talk and anything else, follow @samuel_antrobus and tell me what you think.
18-year-old John Flanagan was a surprise inclusion in the Liverpool side that faced Sunderland last Saturday. With Glen Johnson out with a hamstring injury, Dalglish chose Liverpool’s Young Player of the Year, Flanagan over the older and more experienced defender Martin Kelly demonstrating the sort of faith Kenny has in the home-grown youngster.
The teenage right-back has enjoyed a meteoric rise in Liverpool’s first team after making his debut in the Red’s 3-0 victory over Manchester City in April. He was so impressive in keeping Man City’s strike force quiet that he was able to keep his place for the last seven games of the season and was then rewarded for his fine performances with a new four year contract in the summer.
Flanagan may have had a difficult game on Saturday up against the impressive Sebastian Larsson but this will only help him develop as a footballer. He has had some moments of uncertainty for Liverpool, including giving away a controversial penalty against Spurs last season but this has to be expected from an inexperienced youngster. The good news for Liverpool fans is that he has age on his side and should only improve with first team football. He looks unfazed by the pressure put on him by Dalglish with some mature displays last season and if he can cut out the errors out of his game it is possible he could soon be worrying Johnson for a starting place and not just at Liverpool.
He has already been called up to the England U19 squad and can expect further national honours in the future. If he can fulfil his potential at Anfield, he might just be the long-term answer to the right-back weakness for England. With no obvious second choice to Johnson in the national team, it is possible we could see the right back position dominated by Liverpool players, highlighting the strength of Liverpool’s academy.
The youngster may have been guilty for some inexperience in recent matches but it is time to lay off the criticism as how often does an impressive young English right-back come through in the Premier League? It is one position where England are seriously lacking and hopefully Flanagan will be the long term answer.
He has versatility in his game with the ability to play at left back, despite being right-footed, and even in midfield as he recently in Liverpool’s pre-season friendly against Valencia. This means he is likely to get more game time this season even when Johnson returns from injury, giving Liverpool options across the pitch.
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He has already followed in the tradition of the tough tackling Scouse defender Carragher who worked his way through the youth setup to become such a vital player at Anfield. If Flanagan can take on Carragher’s mantle in the future and achieve what the England international has in his career then it is understandable to see why hopes are so high for the Liverpool youngster.
Melbourne Victory captain Kevin Muscat has been given a break by the club to contemplate his future.
Muscat was handed an eight-match suspension by the Football Federation Australia disciplinary committee on Thursday for his crude tackle on Melbourne Heart winger Adrian Zahra.
Whether the ban would spell the end of a career that has featured 51 caps for Australia, 122 Victory games and stints at Crystal Palace, Wolves, Glasgow Rangers and Millwall is something the club will not press the 37-year-old veteran about.
Speaking ahead of Sunday’s clash against Gold Coast United at AAMI Park, Victory coach Ernie Merrick revealed Muscat was spending some time away from the club.
“We’ve given him a bit of a break, then we’ll get together and have a chat about what’s going to happen moving forward from here,” Merrick said.
“It’s (his playing future) not something I want to speculate on, I’ll leave that until I’ve had a discussion with Kevin down the track.”
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Merrick said Victory had no issue with the severity of the penalty handed out by the FFA, adding the club will “move on from there.”
Asked about Muscat’s reaction to the ban, Merrick said: “Obviously Kevin’s hurt by the situation, but he’s accepted it and taken it on the chin.”
With the Football League season just over a month away Football FanCast’s Shrewsbury Town blogger Liam Hoofe takes a look at how pre-season is shaping up at the New Meadow.
In three days time Shrewsbury will play their first game of their pre-season campaign as they continue to prepare for life in League One after their promotion from League Two last season.
On Thursday night Town will travel away to Southern League Premier division outfit Evesham United. Whilst Evesham should provide a good run out for the lads, which is always vital ahead of a new season, it shouldn’t be too difficult of a game for Turner’s men.
It will be a decent chance to give some of the less experienced players a run out while also giving the fans a chance to see some of the new faces that have come in during the post season transfer window. It has been a busy summer for Turner and after some high-profile departures, the new campaign will be something of a rebuilding exercise so pre-season will be vital in working how he can best utilise the new players at the club.
The match also marks an occasion for Evesham United as Shrewsbury will be the first football league side to compete against their side at their new Jubilee stadium, which was opened last week by Ron Atkinson after the club had been homeless for the previous six seasons.
I imagine Graham Turner may play two different sides against Evesham, one in each half. This all gives the fans a good look at the whole squad, seeing areas in which we lack depth and require improvement to perhaps bring more players in before the big kick-off.
All around this should be a good run out for Graham Turner’s men and an enjoyable occasion for Evesham United and their fans.
You can follow me on Twitter @LiamHoofe
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The transfer window has been a hive of activity with plenty of millions being spent.
It appears that with the new UEFA financial rulings looming large and certain clubs’ need to add to their home grown quota, the managers and chairman are looking to ensure that their squads are in decent shape for the season ahead.
While some clubs have taken such a gung-ho approach, other clubs have appeared to be cautious with many clearly having to sell before they can buy, much to the frustrations of many managers and supporters.
The media clearly believe that some clubs are simply biding their time in the transfer market and the next two weeks is likely to see a transfer storm erupt, but it begs the question as to whether Harry Redknapp and Tottenham will partake in some last minute shopping.
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Does Redknapp need to spend big – if so who would you like to see him bring in at White Hart Lane?