Napoli coach Walter Mazzarri insists that he will hold on to all three of his prized assets – Edinson Cavani, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Marek Hamsik.The attacking trio, who were an integral part of Napoli’s successful campaign last year, which saw them reach the Champions League, have been attracting interest from across Europe.
However, Mazzarri was in a defiant mood regarding keeping hold of his most important talents.
“Sometimes it is better to give in to a player who wants to leave as he is no longer motivated but that is not the case with us. Cavani, Lavezzi and Hamsik will remain at Napoli – that is their wish,” he said.
“I spoke to Marek just yesterday and I could tell he was looking forward to starting the new season. He is keen to stay. He is an attacking player with unique qualities and in my view, he must not be sold.”
However, Napoli chairman Aurelio De Laurentiis opened the door to a move away from Naples for Argentine forward Lavezzi, who has recently attracted interest from Manchester City, Atletico Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain.
“Like with all players, he is in the hands of his agent. I hope he makes the right decision. The player has a release clause and we cannot do anything. I would hate it if he were to leave,” he said.
Tottenham have been put on transfer alert after David Moyes revealed that Everton may look to cash in on Steven Pienaar.
The Toffees have been unable to secure a new contract for the talented South African, who is in the last year of his contract, and the news of Everton willing to listen to January offers is certainly going to alert Harry Redknapp who made an approach for the winger in the summer.
Moyes feels the club has no option but to take the money now, rather than run the risk of losing him on a free at the end of the season.
“It may well come to it in the January transfer window that we have to consider selling Pienaar to raise money, because he is out of contract in the summer.”
The Everton boss is keen to use the funds to bolster his squad, although fears the money will not be enough to bring in a top class striker that the Toffees clearly need.
“But we know we need a striker, and realistically, the sort of money we will raise through that route, what type of player is it going to buy for us in the January market.
“The sort of money I’d raise, I don’t think it will attract the type of player we need, the type of player we are looking for to provide the goals.
“The sort of money it will cost, I don’t think selling a player will solve that particular problem, and it is probably a reality that we will have to look at bringing in a loan player, that it will be the loan market we will need to look at to provide some sort of solution.” Sky Sports
Pienaar has scored 9 goals in 97 Premier League appearences for Everton since his £2m move from Borussia Dortmund.
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Robin van Persie’s mother and wife have commented that the star striker should stay in north London.
The Netherlands international is in the last year of his contract with the Emirates Stadium club, and has delayed extending his deal with the Gunners.
Arsene Wenger’s men are thought to have offered Van Persie a new lucrative deal that breaks their wage structure, but with Manchester City amongst a number of clubs circling, the Dutch hitman is yet to decide on where he will play his football next term.
However, Van Persie’s mother Jose has told her son to stay with his current employers.
“Arsenal love him and that’s a great incentive to stay. Arsenal are a fantastic club. They have no debts and Robin is idolised there,” she is quoted as saying in The Sun.
Meanwhile, the forward’s wife Bouchra has also called on her husband to remain loyal, especially as their family are settled in London.
“Arsenal showed faith in Robin when he was going through a lean time, so we should not repay them by thinking about other clubs. Our home life and our children are happy in London,” she stated.
Van Persie is thought to be weighing up a £130,000-a-week deal with a £5million re-signing bonus from Arsenal.
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Can we stop the demonisation of Randy Lerner please? As foreign owners go, he seems like one of the better ones. United fans started a new team under Glazer and yellow scarves are prominent at the Stretford End, Sheikh Mansour wants to buy the league without much success, Hicks and Gillett couldn’t have been worse, selling the team to the Boston Red Sox, who promptly gave some of Liverpool to Lebron James as part of a marketing deal, Yeung oversaw a relegation, Venky’s have done nothing yet, ‘just call him Al’ Fayed wants out, the revolving door at Chelsea keeps going round, Kroenke has no control anyway and no-one actually knows who Ellis Short is.
With that dream team of ‘fit and proper persons’, why are Villa fans complaining about Lerner? He gave the Aston Villa fans what they had wanted for years: An end to the Doug Ellis era. He appointed Martin O’Neill as manager and gave him the tools to construct an exciting lineup – trading Baros for Carew and buying Ashley Young for over nine million in his first season, for example.
Some of the signings were terrible and falling out with O’Neill was linked to that and wage inflation, but in the main, Lerner cannot be accused of denying his managers what they want. Delph (£6m), Downing (£10m) and Dunne (£5m) are three examples of solid purchases as Aston Villa remained something of a formidable side, an eleventh and three top six finishes before the ninth placed effort last campaign in what was an eventful season at Villa Park.
When it was going wrong and the club found themselves in 16th, he spent big on Darren Bent as Villa quietly only lost four of their final 15 games. Lerner should be praised for his ambition. Certainly Aston Villa are not the biggest club and there will be always other outfits ready to wave the chequebook at their stars, Ashley Young joining the red side of Manchester, while Milner and Barry went blue but surely there should be an element of faith in the new manager and chairman?
Lerner inherited the Cleveland Browns – essentially the absolute worst franchise in the NFL. Even then, he has tried to turn them into a progressive outfit, without much success in their competitive AFC North division. One tragic example was the signing of Le Charles Bentley – a much coveted lineman. Lerner spent over $30 million on him, only for Bentley to blow his knee out and retire without ever playing a down in the NFL.
Thankfully, while there have been some bad signings, some of the young players that have come through must genuinely excite the Holte End. Agbonlahor and Albrighton are established first teamers, with the likes of Delfouneso, Bannan, Hogg and Ciaran Clark needing a little more seasoning. It would have been easy for Lerner to hand his manager a chunk of his reported $1.5 billion wealth to buy in players, but largely, they have put their faith in youth and with Friedel and Reo-Coker gone, some spending will be inevitable as Villa rebuild around Darren Bent and the kids. With the Wenger driven exception in North London, which other foreign owned club has made youth development as much of a priority?
There has been no mass revolt from one of the better fanbases in the country, small pockets of disgruntled Brummies annoyed that they pinched their rival’s boss, simply because he was a Bluenose. It’s fair to say that rumours of season tickets being burnt and ripped are exaggerated. Who did Villa fans realistically want?
The fact that the stadium has retained the name without some corny sponsorship is a small sign that Lerner appreciates the tradition of English football. This is a man that spent 1983, one year after Aston Villa won the European Cup in England, gaining an appreciation of ‘sawker’ along the way. It should also be applauded that the Villains remain the only Premier League team to donate the lucrative primary shirt sponsor (to children’s hospice Acorns. Does giving up a reported 2.5 million a year sound like an owner who is out to asset strip the club?
So to sum it all up, here is a foreign chairman who spends money on players, the infrastructure of the club, knows the ins and outs of the sport and unique traditions in Britain, constructing a team who have an exciting young, largely British and Irish core and hasn’t neglected his responsibility to the community. Yet he’s being vilified because he went across town to fill their managerial vacancy.
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Really?
Read more of Hashim Piperdy’s articles at This is Futbol
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Things keep going from bad to worse on the ticket pricing front. There was a time when working class fathers could afford to take their children to games, when you didn’t have to own stock in NASA to own a season ticket and when you didn’t have to be a Sheikh to be able to afford a decent seat in a decent stadium. Times change however, and the modern ticket prices often leave a sour taste in the mouth.
The news now is that Arsenal are going to be the first club to introduce £100+ non-corporate matchday tickets. These tickets will become available sometime early next year, when the VAT on tickets rises to 20%. This will take the cost of the most expensive non-corporate Emirates ticket from £98.50 (as if this wasn’t bad enough) to £100.60.
The fact of the matter is, Arsenal are pricing a huge percentage of their fans out of the market. It’s a sad situation when genuine fans are sidelined by budgetary constraints, but football is a world that is very much dominated by money. The people controlling Arsenal’s finances don’t care who is filling the stadium, as long as it’s filled and they are able to wring as much money out of it as possible. Yes, there’s the recession to contend with, but that doesn’t make the whole saga any less depressing.
The Chairman of the Football Supporters’ Federation, Malcolm Clarke had this to say regarding Arsenal’s ticket re-pricing: “A £100 ticket in the present climate is ridiculous. It is proof that football is not living in the same world as the rest of us. The game has more money going into it than ever before and it is not helping fans. Football is no longer a game that is readily accessible to all sections of the community.”
It’s true that the footballing world seems to have lost touch with commonsense, decency and reality. Football is no longer the game of the working class. Those who can’t afford tickets are forced to huddle round their TVs (having ordered an expensive Sky Sports package) rather than receive the real experience.
Prior to the announcement that Arsenal’s matchday ticket prices were going to change, Arsenal were already the most expensive team to watch in England on a game-to-game basis. That they’ve raised prices once more highlights the financial disarray that the footballing world is in. I wonder if these extravagances will come back to haunt Premier League clubs in the coming years. More and more high quality live streams of football games are becoming available online for free and they are a real nuisance for the authorities to shut down. I don’t condone the watching of illegal live streams, but by pricing fans out of the market, the masses are more likely to try and find the content for free.
I’d like to think that a change will come and that it will be for the better, but let’s face it, ticket prices will continue to rise and things are likely to go from bad to worse.
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Despite the bookmakers suggesting otherwise before this week’s first legs, Bayern Munich and Chelsea made home advantage count and will take leads into their Champions League Semi Final second leg ties against Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively. The question though is whether their slender leads will be enough to prevent an “El Clasico” Champions League final when the second legs are played next week in Spain.
The Bookmakers are sticking with their initial predictions and offer odds of 13/8 that the two Spanish Giants will be playing in the final next month at the Allianz Stadium in Munich.
Having secured a 2-1 lead with a second half stoppage time winner from the prolific Mario Gomez, Bayern will believe that they can win this tie, even if they have to withstand the pressure of Jose Mourinho’s side at the Bernabeu Stadium on Wednesday.
The Germans showed enough to demonstrate to Real that they are in this tournament to win it whilst, Real Madrid once again flattered to deceive when up against elite opposition. Bayern have world class players in the form of Ribery and Robben and in Toni Kroos, they have a central midfield star who looked the best player on the pitch in Tuesday’s game. The 22 year old can do almost anything with a football at his feet but it is his long pass accuracy that could well catch the Spaniards out in the second leg and an away goal for Munich would really make this tie interesting.
Obviously home advantage and the away goal will play a very important part but Real’s boss, Jose Mourinho, will expect a lot more quality and commitment from the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, who was only seen in patches on Tuesday evening. He did set up Real’s equalising goal for Ozil but only after missing a gilt-edged himself.
Mourinho did have one or two players who performed admirably, Pepe kept his discipline at the back, Benzema made a number of smart runs in attack and had a couple of goal bound shots saved, while Khedira and Ozil worked hard in midfield. However, should defenders Sergio Ramos and Fabio Coentrao play as poorly again, then Bayern’s lively attack will be sure to seize a vital away goal.
Real’ 4/7 odds on to win the game in 90 minutes and 8/11 odds on to qualify, whilst the away win can be backed at 11/2 or 11/10 to qualify for the final and set up the first Champions League final where a team is playing at its home stadium.
In the other Semi Final, it is all well and good Barcelona boss, Pep Guardiola, suggesting that Chelsea are the favourites to go through to the final after scoring the only goal of the game in the First Leg on Wednesday evening but he knows that his team should have come away from Stamford Bridge two, perhaps three goals to the good but for a number of squandered opportunities.
Chelsea produced a performance of epic proportions to win the game but they will realise that Drogba’s goal was their only shot on target in 90 minutes and that Barcelona had the ball for a total of 80 minutes of the game. They will also realise that Barca hit the woodwork twice, had a clear chance missed by Cesc Fabregas and a couple more opportunities missed by Messi and Iniesta. Add to that two world class saves from Petr Cech and Barcelona must be thinkign that Chelsea’s good fortune cannot extend for 180 minutes.
To win at the Nou Camp however, Chelsea will have to be even more resolute in defence and hope that the Barcelona’s rare profligacy in front of goal continues for the next game. If it doesn’t and the home side find the net early then they are quite capable of winning comfortably.
Chelsea still has a mountain to climb and bookies are confident that the reigning European champions will progress to the final and are still heavily odds on to do so at 4/11 and to win in 90 minutes they are 1/4 with Chelsea rated a 12/1 chance!
The results from the first legs have certainly made the Champions League Semi Finals interesting but the dream “El Clasico” final still remains firmly in sight and the latest odds to win the Champions League still see Barcelona as the 6/5 favourites to become the first back-to-back winners of the competition in the Champions League era with Real Madrid rated an 11/4 chance. Bayern Munich are 4/1 and Chelsea a best price 7/1 chance.
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Alex McLeish’s resignation has caused quite a stir in Birmingham, given that he has been heavily linked with the vacant manager’s job at Villa Park. The Blues plan to do everything in their legal powers to prevent the two parties from talking, although it would be hard to see how they can stop it.
In the papers this morning there have been a mixed bag of stories that include the Glazers weigh up £1.7bn floatation; Usmanov blames the Arsenal board for failure, while time is running out for Jonathan Woodgate.
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McLeish linked with Villa after quitting Birmingham – Guardian
Glazers weigh up £1.7bn floatation on Hong Kong Stock Exchange – Daily Mail
Time running out for crock Woody – Sun
Usmanov: Arsenal board to blame for failures – Guardian
Man United win battle for Jones – Daily Telegraph
You’re Gunner regret it, Sam – Sun
UEFA chief Platini impressed by Football League’s financial changes – Daily Mail
Everton back in for Real Madrid starlet – Mirror
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Liverpool bid for Saints prodigy – Daily Mail
Swansea keen to sign young Chelsea defender – Mirror
Patrice Evra claims Manchester United must spend as ‘little time’ as possible thinking about their city rivals, Manchester City. With the eagerly anticipated derby at Eastlands on Wednesday night, will Patrice Evra’s comments only inspire Manchester City to end Manchester United’s unbeaten run this season. The comments are a little disrespectful to a team filled with world class players, a team that run Manchester United to the final minutes in both league games last term and a team that dismantled Chelsea. If Manchester City needed any more inspiration it seems Patrice Evra has provided it for them.
Speaking to the Daily Mirror, Evra claims that Manchester United spend little time thinking about their neighbours and Premier League rivals.
“Look, I like to win against Chelsea, I love to play against Manchester City and I hate to lose against Liverpool at Anfield. That’s my mentality.” “We don’t think about Manchester City because they are not our problem.”
This declaration, Manchester City not being Manchester United’s problem again seems a little derogatory – almost as if Manchester United need not worry about them because they are nothing to worry about. Over the last two years, Manchester United have not underestimated Manchester City – and their rivals have pushed them all the way. Is this the first time that Manchester United feel that the Manchester City challenge isn’t as strong as it could be. Is Patrice Evra taunting Manchester City? Whatever the reasons for this, it is amazing how many times comments like this come back to bite. If Manchester City win against United on Wednesday there can be no doubt that threat City pose this season.
Patrice Evra may also enraged Manchester City fans by claiming that Manchester City are also-rans without skipper Carlos Tevez.
“City have spent a lot of money, but for me Carlito is easily the best player they have.
“They have other good players, but he attacks and defends.
“They couldn’t afford to lose him. He is a big player, the most important they have – and every single Manchester City player knows that.
Last season was the perfect example. In the semi final first leg of the Carling Cup, Carlos Tevez scored a brace to defeat Manchester United after derogatory comments from Gary Neville. This again could happen. The Manchester City team know how a good a player Tevez is, but they do need to show they are not a one man team. Whoever plays up front for City will be aiming to show this – having an added incentive to beat Manchester United. Patrice Evra’s comments could in fact rile a highly hostile crowd, something that will only inspire City.
This is not the first time the full back has made inflammatory comments about Manchester City. Before that semi final last season, Evra claimed in the Mail, that Manchester City were not concerned on winning a trophy, just on beating the club they loathe.
‘We know the City people are talking about this game,’ he said. ‘But we are playing it to go one more step closer to winning the cup, maybe they are playing it to beat us.
‘That is the difference between the two clubs. For us it is not just about beating Manchester City. Yes, it is an important game but Manchester United play a lot of big games.’
Again, speaking before the first leg – Manchester United were beaten.
A player of Evra’s experience should know better than to rile players and fans alike. The game is massive for both clubs. Manchester City need to shake the pressure off manager Roberto Mancini – and a win against United would do that. For Manchester United, a win would give the squad great confidence in challenging for the Premier League this season. Did Evra really need to make this comments?
So many times comments like this have come back to bite, and giving City an extra incentive to win is foolish. City may not need another incentive but for a player of Patrice Evra’s experience, knowing the history of this fixture, to make derogatory remarks about Manchester City may come back and haunt him and Manchester United come Wednesday night.
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The strained relationship between Manchester City boss Roberto Mancini and striker Mario Balotelli has taken another turn, as the pair exchanged angry words at the club’s training ground.
The Italy international forward was fined a week’s wages earlier this month after he visiting a strip club 36 hours before the side’s fixture with Bolton, and has had an up and down time in England since moving from Inter in August 2010.
The Telegraph report that Mancini berated the attacker due to a lack of effort in team training on Wednesday, with coach Attilio Lombardo urging Balotelli to train elsewhere to avoid the volley of abuse.
City have dismissed the incident as part and parcel of football and Mancini’s drive for high standards, however with the team’s performances not up to usual calibre in recent weeks, the pair’s relationship looks strained.
By Gareth McKnight
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President Sepp Blatter is to be investigated by FIFA.World football’s ruling body has opened ethics proceedings against Blatter after Mohamed Bin Hammam, his rival in next week’s presidential election, claimed that the Swiss knew about alleged cash payments.
Bin Hammam and vice-president Jack Warner will also be at Sunday’s hearing to answer charges of bribery.
“I cannot comment on the proceedings that have been opened against me. The facts will speak for themselves,” Blatter said in a statement.
The ethics committee are bound by their rules to investigate any complaint by an executive committee member under article 16 of the ethics code.
Bin Hammam and Warner face allegations from executive committee member Chuck Blazer that they offered bribes at a meeting of the Caribbean Football Union earlier this month.
A file of evidence claims bundles of cash of up to US$40,000 were handed over to members of the CFU at the meeting in Trinidad.
In turn, Bin Hammam is effectively claiming Blatter was aware of some wrongdoing but did not report it, in itself a breach of the code.
The committee, chaired by Namibian judge Petrus Damaseb, will also be under pressure to decide whether Blatter will face any charges.