Former Chelsea boss Ruud Gullit has urged the Stamford Bridge club to try once-more to sign Luka Modric from Tottenham come the January transfer window.
Andre Villas Boas’ men had at least three bids for the Croatian midfielder rejected by Spurs chairman Daniel Levy over the summer, with a deadline day offer of £40 million knocked back by the White Hart Lane outfit.
Despite this, and Modric’s willingness to continue to play for Harry Redknapp’s team despite the speculation, the Dutch coach feels another attempt should be made to pry the playmaker away from Spurs come the new year.
“The player Chelsea still need, for me, is Modric,” Gullit told Mirror Football.
“They have great players all around the pitch but he has something Chelsea doesn’t have at the moment. He is creative and dominates the passing game in the midfield – he could be like Xavi or Iniesta are to Barcelona.
“I was surprised Tottenham didn’t accept £40m because they are known to sell their best players for good offers. I think Chelsea will try to sign Modric again in January and maybe this time they will get him,” he concluded.
Harry Redknapp has previously stated that Modric is pivotal in Spurs’ development as a team, and the North London side are reportedly set to offer the Eastern European a pay rise to keep his suitors at bay.
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Manchester United travel to the Stade Velodrome on Wednesday for a Champions League round-of-16 tie against French champions Marseille.United have an impressive recent pedigree in European competition. They won the tournament in 2008 and reached the final the following season before losing to Barcelona.In 2010, United dispatched Italian giants AC Milan to set-up a quarter-final with Bayern Munich. They appeared to be cruising towards a fourth successive semi-final berth before losing Wayne Rooney to an ankle injury. Strikes from Arjen Robben and Ivica Olic helped Bayern dump United out 4-4 on the away goals and without Rooney they stumbled to second place in the English Premier League behind Chelsea.They lead the league table by four points ahead of Arsenal this season and have only lost twice in all competitions. Marseille captured the French league championship for the first time in 18 years under coach Didier Deschamps last year and are three points behind Ligue 1 leaders Lille this season.They have won five of their last six in all competitions, are unbeaten at home in 12 matches and could prove a difficult prospect for a United team who were less than convincing in their 1-0 win over non-league Crawley Town in the FA Cup on Saturday.Marseille will be without midfielder Mathieu Valbuena, who has been sidelined since January, leaving Benoit Cheyrou and Lucho Gonzalez as the key men in the middle of the pitch. Striker Andre-Pierre Gignac is also out after picking up a groin strain, forcing Deschamps to sweat on the fitness of forwards Luc Remy and Brandao. United have a number of long-term absentees still on the sidelines, including midfielders Park Ji-Sung, Antonio Valencia and Owen Hargreaves. And the news got worse on Tuesday with Ryan Giggs and centre-back Rio Ferdinand among seven players ruled out of the trip. With fellow defender Jonny Evans also out, Chris Smalling will be expected to deputize alongside Nemanja Vidic.
Werder Bremen have denied receiving any offers for Germany World Cup star Mesut Ozil.
The 21-year-old playmaker has been one of the standout performers in Germany's impressive march to the semi-finals in South Africa.
Spanish giants Barcelona and several Premier League clubs, including Chelsea and Manchester City, are reported to be interested in signing the former under-21 international.
However, manager Klaus Allofs has denied reports that the Bundesliga club have already started to fend off official interest from suitors.
"Mesut had appeared in the focus of clubs before the World Cup had kicked off," he said."Now he is playing a fantastic World Cup campaign, this is definitely increasing interest.
"But when it comes down to concrete bids, nothing has been done. We want him to stay on and actually there is no news. There are no indications he does not want to see out his contract at our club."
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Ozil has scored one goal in five World Cup appearances for Germany in South Africa.Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
Chelsea are set to rival Arsenal and Fulham for the signature of Brighton star Lewis Dunk, the Metro understands, after the 19-year-old defender has established himself in Gus Poyet’s side.
Dunk, a product of the Seagulls’ academy, has impressed for Poyet’s side after the Uruguayan was forced into playing the teenager due a host of injuries to key defenders, including Adam El- Abd and Tommy Elphick.
A string of eye-catching performances alongside captain Gordan Greer in the heart of defence have seen his stock rise considerably after Brighton’s strong start to the season.
With a reputation as a tough, no-nonsense defender Dunk has proved to be unfazed by the physicality of the Championship and has attracted admiring glances from the Premier League.
Arsenal and Fulham have already sent scouts to the Amex Stadium to watch the defender in action during last week’s Carling Cup defeat to Liverpool. Chelsea, who have followed Dunk’s progress through the ranks, had representatives watching him in Friday’s draw against Leeds.
Despite his emergence as a first team regular on the South Coast and Poyet’s eagerness to build a team capable of a promotion push it’s thought a bid of £5 million would be enough to see him leave the club, with further scouting trips expected from all the interested parties.
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Claudio Ranieri is adamant he will not resign from Roma despite protests calling for the coach’s removal on Saturday.About 200 fans had to be dispersed by police after they hurled fireworks and flares into Roma’s training ground on Saturday morning, angered by the Serie A club’s run of poor form.Roma were defeated 3-2 at home by Ukrainian outfit Shakhtar Donetsk in the Europa League on Wednesday, and sit a lowly eighth in the Italian league following back-to-back losses.But Ranieri is determined to ride out Roma’s latest slump and remain at the club he supported as a child.”Relax, I’m not going anywhere. I will not abandon the ship,” Ranieri said ahead of Roma’s trip to Genoa on Sunday.”I won’t leave mid-season. It is a difficult situation, so as a native Roman I feel twice as bad, but I don’t like to give in. I have always faced challenges head-on and will continue to do so.”American consortium Di Benedetto are believed to be close to purchasing the cash-strapped club from Rosella Sensi, and reports from Italy have suggested the potential new owners may be planning to oust Ranieri from the position he has held since 2009.But the 59-year-old believes he may be in line for a contract extension should the American group take over at the Stadio Olimpico.”The Sensi family is selling up, while there is a new buyer who still has to complete the process. I received positive messages that they want to renew my contract, but we cannot rush these things,” Ranieri said.”You have to consider the situation when I arrived, as there was no money and I knew it was an extremely difficult situation.””I could’ve easily walked away last season, knowing the next term would be tough. However, that would’ve been like betraying myself.””The fans want to see a team that gives everything on the field. They are focusing on tomorrow’s game against Genoa and want results.””They couldn’t care less about club plans and strategies for the future.”
Malaysia, China, Indonesia, Japan; Premier League clubs are touring the Far East with an increasing regularity. Arsenal are currently in the middle of a tour that has seen them play against a Malaysia 11, and will pit them against Kitchee FC in Hong Kong and Manchester City in an exhibition match in Beijing. Both Manchester clubs are also on tours to the surrounding area.
The benefits of these tours are obvious, but they’re also obviously financial. Every club recognises that if they want to compete on the field they also need to compete off it. Basically, that means doing whatever your competitors do. So, if Man Utd build up a following in the Far East then Arsenal, City and the rest have to do so too.
In terms of merchandise, the markets in the UK are already saturated. Every football fan in this country is already spending vast sums of money on their club through shirt sales and ever-increasing ticket prices, but we only make up a fraction of the fan base of our clubs.
The potential for the growth of supporters abroad is almost limitless. It is an opportunity that cannot be missed. But is it actually beneficial at all in footballing terms?
Teams currently on tours to the US face a similar problem in terms of the quality of opposition their facing, although it could be possible to play another European team out there like Chelsea and PSG did. Can mangers really claim that these matches are preparing their team well for the current season? Is facing a Malaysia 11 or a Hong Kong 11or a Shanghai Shenhua side with no Drogba or Anelka really productive preparation for a season of football in the Premier and Champions League?
At least the teams in America have the luxury of being largely anonymous. They might receive a small amount of attention but they won’t be hounded everywhere they go as they would in parts of Asia.
Chelsea’s team were photographed training in Central Park, it would be near enough impossible to do that in Beijing or Kuala Lumpur. That too is an issue. A pre-season tour should be a relaxing affair where the players are free from the press and the distractions in England, free to focus on the season ahead and how they will perform as a team. How are these teams supposed to focus when they are constantly being paraded in public, singing shirts and photos from the moment they step off the plane to the moment they leave.
Rather than being a relaxing but concentrated training programme for the season ahead it seems like an exhausting PR exercise with some matches thrown in as an afterthought. Yes, these tours do not make up the entirety of the clubs’ pre-seasons but it is an unwelcome distraction nonetheless.
The players say they enjoy it, and I’m sure they do. Who wouldn’t want a holiday abroad with your friends? But that’s not the point. Pre season shouldn’t be enjoyable. It should be a gruelling physical challenge as players force themselves back in to fitness and the mentality needed for 10 months of solid competition.
Until last year teams like Arsenal had never ever been on such tours. The furthest Wenger ever took them was Austria, he always slated the prospect of travelling so far. There must have been a reason for that.
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Like I said, once one English team starts to go on these tours, everyone has to. It is not just the Champions League clubs that do these tours either; as well as Chelsea teams like Spurs, Liverpool, Aston Villa and Stoke are also on tours in America too. As productive as it was for Stoke getting beaten 2-1 by Columbus Crew on their tour you can’t help but wonder what they’re hoping to get out of all this?
Building these relationships abroad is important, but fans aren’t going to decide to support your club just because you came on a tour. It might sound shallow but by-and-large foreign fans will support the teams that are successful. Therefore, wouldn’t everyone be far better off by ensuring that a meticulous, strenuous pre-season was carried out elsewhere – free from media hassle and against good opposition.
After watching Rob Earnshaw squander an absolute sitter for Wales against England, I want to discuss the psychology of missing an open goal. I don’t want to pile any more misery on Earnshaw. You can only feel a horrible gut-wrenching sympathy with the Cardiff City lad. Whatever has occupied him since that miss – shopping, driving or trying to drown his sorrows in a bar – he’ll have been reliving that moment approximately once every 10 seconds.
I missed a couple of shockers myself, all forwards do, so I know it’s the worst feeling in the world. But to understand what it is that makes a professional striker miss one of the most high-profile and glaring opportunities of his career, you have to know what it is that makes a goal-scorer tick. Goal-scoring is a gift given by whichever God you believe in. It cannot be taught, which is what tends to make managers so distrustful of my breed. They know there is nothing they can do to influence us. No, it is all about instinct and nerve.
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Personally, I spent every moment of my football career riddled with self-doubt – except for the 90 minutes a week when I was out on the pitch. I know plenty of footballers who have been exactly the opposite. Cocky as hell when they’re not playing, always talking a good game and never playing one. Off the pitch, I was a typical young bloke who didn’t want to take any responsibility for anything. On the field of play, I was a different person entirely.
I knew it was my responsibility to score goals and I made damned sure I scored them. When they talk about a sportsman being ‘in the zone’ I understand what they mean. It’s not quite as extreme as being a sniper, who’s able to get his target into a viewfinder and pull the trigger in the knowledge that he’ll be taking his victim out. But you need the same sort of mindset, the same coldness. You must have no feeling, you must pick your spot and, more often than not, pass the ball into the net.
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There are many strikers who have all the talent in the world, who are outstanding in training, but could not hit a barn door in front of 100,000 people. Missing an open goal is usually caused by a moment of fear or panic. It’s about flinching under pressure, rather than holding your nerve. I can watch certain players go clear on goal, one-on-one with the keeper as the crowd rise to their feet, and I just know they are going to miss. There are a few, such as Wayne Rooney, who have simply ‘got it’ – that coldness, that nervelessness that I remember in myself and you know more often than not, they’ll snap up a chance.
Missing an open goal is not the worst offence a striker can be guilty of. Every time you arrive in the box and sniff out those chances you are taking a risk – you are gambling on being a hero or looking an absolute prat. There are a hell of a lot of so-called goalscorers who simply aren’t brave enough to take those gambles often enough. And while he’ll never be the greatest striker in the world, Earnshaw cannot be accused of being one of those.
Liverpool boss Kenny Dalglish blamed a draining week of international friendlies for the Reds’ 1-1 draw against Wigan Athletic on Saturday.
Portuguese midfielder Raul Meireles put the hosts ahead in the 24th minute with his fifth goal from the past six league games, but the Reds tired at Anfield and conceded an equaliser to Wigan defender Steve Gohouri after the hour.
Dalglish said his side were robbed of their finishing touch by the residual effects of the midweek friendlies, which saw Liverpool’s four-match winning streak come to an end.
“We started well enough, we pushed forward and scored a goal,” Dalglish said.
“(But) you could tell that Wednesday night took a lot out of them. There was just that little bit of an edge missing.”
“If that edge had been there I think the final pass would have been there, and there were three or four occasions in the first half when we would have been in.”
“The sharpness was just missing a wee bit, which is understandable.”
“We are disappointed not to have taken three points, and with a bit of luck we might have done. I think Wigan, though, might have felt a wee bit aggrieved if they had left here without a point.”
“Luis (Suarez) hit the post twice, their goal is offside, but these things happen. We have to dust ourselves down and get on with it. It’s not been that damaging.”
Wigan boss Roberto Martinez praised his side for responding so emphatically following Meireles’ opener, and said the Latics left Merseyside with a deserved point.
“You come to Anfield and you go 1-0 down after playing well, that’s difficult,” Martinez said.
“The performance was really pleasing first half and the goal probably came against the run of play, and it’s a fantastic strike.”
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“But I felt we had long spells of possession in the first half and grew into the game.”
“We didn’t show that belief that you need to show to hurt a team like Liverpool. I just felt that at half-time with that score-line and that feeling, I felt we could have done a little bit better, but we didn’t play badly.”
“I thought the reaction (in the second half) was great. We had good composure, we are a young group.”
“I felt we deserved a point. Coming to Anfield at this time, if you’re not at your best you’re not going to get anything, so the players deserve huge credit.”
I understand that Olympic football technically classifies itself as amateur. In order to facilitate this, the rule of only having three players over the age of 23 is enforced. However, although these players may not be getting paid for their troubles it is impossible to deny that they are professional footballers.
So, why not go the extra step and allow players of all ages. Yes, FIFA and UEFA might have something to say about that but frankly having the three over age players rule reduces the standard of football that isn’t quite amateur but it certainly far worse than we’d all like to watch.
The GB squad is like a ‘who’s who’ of players that rarely play for their clubs. It’s embarrassing.
Then, teams like Brazil, who just happen to have most of their best players within the age limit, are allowed to play almost the exact same team that they will put forward for the World Cup in 2014. It’s a farce.
Can the winners really claim any kind of success when each nation is suffering from vastly different handicaps depending on whether or not their players are under or over a certain age?
Moreover, whilst some domestic leagues are conducive to the timing of the Olympics, others are not.
I know that even if we had all of our players we would still be unlikely to win but the fact that we have to take Marvin Sordell and Scott Sinclair when Brazil can take Neymar and Lucas Moura is thoroughly depressing.
For Spain too the rules are slightly ridiculous. They have a team easily capable of winning the tournament except for the fact that most of their players are in the prime of their careers, which somehow acts as a disadvantage as they’re not allowed to play.
I wholly support the idea of football in the Olympics. If the ‘women’s ten metre air rifle’ competition is worth a gold medal then football definitely is, but they shouldn’t be doing things in half measure.
Its understandable that the Olympic committee will probably be worried that many countries won’t enter a proper team due to club commitments but that is the choice of those players and those countries.
Just because a competition might not end up being even, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t at least allow it the potential to be even. By enforcing rules like they have at the moment it is almost as though they are admitting that nobody will ever take football at the Olympics seriously so why should they bother to try and make it as important as the World Cup or other international tournaments.
They don’t have this age restricting rule with any of the other team sports so why do it with football. It makes no sense.
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The winner of the 100m final at the Olympics this summer will be the best sprinter in the world, likewise the winner of the swimming and rowing and long jump and many other events will also be the best in their field. The winners of the football will not. They will be the best collection-of-players-under-23-accompanied-by-3-players-over-23 in the world. Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it does it? That’s because it’s a joke of an event, and it will remain so until something is done about these rules.
fans have warned to be careful for what they wish for in light of the criticism directed towards Arsene Wenger. Sir Alex believes that the Frenchman deserves a huge amount of respect, given the giant strides he has made at the football club during his tenure. Wenger has done his level best to redress the balance with a deadline day splurge, which has gone some way in pacifying some of his critics.
At FFC this week we have seen a mixed bag of Gunners blogs that include the penny finally drops for Wenger; whatever happened to Arshavin, while Arsenal’s new boy hails his surrounds.
We also look at the best Arsenal articles around the web this week
The penny finally drops for Arsene Wenger
How do you ever follow a footballing legend?
When should this transfer circus actually end?
Is Arsene Wenger living in the 90’s?
What price do you put on him? Maybe Wenger has a point!
What ever happened to Andrey Arshavin?
Is it not worth paying out the extra millions earlier in the process?
Nasri takes another pot shot at Arsenal
Arsenal’s £3m new boy hails his new surrounds
Best of WEB
Signings Complete but Have they Done Enough?? – Highbury House
Have Wenger and Arsenal finally learnt from George Graham? – Le Grove
A long time coming – Online Gooner
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One Of Us Speaks: Welcome To The Era Of The Rakish, Super Fly Arsenal. – A Cultured Left Foot
Thoughts of Arsenal’s summer activity from a Happy(ish) Gooner – Gunnersphere
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