England fans will know exactly how devastating Mesut Ozil can be when he’s in form. Unfortunately, Real Madrid just doesn’t seem to have been the right place for him to further his career (as has often been the case for players over the last decade). El Mundo Deportivo has reported that Ozil has grown increasingly discontent over the last couple of weeks at Real Madrid and is seriously considering a move away from the Bernabeu.
It’s difficult to know how much truth there is to their claims. It’s certainly true that he hasn’t enjoyed his best form over the past couple of months. Then there’s the spectre of Kaka , who has slowly but surely started to rediscover some of the form that had him lauded as one of the world’s best players just a couple of years ago.
It could well be the case that Mesut has decided he’s no longer satisfied with spending time on the bench (he’s yet to complete a full 90 minutes this season) and is looking to join a team where he’d be playing week in and week out.
Furthermore, his Dad recently made some strange comments regarding the set-up of this Real Madrid team. Comments that might find him somewhat ostracised at the club. He said:
“My son runs between 12 and 14 kilometres every game, collects the ball deep and then distributes it forward, which requires much expenditure of energy. Look at how Barca play. There they have 10 players working for Messi. At Real Madrid, Mesut wears the same No 10 [shirt] but the rest don’t work for him.”
Inter Milan are said to be interested in the player, whilst Ozil himself has confessed (back in 2009): “my dream is to play for Barcelona ”. Given that Barca recently bought Cesc Fabregas I can’t see them making any further additions in this area. So could Ozil be tempted by a move to the Premier League?
Arsenal are in desperate need of replacing Cesc Fabregas and Ozil seems to fit the bill. Manchester United were thought to be seeking a replacement for Scholes over the summer and may still be in the market this January.
Given that Real Madrid have Sami Khedira, Xaxi Alonso and Kaka to play in Ozil’s position, it’s plausible that they’d be willing to let him go to a Premier League side.
Is it worth Manchester United or Arsenal making a bid during the January transfer window? I could see Arsenal really benefiting from a signing of this quality.
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Article courtesy of Harry Cloke from This is Futbol
I don’t live in Manchester. I don’t support Manchester City. Nor do I have any Italian blood coursing through my veins. Yet I absolutely love Mario Balotelli . Just when you think he has mellowed out, and is becoming a professional he will do something remarkably stupid and remind you he is Super Mario. In this article I will examine the reasons why we the Premier League has fallen in love with the enigma that is Mario Balotelli .
A journalist’s dream, Balotelli is not afraid to speak his opinion, even when it might result in him facing disciplinary action. He is as eccentric as he is talented, and put together it makes him an intriguing and affable footballer. His rise to prominence is unique, born to Ghanaian immigrants in Palermo he was fostered by the Balotelli family and took their name. Being a black Italian who has risen to prominence it has not been a big surprise to see him face racial abuse from Italian fans.
The most high profile example would be during a 1-1 draw with Juventus where the Juventus fans chanted ‘a black Italian doesn’t exist’ at Balotelli. It is this bizarre upbringing and the unique challenges ‘Super Mario’ has faced which have turned him into such an eccentric character. Balotelli ensured he wouldn’t last long at Inter Milan when he wore the shirt of arch rivals AC Milan on national TV, yet this was to be to the gain of the Premier League as Roberto Mancini signed him for Manchester City.
Upon signing for Manchester City for around £24 million, Mancini assured the Manchester City fans by stating:
‘He is a strong and exciting player, and City fans will enjoy watching him.’
He wasn’t wrong there, if Mario Balotelli is anything, he’s exciting. He’s been worth every penny for Manchester City as the club has made the Champions League for the first time, and after a Man of the Match performance in the final, the first trophy for 35 years.
Yet, despite this fantastic talent, it is off the pitch where Balotelli really comes into his own. He is completely insane, and it is essential viewing. Driving a child from the training ground to confront his bully, throwing water balloons at FIFA delegates and driving around Manchester in his Bentley high-fiving City fans. The man is hilarious, and brings the fun back into football. He’s wonderfully unprofessional, and brings discussion from those who don’t care or follow football.
The reaction in every pub to Balotelli’s t shirt asking the question ‘Why Always Me?’ was one of pure hilarity. Let’s remember that football is a game, and we want characters to entertain us. Imagine watching a team with its most entertaining character being Michael Owen , there would be no entertainment, and this is what Balotelli gives us – a welcome relief.
There is one more improvement for Balotelli to make, and that is to get on Twitter, as that would be fantastic viewing.
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Article courtesy of George McNeil from This is Futbol
Veteran Liverpool defender Jamie Carragher is set to hold his hand up for selection against Chelsea at the weekend, as the former England international has recovered from injury.
The 33-year-old has been on the sidelines after picking up a thigh injury against Stoke in the Carling Cup last month, and has been absent for The Reds’ last two games.
However Anfield first-team coach Steve Clark feels that Carragher has made sufficient progress to be considered for selection in the game at Stamford Bridge.
“Jamie has joined in training over the last couple of days and looked good,” Clarke told the club’s official website.
“He was out for a couple of weeks with a minor calf injury. We just made sure he took his time, recovered from it, and he’s trained well these past couple of days.
“He’ll be in contention for the weekend if there are no mishaps between now and the game,” the trainer concluded.
The match in London on Sunday starts a tricky period for the Merseyside club, with another trip to Stamford Bridge to take on The Blues in the Carling Cup and a home game against Manchester City also in the pipeline over the next fortnight.
Kenny Dalglish’s men have looked devoid of leadership with Carragher and Steven Gerrard on the sidelines, and the defender’s return to fitness is a real boost for Liverpool.
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Tottenham are set to beat their North London rivals to the signature of Ajax central defender Jan Vertonghen, according to the Daily Mail.
Spurs officials have apparently held initial talks with the Dutch giants over a possible £10million deal for the Belgian international who was made Ajax captain this season. Doubts remain over whether the defender will sign a new deal in Holland and so Spurs have made their move.
Vertonghen was introduced to the Ajax first team by current Fulham manager Martin Jol who believed he could become one of the top defenders in Europe.
The arrival of Vertonghen will see the end of Sebastian Bassong’s White Hart Lane nightmare and will give competition to the injury prone trio Michael Dawson, Ledley King and William Gallas. Strength in depth could be key to Tottenham’s Champions League qualification next season ahead of their North London rivals.
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Arsene Wenger is currently satisfied with his centre half pair and has other concerns in his Arsenal squad to deal with in January. However, if the money is available Wenger could be interested in adding Vertonghen as his injury prone squad approaches a tough second half of the season as they try to finish above their rivals Spurs.
With the Premier League season reaching the half way point, supporters are in the perfect position to assess their team’s performances and the areas in which their football club need to improve. Once again the Premier League has been broken up into three tiers, with each team facing their own private battle.
Unlike previous years there has certainly been some stability on the managerial front with only Steve Bruce succumbing to the bullet so far, as clubs look to show patience with their managers to turn around their current plights. The managers may not be so patient with players at their disposal and may look to make significant changes in the January transfer window.
The January transfer window is loved and loathed in equal measures, with many managers and supporters alike welcoming the opportunity to freshen things up, while others see it as a source of distraction. History shows it is a renowned place for panic buying, as last January certainly proved, but there have been notable successes in the past that shows it can be a significant period to turn around a club’s fortunes. I feel the African Cup of Nations and the unprecedented amount of long term injuries we have seen will force many club’s hands and subsequently we can expect to see another expensive month for many Premier League chairman.
So how do you feel about Tottenham’s fortunes so far this season and would you look to see changes made this January window? Who would you like to see brought in and ultimately who would you like to see moved out in the coming weeks?
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The latest rumours doing the rounds involving Kenny Dalglish’s Liverpool side include bids for both Tottenham’s Jermain Defoe and Swansea’s Scott Sinclair. It has become clear over recent weeks what the club’s achilles heel will be in their race for fourth and where their focus lies for the remainder of the January transfer window – adding pace to a side completely devoid of any.
Liverpool are still a club in transition it’s worth remembering. Frustrating results like the countless home draws this season, the weekend’s latest example against Stoke merely adding to the mounting evidence, are unfortunately just par of the course. Those fans that expected a top four finish were in dreamland. The rebuilding project entrusted to Roy Hodgson at the beginning of last season is now only beginning to truly take form and get back on track – Hodgson’s tenure was but a bump in the road, albeit a fairly hefty one.
The expensive acquisitions of Andy Carroll, Jordan Henderson, Stewart Downing and Luis Suarez in the last year have prompted an overhaul of what was a deeply average and somewhat threadbare squad inherited by Dalglish’s predecessor from Rafa Benitez.
As will inevitably happen when so many fresh faces move to a club in a relatively short space of time, a period of leniency has to be afforded to those gelling into their new surroundings. Of Dalglish’s signings for instance, Enrique, Suarez and Bellamy have flourished; Henderson and Adam have been decent whereas Carroll and Downing have struggled terribly, to put it politely.
The main problem Liverpool have had this season has been being able to put the ball in the back of the net on a consistent basis. The club have scored a measly 24 goals in 21 league engagements this campaign so far. That is less than Bolton, Blackburn and Sunderland. The club’s top scorer is Luis Suarez with just five goals to show for all of his talent and ingeniously dynamic play. Something is clearly awry.
A mixture of poor finishing and mesmeric goalkeeping has been laid as reasons partly responsible for the club’s laboured home form which has seen them draw seven of their eleven games. While both of those are certainly true to an extent, perhaps they’re only two factors in part of a wider, more systematic problem.
Liverpool are an almost chronically slow side. They are by far the slowest side in the top half of the Premier League table at present. That in turn makes them far easier to play against and makes it far more difficult for them to break you down, exploiting space in behind the defence.
The one thing we are often told that defenders don’t like playing against is raw pace. Would the likes of Obertan, Walcott and Wright-Phillips even be professional footballers without it? In today’s modern game, pace is essential to the success of any side. Indeed, the foundations of Swansea’s efforts to compound their pre-season expectations has been, above all, their pace out wide with the likes of Dyer, Sinclair and Routledge crucial. For without it, they are merely a toothless side with lots of possession and no cutting edge.
Look around the Liverpool squad – where does the pace come from? Who is the club’s quickest player? Are they even a regular? The side that started against Stoke included five defenders, three central midfielders, and two wingers in a variant of the 3-6-1 formation which had proved so successful in the same fixture last season.
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An attacking line-up of Dirk Kuyt, Charlie Adam, Steven Gerrard, Stewart Downing and Jordan Henderson, with Johnson and Enrique in support as wing backs offers no plan B. It relies in creativity, clever movement and the ability to create space. In short, three things Luis Suarez is fantastic at which is why he is so crucial to Liverpool’s style of play. Without him, plan A doesn’t work as well and plan B, which is apparently lumping it up to Carroll, has shown no signs of working so far.
Craig Bellamy has been superb when called upon this season, but a knee injury prevents him from playing two games in quick succession. He is undoubtedly quick and direct, two characteristics in short supply elsewhere in the squad. When Bellmay doesn’t play, there is no like-for-like replacement, rather a slower, watered down version instead and the side looks far less dangerous as a result.
Rafael Benitez always seemed inherently distrustful of any player with any semblance of pace. It was like he couldn’t fully control them and factor them into his tightly-knit tactical plans and so they were left by the wayside in favour of steadier, more disciplined disciples.
Dalglish has assembled, at great cost, a side without a get-out ball. However, the difference is, is that you get the feeling that with Dalglish, it was somehow done by accident, which is why they are rumoured to be looking at quicker players this transfer window.
Liverpool are still a club in transition; a salient point worth remembering and reminding those emplacing lofty expectations on this side. What is also worth noting, though, is that the way Dalglish has been backed in the transfer market to date has all been based on the precondition that the club achieve Champions League football this season, therefore heading off any losses that they may incur along the intervening period. Failure to do so would be a huge blow and certainly prompt the boardroom to cut their cloth accordingly in terms of investment in the playing staff.
In order to turn those draws into wins and ensure a place in Europe’s top club competition next season, Liverpool must add a degree of pace to their side, whether it be out wide, up top of through the middle, otherwise, they will continue to frustrate as often as they delight, they will continue to fail to deliver on their undoubted promise and they will continue to struggle to break down some of the league’s lesser lights and more stubborn opponents.
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It has become a norm in the modern game to see players with high expectations become lost or fall short along the way their playing career, but you have to look at the implications of John Obi Mikel’s move to Chelsea when he joined.
Did he go to Chelsea because he thought he would get first team football, or did he see it as a opportunity to be part of a big club and move away from the Norwegian side, Lyn Oslo?
There was a huge buzz surrounding John Obi Mikel as a young up and coming talent. The Nigerian international took the world by storm at the FIFA Youth World Championships in Nigeria, 2005, warranting him the right to be one of the most highly anticipated prospects in world football.
He epitomised his worth at the Under 17s FIFA World Cup with extraordinary performances through the tournament, the 24 year old was given the ‘Silver Ball’ after his team were runners ups to Argentina in the finals, which is not bad considering he came second to Lionel Messi .
Teams that paid special attention to Mikel’s progress were the Premier League’s top teams at the time, Manchester United and Chelsea.
The Nigerian born midfielder came to England with huge expectations, and it was clear that top teams around Europe had the young midfielder on their radar.
Since Mikel’s controversial move to Stamford Bridge in 2006, it’s fair to say that he has found it hard to establish himself as the top class player many football critics made him out to be. Jose Mourinho was adamant in finding a replacement for Makelele, and after impressing in a first team training session with Chelsea he believed the likes of John Obi Mikel would suit the mould.
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However, since then, the Chelsea midfielder has seen four managers come and go which has clearly not helped his development and his stability at the club. Furthermore, His failure to cement a primary role has proved costly to his position in the national side. The former Nigerian coach Samson Siasia said, “Sincerely Mikel is not the same player that I knew in 2005, when we finished second behind Argentina in the U20 World Cup.”
His commitment to the national side was brought into question after he was dropped from the Nigerian squad for not attending qualifying rounds during the African Nations and Olympics.
If we are talking about personal development, it would be silly to write off the man management skills of Jose Mourinho, but in all sincerity, Sir Alex Ferguson would have been the ideal candidate to taking Mikel’s football to the next level. United’s permanence at the time would have been enough to nurture John Obi Mikel into the player everyone expected him to be.
The Nigerian international has looked good in patches for the West London side, but if the truth be told it can argue that he has not succeeded in reaching his full potential. However, we’ve seen the likes of Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo and Nani exceed all expectations at United simply because of the faith Ferguson has showed in them.
Could the same be said for Mikel at Chelsea? Michael Essien has returned from injury and new manager Andres Villas Boas has brought in the likes of Oriol Romeu from Barcelona and Raul Miereles from Liverpool.
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Although it seems that the Portuguese manager had opted for the Super Eagle in his first team, injuries in the last few weeks may cost him his position again. The 24 year old has been declared fit for the West Bromwich Albion for the weekend and with 18 appearances for Chelsea this season already he’ll be hoping to win his new manager over again.
Former Southampton player Jo Tessem, who worked with Mikel at Lyn Olso, said “He could go straight into a top Premiership club”. He’s done the hard part but six years down the line he is yet to fulfil his full potential as a complete midfielder.
Nonetheless, a move to Old Trafford would have not done his credentials at a young age any harm whatsoever, Mikel will have been at the club for 6 years now and despite his presence in stature, Chelsea fans will be the first to tell you he is not as great as he was made out to be.
Manchester United are through to the Europa League last 16, despite being beaten 2-1 at home by Ajax on Thursday.
The Premier League leaders had a comfortable 2-0 advantage from the first leg, and Javier Hernandez put them in an even more commanding position with an early goal at Old Trafford.
However, strikes from Aras Ozbiliz and Toby Alderweireld gave the home faithful a nervy last couple of minutes, but the English team held on to secure a place in the next round.
Returning defender Phil Jones admitted that his side were not good enough, and will need to improve for the rest of the season.
“I don’t think we were at our best tonight,” Jones told Sky Sports.
“We got off to a great start, scored and seemed to be in control of the game.
“But a little bit of complacency set in. We should have won the game and we will review our performance tomorrow and take it from there.
“The manager said at half-time we’ve got to up the tempo and we didn’t do that for whatever reasons. We weren’t good enough in the second half, nowhere near.
“We’ve lost the game tonight and we’re bitterly disappointed,” he stated.
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The Red Devils take on Athletic Bilbao in the next round of the tournament, and have a Premier League fixture against Norwich to worry about this Sunday.
Bolton manager Owen Coyle has stated that his side would have withdrawn from the FA Cup had Fabrice Muamba’s health not recovered of late.
The midfielder collapsed in the FA Cup clash in north London ten days ago, with a heart attack almost claiming his life.
The Trotters return to take on Tottenham again on Tuesday night, after the first showing was abandoned, and Coyle has stated that Muamba’s health is the most important thing.
“It will be emotional, absolutely,” Coyle admitted in a press conference, documented by Mirror Football.
“The reason the game goes ahead is very simply because Fabrice is improving.
“Some of the lads have seen Fabrice briefly – Kevin Davies, Nigel Reo-Coker, Mark Davies and Darren Pratley. When you visit, you only get 30 seconds or a minute. They have all represented the boys and told them how he is.
“Last Saturday night, a lot of people feared the worst. We are going back to where the events took place and there were a lot of young players – and older ones.
“Some people react differently, so there will be a lot of emotion in it. However it is also a night to say thanks to people who helped. It is a great thing for both sides.
“There were the fans – both sets – the Tottenham medical staff, the cardiologist who came out of the stands. It was just incredible.
“You expect all Bolton fans to wish Fabrice well when it happened, but the Tottenham fans did too. It was like a sixth sense with them. They were all willing him to get up.
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“Every little bit has helped him as everyone willed him to get better,” the Scot concluded.
Liverpool forward Luis Suarez has maintained that he will not leave the Merseyside club in the summer, and is delighted to have made the FA Cup final.
The Uruguay international has been the subject of media criticism due to being banned for eight games for racist remarks he made to Manchester United defender Patrice Evra, and has been linked with an Anfield exit.
However, the South American has confirmed that he has no plans to leave Kenny Dalglish’s men.
“Yes, yes I will continue at Liverpool,” he told The Telegraph.
“It is obvious I will continue. I have four years left on my contract and I am very happy and content to be here and I hope good things continue.
“I am over that (the eight-match ban). Obviously the important thing was the support from all the people and there is no need to talk about that as it is already in the past.
“Obviously one has to be used to all this. A lot of things happen in football. It’s difficult and it’s complicated but you have to deal with it,” he continued.
Suarez scored the Reds’ equaliser against Everton in the FA Cup semi-final on Saturday, and was happy to win the match in front of his family.
“My joy was for my wife and my daughter and my sister and niece who came from Uruguay and my father-in-law who came from Barcelona.
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“They made a huge effort to be here so my joy was for all the sacrifices they make for me not to mention of course the sacrifices by all the people from Liverpool and all the support they’ve given us despite not having good moments in recent times,” he concluded.