Liverpool’s Daniel Sturridge says that although he is “gutted” to have missed out on the Premier League title to Manchester City on the last day of the season he and his team are ready to challenge once again next term.
The Reds rose from a seventh place finish in 2012/13 to take the race for English football’s top prize to the final game of the campaign, in what was an astonishing 10 months on Merseyside.
Liverpool did all they could in fixture 38 by beating Newcastle at home, yet the scoreline they craved from West Ham at City – a win – did not come.
As a result the Reds are still waiting for a first title in 24 years – and a first in the Premier League era – but Sturridge says that despite the felling of anguish, the club are ready to bounce back and go again after a fine season:
“I know we will be contenders again next season,” he is quoted by the Liverpool Echo.
“We will take the positives from this season and learn from the negatives.
“Next season will be a big year for us and we’re looking forward to that already.
“I think this squad is unbelievable. We’ve done really well and I fully expect us to push on again next season.
“This experience will stand us in good stead for next season. I believe we will challenge. I am sure the manager will buy players who he believes can push us on to the next level.
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“With whoever comes in together with the great players we already have here, I am sure we will do well next season.”
Sturridge himself took his league goals tally to 21 with an effort against Newcastle, and will feature for England at the World Cup this summer.
England under-21’s beat Serbia 1-0 on Tuesday night, but the game was overshadowed by ugly scenes at the final whistle.
Connor Wickham scored in the last minute to give the visitors a 2-0 aggregate win and secure their place at the European Championships in 2013.
However, Danny Rose was sent off in the dying moments and it has been revealed that the Tottenham defender was racially abused by members of the crowd.
England goalkeeping coach Martin Thomas appeared to be head-butted as he left the pitch, whilst some of the players and assistant Steve Wigley were also attacked.
The FA has confirmed that they intend to take a strong stance after the incidents and will appeal to Uefa.
“The FA condemns both the scenes of racism and the confrontation at the final whistle during which time our players and staff were under extreme provocation,” the statement, published in The Guardian states.
“The FA has reported a number of incidents of racism to Uefa following the fixture. These were seemingly aimed at a number of England black players by the crowd. The matter is now with Uefa.”
Stuart Pearce and Jordan Henderson both also stated that they were fully aware of racist chants and monkey noises from the home faithful.
“I think there were one or two racist incidents that came from the crowd and they have been reported to Uefa by ourselves. It is in their hands now; they will have to deal with that,” Pearce stated.
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“There was a lot of racist abuse out there from the stands and a lot going on after the game. There were also stones, coins and seats getting thrown at us. What happened wasn’t nice and is not called for in football,” Henderson added.
Atletico Madrid goalkeeper Jan Oblak, who is thought to have an £80m release clause, and Roma’s Alisson are the two men Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has identified to potentially replace Loris Karius, according to the Mirror.
What’s the story, then?
By now, the world and his wife knows that Loris Karius made two dreadful goalkeeping errors that led to two goals as Liverpool lost 3-1 to Real Madrid in the Champions League final.
The Mirror report that those errors have intensified Liverpool’s search for a new goalkeeper this summer and Oblak and Alisson are the two men at the top of Klopp’s shopping list.
It goes on to say that doing a deal with Alisson might be problematic as Roma still believed Liverpool lowballed them over Mo Salah, while Oblak’s £80m release clause is also quoted.
Oblak would be Liverpool’s De Gea
It is almost impossible to overstate the impact that a calm and reliable goalkeeper has on the entire team; he can settle down an entire backline and De Gea has shown that a great stopper can win points on his own.
Oblak has proved himself to be among the world’s elite during his time at Atletico – Alisson is younger, more like Ederson but Liverpool don’t really need someone that proactive.
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The fans at Anfield must be longing for a reliable man between the sticks and Oblak is as risk-free as is on the market this summer and £80m may seem like a lot but it could improve other players no end.
Former Arsenal forward Ian Wright has accused the Gunners of panicking in the transfer market.
Arsenal are believed to be on the verge of losing star player Alexis Sanchez, with the Chilean international odds-on to complete a move to Manchester United.
It is understood that Henrikh Mkhitaryan will move in the opposite direction, although negotiations are still ongoing as both clubs look to come to an agreement.
The Gunners have also been linked with Borussia Dortmund forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang as head coach Arsene Wenger looks to replace Sanchez’s goals.
Wright, however, has questioned his former club’s current transfer market activity.
The 54-year-old also does not believe that Mkhitaryan, who has struggled in the Premier League, will be in the right frame of mind to ‘hit the ground running’ for a club that are currently struggling to stay in touch with the top four in the league.
Wright told Sky Sports:
“Everything that is happening is being forced on them through other people. Mkhitaryan is not a player Arsenal have been after – he’s a player that Arsenal have been handed.
“It’s the same with Aubameyang – a couple of years ago, he was on everyone’s radar but now he’s gone a bit cold. Then all of a sudden, he’s on Arsenal’s radar – it all feels panicky for me.
“Of course they are both quality players. But if you are losing Sanchez, you need players that will hit the ground running. I’m not sure about Mkhitaryan’s state of mind right now.”
Arsenal, who have not won any of their last five matches in all competitions, are next in Premier League action against Crystal Palace this weekend.
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Arsenal hope to sign Juventus forward Mirko Vucinic on loan until the end of the season, according to the Telegraph.
The Gunners are eager to add a new striker this month to strengthen their pursuit of the Premier League table, and Arsene Wenger looks to have turned his attentions to the 30-year-old, after growing frustrated in his pursuit of Real Madrid striker Alvaro Morata.
Juventus are willing to let Vucinic leave, but would prefer to agree a permanent transfer. Arsenal have been quoted a price of £8.2million for the Serbian forward, although they would much prefer to take him on loan.
Vucinic is keen to leave the Turin giants, after finding first team opportunities limited this season, following the summer arrivals of Carlos Tevez and Fernando Llorente.
Two goals from Santi Cazorla ensured Wenger’s side held onto top spot in the Premier League with a 2-0 win over Fulham at the Emirates on Saturday.
And Wenger remained tight lipped over the prospect of bringing in new players following the win, going as far to say he was not ‘especially interested’ in Vucinic.
“We are looking at potential possibilities for us to get somebody in.” On whether a meeting was planned, he said: “Some people have visual capacities that I don’t have.” He added: “We are not on any special case. I would love to announce you something special.”
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It feels as if sometimes in football, we get so wrapped up in witch hunts, controversies and Premier League melodrama, that we often lose sight of what’s going on in the present. A seemingly never-ending string of refereeing incidents seems to leave many of us baying for change, as opposed to analyzing the wreckage.
So often within the aftermath of a controversial red card, a missed off-the-ball incident or a disallowed goal, thoughts immediately turn to what could have been done to prevent it. The usual suspects of video technology and goal line technology are wheeled out with a certain level of self-satisfied confidence. The feeling seems to be that the influx of some 21st century additions could ease much of the problems that our game is currently facing.
And maybe to one extent, that’s true. In terms of goal line technology, we have already seen two systems in principal – in Hawk-Eye and GoalRef – come to the fore, with the proverbial heads up being given by football’s governing bodies. But it seems interesting that we should spend such time focusing on the complexities of technology in football and the hardest parts of the game to officiate, when our country’s referees seem unable to get the bread and butter right.
It’s an age-old argument that seemingly won’t ever disappear. Premier League referees go through the mill week in, week out, making unfeasibly difficult decisions in a professional sport that is played at untenably high speed. What’s more, where as the tools of their trade are their own vision and human judgment, the rest of the world gets to scrutinize their performance with a dozen slow motion camera and startling high definition video technology. They’re never likely to look good every week, are they?
But there seems to be some things that are becoming increasingly difficult to account for within the modern game. In the same week in which ex-Premier League ref Graham Poll spoke of a past tendency to award decisions based on reputation, we saw a stonewall penalty decision missed by four match officials. Some will point to the refusal to award Luis Suarez a penalty under the bundling challenge of Leon Barnett as rough justice, but depending on your viewpoint, the connotations of the incident are very concerning indeed.
Why are we worrying about goal line technology when it appears that our refs seem unable to perform the basic task of judging each foul on its own merits?
Of course, the Suarez debacle is a highly volatile example, but the point is there. Goal line technology is crucially important and it represents an addition to the game that is hardly going to sterilize in it the same way as video replays might. But the point remains that such incidents will crop up no more than a few times this season. Horrendously poor offside decisions and excruciatingly soft penalty calls blight us week in week out. Shouldn’t we be focusing on seeing our referees get the basic right before we start clamoring for technological change?
There is clearly an element of tedium to this debate. Referees mistakes are part and parcel of the game. If we were to introduce a medium to eradicate that, such as the use of video technology, that would undoubtedly sterilize the game and rob it of the spontaneity that we know and love. But no one expects refs to be bulletproof and free of making mistakes. We just want a little more consistency and a lot less continuous error.
The game can’t be officiated off the back of a series of agendas. Sitting down in a board room and pronouncing a desire to clamp down on diving, shouldn’t equate to a blanket prejudicial attitude to officiating player of Suarez’s ilk and so on. It’s currently diving, but we’ve seen a similar focus on the use of elbows and the showing of studs in tackles. This may reek of a moral panic, but we’ve just seen this story play out a hundred times. Our Premier League refs work under enormous pressure and there has been something of a groundswell of sympathy for our officials in recent weeks.
But despite the pressure they find themselves under, that shouldn’t stop us from critiquing their performance. There feels as if there is a very large, ambiguous blanket over the world of refereeing scrutiny and their subsequent punishment. Understandably, governing bodies don’t want to see match officials undermined, but any tangible solution will run that risk. Be it a more publicized grading system, retrospective punishment for players or a microphone hooked up to the match official, every possible alternative is thrown out as being ‘undermiming’. It feels as if you can’t win.
Because finding a solution to ease the chronic, basic errors that match officials make – or at least reasoning behind their logic – is just as important as the implementation of goal line technology. All people remember from England’s 1-0 victory over Ukraine, was the touted ‘ghost-goal’. The media got themselves in quite a frenzy and the calls for technology to be rafter in were more aggressive than ever. What people tend to forget was that the goal should never have stood anyway, as it was offside. It is the bread and butter, which is as important as anything else.
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It’s difficult to instigate an argument such as one about refereeing performance, without being able to offer a real, valuable solution. But although the call to arms to implement modern day technology into football is a valuable one, fans should be under no illusion that it will present a magic tonic to officiating gripes that dominate games every weekend.
Subtle compromises are there, such as a stricter system for grading referees or even the importation of foreign referees. But just a little bit of consistency and an improvement of the basics, would feel as refreshing as any deluge of technological advancement.
What do you think about the consistency of Premier League refs? Desperate for technology or would you rather we sorted out the basics first? Let me know what you think on Twitter: follow @samuel_antrobus and tell me how you see it.
Notts County announced on Tuesday that former Leeds United striker Alan Smith was going to be released following the expiry of his contract with the League Two club, and Whites fans were quick to discuss a potential return to Elland Road for the 37-year-old.
Smith, who has tended to play as a central midfielder rather than a centre-forward in recent years but only featured in 56 minutes of league football this season, saw his team beaten by Coventry City in their League Two play-off semi-final last week, meaning they will be spending another year in England’s fourth tier.
His manager Kevin Nolan has decided to let him go now his current deal is up and Smith, who scored 52 goals in 209 appearances in all competitions for the Yorkshire outfit earlier in his career, could now be considering moving into a coaching role.
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Leeds supporters, who have urged their club to rescue a £35,000-a-week Premier League star, took to social media to give their thoughts on the newly-available 37-year-old, and while one said “please sign Alan Smith as manager”, another said “wonder if he’s going to come back home to Leeds”.
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When pundits and journalists berate the lack of chances for English managers in modern football, there are two tiers to that argument. The first is obvious and factually unavoidable; no English manager has ever won the Premier League title and in the past decade, Harry Redknapp is the only one to last more than half a season with any of the top flight’s big six. Instead, Sam Allaryce, Alan Pardew and likewise company have been caught in a revolving door, swinging them around lower-mid-table clubs seeking a sure-fire way to avoid relegation.
But the second level is arguably more significant, because it directly seeps into the first. Upon failing to acquire the services of a Pardew or Allardyce, Premier League clubs are faced with two inevitable options – promote a manager from the Football League or bring in someone from abroad. As the Premier League has steadily become the world’s first truly globalised league, suave suits, exotic formations and accented surnames have persisted over the less fashionable, more familiar offerings from the Championship.
And yet, the chances of a foreign manager succeeding in the Premier League are no greater than an English one moving into the top flight for the very first time. For every Marco Silva or Mauricio Pochettino, there is a Pepe Mel or Andre Villas-Boas. Every appointment comes with risk and that is precisely why so many pundits argue the pejorative stasis of English managers is as much a consequence of a manufactured sense of vogue as it is actual performance compared to resources.
There’s also a growing argument, especially amid the age of the ever-shortening managerial tenure, that not enough research is done before the cycle of fire and hire commences at any given club. It’s certainly true that the unprecedented level of sports science and statistical analysis involved in player recruitment isn’t applied to recruiting managers, at least not with the same scrupulous detail and longevity.
That particularly rings true at Southampton, a club once famed for their revolutionary Black Box that parted company with Claude Puel after just one season and is now enduring issues with his successor Mauricio Pellegrino, which have gone on too long to be considered mere teething pains. Considering how abruptly Saints dismissed Puel after finishing eighth, albeit somewhat fortuitously, and almost beating Manchester United in the League Cup final, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Pellegrino moved on before the summer. A team deemed too talent and a club deemed too well-run for the relegation scrap now finds itself spared from the drop zone by goal difference alone.
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And should that be the case, Southampton will face the similar dilemma; recruit from abroad or the lower leagues. While the sheer vastness of the former category throws up too many names and variables to be accurately considered at this moment in time, one English candidate from the Football League unequivocally stands out – Bristol City’s Lee Johnson.
If we apply the same kind of scientific metrics used in player recruitment, Johnson’s results are truly staggering – but especially for a 36-year-old manager undertaking his first job at Championship level. At the expense of just £11million, an upper-mid-table outlay for the second tier, Johnson has transformed a Bristol City side that avoided relegation under his watch by just three points last season into candidates for automatic promotion, now laying just two points away from Derby in second.
Although such drastic turnarounds are hardly unheard of in the Championship – Cardiff City have transformed their fortunes under Neil Warnock as well, while Sheffield United are seventh after gaining promotion from League One last season – it’s less usual for positive, attacking football implemented by young, English players to be at the beating heart of one. Excluding veteran goalkeeper Luke Steele, the average age of those to have started in the Championship for Bristol this season is just 24.6 years.
Perhaps because of the youthful enthusiasm and fearlessness young players bring to teams at all levels of the game, only the top two have scored more goals than the Robins’ 40 this term, while averaging the seventh-highest possession, 52% of any side in the division. There’s a frightening tempo to the way they play as well, and the use of academy players like Joe Bryan has created a real sense of local identity, something the city of Bristol has lacked in footballing terms for far too long. Johnson’s impact on the club has stemmed far beyond simply positive results.
Of course, defying the odds in the Championship is one thing, but this season’s Carabao Cup run has added a unique element to Johnson’s CV, one that leaves him better-placed than most other young English managers in the Football League.
Scenes of swivelling around a rogue ball boy have become iconic after Bristol City unexpectedly beat Manchester United in the quarter-finals, but that victory was just the tip of the iceberg; Bristol City have now beaten four Premier League sides this season, the same amount as Swansea City and Southampton, and Johnson himself has beaten twice as many as Tony Pulis – a manager once revered as a stalwart of survival, consequently worth his weight in gold.
Those closest to Johnson, though, wouldn’t be all that surprised. The son of Football League management veteran Gary Johnson, forced to end his playing days somewhat prematurely due to injury, spiritualists will argue Lee was born to manage. The evidence thus far suggests that’s the case; Johnson is a self-confessed football geek and management obsessive, who has an interactive tactical whiteboard in his own living room and has embraced every innovation that’s come his way – the most recent being using drones on the training pitch. As Gregor MacGregor from the Bristol Post argues, all the signs suggest he’s destined for the top.
“The Newmarket-born boss is destined for the top and it’s a pleasure to be able to see such a coach working at close hand… one way or another is heading for the upper echelons of the game. He has the devotion, acumen, personality, craving and understanding to climb said tree.”
And on Tuesday night, Johnson will get another chance to taste what life at the top is really like. Bristol City’s prize for beating United is a double-legger with their Premier League pace-setting rivals Manchester City, comfortably the best team in England if not the whole of Europe this season under Pep Guardiola.
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In many ways, this clash is like an audition; while nobody expected Bristol City to get this far, let alone expect them to dish out the Citizens’ first defeat of the campaign, taking them as close as any Premier League side has this term will be an incredible moral victory for the Robins and their rising managerial star – one that can’t be simply ignored as a young manager doing well in the Championship, and one that compares favourably with what most foreign alternatives can offer in terms of credentials.
No doubt, that will catch the eye of Stoke City, who currently offer the only vacancy in the Premier League. But Southampton feel like the better fit for a young manager who, as highly-rated as he is, still has much to learn about top-flight football. Johnson’s ethos of creating attacking football by working with young players, often academy products, fits perfectly into the Southampton way and amid an era in which non-top-six clubs are trading exciting football for acceptable results, the Bristol City boss stands out as a manager with the courage and conviction to deviate from that norm.
In fact, like they would if a promising striker or attacking midfielder became available on the transfer market, Southampton might be wise to act before the Potters beat them to it.
Let’s be humorous about this. Mike Dean put in a Man of the Match performance in the game between Tottenham and Chelsea. We went away talking about Fernando Torres, Jan Vertonghen, a little of the friendship, or lack therefore, between Jose Mourinho and Andre Villas-Boas, but referee Mike Dean stole the show.
Now let’s be serious. This isn’t the first time that many would have been discussing Dean’s performance, and not in the way you normally debate a decision made by a referee. It gets a little bit sickening when those on the front line try to defend and even justify the performances of referees – and it’s made even more infuriating by the protection offered to match officials. No interviews whatsoever is far more damning than may be intended.
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But what can we take from this? It’s yet another trigger-happy performance by a referee who couldn’t wait to make a decisive decision in a big game. Anyone could have seen that Torres didn’t actually touch Vertonghen, but rather the sending off was the culmination of previous altercations and was viewed by the official as the opportune moment to leave his mark on a game.
Some have said that Mike Dean managed the whole game well, but again that just smacks of justification for bias match officiating and an outcome that isn’t always in the hands of players or managers.
Torres may have been walking that fine line and could have eventually got himself sent off. Or he could have just kept poking and dancing dangerously around the fire without actually burning himself. Is that against the laws of the game?
But Dean is a figure who has previous. His actions towards Arsene Wenger at Old Trafford were despicable at best. What if that had been Alex Ferguson? Not a chance; Dean would have been hounded out of the Premier League for good. The striking image of that game of course is Wenger being sent to the non-existent stands at Old Trafford, and for what? Kicking a water bottle?
Andy Dunn has been one of the writers to defend Dean and refs in general. Yes, referees do get a lot of stick after games, but not because everyone is bored and in desperate search of an easy target. It’s largely because the majority are incompetent. And if they manage to stray away from the boundaries of incompetence, they fail to mask their unquestionable bias. It’s fortunate that corruption is so alien to the modern game in England.
Is Mike Dean capable of not making it all about him?
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Every team has one, the player whose career had so much promise until it stuttered and stalled due to host of injury problems. Instead of etching themselves in the club’s history with man of the match displays, these frustrating stars end up becoming more familiar with the club physio than the man on the terrace.
Infuriatingly unreliable but packed with potential if only they could stay fit, these players offer brief moments of genius that encourage fans to believe they will prove their greatness, but after a handful of impressive showings they end up back on the treatment table collecting their bumper wage packets.
Whether it’s bad luck in the tackle or enduring countless fitness battles that can never be won, there are a number of talented stars that have had their ambitions curbed by an inability to complete 90 minutes on a regular basis. During the Premier League era certain players have made a name for themselves as the ‘sick note’ of their respective sides or been deprived of prestigious careers due to unforeseen heartbreak as their battle to return to fitness is as ill fated as their playing days.
With that in mind, it’s time to take a look at the Premier League’s Greatest Injury Prone XI.
Click on Kirkland below to see the greatest Premier League XI ‘that never was’