Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard is hoping that the Reds can seal their first victory of the season this weekend after a slow start to their Premier League campaign and push on from there, as reported in the Daily Mirror.
A narrow and somewhat unfortunate defeat at home to Manchester United last week must be forgotten according to Gerrard and he feels they have a set of fixtures where points are available.
“We have a run of games coming up now where there are points we should be taking but the longer it (not winning) goes on the more difficult it is going to get so it is important against Norwich we take maximum points,” Gerrard said.
“If you look at the performances against City and United we should have six [more] points so it is not a case of ‘they’re out the way now, let’s go beat the sides we should beat’.
“I think what we need to do is keep playing like we have done and hopefully we’ll get the rub of the green, get referee’s decisions in our favour and we will go on and take maximum points.
“Of course it puts more pressure on us. If we had won against United and beaten City everyone would be saying about how good a result it was at Sunderland (a 1-1 draw).
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“But because that win hasn’t come it seems as if we dropped points at Sunderland, so it is no good getting a point from these tough away games any more, we need to win them.”
Liverpool full back Jose Enrique has admitted he has been playing through the pain barrier this season whilst struggling with a knee problem, reports Sky Sports.
The Spaniard has been in and out of Brendan Rodgers new look side, and remained unused during Saturday’s 5-2 win at Norwich, with 19-year-old Andre Wisdom preferred at full back.
But after a recent pain killing injection, Enrique is hoping to win his place in the side back and show Rodgers what he can do.
“I don’t know quite what the problem is but I have been playing with a lot of pain,” he told Liverpool’s official website.
“I had an injection in my knee so hopefully that will settle it down and allow me to find my form again because it is difficult playing with pain.
“It is something behind my knee and I have had to be very careful with it. I’ve been trying to play with it but it is not 100 per cent.
“I felt it in training before the opening day of the season at West Brom and since then it has been very bad. Hopefully the injection will sort it out.
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“Obviously with a new manager at the club you want to be at your best, but I want to play to help us climb up the table. I want to get back as soon as possible.”
Enrique is likely to start Liverpool’s next match, a home fixture with Udinese in the Europa League on Thursday evening.
Arsenal midfielder Jack Wilshere continued his long-awaited comeback from injury with another fine performance for the club’s U-21 side against Everton on Monday, after making the bench for his team’s defeat against Norwich at the weekend, but have England or Arsene Wenger’s side missed him more?
There’s a temptation with injured players is to build them up into something they’re not with football fans often thinking that the grass is always greener and reputations are often enhanced during a prolonged spell on the sidelines once their importance is truly realised; Owen Hargreaves fell into this trap while at Manchester United, taking on a world-beating quality instead of the steady, capable holding man he was, even if they’ve been crying out for a player of his calibre ever since in that position and Wilshere has been in danger of following suit.
Nevertheless, that isn’t to downgrade what a truly special talent Wilshere is and in his absence, both club and country have cast longing glances at his ankle brace, hoping and praying for it to come off sooner than expected. Unfortunately it’s taken nearly 14 months for him to return to first-team training, but the initial reports of his progress and performances have been extremely promising.
Lest we forget that after well over a year out through injury before, though, that at this stage in a young players development that it can feel like an eternity and it’s certainly had an effect on Aaron Ramsey’s form last season and most of this and there’s a danger of hyping Wilshere up too much before he’s truly ready and we must be patient when it comes to managing expectations.
That isn’t to say that he won’t be thrust straight back into the Arsenal side as soon as the effects of his ankle and knee injuries are fully behind him, though and it would come as no surprise to see him occupy a more creative role further forward with Mikel Arteta assuming defensive duties just in front of the back four so far this campaign to great effect after taking over the role from the Alex Song.
Summer signing Santi Cazorla has also flourished in a more central role while the first shoots of a recovery and of a new beginning for Abou Diaby were sown with a decent showing at Anfield in the 2-0 win over Liverpool. Manager Arsene Wenger has options but Wilshere remains the crown jewel, capable of dictating tempo, beating a man and creating something out of nothing from the middle of the park.
After their defeat to Chris Hughton’s struggling Norwich, it brought even further light into what has been a deeply indifferent start to the new league season for the club, despite some people’s absurd claims just a few weeks back that they were title contenders simply because they drew with Manchester City away from home and they were subsequently out-played by a vibrant Chelsea side.
With just 12 points from their opening eight games, they sit in 9th in the league table, behind Fulham, West Ham and West Brom and it’s worth noting that they’ve won just three games, scoring just 13 goals in the process. Profligate finishing has been a main part of that, as has a number of new players settling into key attacking positions, but it’s been far from scintillating and they’ve failed to trouble the scorers against Stoke, Norwich and Sunderland now. It wouldn’t be much of a stretch to argue that Wilshere may have had a telling impact on these sorts of games.
However, by my reckoning at least, Roy Hodgson’s England side need him even more and the performances of the side in his absence have shown a worrying and deeply alarming long-term deficiency which he could go a long way towards helping fix and it would be no surprise to see him walk straight back into the team after only a handful of games at club level.
Wilshere has just five caps for England so far so it’s odd to talk about him in such glowing terms for a team that he’s barely had a chance to represent yet, but Michael Carrick’s inept and ponderous performances against San Marino and Poland have just brought home even further the need to have a central midfielder capable of not only picking a pass but recycling possession quickly and fluently.
While Hodgson may be clinging to the ’11-game unbeaten’ line, completely ignoring the fact that England did in fact lose to Italy, albeit on penalties at Euro 2012, a mainstay of his England team so far has been an inability to keep hold of the ball while dropping unnecessarily deep and the national side has only recorded more than 50% possession in just two of his games in charge thus far, a stat he is less keen to bring up it would seem.
Scott Parker has shown himself to be a game and willing runner and he deserved his shot at international recognition after his superb club form, but he’s not the future and neither is Gareth Barry. Frank Lampard will likely be a 36-year-old plying his trade in Los Angeles by the time that the next World Cup rolls around, while Tom Cleverley only influences the game sporadically and lacks a clearly defined role for both club and country so far.
Arsenal have been far from oustanding so far this season but by and large, their midfield department has coped well without Wilshere, but when it comes to England, they couldn’t have missed the youngster more if they tried and you sense that Hodgson’s side will only begin to play in the way that he wants them to once the 20-year-old returns to the fold.
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He’s an exceptional talent and in a way he exemplifies the changing attitudes in this country to a more patient, possession-based style of play, with passion and commitment alone now no longer deemed enough to win you over the affections of the terraces as James Milner would surely testify to; it’s this emblematic quality more than anything else for which he has been sorely missed and he’ll improve both teams chances a whole more when he finally does return, even if England may have missed him the most up until this point.
Reports in Spain have suggested that La Liga Champions Real Madrid are set to sign Tottenham Hotspur winger Gareth Bale next summer, as reported by talkSPORT.
Madrid signed Luka Modric from White Hart Lane this summer and also drew up a partnership deal between the two clubs for future dealings.
It is not clear if this partnership will give Madrid first refusal on Bale, but after Mourinho’s side’s poor start to the season, it appears the Spanish giants are prepared to break the bank for the world class winger who has recently become a dad.
The Welsh midfielder has signed a contract extension tying him to the North London club until 2016, but a bid of around £50million should be enough to once again give Daniel Levy huge profits on a talented young player.
It seems that Bale will not push through the transfer himself, but with Madrid able to double his wages and guarantee him Champions League football, he may not need much persuading.
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Former Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba claims that Sir Alex Ferguson is not as fearsome as he is portrayed.
The French youngster left the Premier League club to sign for Juventus during the summer after becoming frustrated by a lack of first-team opportunities.
Fergie was particularly critical of the 19-year-old’s decision to leave Old Trafford hinting that he felt he had shown a lack of loyalty.
Despite this, Pogba claims that his ex-coach was not all bad and that his terrifying image is wide of the mark:
“He is kind of relaxed and he’s a guy who likes to laugh in the dressing room.” He told Tuttosport.
“Of course you see him on TV all serious, but knows how to be in the dressing room.
However, he did concede that the Scot sometimes adopts a ferocious approach with his players:
“Well, sometimes he shouts, but it is normal for a coach to do so.
“But it was not always the case; he is more often than not relaxed.”
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He went on to reveal that a desire to play first-team football was key in his decision to swap Manchester for Turin:
“This is a great club and there are many differences compared to United, are two of the most important clubs in the world and then you look like.
“The difference here is that I feel appreciated, the players believe in me, the coach believes in me, I have the opportunity to play.”
Arsenal midfielder Mikel Arteta has leapt to the defence of team-mate Santi Cazorla, following accusations that he dived to win a penalty against West Brom.
Cazorla was accused of simulation after he went over following a challenge from Steven Reid, with cameras suggesting that there was little contact.
Baggies manager Steve Clarke was furious at the actions of the Spaniard, stating that there was no contact made and that the decision was incorrect.
But, Arteta, who netted from the spot-kick, has backed his fellow Gunners star, who believes that there was contact and that the penalty was fair:
“Santi said he felt something.” He is quoted by The Metro.
“Even if it’s little, it is contact. The ref makes decisions, some right and some wrong.
“Santi is not a player who dives.
“He felt something and changed direction, but he is not that type of player.”
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The incident outshone a return to winning ways for Arsenal, who have endured a tough run of results recently.
Wigan manager Roberto Martinez has hinted that he is planning to make additions to his squad during the January transfer window.
The Latics are currently suffering from a mini injury crisis and could be without eight first-team stars for tonight’s Premier League clash against Newcastle.
The Spaniard is concerned by the lack of depth in his squad and revealed that plans are in place to draft in some fresh talent next month:
“The way we’ve been running our football club we always try to work in advance and we’re trying to get probably two or three players to help the ones we have got at the club to give us a real boost in January,” he is quoted by SkySports.
“Remember it is a difficult window but we have been working now for a long time to identify players who can bring us something different.”
He is also keen to keep hold of his star players, after seeing Victor Moses leave during the summer:
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“We will work as hard as we can and our focus is to be a stronger squad when the window closes so that’s not going to change.”
Wigan currently occupy 15th position in the Premier League, with their 14 point haul putting them two points clear of the relegation zone.
Liverpool FC left-back Jose Enrique tore a hamstring during his side’s victory at QPR yesterday and is now expected to be out for some time, goal.com reports.
The Spaniard pulled up with the injury and was withdrawn 71 minutes into the Reds’ 3-0 victory at QPR, which was won with a goal from Daniel Agger and a double from Luis Suarez.
Assistant boss Colin Pascoe, who took charge of the team in the absence of Brendan Rodgers who was said to be ill, has now conceded that Liverpool could be without Enrique for some time.
“Unfortunately it looks like he’s got a tear in his hamstring,” he told reporters.
“He was terrific today, absolutely superb, and the way he’s been performing these last couple of months has been a joy to watch.”
“It’s a shame, and hopefully he’s not out for too long.”
The full-back has been one of the most consistent performers at Anfield this season so the news will come as a blow to manager Brendan Rodgers, who has also deployed him in more forward positions in recent weeks.
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Liverpool complete their busy round of festive fixtures on Wednesday with a home game against Sunderland, after picking up comprehensive wins over Fulham and QPR, with a defeat away at Stoke sandwiched between.
Amongst the galaxy of expensively acquired striking talent that adorns the Premier League’s top scorers list this season, there is of course one very English and extremely notable anomaly.
Indeed, while the £50million talents of Fernando Torres and the £35million services of Sergio Aguero all cohabit the league’s chart of top marksman, it’s the £1million gifts of Southampton’s Rickie Lambert, who’s outscored them both.
With nine Premier League goals so far this season, the Saints’ 30-year-old frontman has blown away those who doubted his ability to cut it at the very highest level of the English footballing pyramid, helping coax his side away from the immediate threat of relegation and putting daylight between themselves and their fellow contenders for the drop,
Although while Lambert’s journey from the old Division Three all the way up to English football’s top tier was a story that was always likely to trigger common interest under the Premier League’s increased media glare, there seemed a strange sense of expectation surrounding the ex-Bristol Rovers man’s prospects.
Because while those who’d watched in awe as Lambert’s goals had helped haul Southampton up to successive promotions were in no doubt as to his ability to prosper within the Premier League, they seemingly weren’t the only ones, either. Little has been made in the way of a song and dance towards Lambert’s goal-scoring prowess, despite there being less than half the season left to play and the wealth of talent deemed superior, that he’s comfortably outscored.
And perhaps in many ways, this is one of the biggest compliments English football could possibly pay to one of its most seasoned underdogs. Following the success of Norwich City’s Grant Holt last term, while few could necessarily guarantee Lambert success in the trappings of the Premier League, it seems as though people have begun putting to bed their tired stereotypes aged clichés about lower-league talents being able to dine at English football’s elite table.
While playing a slightly altered role under Chris Hughton this season has seen Holt struggle to replicate the form that saw him bury 15 goals for the Canaries last season, it was within those goals that propelled the Carlisle-born striker into an unlikely bit of transfer window hot property last summer. Quite the achievement for a 31-year-old striker who’d spent the bulk of his career scrapping around the lower leagues of English football.
Norwich were a team, very much like Southampton have done this term, that kept faith in the majority of their players that helped them attain such success in the first place. Like Lambert, Holt was there from the very beginning of Norwich’s recent renaissance, challenging for League One promotion all the way up to Premier League safety. But unlike a majority of his teammates, Holt appeared to face a rather more chastising barrage of uncertainty over the influence he might wield in the top flight,
In the age of mobile, versatile front men and false nines, both Holt and Lambert represent a dying breed. While it’d be lazy to depict the duo as identical in style – Lambert is perhaps the more technically accomplished of the two, with Holt offering a more direct outlet of play – both seem to fit into a mould of play detached from the perceived Premier League remit for a modern-day frontman.
They aren’t blessed with searing pace, neither particularly accommodate for much in the way of tactical versatility and you’re not going to see neither Holt nor Lambert dribble past a wealth of defenders this term. But while neither are going to be playing tiki-taka like football anytime soon, they will continue to keep scoring goals.
It’s unlikely that either Holt nor Lambert – who are in fact good mates following a year as strike partners for Rochdale in 2005 – care much in the way of negative perceptions thrown their way, but while less of us are perhaps surprised by Lambert’s ability to score goals in this league, it seems somewhat intriguing that sections of English football find it so hard to buy into the ability of the archetypal British forward’s ability to survive in the modern game.
Holt and Lambert don’t have the gifts that many managers in the game today are looking to build their game around and this isn’t to say that teams pushing for European football need to start throwing money at Norwich and Southampton for their polished gems. But Lambert, like Holt, scored over 20 goals for three consecutive seasons before his step up to the Premier League.
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Despite the leagues they were playing in, you hardly had to watch the pair week in-week out to come to the conclusion they were both natural goalscorers entering their prime years as a footballer. No one expects them to necessarily score 20 plus in the top flight, but why is it so difficult to believe strikers such as Holt and Lambert can’t prosper in the Premier League?
If you’re trying to engineer a Brendan Rodgers-like ascent up the Premier League table, then putting your faith in a Rickie Lambert like figure isn’t likely to serve your means particularly well. But if you’re looking for a goalscorer and you’re willing to play to their instinctive strengths, you could do a lot worse than dropping down a tier to do a spot of scouting.
Not all forwards from the Championship or beyond will make the step up to the Premier League in the mould of a Grant Holt or Rickie Lambert. But as Queens Park Rangers look to have paid around £8million and in excess of £70,000-a-week in wages for a goalscorer yet to net a single league goal in the French top flight this season, it makes you wonder whether the likes of Burnley’s Charlie Austin will have to wait as long as Lambert did for his top-flight chance. Yet there’s no reason why he should do.
No other club in the top flight quite has the same furore surrounding board meetings as Arsenal and the latest one this Thursday is no exception, with Arsene Wenger under mounting pressure after seeing his team’s faint hopes of silverware fade away in two competitions inside a week yet again. But with majority shareholder Stan Kroenke likely to pledge his support to the man at the helm once more, can fans really take reports of a bumper transfer budget in the summer seriously?
Having already been dumped out of the FA Cup to Blackburn in an embarrassing 1-0 defeat at home, it was quickly followed by the inevitable 3-1 loss to runaway Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich in midweek in the Champions League which all but ensures that the club are out of the competition at the first knockout hurdle. With the club currently sat in fifth in the league and four points adrift of Tottenham with 12 games left to play, even what qualifies as success in the distorted world of Wenger looks in danger of being missed out on altogether this term. These are testing times for the manager and it genuinely seems now that the only thing keeping him in his job at the moment is the support of the board.
With Wenger under contract at the club until 2014, he appeared to get a little hot under the collar when reports surfaced that he was in discussions over a new deal, which was best highlighted by a tense press conference earlier this week, even if it wasn’t anywhere near the ‘meltdown’ it was portrayed as in some quarters. Much like when clubs cancel Christmas parties when they are in a bad run because they believe it makes them seem more professional and dedicated not to be enjoying themselves, for Wenger to be discussing a new deal in the same week during which they essentially crashed out of two competitions would appear to underline everything his greatest detractors now feel, that he has aligned himself far too heavily with the bean counters and needs their protection from an increasingly frustrated fan base.
The first instalment of a new shirt sponsorship deal will contribute to a fund of around £70m for new signings this summer, while the club’s coffers will be swelled even further by the extra £30m they will receive courtesy of the Premier League’s new TV deal, with the BBC reporting that Wenger still retains the unequivocal support of the board and chairman Peter Hill-Wood taking to task the ‘hysterical’ reaction to the Blackburn defeat. It is believed that the manager’s future will not be up for discussion at this Thursday’s board meeting, but that begs the question, when will it be? What has to happen for that topic to become a matter of priority?
When you take a look at the club’s net spend over the past few years, they have obviously been bolstered financially by the big name and big money departures of the likes of Robin van Persie, Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that over the past three seasons Wenger has spent nearly £120m on new players. Arsenal are far from the paupers they are often made out to be.
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The likes of Gervinho, Andre Santos, Laurent Koscielny and Sebastien Squillaci have all been added to the squad for significant fees and failed to live up to expectations, while the mediocrity that both Per Mertesacker and Olivier Giroud bring with them just further highlights the drop in quality throughout the squad.
Just as the crazy deal that saw Liverpool spend £35m on Andy Carroll wasn’t any more justifiable because they’d just recouped £50m for Fernando Torres, you simply don’t judge deals on a net spend basis, because football boils down to more than spreadsheets and the balance of a bank account. Would Arsenal fans even trust Wenger to spend £70m wisely now considering his recent patchy record in the transfer market, which has more than contributed to them slowly falling away from the pinnacle of the league’s elite?
Qualifying year on year for the promised land that is the Champions League is proving more and more difficult. At the same time, spending around £70m in the summer would be regarded as something of a climbdown on Wenger’s part and tacit acknowledgement that he should have sought to rectify the team’s problems earlier, particularly considering he has always had sizeable resources available at his disposal but chosen not to use them.
Arsenal have taken a rather large gamble that Financial Fair Play (FFP) will be enforced to the letter when it is implemented, but doesn’t their sensible approach go somewhat out of the window if they let the clubs above and around them get too far ahead of them before it begins? Spending £70m by then may simply be too late.
There’s a feeling that FFP won’t offer the level playing field its biggest fans say it will, but rather ensure the status quo remains and smaller, more ambitious clubs around the continent aren’t able to crash the party. Any changes will be done incrementally and over a large period of time. The sort of players that Arsenal require to get back to the top will still go for big money and will still have plenty of clubs competing for their signature, and it’s simply bizarre to believe that overnight, the club will be restored to challenging for silverware. Football is a cyclical game, but the path that Arsenal are currently on looks a much longer one than they are often seen communicating to the supporters and FFP will not save them. It is not the answer to every question.
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Wenger and Arsenal are quickly reaching a crossroads and their at times fanatical devotion to the principles of FFP have seen them become less and less competitive over the past few years in the build-up to it and that has become ingrained into the culture of the club, with a whole generation of players indoctrinated to accept style over substance and second best.
Success has become distorted and fourth place is now regarded as a bigger achievement than the League Cup, while an outfit with the fourth highest wage bill in the country is labelled as a socialist model to follow by its manager. More and more, Wenger is starting to come to represent the desperate salesman Gil out of The Simpsons, and as far as Arsenal fans are concerned, they simply aren’t buying it any more.