Tag Futebol

Daniel Farke’s Norwich City right-back Max Aarons is attracting an increasing amount of interest ahead of the summer transfer window.

What’s the talk?

That’s according to transfer insider Fabrizio Romano, who, speaking on a recent episode of his Here We Go podcast (via Football League World), claimed that Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal have now joined the race for the 21-year-old.

The City star is also reported to be attracting interest from Manchester United, Bayern Munich, West Ham United and Everton this summer – with Norwich believed to be demanding a fee of around £30m to part with the England U21 international.

Fans will be gutted

While the sheer amount of interest in Aarons would appear to indicate that the right-back looks set to depart Carrow Road in the upcoming transfer window, the report of yet another side who intend to pinch the youngster away from the Canaries is nonetheless likely to come as gutting news for fans of the club.

Indeed, the £18m-rated defender has been influential to Norwich gaining promotion back to the Premier League in the season just past, with the 21-year-old scoring two goals, providing two assists and creating five big chances over his 45 Championship appearances, as well helping his side keep a whopping 17 clean sheets.

In addition, the right-back also made an average of 0.9 interceptions, 0.7 tackles and 1.4 key passes per game last term, culminating in an average SofaScore match rating of 6.97 – ranking him as Farke’s 12th-best performer in the second tier.

As such, if Aarons – who has been dubbed by Aidy Boothroyd as an “outstanding” player – is to move on to pastures new this summer, it would not appear to bode well for Norwich’s chances of retaining their status as a top-flight team come the end of next season, unless Stuart Webber can somehow find an apt replacement for the extremely talented 21-year-old.

In other news: Webber must seal NCFC deal for “unbelievable” £4.3k-p/w gem after major update emerges – opinion

In an exclusive interview with The Transfer Tavern, Rob Lee, who made 280 Premier League appearances, has claimed that he expects West Ham to receive bids for their star midfielder Declan Rice this summer.

Rice has been linked with a move to Manchester United and the midfielder is reportedly interested in the switch having spoken to England teammates about the club during the last round of international fixtures.

Before his injury, which was sustained while on international duty, Rice had not missed a single minute of Premier League football for the Hammers and his form was a big reason behind their push for a Champions League place.

Speaking on how he is expecting bids for Rice this summer and what could persuade more clubs to make a move for the midfielder, Lee exclusively told The Transfer Tavern:

“I think they’ll have to stave off bids for Declan Rice, especially if he does well at the Euros, which I fully expect him to do, then it’ll be a major talking point for them.

“If you said to David Moyes right now that Declan Rice will stay and they’ll sign Jesse Lingard and Tammy Abraham, I think he would take that. I think he would snap your hand off.”

Rice has long been linked with a move to Chelsea, where he was released as a youngster, but since Thomas Tuchel was appointed manager those rumours have died down.

West Ham are still in with a chance of qualifying for the Champions League, and the return of Michail Antonio will have been more than welcomed by David Moyes – especially after his brace in the 2-1 win against Burnley on Monday.

Speaking exclusively to Football FanCast, former Aston Villa midfielder Lee Hendrie has given the thumbs up to his old side bringing in a new striker this summer.

This season, Ollie Watkins has been the first-choice No.9 at the Midlands club and has led the line well, with the 25-year-old managing to get his name on the scoresheet last time out against Fulham – his 11th league goal.

Nevertheless, Villa could still move for a centre-forward in the next transfer window. According to The Telegraph, there is a desire at Villa Park to provide Watkins with some serious competition for the 2021/22 campaign.

It remains to be seen who the Premier League outfit end up bidding for, but the decision to target a striker in the first place is the right move for Hendrie.

On the rumours that Villa are likely to buy a new No.9 this summer, the retired midfielder told FFC:

“I think sometimes when you’re in a position where you haven’t really got to look over your shoulder and see who’s coming in, if you’re having a bad game or you’re not scoring goals [it can be a problem].

“I think that [competition] is healthy in a football club. I really do because it gets people on their toes, it gets reactions out of players. If you’re not playing well, you know the next man is coming in, so it keeps everyone on their toes and that’s important, it’s really important.

“Ollie Watkins has had a free season if you like, you know, there’s been injuries to Wesley, who’s struggling to get back to full fitness.”

As well as bringing in a centre-forward, The Telegraph reports that Villa could also add a winger to their squad as owners Nassef Sawiris and Wes Edens look to fully back manager Dean Smith.

According to recent reports, Leeds United have been handed a major setback to their hopes of landing Rodrigo de Paul this summer.

Having been heavily linked with a move to Elland Road last year, Marcelo Bielsa’s interest in the Udinese midfielder is not thought to have subsided over the course of the season, with Leeds once again being touted as a potential destination for the 26-year-old this summer.

However, according to a recent report by Italian outlet CalcioMercato, Inter Milan have now joined the race for the £31,000-per-week Argentina international, something which could represent a huge blow in Victor Orta’s pursuit of the midfielder, as De Paul is reported to be extremely keen on a move to I Nerazzurri, with Inter’s ability to offer Champions League football said to be a major factor.

Transfer Tavern Take

It is questionable whether Leeds are indeed still in the De Paul race, as Udinese are once again thought to be demanding a fee of around €35 million (£30.2 million) to part with the 26-year-old this summer, an amount of money which priced Bielsa’s side out a move last year.

Having said that, with a year of Premier League football very nearly behind them, something which is likely to have had a positive impact on the financial health of Leeds, perhaps the club would have been able to cough up for the midfielder this summer.

However, with Inter now having a seat at the table, in addition to Liverpool reportedly holding an interest, the demand for De Paul would appear rather more significant than 12 months ago.

In other news: Leeds United have been urged to sign this “highly sought-after” £31k-p/w star this summer – find out more here!

MatériaMais Notícias

O São Paulo definirá o futuro do meia Michel Bastos nesta segunda-feira, em uma reunião no CT da Barra Funda. O jogador está abalado pela má fase técnica e física e, principalmente, por ter sido agredido por torcedores organizados na invasão ao CT no último dia 27. A diretoria tomará uma decisão em conjunto após ouvir o jogador. O técnico Ricardo Gomes relata uma péssima fase de Michel, e que isso não é bom para nenhuma das partes.

– Michel tem contrato com o clube, é bom jogador, conheço bem, mas não está vivendo uma boa fase mental. Já cheguei com ele em baixa de forma, estou tentando recuperar, conversamos bastante com ele, mas ele está em dúvidas com relação… Ele está com muitas dúvidas, a chegada do Marco (Aurélio Cunha, diretor-executivo) vai nos ajudar nisso. Ainda não conto com ele. Vai depender dessa reunião de amanhã (segunda), vamos decidir sobre o caso Michel. Tem qualidade, mas está num nível de performance que não é boa nem para o São Paulo nem para ele – disse Ricardo Gomes, após a vitória sobre o Figueirense neste domingo, no Morumbi.

Michel Bastos tem contrato com o São Paulo até dezembro de 2017. Se comunicar à diretoria que não quer mais jogar pelo clube, haverá uma dificuldade para seu futuro. Isso porque ele já disputou sete jogos no Campeonato Brasileiro e não pode atuar mais na competição por outro clube. Além disso, a janela de transferências internacionais está fechada na maioria dos grandes centros. O que fazer?

RelacionadasBrasileirãoATUAÇÕES: Atacantes comandam a vitória do São Paulo. Vote!Brasileirão11/09/2016São PauloTrio de frente brilha, São Paulo bate o Figuera e respira no BrasileiroSão Paulo11/09/2016São PauloApresentados, Douglas e Robson têm pressa para ajudar o São PauloSão Paulo10/09/2016

A intenção do São Paulo era levar a situação do jogador até o fim do ano e depois negociá-lo. A diretoria tentou envolvê-lo em uma troca com Rafael Marques, do Palmeiras, mas as negociações foram brecadas quando o palmeirense fez o sétimo jogo no Nacional.

Michel não foi relacionado para o clássico contra o Palmeiras e nem para o duelo deste domingo contra o Figueirense. O meia de 32 anos virou o principal alvo da torcida e não é de agora. Durante a Libertadores, também foi perseguido e teve seu nome associado ao consumo de bebidas alcóolicas.

Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho has confirmed that Giovani Lo Celso has suffered an injury setback ahead of the Europa League clash against Dinamo Zagreb on Thursday night.

The Spurs midfielder returned to training ahead of the Premier League game against Crystal Palace at the weekend, with Mourinho suggesting that while he had an “opportunity” to make it in time for the Eagles, he was more likely to be in contention for the game against Zagreb.

However, speaking in his pre-match press conference ahead of the clash tonight, the Spurs boss has now revealed: “Gio is not ready but it’s nothing to do with his previous important injury, from which he’s totally recovered.

“But with his accumulation of work, his feelings are not the best at the moment, a little bit of some back pain so he’s had to stop working the way he was doing. So not for this match.”

It’s fair to say it’s been a strange old campaign for the midfielder, with numerous injuries and niggles restricting the £31.5m-rated gem to just 11 Premier League appearances amounting to only 436 minutes of action – frustratingly for both manager and player, he’s completed the full 90 minutes in just two games all year.

Just last season, Lo Celso’s Spurs teammate Harry Winks waxed lyrical about the Argentine’s ability, saying: “It took him a while to get used to all the intensity and the aggression of the league but he’s flying now and he’s been fantastic.

“He is a technically gifted player. But he is not afraid to get stuck in when he needs to as well.”

Sadly for both him and Spurs, things just haven’t quite panned out as they would have wanted this time around.

Lo Celso’s latest setback will surely just add to Mourinho’s concerns and worries over the midfielder – there’s nothing more frustrating than having an injury-prone player who continues=s to break down just when you think they’re ready to be welcomed back into the fold.

With the north London derby on Sunday against Arsenal, there was every chance that Lo Celso could well have played a part, or even started against Zagreb tonight in order to perhaps rest some of the Lilywhites’ other key stars who have had a busy few weeks.

Instead, Mourinho will be forced into sticking to a familiar eleven, and Lo Celso, who he likely thought was going to be ready to feature tonight, has now just added to his worries.

Meanwhile, Spurs should start this £16.2m-rated gem tonight…

According to a report by Ian Ladyman of the Daily Mail, via City Xtra, the Sky Blues and Pep Guardiola are in the running for three star names – with Erling Haaland apparently destined for Man City, the Lionel Messi conversation not yet closed and Jack Grealish touted by ‘good sources’.

It has been quite the stellar campaign for City over 2020/2021, with a Manchester derby looming on Sunday after 21 straight wins in all competitions.

Guardiola’s men haven’t lost a match since their 2-0 defeat away to Spurs last November, meanwhile West Brom were the last team to take a point off them in the Premier League.

Regardless of their electric season, with City still fighting on all four fronts, transfer news for the summer window is already emerging as Ladyman brings this promising update.

Indeed, the Mail journalist has revealed that Haaland is ‘destined’ for City, meanwhile the Messi conversation is not yet closed and Grealish’s name has reappeared from trusted source.

Flocking to this news, plenty of Man City fans had their say – find all of their best verdicts down below.

Man City fans wowed as transfer news emerges

“OMDS”

Credit: @Saneologist

“Grealish and Haaland is what dreams are made of.”

Credit: @ThomasSowell90

“PLEASE HAPPEN

I think we are serious on £110M + deal”

Credit: @MayaMCFC

“PLEASE”

Credit: @MCFCAJ10

“Very very interesting”

Credit: @FAZZAAAAAHHH

“Oh my”

Credit: @Pricelesskevin

“OMG GREALISH AND HAALAND”

Credit: @SilkyCyrus_74

“Please get Grealish and Haaland I beg!!!”

Credit: @KDBinhoo

In other news: Man City fans also flocked to this Romano claim, find out more here.

Manchester City are reportedly considering a January move for Rochdale winger Kwadwo Baah, and the 18-year-old could prove to be a superb addition for the future.

What’s the word?

According to journalist Mike McGrath on Twitter, City have approached Dale for Baah, who is attracting interest from plenty of sides, whilst any potential deal for the teenager would likely see him return to the League One side on loan for the rest of the season.

Fellow journalist Chris Fitzgerald has also suggested that City have submitted a bid for the 18-year-old, so perhaps we could see him make the move to the Etihad before the end of the transfer window.

Would he be a good signing?

Baah first established himself in the Dale first-team as a 16-year-old and has gone on to make 27 appearances for the club, contributing three goals and two assists.

All of those goals and assists have come this season in League One, with the teenager having become a regular in Brian Barry-Murphy’s side in recent weeks.

His first professional goal was one to remember, as he smashed a shot into the top corner in the 5-0 win against Wigan Athletic in December, which was perhaps when bigger teams started to take notice of the youngster.

He then followed that up with two more superb goals in the 4-4 draw with Charlton Athletic recently, with the first an unbelievable finish on the run, whilst the second was a testament to the winger’s pace, power, and finishing ability.

Manager Barry-Murphy was full of praise for the youngster after his goal and performance in the win against Wigan, saying:

“He’s a very special talent, he’s going to attract the headlines – and rightly so because he’s a very dangerous player.”

It is no surprise, therefore, that he is attracting interest from Europe, with The Athletic claiming that the likes of Bayern Munich and Juventus are also looking into signing him.

However, if City can steal the march on those sides and sign him this month, then he could certainly prove to be a great player for the Citizens in the future, if he can live up to his potential.

It wouldn’t cost Txiki Begiristain too much to bring him, due to Baah’s contract being up in the summer, as well as Dale struggling financially, so this looks like a deal that City should definitely try and complete before the window shuts.

And, in other news… Txiki can sign Pep’s next Walker at City with swoop for “fearless” £18m-rated speedster

He’s in the best form of his Tottenham Hotspur career right now, which is good news for Jose Mourinho heading into tonight’s competitive Premier League encounter with Liverpool.

Tanguy Ndombele has fully turned around his Spurs career in north London, and he can cap it all off with a performance against the defending champions at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

The 24-year-old monster was benched for their FA Cup fourth-round win over Championship minnows Wycombe on Monday night, but it was his influence from the bench that swung a turgid game in their favour.

He must come straight back into the starting XI this evening as he could be the man to exploit the Reds’ biggest weakness right now…

On the Chalkboard

Jurgen Klopp’s men aren’t putting up the best title defence as they find themselves in fifth place, some six points behind league leaders Man City, who’ll have a game in hand after this evening.

Spurs can leapfrog them into fourth place with a victory and Ndombele could prove vital towards their chances of picking up those three points.

Indeed, the club-record signing is finally showing signs of why Daniel Levy sanctioned a whopping £55m on his signature – in his last two outings, he’s scored three goals, taking his total to six for the season on top of three assists, per Transfermarkt.

He has usurped his two goals and four assists from last campaign and surpassed the 1,446 minutes he played throughout the entire duration of his tumultuous maiden season in N17.

He’s fit, firing and in red-hot form right now.

[snack-amp-story url=”https://www.footballfancast.com/web-stories/read-this-weeks-latest-spurs-news-and-transfer-rumours” title= Read this week’s latest Spurs news, transfer rumours and more…”]

Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson has missed their last two Premier League fixtures. While he returned to training on Tuesday, he will be assessed before a decision is made on whether or not he can start in north London tonight.

If absent, it means there’s no real defensive midfield presence as Fabinho is a shoo-in to continue at centre-back given their mounting injury list.

Ndombele can exploit that void by being deployed as a no.10 and even if the Reds skipper is back, given the form the Frenchman is in, he could still punish Henderson on his first start back.

The €40m-rated (£36m) maestro tops the charts for dribbles per 90 minutes at Spurs, managing 2.9, which is almost double the next best for players that have played at least ten times with Harry Kane (1.5), Heung-min Son (1) and Lucas Moura (1), per WhoScored.

It means he’s capable of breaching the opposition’s block and press with relative ease. He has a 100% take-on success rate from the defensive midfield spot and an 85% success rate in the advanced role too.

His work-rate off-the-ball has also increased tenfold – he’s now able to play longer than an hour. Indeed, he’s surpassed 70 minutes in their last four league outings, while he’s almost quadrupled the number of high-intensity sprints from 32 in 2019/20 to 124 in 2020/21.

It’s this energy that makes him such a crucial part of Mourinho’s counter-attacking game, something that will need to be achieved to a tee to defeat Liverpool tonight.

During Monday’s win, Joe Hart turned to the BT Sport crew and delivered his verdict mid-game on Ndombele, dubbing him a “world-beater” and “unplayable,” as revealed by Rio Ferdinand in their post-game analysis.

Now ranking fourth in the Spurs squad for average WhoScored rating, Ndombele has fully transformed his career in north London and has become their game-changer in recent weeks.

He should be the first name on the team sheet tonight.

Mourinho must unleash the box-to-box dynamo on Liverpool for their best chance of picking up a result.

AND in other news, Spurs can find their next Alli in £25m “god-given” talent…

West Brom are still without that holding midfielder addition and with a little over a week remaining in the transfer window, Sam Allardyce needs to strike soon.

One interesting name that has emerged since the turn of the year is promising Leicester City ace Hamza Choudhury, who the Baggies were hopeful to bring in only ten days ago as he’s Big Sam’s no.1 target, as per the Express & Star.

Foxes boss Brendan Rodgers would prefer a permanent exit, but with deadline day in sight and the player favouring a switch the Hawthorns, push could come to shove sooner rather than later over the £60k-per-week talent…

On the Chalkboard

Indeed, if Allardyce were to finally secure the 23-year-old midfielder, he’s likely to come straight into the starting XI otherwise the 66-year-old will have wasted their final domestic loan spot on a back-up.

It means that one of the Baggies’ current options is in grave danger of losing his place and perhaps ruthlessly, that may well be skipper Jake Livermore.

The 31-year-old stalwart has already angered Big Sam to the point of him nearly stripping Livermore of the captaincy. This came after the £10m man received his marching orders in a crucial derby against Aston Villa, this also being the first match of the Allardyce era.

Even aside from that, the former Spurs and Hull midfielder has been one of West Brom’s worst performers in the Premier League this term.

Livermore’s WhoScored rating of 6.19 ranks him last of any Albion player to start ten or matches, that’s even behind other underperformers such as Branislav Ivanovic and Matty Phillips.

No other regular has managed as many fouls (two per game) as the tough-tackling captain, whilst a passing accuracy of 72.9% is the worst of any Baggies midfielder too – and that should be his bread and butter.

The addition of Choudhury would merely give Allardyce reason to drop him at long last – it’s not like there’s currently any real competition pushing him on to do better.

Despite not being given regular game time at the King Power Stadium, Choudhury has shown his quality in glimpses, leading to Gary Lineker dubbing him an “extremely talented young player,” while former coach Steve Walsh once tipped him for international stardom in an exclusive interview with Football FanCast.

During the 2018/19 season, when he was last given an actual run of matches, the British Asian powerhouse averaged 2.7 tackles and 1.7 interceptions per game, which easily puts him above what Livermore has achieved this season.

The £7.2m-rated enforcer would be a most-welcome addition if the Baggies can secure a temporary deal – after all, he won’t have to relocate if he’s based in the Midlands.

AND in other news, West Brom dealt potential transfer boost in striker pursuit…