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Tottenham pair Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen have endured a miserable start to the season with their club, but enjoyed a happier experience playing for Belgium on Thursday.

Both defenders featured in the 9-0 demolition of San Marino, with Alderweireld also appearing to get on the scoresheet, only for his strike to later be determined as an own goal.

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There has been a mixed reaction to their displays from Spurs fans, with some feeling apathetic towards them until they improve for the Lilywhites.

However, others are pleased that impressive performances [with both achieving a rating of seven from SofaScore] could see their transfer fees rise, with rumours circulating about both players’ futures in North London.

Whilst it is good for them to experience a win, playing against opposition such as San Marino is unlikely to help their club form, particularly as they soon face a stern test in Liverpool just before the end of the month.

Here is how some Tottenham supporters have been reacting to the pair’s latest international showing.

Tottenham Hotspur forward Heung-min Son could be open to a move to Italy in the near future, according to his agent. 

Speaking to Radio Marte, with quotes taken from a report by Calciomercato, Son’s agent Thies Bleimeister refused to rule out a move for his player, specifically, a move to Napoli.

“Son to Napoli? Why not?” asked Bliemeister. “Never say never in football. He likes Italy. So who knows what will happen one day.” he said.

The South Korean star has been an integral member of the squad for Spurs in the last few seasons and played a vital role as Mauricio Pochettino’s men made it to the Champions League final last season.

Son appeared just shy of 60 times last season for Spurs and returned an impressive goal haul to repay that faith shown in him, as he rattled in 21 goals across all competitions.

The forward has proved himself to be a key player for Spurs ever since moving to the Premier League, and his stats back up just how crucial he is to the cause for Mauricio Pochettino’s men. Indeed, he has made 136 Premier League appearances in a Spurs shirt, contributing directly to an impressive 65 goals in that time.

Spurs do not need this sort of talk at the moment, given their form on the field is nothing short of disastrous.

Losing players of the quality of Son is the last thing the club needs, and barring the likes of Harry Kane, the South Korean is arguably their most important player in terms of attacking, given his goals and assist count since being with the club.

Hopefully, for Spurs fans, this is just agent talk and nothing will actually come of it.

Spurs fans, could you really see Son leaving? Join the discussion by commenting below…

The problems at Old Trafford run far deeper than Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, that much is obvious from the failed spells of Jose Mourinho and Louis van Gaal, two respected and successful individuals in the world of management, but does it mean he’s going to be afforded more time?As many of you may now have noticed, the bulk of the issues faced by the club at pitch level are largely caused by those who spend their days mulling over numbers and money.Ed Woodward, the main antagonist, routinely appoints managers like your Van Gaal’s and Mourinho’s without a clear objective in mind, and when things inevitably start to fall apart, as they have done for every single coach since Sir Alex Ferguson’s departure, he then uses them as meat shields to absorb the barrage of abuse from angry fans.Watch Manchester United Live Streams With StreamFootball.tv Below

Solskjaer, a much-loved character around the Red side of Manchester for his heroics in ’99, is just his latest victim. However, unlike Mourinho, who garnered less sentiment amongst the Old Trafford faithful, and was soon exiled, this time Woodward’s plan has backfired. The fans have realised where the problems lie, and they’re not happy.ÂThis moment of realisation hasn’t hit everybody quite yet, however.

In the wake of United’s dreadful 0-0 draw to AZ Alkmaar, in which they failed to register a single shot on target, talkSPORT’s resident tomato, Alan Brazil, raged (at least looked like he was) over Solskjaer’s management and believes his time could also be up…

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Birmingham City succumbed to a second straight defeat in the Championship as Derby County rounded off a controversial week with a victory at Pride Park.

The home side were missing three key regulars in Mason Bennett, Tom Lawrence and captain Richard Keogh following a drink driving incident in midweek, but that didn’t stop them from taking the lead inside the first two minutes.

Chris Martin, who was making his first Rams start in nearly two years, coolly slotted home for the only goal in the first 45 minutes.

Phillip Cocu’s men doubled their lead five minutes into the second period with Martyn Waghorn’s excellent finish, but the Blues fought back and should have even gone ahead themselves.

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Gary Gardner first headed home before Ivan Sunjic smashed a stunning effort past Kelle Roos to level the match within the hour mark, but the Rams shot-stopper became the hero by saving Lukas Jutkiewicz’s penalty.

And Derby made them pay as Jamie Paterson finished off a rapid counter-attack to hand them their second league win of the season.

Several Birmingham fans took to Twitter following the defeat to vent their anger, with the bulk of it being aimed at manager Pep Clotet.

One supporter wanted the manager sacked, claiming his post-match comments were the ‘same old predictable nonsense’, which was backed up by another who claimed he needs to be replaced.

A further member of the Blues faithful labelled Clotet as the ‘biggest issue’ with one more believing they were in a relegation battle under the Spaniard.

You can read more of the reaction below:

Daniel Bachmann has endured a tough start to life in the Premier League and his disappointing form continued with a shocking performance for Austria recently.

The 27-year-old shot-stopper established himself as first choice in Xisco Munoz’s side last season and was a regular for Austria at the European Championships as a result.

He has started all three of the Hornets’ top-flight fixtures so far this season and conceded five goals, with his distribution woeful at times, particularly in the games against Brighton and Tottenham Hotspur.

Although there was nothing he could do about John McGinn’s screamer or Danny Ings’ penalty in the opening day win against Aston Villa, he did play a huge part in Brighton’s second goal in the 2-0 defeat as his slack pass was picked off by Yves Bissouma who fed Neal Maupay for a comfortable finish.

The Austrian ‘keeper was guilty of giving the ball away on a number of occasions in the 1-0 defeat at Spurs, whilst Heung Min-Son’s winning goal perhaps got past Bachmann a little too easily.

Whilst Watford fans might want to see their team stick with Bachmann for a few more games before re-introducing Ben Foster, his recent performance for Austria suggests that he may well be suffering a crisis of confidence, and keeping faith in him for upcoming Premier League games could be disastrous.

The former Stoke City man started in goal as Austria faced Israel in a World Cup qualifier but performed woefully in a 5-2 defeat, with SofaScore ranking him a 5.1/10 for his performance, which was comfortably the worst of any player on the pitch.

Despite Israel’s domination, Bachmann would manage just two saves during the game, whilst his pass accuracy clearly wasn’t good enough again, as he completed just 68% of his passes during the game, with only two out of eight long balls finding their mark.

Therefore, after another less than impressive display, Xisco should drop Bachmann and give Foster the nod for the game against Wolves on Saturday.

And, in other news… No tackles in 3 games: Watford dud has endured nightmare PL start

Old Trafford was silenced on Sunday when Marc Skinner's side were beaten by Man City, a result which highlighted several of the Red Devils' issues

Sunday was a huge day for Manchester United’s women’s team. The Red Devils welcomed bitter rivals Manchester City to Old Trafford and a club-record crowd of 43,615 fans streamed in to watch. Most of them were hoping to see a home win, one that would move United to within a point of Arsenal in second place in the Women's Super League, and four behind leaders Chelsea, while also leaving City nine points off the pace with only seven games played. But although it was an historic day at the 'Theatre of Dreams', the match was a nightmare for the hosts.

Despite home advantage, despite going 1-0 up after 21 minutes and despite playing against 10 players for almost half an hour, United came away empty-handed. They were sloppy, wasteful and uncomfortable in what turned into a 3-1 win for City.

Marc Skinner admitted after the match that his United team probably now need to go unbeaten for the rest of the season to stand any chance of winning the title. But based on what we saw on Sunday, that looks highly unlikely.

The 2022-23 campaign was an incredible one for Skinner's side. They were the only team to battle Chelsea for the WSL title until the final day, they secured a spot in the Women’s Champions League for the first time and they reached a maiden Women’s FA Cup final, too.

But the outlook is quite different with almost a third of this 2023-24 season gone. United couldn’t reach the UWCL group stages after landing a very tough tie in qualifying with Paris Saint-Germain, they’re seven points behind league leaders Chelsea and a defeat at Old Trafford to City has only intensified dissatisfaction among the fans. So, what is going wrong?

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  Key exits

  As well as losing highly-rated assistant manager Martin Ho, who has since guided Norwegian side Brann into the Women’s Champions League group stages, there were 13 first-team departures during the summer, two of which were hugely significant: Ona Batlle and Alessia Russo.

  Batlle is the best right-back in the women’s game and her return to Barcelona, the club she came through as a youngster, felt inevitable for some time. She was always going to be extremely difficult to replace as there is no one quite like the Spaniard, who excelled as an inverted full-back during her time in Manchester.

  Russo didn’t light the league up in her final season with United, scoring just 10 goals, but her move to Arsenal was an issue because of the way Skinner opted to tackle the task of replacing her. A flurry of new attackers have arrived, none of whom are providing the same kind of focal point as Russo.

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  Life after Russo

  Geyse – a tricky, direct and energetic forward who joined from reigning European champions Barcelona this past summer – is now playing the No.9 role on a regular basis. She is a wonderful talent and has shown flashes of her brilliance already. She is also a very different player to Russo.

  On her Man Utd debut in October, in a dramatically late win at Aston Villa, Geyse was a constant nuisance for the opposition but she drifted out wide so often that it left no one in the box to put chances away. That has been the case for most of her time in United red, too.

  "If the forward goes into the wide channel, then the other one has to come in and we have to flood the box because of the way that we play. That will come, I've no doubt about that," Skinner said after that win on the WSL’s opening weekend.

  “Geyse is different to Alessia. Alessia is a pin player and spins and switches. Geyse can hold it and turn you and go. That's a different type of forward. I think when we watch it back, we can be more positionally ruthless and I think that will come.”

  It was Rachel Williams who saved the day at Villa Park, the experienced forward coming off the bench to win the game in stoppage time. As a classic No.9, it was she who brought that penalty-box presence United had been lacking – and it wasn’t the only instance of that happening this season. The 35-year-old, the team’s top goal-scorer in the WSL this season, also came to the rescue away at Brighton earlier this month.

  It's fantastic when you have players on the bench who can make a difference but Williams’ goals have often shown that United simply lack a starter who can be in the right place at the right time to get on the end of the chances being created – and finish them ruthlessly.

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  The right combination

  Why is that the case? Well, Geyse has a lot of talent but her final product and decision-making aren't always convincing. She’s also not that orthodox centre-forward that will lurk in the box, waiting to sniff out a goal. Melvine Malard, however, appears to be a little more like that.

  The France international joined Man Utd on loan from Lyon this past summer but has largely operated in a wide role despite it feeling like a switch of positions between her and Geyse would be beneficial. When she gets in the box, she is deadly, as her four goals for the club already have shown. Yet, she is often stuck on the wing struggling to make an impact. Even Nikita Parris, who excelled in a central role against Everton, appears to be a better option as a starting No.9 than Geyse, whose talents could be maximised out wide.

  Skinner has tinkered a little with that front three this season but has yet to really nail down those killer combinations that can make United a more clinical side. He’s also stressed that the players are still adapting to life in England and learning the language to communicate with their new team-mates.

  “There are still barriers,” he said on Sunday, speaking about the glimpses of that relationship between Geyse and Malard. “It’s just the little details. For example, if we're going to play more direct, then we can play underneath, so maybe Geyse is the highest player but then Melvine drops underneath so if Man City see get the first contact, we're in the second space and once we're in that second space, I don't think Man City would live with us. But we end up being in a flat line because they can't quite communicate quickly as the ball is travelling. There are all those little details that they don't yet have the language skill to do.”

  But until Geyse and Malard are able to work in tandem in their current roles, can Skinner change things so that their abilities can be fully exploited while the relationship is still growing? After all, those partnerships take time to grow and there just isn’t a lot to spare in the WSL.

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  Issues aplenty

  There are only 12 teams in the WSL. Each side only plays 22 games in the division. So, when you’re seven points off the top of the table after as many matches, it’s quite a lot of ground to make up if you want to be a factor in the title race.

  Skinner has spoken about time, about how these players will gel and they will work together beautifully on the pitch, but nearly a third of the league season is now gone and he is still speaking about it. How long will it take?

  Let’s also not forget that Malard is a loan player. You don’t want to be waiting four months for someone on a temporary deal to make an impact. You need to make the most of their presence as soon as possible, especially if Skinner wants Man Utd to compete for the title and to have another go in Europe next season.

  The problems don’t just surround the forward areas and how this attack looks without Russo, either. Batlle’s departure has made United weaker at the back both in and out of possession. Errors when playing out from the defence are creeping in more and more frequently, with captain Katie Zelem caught on the ball in her own half in the build-up to City’s second goal on Sunday and Maya Le Tissier playing a short backpass to Mary Earps that proved costly for the third.

  There are also questions around the midfield, namely why so much of United’s play seems to completely bypass it, and why the balance does not seem right a lot of the time in the combinations of three that Skinner picks. Rectifying the latter could go a long way to putting a stop to Ella Toone’s poor form in 2023, too.

adidas' FUSSBALLLIEBE Euro 2024 match ball will help VAR make offside calls and also reduce time to make a decision.

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• Adidas unveiled the FUSSBALLLIEBE
• Ball to have a chip to assist VAR offside decisions
• Same technology was used in World Cup 2022

• WHAT HAPPENED?

  Adidas introduced the FUSSBALLLIEBE match ball for Euro 2024, equipped with a chip to enhance semi-automated VAR offside decisions. Notably, this tech settled a debate around Cristiano Ronaldo's claimed goal in the World Cup during Portugal's 2-0 win over Uruguay and the strike was awarded to Bruno Fernandes after it was analysed through the 'Connected Ball Technology' data.

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  THE EXPLANATION

  This technology, previously used in the Adidas Al Rihla ball at the World Cup, employs a sensor recording data 500 times a second, synchronised with stadium cameras for 3D offside graphics. There is a sensor at the centre of the ball which can record data 500 times a second whenever it is in contact with a player during live action. Adidas claim that the time needed to make a VAR offside decision will also see a significant reduction as it should now take just 25 seconds to make a call since there will be no need to manually draw lines.

• BIGGER PICTURE

  Champions League balls lack the chip, as they rely on AI for offside calls. Fans both in stadiums and watching on TV will have visual access to offside graphics. Adidas claim that decision-making efficiency and accuracy will mark a pivotal shift in football with the help of this technology.

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• WHAT NEXT?

  Premier League clubs plan a March vote on adopting automated offside tech, anticipating improved decision-making. It is already prevalent in the Serie A with a Puma matchball but it does not contain the chip.

Despite a strong end to the month of August with a 2-0 win over Crewe Alexandra, it was a dreadful opening few weeks of the season for Charlton.

The Addicks sit in the bottom half of the table after managing just four points from their first five League One games of the 2021/22 campaign.

Nigel Adkins’ side were held to a 0-0 draw by Sheffield Wednesday on the opening day but failed to build on that point and clean sheet as they then lost their next three matches to Oxford, MK Dons and Wigan.

Whilst many players underperformed, one in particular endured a disastrous August – Adam Matthews.

The former Sunderland defender averaged a SofaScore rating of 6.72, which places him 12th overall in the Charlton squad, despite him playing every single minute of League One action in August. This means that he did not break into Charlton’s best 11 players last month even though he played all five games, suggesting that he was one of the most consistently disappointing performers.

As per SofaScore, Matthews gave away possession a whopping 52 times in five games (10.4 times per match) for the Addicks. This shows that he was not a reliable outlet for Adkins’ side down the right as he constantly gifted the ball back to the opposition with his sloppy play.

He did not make up for his poor play on the ball with his defensive work, either. As per SofaScore, Matthews only won 13 duels in five games, winning 58% of his ground duels and 40% of his aerial battles. Whilst winning the majority of his contests on the ground is a positive for Matthews, the fact that he only won 2.2 per game suggests that he was not getting involved enough defensively.

The experienced defender only made a combined one tackle and interception per game in League One, failing to win possession back for his team in any match. This could suggest that he was often caught out positionally, as he was not in the right place at the right time to make crucial challenges to prevent goals.

Matthews endured a terrible month in August as he struggled on the ball and defensively while Charlton also faltered as a team. Hopefully the defender, and indeed the rest of the squad, will see more positive results come their way in the upcoming weeks and months of the season.

AND in other news, 17 tackles won: Charlton beast with 175 touches was an unsung hero for Adkins in August…

Folarin Balogun was among those to pay the price for Monaco’s sloppy start against Lille, with the United States international hooked at half-time.

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• Striker included from the off
• Failed to make an impact
• Unable to add to goal tally

• WHAT HAPPENED?

  The 22-year-old frontman was included from the off by Monaco boss Adi Hutter, but saw his afternoon cut short after just 45 minutes. That is because a forgettable performance saw the USMNT star struggle to make any kind of impact.

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  THE BIGGER PICTURE

  Monaco trailed by two goals at the break and the decision was taken to mix things up during the interval. Balogun was replaced by Myron Boadu, while former Liverpool forward Takumi Minamino made way for Maghnes Akliouche.

• DID YOU KNOW?

  Hutter saw his side dominate for long periods against Lille, with 16 efforts on goal fired in compared to seven from the hosts. Monaco were unable to find the back of the net, though, with Balogun drawing a blank alongside his attacking colleagues.

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  WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

  Balogun has registered two goals through seven appearances for Monaco following his summer transfer from Arsenal, but faces fierce competition for places when it comes to starting berths and will need to raise his game in order to nail down a place in Hutter’s plans.