England captain Steven Gerrard has hit back at Patrick Vieira over claims that the nation’s young home-grown players are not as driven as they used to be.
The Manchester City football development executive recently questioned the latest generation of English youngsters and their motivation of representing their country.
However, ahead of Tuesday’s clash with Poland, Gerrard has defended the young players that are eager to make the national set-up.
“I don’t really care what Patrick Vieira says,” the Liverpool midfielder told reporters, published in the Daily Mail.
“It surprised me to read that. The impression I get from young players at Liverpool is that they’re desperate to get into this set-up.
“You can see in their faces that, when they’re left out, it has disappointed them. The young players are hungry.
“It is great for English football that we are producing these players. They are the players that are keeping the likes of myself on my toes.
“I know I’ve got to keep a consistency in my game at this level to stay in the team. All the experienced players are aware of that,” he continued.
Gerrard is in line to make his 99th cap against the Warsaw-based team, but is playing down the individual significance and eager to win three points.
“Every time you put the England shirt on it is a proud moment.
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“To get 99 is a fantastic achievement for myself but it will only be a good memory tomorrow night if we get the three points that we came for,” he concluded.
Gerrard returns to the fray after being suspended for Friday’s 5-0 win over San Marino.
According to reliable West Ham United insider @ExWHUemployee on his latest ‘The West Ham Way’ transfer blog (June 24), the east London outfit want to sign of Chelsea trio Danny Drinkwater, Ross Barkley or Ruben Loftus-Cheek on loan with a view to a permanent deal, and Irons fans have been quick to react.
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@ExWHUemployee suggests that Manuel Pellegrini wants to bring one of the three players to the London Stadium this summer as he believes that one of them will be allowed to go, and as the Hammers look to boost their home-grown quota of players.
Loftus-Cheek shone during a season-long loan spell with Crystal Palace last term, while Drinkwater and Barkley struggled to make an impact at Stamford Bridge following moves from Leicester City and Everton last summer and during the January transfer window respectively.
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West Ham supporters, who have urged their club to sign a 25-year-old World Cup attacking ace, took to social media to give their thoughts on the latest rumour, and while one said “I don’t understand” seeing as they are all different types of midfield players, another said “please not Drinkwater”.
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Newcastle United picked up a point away from home in the English Premier League on Saturday but will feel they should have secured an important win after Bournemouth came from 2-0 down.The Magpies had rushed to to a comfortable lead at the interval thanks to a Dwight Gayle double but failed to finish the game off despite wonderful chances in the second half.Ayoze Perez and Jonjo Shelvey both missed opportunities to make it 3-0 before Bournemouth scored twice in the last ten minutes to rescue an unlikely draw.[ad_pod ]Fans were upset with Shelvey’s miss in particular, believing he should have buried a Christian Atsu squared ball. With the Cherries scoring shortly after, it was undoubtedly the turning point in the match.Just two points above the relegation zone, it’s a miss that could prove pivotal in the context of Newcastle’s season.Fans took to Twitter to share their thoughts on it all…
Goals are the only absolute things in football. Goals win games. Trends come and go in football. There have been periods when teams favor a direct approach, such as during the 1990’s in the Premier League.
And others in which the merits of possession become relatively more important, such as the recent Barcelona-lead tiki-taka revolution. And yet the importance of goals never changes.
Traditionally, strikers have been the players most responsible for getting goals. Next to the goalkeeper, the position of centre-forward is arguably the one that comes with the most pressure. Mistakes by strikers means goals aren’t scored. And when goals aren’t scored, teams lose.
Today, we expect a lot more than goals from our strikers. As the game has decreased in physicality, positions are becoming less functional and players are expected to contribute more to general play, with centre-forwards being no exception to this.
Olivier Giroud is one such striker who’s affect on a game stretches far beyond the scoreboard. In spite of this, the Arsenal man still finds himself coming into criticism for not scoring enough goals. But as the game has changed so much, should we not also change what we expect from a striker?
The traditional centre-forward fits into one of two categories: ‘big man’ or ‘little man’. The big man’s job was to hold up the ball, provide an ‘out ball’ for his team and power in an array of headers. The little man tended to be faster and more nimble, operating on the shoulder of the last defender and always on the poach.
Aside from the fact that one’s big and one’s small, the two leading scorers in European football over the past few years, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, don’t fit into either of these molds.
Messi, perhaps the ultimate betrayer of the traditional centre-forward role, has been labeled a ‘false 9’ as he likes to start where strikers tend to, but invariably drops deep to pick up the ball. Ronaldo also shares this preference for having the space to run at the defence, but prefers to start off in a wider position.
With these non-strikers scoring so many goals, should we still be expecting our strikers to score as much?
The stats of Olivier Giroud would suggest not. Although he is Arsenal’s top scorer in the league with 12, this is not a very impressive tally considering Arsenal only play with one striker and are a team challenging for the league title.
But as well as scoring goals, Giroud is also provides them. The Frenchman also has the second most amount of assists at the club this season with seven, only one behind Mesut Ozil, the much lauded ‘king of assists’.
Giroud manages to provide so many assists because he does not simply loiter in the box as centre-forwards of old tended to do. His play is more nuanced than this, linking up the various lines of attack by receiving the ball from midfield and playing in teammates running beyond him. Judging the Frenchman on goals alone seems to crude a simplification to make.
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It’s surprising that in the shift to the ‘4-2-3-1’ formation that we’ve seen recently, the onus on the ‘one’ up front to score has reduced, rather than increased. But then this really shouldn’t be that shocking given that, in effect, there are now four forwards.
Chelsea perhaps provide the most clear example of this. When they have the ball, the four players up front essentially have a free role, with no one player remaining in front of goal and solely concentrating on finishing. While the toils of Torres et al. are well documented, a traditional centre-forward may not score as many goals as we’d expect in this system given it’s fluidity.
Goals may be the only absolute in football, but who scores and who provides them appears to be in flux. Assessing a striker on goals alone may no longer be a very good measure. If we accept that the game is changing, then we must also start changing how we judge our strikers.
Former Barcelona boss Pep Guardiola is set to have talks with AC Milan about the possibility of taking charge of the Serie A giants, according to reports in Italy.
Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport claim AC Milan club president Silvio Berlusconi wants to speak with Guardiola as the future of present boss Massimiliano Allegri remains in doubt.
Guardiola has been a long-term target for European Champions Chelsea but Carlo Mazzone, a close friend of the Spanish manager, claims Guardiola may only consider a return to management in Italy.
Mazzone told MilanNews.it: “He has friends here and was happy in Italy. If he does return then clearly it will be to coach a team of great technical potential with important objectives.
“I would be very happy if Pep returned to Italy. Where could he go? Milan or Inter – there isn’t exactly a vast choice. He has had his time in Spain and I think he could come here, though I don’t know whether it’ll be in a day, a year or five years.”
Guardiola made his name in management at Barcelona where he won 14 major trophies in just four seasons, including three La Liga titles, two Copa del Rey trophies and two Champions League triumphs.
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The Spaniard resigned as Barcelona boss at the end of last season and immediately stated he would be taking a year’s break from the game to recharge his batteries.
Tottenham Hotspur and German side Bayern Munich have also been linked with Guardiola but AC Milan now appear to be the front runners to secure his services.
One of the big transfer stories of this window could be related to Manchester United star Anthony Martial, particularly if he ends up at Liverpool.
There have not been any reports suggesting that the Merseyside outfit would consider making a move for the Frenchman, but the fans seem interested after the player’s agent dropped a big hint about his client’s future.
While speaking to RMC Sport, Martial’s representative Philippe Lamboley revealed that the attacker, who moved to Old Trafford from Monaco in 2015, “wants to leave” the club.
He went on to say that the “time has come” for his client to move on and has suggested that the Red Devils “do not really want to keep” him due to the fact that the two parties have not reached an agreement with regards to a contract extension.
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Martial struggled to hold down a regular place in Jose Mourinho’s team last season, starting just 26 games in all competitions.
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Tottenham Hotspur have been heavily linked with a swoop for the attacker, but Liverpool fans think their club should make an audacious bid.
Former Liverpool captain Jamie Carragher has taken a swipe at Arsenal’s January transfer business, claiming that the Gunners failed to address ‘the same old problems’.
Arsenal broke their transfer record to bring Borussia Dortmund forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to the Emirates Stadium on deadline day.
Aubameyang followed former Dortmund teammate Henrikh Mkhitaryan to the club, with the Armenian joining in the deal that saw Alexis Sanchez move to Manchester United.
Pundit Carragher, however, is astounded that head coach Arsene Wenger did not look to improve defensively during the winter window.
Indeed, the Gunners lost 3-1 at Swansea City in the Premier League on Tuesday night, with a couple of defensive errors costing the capital outfit once again.
Carragher has claimed that Arsenal ‘might actually get worse’ with their new January arrivals because more focus will be taken away from the defensive side of the match.
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Carragher told Sky Sports:
“My big problem with the transfers is the same old problems, we saw that midweek at Swansea. You just think, you are continually buying attacking players but seeing the old problems.
“The problems are not going away, and they’re not going away because of what’s happened January. They may actually get worse because there are more attacking players on the pitch.”
Arsenal will look to return to winning ways in the Premier League when they welcome Everton to the Emirates Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
Two Jack Wilshere-inspired goals in the space of a minute won Arsenal the game in their Premier League dust-up with Aston Villa.
The Gooner firstly tucked away Nacho Monreal’s pass with aplomb in the 35th minute, moments before turning provider for Oliver Giroud.
The away team took the foot of the gas in the second half, allowing Christian Benteke to score his first Premier League goal in 14 hours and 45 minutes with a spectacular diving header. However, the Villain’s couldn’t capitalise on their late surge, leaving Arsenal 2-1 victors.
The three points mean Arsene Wenger’s team sit proudly on top of the table.
Here’s what Twitter made of the game’s key moments…
5 MINUTES IN: GIROUD MISSES A HEADER FROM CLOSE RANGE
12 MINUTES IN: DELPH DRAGS A SHOT WIDE FROM THE EDGE OF THE AREA
34 MINUTES IN: JACK WILSHERE LATCHES ONTO NACHO MONREAL’S PASS TO SLOT HOME INSIDE THE FAR POST
35 MINUTES IN: GIROUD DOUBLES ARSENAL’S LEAD IN UNDER A MINUTE, PLUCKING THE BALL OUT OF THE YEAR AND DRILLING BEYOND BRAD GUZAN
JUST AFTER HALF-TIME: AFTER 17 YEARS AT THE CLUB, ARSENE WENGER STILL STRUGGLES TO DEAL WITH CLUB JACKET ZIPPER
https://vine.co/v/hL56BzJMx3g/embed/simple
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75 MINUTES IN – BENTEKE PULLS ONE BACK FOR THE HOSTS WITH A SPECTACULAR DIVING HEADER
85 MINUTES IN: ALEX OXLADE-CHAMBERLAIN RETURNS FOR ARSENAL
It’s often said that one of they factors to making any relationship work, is the ability for both parties to adhere to compromise. And perhaps to some extent, the relationship with Andre Villas-Boas and Tottenham Hotspur, could well be defined by how the Portuguese finds tactical common ground with his new football club.
Because although Villas-Boas is quite rightly looking to define his teams’ future by instilling his own ideologies and way of playing, you ultimately cannot erase the past. Not overnight, anyway.
As Spurs came out for the second half against Queens Park Ranger last Sunday a team transformed, you would have thought that come the end of the match, Villas-Boas would be jumping for joy at proceedings. You could perhaps argue that he was left scratching his head with more questions than answers, as Tottenham prospered under a traditional 4-4-2 set-up – quite some distance away from the tactical set-ups favoured by the ex-Porto man in his outings so far as Spurs boss.
Of course, there have been extenuating circumstances for Spurs so far this season. It’s been noted many times in these articles, but it’s an important observation that the 3-1 win away at Reading represented the first fixture in which Villas-Boas had the full set of players needed to make either a 4-3-3 or a 4-2-3-1 adequately work.
The Queens Park Rangers game did of course represent only Spurs fifth league game this season. Some could argue to the contrary, but considering the transfer market fuelled travails that the side faced during their first three fixtures, sitting one point behind Manchester City in the Premier League with eight in total, isn’t quite so bad after all.
Although despite the performance against Reading at the Madjeski and to a slightly lesser extent, the draw with Lazio in the Europa League, it feels difficult to shake an underlying feeling of disjointedness within this current starting XI. Where as some aspects, such as the deep midfield pairing of Moussa Dembele and Sandro have looked promising in the new look AVB set-up, more concerningly, the attacking unit of Spurs team hasn’t looked wholly comfortable.
The biggest worry so far, is perhaps undeniably Gareth Bale’s level of performance in a Spurs shirt. When switched to a traditional wide-left role against QPR on Sunday, the Welshman looked right back at home, delivering direct bursts of speed and trademark delivery in his usual deadly fashion. Villas-Boas’ deployment of Bale at left-back was of course a poor decision- he is too much of a potent asset going forward and judging by the way he played in the first-half, his heart didn’t seem to be in it anymore, either.
But it hasn’t just been Gareth Bale who’s looked off colour, either. Gylfi Sigurdsson, bar his part in Jermain Defoe’s first goal at the Madjeski, has struggled to make any form of impact as White Hart Lane as of yet. Aaron Lennon has foraged and harried well, but hasn’t sustained much of a continuous impact. It seems remarkable that a striker such as Defoe, can score four league goals in five games and still face questions, but his overall contribution as a lone frontman continues to be examined. On paper, Villas-Boas has the players to make a 4-2-3-1 or to the like, stick. Putting that into practice hasn’t quite been so easy.
The crux is ultimately, that Villas-Boas and the Spurs team must still be given serious time to adapt to change. It’s a phrase that be beginning to ring hollow in the ears of some, but making wholesale tactical and personnel changes such as what Tottenham Hotspur have undertaken, is a long journey indeed. But sooner or later, a tipping point will be reached. Quite when that tipping point will be reached, is a lot harder to say.
But if Villas-Boas can’t get his attacking unit to play, there’s absolutely no harm in finding a short-term compromise, at least till the January transfer window anyway. A second swoop for one Joao Moutinho certainly shouldn’t be ruled out, but although he was the most integral target to AVB’s plans that the club failed to attain, you can now understand why there was also such a concerted effort to bring Shakhtar Donetsk forward Willian to N17.
The team feels as if they need a forward thinking player with a little bit more tactical nous. Willian has the core technical skills and close control that Villas-Boas will crave, but perhaps more importantly, the tactical understanding to fit into his blueprint aswell. At times, Spurs’ forward unit has looked unsure of their responsibilities and roles within this team. The point remains that a large proportion of this team have yet to taste much past 4-4-2 or 4-4-1-1. Learning a new of playing will take time and while most will adapt, not all will perhaps prove as effective in a new style.
There is a feeling that the imminent return of Emmanuel Adebayor can breathe life and direction into this Spurs team. Some may find it absurd that Defoe, after his goalscoring run, could possibly be dropped. But the fortunes of the lone frontman are closely linked to that of the attacking three behind. It’s a sensitive subject at Spurs, but the team needs the whole side to profit and not just Defoe himself. The big Togolese can bring the best out of Sigurdsson, Bale, Lennon et al and he could catalyze the attacking side of AVB’s plans into life.
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But if Adebayor continues to struggle with fitness and Tottenham’s wingers keep misfiring, there’s no shame in finding an alternative way of playing. If 4-4-2 works a treat at home, why not deploy it from time to time? The chance to develop the long term tactical vision won’t disappear if he decides to revert back to a more traditional set-up every now and then. If the boss feels that he still doesn’t have the whole set of players to get the best out of his preferred set-up, then he can’t remain too stubborn in the face of adversity.
To quote Robert Burns, the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray. Villas-Boas can’t have foreseen how every player will perform in a new set-up. By all means give them time, but if he has to find an alternative until an opportunity comes to change it, then so be it.
Do you think compromise is key for Andre Villas-Boas and Tottenham Hotspur? Let me know how you view the current Spurs set-up and how you’d line the side up for the United game on Twitter: follow @samuel_antrobus and talk all things Tottenham.
According to France Football, Tottenham Hotspur want to sign Amiens midfielder Tanguy NDombele this summer as Mousa Dembele prepares to depart.
Dembele is widely expected to leave Spurs this summer despite a very impressive 2017-18 campaign with Mauricio Pochettino’s side.
Indeed, the Belgium international does not want to sign a new contract with Tottenham, and as a result, the Premier League team will be in the market for at least one new central midfielder ahead of the 2018-19 season.
Spurs are currently being linked with Amiens star NDombele, and it would be fair to say that the Tottenham fans want the deal to take place.
The 21-year-old provided seven assists in 35 Ligue 1 appearances on loan at Lyon last season, and a number of clubs are believed to be considering a move.
However, Dembele’s imminent departure has reportedly accelerated Tottenham’s interest.
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That said, Lyon are believed to have the chance to sign NDombele permanently this summer, which could make it very tough for Tottenham.
A selection of the Twitter reaction from the Spurs fans can be seen below: