According to reports in the Evening Standard, Arsenal are lining up a summer move for Atletico Madrid goalkeeper Jan Oblak, who reportedly has a release clause of €100m (£87.2m) and has admitted in an interview with Slovenian media outlet Ekipa 24 that he is unsure whether he still be with the La Liga giants next season.
What’s the word, then?
Well, the Evening Standard says that the Gunners are targeting Oblak – and Roma stopper Alisson – as they look to find Petr Cech’s long-term replacement as well preparing for David Ospina’s expected departure this summer.
The Evening Standard says that any deal to bring the Slovenia international to the Emirates Stadium would depend on them qualifying for the Champions League, with their only realistic chance of being if they win the Europa League this season – they will face CSKA Moscow at the quarter-final stage.
Even if the undecided Oblak is allowed to leave Atletico, he would likely have plenty of offers and the report lists Liverpool, Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain as the clubs that could be keen on the 25-year-old.
What has Oblak said?
Speaking to Ekipa 24, the goalkeeper said: “It’s tough to discuss the future.
“It’s not easy to talk about what’s going to happen tomorrow never mind what will happen next season, but I am calm and the situation depends on Atletico – nobody knows the future.”
How has Oblak done this season?
He has been brilliant, once again.
The 25-year-old has made 36 appearances in all competitions for Diego Simeone’s men this term, conceding just 18 goals and keeping 22 clean sheets.
That form is no surprise given his overall record since he signed for Atletico – he has kept 86 shut-outs in 149 outings in total, letting in 90 goals.
Would he be a good signing for Arsenal?
He would be a huge, game-changing signing for them.
It has been clear from Cech’s performances – which haven’t gone down well with the Emirates faithful – this season that he is now past his best, and the Gunners need to start looking for a new number one who will be a big upgrade on what they already have if they are to push on next term.
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Oblak certainly fits the bill and could easily be their first-choice stopper for the next decade if everything works out well.
Of course, he probably won’t want to join Arsenal this summer if he does leave Atletico this summer should they fail to qualify for the Champions League, and they may be reliant on winning the Europa League in order to have any chance of getting a deal over the line.
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Everton fans are all in complete agreement that Phil Jagielka should still be a sure starter for the club.
It’s been a disappointing season for Everton fans. The club was supposed to break the monopoly of the “big six” this year, but failed to live up to expectations after a busy summer.
If there’s one thing that will particularly annoy fans, it’s the lack of defensive stability. Jordan Pickford has been a relative success, but Michael Keane has not fulfilled the promise he showed at Burnley and fans have quickly turned on Ashley Williams.
Ahead of major clashes with Manchester City and Liverpool, fans are all in complete agreement that Phil Jagielka should keep Williams’ place.
After his incredible goal at Anfield in 2014 and his equally impressive assist against the Reds in this season’s FA Cup clash, Jagielka has pretty much earned admiration for life from the Goodison faithful.
The defence has looked ten times better in recent weeks thanks to the return from injuries of Jagielka, Seamus Coleman and Leighton Baines, and fans want to opt for experience for the massive tests to come.
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Some of the best Twitter reactions can be found below…
Chelsea knew they were the side in the greater need of a win as they welcomed Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham side to Stamford Bridge in a match that was always going to have a huge impression on the race for the top four.
The visitors arrived higher on confidence as Antonio Conte’s Blues have really struggled for consistency in 2018 and it has been the second season in three that Chelsea players have dropped their levels.
Under-fire Conte has had to face accusations that he has lost the dressing room at Stamford Bridge and he was powerless to stop his side from losing 3-1 to Spurs.
Goals from Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen mean that the two teams are now separated by eight points and but Chelsea fans don’t know why Conte didn’t make changes earlier.
In such a vital game, it was Conte again that Chelsea fans focused on after the match and we’ve scrutinised the best of the reaction below…
Tottenham fans are getting fed up with young star Marcus Edwards after the 19 year-old was sent back from his loan spell at Norwich City.
Marcus Edwards is sensationally talented, and Spurs fans were hoping to see the youngster break into the first team in the near future.
His future at a top level club now looks in doubt though, after “personal reasons” were cited as the reason for his loan at Norwich being cut short.
The 19 year-old star was sent to the Championship club in January with the hope that regular playing time would bring the best out of him, but has played just six minutes since the move and fans are blaming his attitude.
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There have been murmurs amongst Tottenham fans in the past that Edwards’ attitude may not be as good as his undoubtable talent, and the mysterious circumstances under which his loan has ended have only raised suspicions of behavioural problems.
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Of course, “personal reasons” could literally mean anything, but Spurs fans are annoyed by the failure of the loan move that was supposed to push the youngster to the next level.
Some of the best Twitter reactions can be found below…
No young player in European football is analysed by the same uniquely pejorative criteria as Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling.
This is a 23-year-old with 22 goals across all competitions, whose goalscoring contributions to arguably the most dominant Premier League title win of all time have only been exceeded by Sergio Aguero. Amongst Premier League followers and England fans, Sterling’s explosive uplift in goalscoring form this season, doubling his previous career best for a single campaign, should be celebrated.
And yet, the Manchester City forward is only ever really judged upon his mistakes and flaws; those rushed finishes to scupper gilt-edged chances, those wayward passes stifling vibrant City attacks, those mazy dribbles that inadvertently slip into blind alleys.
Of course, Sterling’s greatest misgiving – his notorious lack of composure in front of goal – is a glaringly noticeable one. But the attention and scrutiny it’s received has built such a hyperbolic, negative narrative that it often blinds us from what Sterling actually gives to this exceptional Pep Guardiola team.
Sterling’s last two Premier League appearances provide the perfect case in point. City lost the first against Manchester United but won the second against Tottenham, yet the post-match analysis on both occasions was indiscriminate – almost entirely centred around the chances the 37-cap Three Lions star missed.
That’s despite him playing a hand in the two goals that proved to be decisive at Wembley, winning a penalty off Hugo Lloris before poking past the Spurs goalie himself, and changing the entire complexion of the Manchester derby upon swapping places in attack with Bernardo Silva.
Before the switch around the 20-minute mark, there was nothing to choose between City and Manchester United; in the 25 minutes before half time, they’d scored twice with Sterling setting up Ilkay Gundogan.
Those incisive moments of course earned honourable mentions but were overshadowed by the focus on the two chances Sterling missed to put the Manchester derby out of sight, and his failure to convert at Wembley with the goal at his mercy after rounding Lloris – never mind the fact Sterling found the net at a corner just a minute or so later.
There’s no question Sterling has a knack for missing big chances, but that’s a common trait amongst the division’s top scorers. According to what the Premier League defines as a ‘big chance’, Mohamed Salah, Harry Kane, Alvaro Morata, Sergio Aguero and Alexandre Lacazette have all missed more than his eleven this season. Those players though, are never vilified for it with anywhere near the same level of vitriol.
Regardless, Sterling is younger than all of the above, which is why we shouldn’t expect him to be the perfectly finished article just yet anyway. And when the City star’s form is compared to players under the age of 25 from Europe’s top five leagues, it’s clear Sterling is amongst the top of the class.
Only three players in that age bracket have scored more league goals than him this season – Paulo Dybala, Kane and Lyon’s Mariano – and only six players have bettered his eight assists. In terms of all-round forward play too, Sterling ranks between 14th and 25th for shots, dribbles and key passes per game, less impressive than his comparative output yet nonetheless evidence of a holistically strong impact for a player of his age.
Compare him to arguably the most promising young forwards in Ligue 1, La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga too. Kylian Mbappe is a £166million signing while Marco Asensio is billed as Real Madrid’s next icon and a £120million target for Chelsea, yet Sterling is never discussed as being worth anything remotely near that kind of money despite outscoring both this season in a tougher league.
In fact, he’s contributed to the same amount of league goals as Juventus star Dybala – who some have even tipped to eventually succeed Lionel Messi at Barcelona.
There’s admittedly a silkiness and composure to those players that Sterling seems to lack, something that can’t always be represented by statistics alone. But in terms of effectiveness, very few players Sterling’s age have exceeded him this season across the whole of Europe, so why does he so rarely receive the full credit that deserves?
Perhaps it’s because Sterling doesn’t seem like a young player anymore. He already has nearly 200 Premier League appearances under his belt and having made his Liverpool debut as a teenager, he’s been on the scene since the end of the 2011/12 season. Even though he’s just 23 years of age, he’s got plenty of miles on the clock already – some would argue, despite his fantastic form this season, that he probably should have reached this point a little sooner and already be looking further ahead.
Or perhaps it’s because there’s something inherently British about trying to bring down our biggest success stories – we’ve always preferred the romantically inevitable failure of the underdog, the ability to remain defiant amid disaster, to the golden boys seemingly born to pick up the accolades. There was more than a slight hit of envy when Alan Shearer responded to Sterling’s goal return this season by claiming; “I could score 20 goals for this City side.”
Soccer Football – International Friendly – England vs Italy – Wembley Stadium, London, Britain – March 27, 2018 England manager Gareth Southgate with Raheem Sterling at the end of the match Action Images via Reuters/John Sibley
But perhaps there is something a little more sinister here, because for one reason or another there has always been a negative narrative attached to Sterling since he first emerged from the Liverpool academy setup.
First there were rumours of multiple children bred by multiple mothers, which proved to be completely untrue, and then there was the whole media circus surrounding his decision to leave a club that has won just a single trophy, the League Cup, since 2006 for another that has already tripled that total in the three years Sterling’s been there.
That was followed by endless reports on Sterling’s earnings, any other personal life gossip The Sun could throw at him and the almost inexplicable drive to put England’s shock elimination from Euro 2016 on his shoulders.
Now, Sterling’s having to fight claims that scoring the fourth-most goals of any Premier League player this season is merely a case of him flattering to deceive, that the chances he misses are more important than the ones he scores, that – according to Shearer – even retired players could score as many goals for City this season.
“The moment he can increase his average to score he will become one of the best players in the world. He missed two clear chances against United to make it 3-0 and 4-0 and he missed today. The moment he will improve that he will become a top, top, top player. He’s so dynamic, he has character, he is an excellent guy but we can think about it.
He did it much better than last season. The problem will be next season where he has to compete with what he has done. He has to work harder but he is able to learn he is going to win an important Premier League and that will help for his confidence and so on.”
And yet, while some of the negativity may lay in the genuine objective truth that Sterling’s shortcomings are somewhat unusual for a player of his abilities, and even more so in such a successful and talented team as this Manchester City side, there is the other side of the coin to consider – one that Guardiola alluded to himself after the win on Saturday.
If Sterling does start to convert those simple chances that seemingly allude him, if he does gain those few extra microbes of composure and if he does improve his decision-making in the final third, his goal tally and overall form won’t just be comparative with players his age – he’ll be up there with the very best players in the world.
Sterling’s missed eleven big chances this season; if all of those were converted, he’d have just two goals less than Salah and three more than Harry Kane – the two most potent goalscorers in the Premier League for 2017/18. Salah is someone Sterling can take direct inspiration from, and as Gary Neville points out Thierry Henry and Cristiano Ronaldo too. None of those started out as natural goalscorers, yet all drastically improved between the ages of 21 and 24.
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Combined, Ronaldo and Henry scored 11 goals as 21-year-olds; as 24-year-olds, they amassed 42. Salah, likewise, scored 15 goals across all competitions for Roma at the age of 23, but two campaigns later, he’s on course to triple that total with Liverpool as a 25-year-old.
That’s the moment Sterling finds himself at this stage of his career – waiting to discover if he can make the step up to the same level as some of the Premier League’s all-time greats, by ironing out those mistakes and adding an extra dose of composure to his game.
If this season tells us anything though, it’s that even if Sterling’s goal returns were to mirror those Arsenal and Manchester United legends or even Salah’s for Liverpool this season, he still wouldn’t receive the full credit he deserves.
Perhaps Sterling just has to accept that, no matter what he does, he’ll always be judged on what he can’t do rather than what he can, and he’ll always be surrounded by a negative narrative for one reason or another.
For a young, English player whose only real crime has been to ruthlessly strive towards success, that’s a frustrating shame – one that reflects far more on the simplistic belligerence of his critics than Sterling as a footballer or a person.
Tottenham Hotspur manager and former Southampton boss Mauricio Pochettino nearly produced a slip of the tongue prior to his current team’s 2-0 win against Watford on Monday night, and Saints fans were quick to react.Speaking to Sky Sports before the clash against the Hornets, the 46-year-old former St Mary’s chief was in the middle of answering a question when he said: “The history and the passion of South… sorry Tottenham”, and it didn’t go unnoticed by followers of his former club.Pochettino was a controversial appointment for the south coast outfit at the time, but he quickly brought them success with a high-press style and quick, incisive passing, helping them to an eighth-place finish before moving on to Tottenham.Southampton supporters, who have renewed confidence on Twitter that they can get a positive result at Everton this weekend, took to social media to have their say on Pochettino’s faux pas, and while one said “he still loves us”, another urged their club to “bring him home!!”Here is just a selection of the Twitter reaction…[ad_pod ]
Following his winning goal against Arsenal in Manchester United’s most recent home game, Marouane Fellaini was given a rare chance to start in the following Reds game against Brighton.
He, like most of the United side on the South Coast on Friday night, was abject and Jose Mourinho has stated that the Belgian is unfit to face West Ham United, now managed by his former manager at both Everton and Old Trafford, David Moyes.
The Belgian has never been the most popular player at Old Trafford and the player’s arrogance in his contract stand-off with United has only served to deepen the feeling of unrest against his continued presence at the club.
That means that while no football fan should wish injury on a player – certainly not one of their own – Fellaini’s absence due to a muscular injury has gone down well and we’ve taken a closer look at the best of the reaction…
According to reports in The Times, West Ham United are leading the race to sign Huddersfield Town midfielder Aaron Mooy, who cost an initial £8m from Manchester City last year, this summer.
What’s the word, then?
Well, The Times says that the Irons are keen to bring the Australia international to the London Stadium and would be willing to double his £32,000-a-week wages, although the Terriers are likely to offer him an improved deal themselves after preserving their Premier League status for at least another 12 months following their 1-1 draw against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday.
The east London outfit – whether manager David Moyes is still in charge or not – are likely to prioritise bringing in a new central midfielder this summer because it is one of the areas they have struggled in, with no real competition for Cheikhou Kouyate and captain Mark Noble in recent monts when Pedro Obiang has been injured.
How has Mooy done this season?
He has been brilliant.
Huddersfield would have been hoping that the 27-year-old could make the step up to the Premier League after being a key cog in the team that saw them secure promotion from the Championship, and he certainly has.
The Australian has scored four goals and provided a further three assists in 35 top flight appearances for Town this term, despite often playing more of a defensive role in the middle of the park.
Mooy is known for his tenacity, work-rate and quality on the ball, and according to WhoScored.com he has won 98 of the 129 tackles he has attempted during the current campaign, while he has also shown his attacking threat by making 48 key passes.
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Would he be a good signing for West Ham?
He certainly could be, yes.
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In many ways, Mooy is a younger version of Noble as he isn’t afraid to work hard and put his body on the line for his team.
Bringing him to the London Stadium would be a good sign for the east London outfit in terms of recruitment and the owners making the right decisions, and he has all of the traits to become a fans’ favourite – although the fans may want another midfielder in addition to the Australia international.
As reported by The Mirror, Arsenal are interested in signing Jonny Evans this summer as they look to make big changes to their faltering defensive line.
What’s the story?
The upcoming transfer window is a massive one for the Gunners, with an incoming manager set to put his own stamp on the squad and changes badly needed if they’re going to compete for major honours next term.
One name that could be arriving at the Emirates is West Bromwich Albion defender Jonny Evans, according to The Mirror.
The paper reckon that Arsenal are interested in making a £3m move for the 30-year-old as part of a plan to sell Shkodran Mustafi and replace him with a trio of central defenders.
Would he be a good signing?
Although it’s tempting to pick the bones of relegated sides for budget deals when they drop down into the Championship, it’s often important to remember that those teams are relegated for a reason.
Evans may not be the worst offender at the Baggies this term, but he did play 28 of the 38 games that resulted in his team finishing rock bottom of the table.
Arsenal should have their sights set on bigger things and Evans isn’t the top six calibre player that they need to compete with the likes of Manchester City, United and Liverpool next season.
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As back-up, it’s not the worst idea in the world, but the Gunners need first team quality arrivals this summer.
Reports in Portugal suggest Everton have moved into pole position to sign William Carvalho this summer.
What’s the story?
Portuguese outlet Record claimed this morning that Everton were once again hunting Carvalho, and A Bola have now added fuel to the fire by suggesting the Toffees will battle Monaco for his signature.
According to A Bola, Silva wants to reunite with the tough tackling midfielder, after the pair worked together during his time in charge of Sporting CP.
Carvalho, who is expected to star for Portugal at this summer’s World Cup, has been linked with a move to West Ham, but the arrival of Silva could tilt the scales in the Toffees’ favour.
The 26 year-old would be a powerful addition to the Toffee’s lacklustre midfield.
Perfect move to Merseyside?
Carvalho, valued at £22.5m by Transfermarkt, was one of the standout performers in Portugal’s incredible Euro 2016 win, and has been constantly linked with moves to the Premier League ever since.
The giant defensive midfielder gives you exactly what it says on the tin, averaging 1.8 tackles, 1.3 interceptions and 1.5 clearances per game this season.
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Everton have had their fair share of problems this year, but the overriding weaknesses came from midfield, where only Idrissa Gueye could really claim to have had a decent season, and the Senegalese international doesn’t exactly excel with the ball at his feet.
Carvalho would give the Toffees excellent defensive cover, but also provides more going forward than the current options at Goodison, completing over 60 passes per game this season at an impressive 89 per cent completion rate.
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Across 24 league appearances this season, he averages an impressive 4.3 successful long balls per match, and he’s got good feet for a big man too, averaging nearly two successful dribbles per game.
The midfielder is in contract with Sporting CP until 2020, but it is thought a bid in the region of £30m would be enough to secure his services.
So, Everton fans, do you think Silva is right to go after Carvalho? Let us know your thoughts by voting in the poll below…