Inter Milan boss Leonardo is satisfied with how his players have performed since he took over, but would like to see them take more risks.Leonardo took over at Inter in December after the dismissal of Rafael Benitez, and since then the reigning Italian and European champions have looked a different side – charging up the Serie A table to sit in second place, just five points behind AC Milan.Ahead of their clash with Genoa on Sunday, the Brazilian said he would like his side to adopt a more attacking mindset as the title race reaches heads for a thrilling conclusion.”I’m satisfied for the job that has been done, since it has been a difficult and delicate situation for me,” Leonardo said. “I’m satisfied for what we have done and how we have achieved our results, for the intense and involving way in which we have experienced this. Sincerely, I’m very satisfied.””I believe that the continuity we have had up to now will bring us somewhere.””My objective is to win the match and in order to do this you should be able to score at least one goal more than the opposing team.””This means that you should take at least three or four risks since it is impossible to score a goal at the first attempt.” “Of course we try to find the balance, but the most important thing is the willingness to win.”
Werder Bremen midfielder Mesut Ozil, one of the stars of this summer's World Cup following his impressive displays for Germany, has hinted that he would welcome the opportunity to play in England.
The 21-year-old was particularly outstanding in the victories against Australia and England and is expected to play a key role in Saturday's quarter-final clash with Argentina.
However, Ozil has just a year left on his current contract with Werder Bremen and the Bundesliga side may opt to capitalise on his excellent form in the tournament by selling him this summer.
Ozil would not be unhappy about that prospect, saying:"The World Cup is all that matters at the moment but when I get back we can think about my future. For now it's not something I want to give a lot of thought to.
"To the top players the Premier League is attractive. You look at what Manchester United and Chelsea have achieved over the last five years and you see it would be easy to be successful at two clubs like that.
"I see what Michael Ballack achieved at Chelsea and the quality of players he played with and the temptation becomes obvious.
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"Trophies are what matters to me. There are two teams in England always at the top and of course that's attractive. But the same is true for La Liga. They're the strongest leagues in the world."
Ozil has scored 13 goals in 95 appearances for Werder since making his debut for the club in February 2008.Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
After what has seemed a long, long summer of sport (were the Euros really only a few months ago?) our favourite time of year is nearly upon us. In just a few days’ time, Blackpool kick off their season away at Millwall with an unusually high level of expectation on the terraces.
After last year’s play-off disappointment, there were fears our squad could suffer a long hangover, or be torn apart – Or both. But neither has happened and there is a definite optimism coming from Bloomfield Road. Whether this optimism is reasonable only time will tell, but there are a few genuine reasons to expect Blackpool to be challenging at the very top of the table. We have two of the hottest properties in the division in Matty Phillips and Tom Ince and if we manage to keep hold of them, which it looks as if we could, then no defence will look forward to facing us. We have a style of play that has served us and other teams very well in this league, and a manager whose passion has seen us perform well above our capabilities. And keeping hold of Holloway is far and away the best news we could have hoped for over the summer.
In some ways, it has been a summer like no other. We have created a development squad with it’s own manager, with his own credentials, who we had actually heard of. We have opened a classy hotel within the stadium with gym facilities for the players. And we have been linked with young players from PSG, Lille and Athletico Madrid rather than Mansfield or Barnet. Yet in other ways, it has been a case of same old same old, with fans moaning about the chairman’s lack of investment, missing out on targets and late arrivals.
But it has really been a first for us this summer, with no real overhaul in the squad. We have kept hold of our best players thus far and the only departures have been fringe players with Keith Southern being the only player to leave who may have featured. So, looking at how we did last year, it feels sensible to say that with a few tweaks here and there, we could progress a bit further and aim for an automatic spot.
We are one quality striker away from getting really excited about this season. But then, how many teams are saying the same thing? It appears to be the only position in which we are lacking and with us creating so many chances, we could really do with someone who is going to start most games and put them away regularly. Hopefully this will be addressed in the next few days, or at least before the window closes.
It seems silly to say we have a tough start – away to Millwall and Leicester and home to Leeds and Ipswich – when in fact, this might well be the toughest year in the Championship. Of the 3 teams relegated from the Premier League, I can’t see any of them performing well enough to run away with the league, and without a team at the top taking points away from everyone else, it will make the league even tighter. Then at the other end, the three teams who have joined the league are big clubs. Charlton, Sheffield Wednesday and Huddersfield will all be expecting a top half finish.
If we are to succeed this year, we need to use our squad as best we can. Thankfully, we have built a squad with real quality in depth, which will hopefully stand us in good stead come May.
What will be nice this year is having a few local games. After last season’s nearest neighbours being Barnsley some 90 odd miles away, we now have Blackburn, Bolton and even Huddersfield who are closer. Getting shot of West Ham, Southampton, Reading and Portsmouth was also a bonus. So overall, there should be a few more happy travellers from the seaside, and hopefully the players will perform better on the road this year after disappointing last season.
So, we have a great squad with some star players, and a great manager with some star quality, and another year in arguably the toughest league in the world. Unfortunately, this could well be our last chance with this squad and this manager. I can’t see us keeping Holloway out of the Premier League for another year, but this could well work in our favour and inspire the players to get into one of those 2 automatic spots.
All in all, as usual, it’s damn near impossible to predict how things will go this year, but I’ll throw a guess out there.
Top 2: Blackpool, Leicester.
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It is no secret that Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich has had his sights set on Champions’ League glory ever since he purchased the club in 2003. The club have come painfully close once, when a fateful slip by John Terry and a miss by Nicolas Anelka in the penalty shoot-out cost them the 2008 crown at the hands of Manchester United. Under Abramovich, Chelsea have spent in excess of £500m on new players, including the likes of Fernando Torres, Juan Mata, Didier Drogba, Andrey Shevchenko, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Michael Essien and Ricardo Carvalho – a select group of signings who have cost the club over £20m each. And still, the greatest prize in club football eludes them.
But the transfer policy and pursuit of success at all costs is having other side-effects at Stamford Bridge. Firstly, Abramovich is going through managers at a fairly prodigious pace. Claudio Ranieri was never the kind of character to survive once the Russian arrived (although the Tinkerman has had a successful time in Italy since he was relieved of his position in London). Following in the trails of Jose Mourinho have been some of the biggest names in football management – Avram Grant, Luis Felipe Scolari, Guus Hiddink, Carlo Ancelotti. All have failed Abramovich on the biggest stage. Andre Villas-Boas is next in line.
Aside from managers, though, there is another footballing demographic suffering from the all-or-nothing approach at Chelsea – the club’s youngsters, who would be forgiven for thinking they have no chance whatsoever of surviving at a club where star players arrive and depart with such bewildering regularity.
The former head of scouting, former Denmark international Frank Arnesen, was brought in from Tottenham in 2005 with a brief to find the best young players in football and build an academy team from them. It can only be assumed that Abramovich felt that the ultimate path to success lay in becoming an ‘English Barcelona’ – a club capable of feeding its senior team with a constantly-renewing flow of youth prodigies. Many more in football would agree with this policy than the Russian’s subsequent financial tour de force, one suspects.
But Arnesen’s efforts seem to be in vain. There are a smattering of his success stories in the Chelsea team of the present – including Salomon Kalou, Florent Malouda and John Obi Mikel – but many of the younger players he unearthed are buried in the reserve teams or out on loan. There’s Gael Kakuta, out on loan at Bolton; Jeffrey Bruma, the gifted young centre-back on loan at Hamburg SV; Patrick van Aanholt, still no closer to breaking into the first team and spending this year at Wigan. The likes of Ben Sahar, Miroslav Stoch and Scott Sinclair have grown tired and moved on to pastures new, where they are flourishing. Defenders Michael Mancienne and Slobodan Rajkovic are also at Hamburg, but on permanent deals. It is no coincidence that Hamburg hired a new sporting director a year ago – one Frank Arnesen.
The current crop of youngsters at Chelsea is spearheaded by Lukaku, Daniel Sturridge and the perennial ‘prospect’ Josh McEachran. But this summer, Chelsea brought in Mata and Raul Meireles; Torres arrived in January. No Chelsea manager can afford the time to blood youngsters and wait for them to flourish as the more secure Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger and David Moyes have done so successfully. For a Chelsea manager, looking two or three years down the line is a futile exercise, for without immediate success, they won’t survive to reap the rewards of what they sow.
Petr Cech admits in this interview that Chelsea are “obsessed… but in a good way” with the Champions’ League. He was half-right. They are obsessed. But that obsession may be holding them back.
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Napoli manager Walter Mazzarri believes his side may have to sacrifice some of their attacking style to make the Europa League’s last 16.
Spurred on by the performances of strikers Edinson Cavani and Ezequiel Lavezzi and attacking midfielder Marek Hamsik, Napoli have risen to second on the Serie A table and within three points of league leaders AC Milan.
But Mazzarri believes different opposition – such as Europa League round of 32 opponent Villarreal – may require a different approach.
Napoli host the La Liga club in the first leg on Thursday before travelling to Spain on February 24.
“The more we go on in the competition the more we have to deal with new kind of pressures for us,” Mazzarri said.
“Obviously this will be a match over two legs so we need to be mature and understand that if, for example, we don’t manage playing our way at certain times in the game we need to be rational and limit the damage.”
“We shouldn’t risk something in order to play our way at any cost, only attacking. We need to do both, in the right way and being able to interpret the game itself.”
“They’re a typical Spanish team, they like ball possession and playing in a way that is somehow similar to my idea of football.”
With defender Paolo Cannavaro to miss through suspension, Edmilson Cribari will get another chance to push his claims in the first team.
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Giuseppe Mascara and Jose Sosa will vie for one spot in the starting XI, but Mazzarri left no doubt as to who would lead the line against the Spanish side.
“Lavezzi should be himself and have no worries at all,” he said.
“Tomorrow he will be playing as usual and must do what he did in Rome. The judgement on Lavezzi is really wrong so I hope justice will be served on Friday, according to the current rules. Cavani is a player who touches three balls and scores twice so – even only from a psychological point of view for the rest of the team – he needs to play. He is our most important scorer.”
Spain and Barcelona midfield ace Xavi is confident that he will soon be joined at the Camp Nou by international colleague Cesc Fabregas.
The 23-year-old is expected to leave Arsenal to head home to Barca at some point this summer and Xavi is hopeful that a deal can be agreed sooner rather than later.
He told reporters at the World Cup finals in South Africa:"He wants to come here and is talking to the club about that.
"I have always said that he has the Barca DNA and he should be confident there will be a solution soon. He should play for Barca and it has to be now.
"If it's not now, it will be a little later, but I hope Cesc can come to Barcelona as soon as possible.
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"He is hopeful and he wants to come to Barca, but he is calm and focused on the World Cup, hoping there will be a solution."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
David Gill believes that the Glazer family fully understand the importance of success on the pitch, following the club’s floatation in the US yesterday. 6.6 million shares that equates to 10% of the club, were floated on the New York Stock Exchange, with the American owners reportedly set to pocket around £75million. The Manchester United Chief Executive believes that the Glazers as owners are entitled to do what they wish, as long as the level of success on the pitch is maintained: “They own the club. They are entitled to sell to investors who want to be a part of Manchester United going forward; however what I would say is that the level of debt in the club since they have taken over hasn’t had an impact on what we have done in the team. We have won four Premier Leagues in that period, we have been to the Champions League final three times, and we have had ongoing success on the pitch.”
Elsewhere in the news Joe Allen feels ‘incredible’ after his Liverpool move; West Brom win the race for Lukaku, while Manchester City give up on Robin van Persie.
[divider]
Headlines
Roy Hodgson has said that only a lengthy FA ban for John Terry would rule him out of international football – [Guardian]
Manchester United’s first day on the New York Stock Exchange got off to a flat start as shares eked out a tiny gain in early trading before falling back to the slashed launch price – [Guardian]
Chelsea manager Roberto Di Matteo calls for improved performances in Premier League – [Daily Telegraph]
Joe Allen has revealed he feels ‘incredible’ about joining a football club with the history, traditions and size of Liverpool – [Sky Sports]
Villas-Boas has told Modric to get his head around the fact that he will not be sold unless a club meets Spurs’ asking price – [Independent]
Roberto Mancini has given up on signing Robin van Persie after expressing his frustration with Man City’s transfer policy – [Sky Sports]
Michael Carrick earns England recall after Hodgson’s ‘retirement’ confusion – [Independent]
Roberto Di Matteo has challenged his Chelsea players to make history as they start the season with the chance to win seven trophies – [Daily Mail]
Matt Jarvis hands in a transfer request to force through West Ham move – [Mirror]
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Liverpool is lining up Atletico Madrid defender Diego Godin, as a potential replacement for Daniel Agger – [Metro]
Tottenham are eyeing a move for Inter keeper Julio Cesar and could pick up the 32-year-old on a free – [Sun]
PLEASE NOTE – click on the sources to view the original articles
You can prepare all you like, but you’ll never know if you’re ready until you’re flung into action. Kenny Dalglish made plenty of decent additions to his squad over the summer, but now that the season has began, there still appears to be a gap in Liverpool ’s squad that needs to be filled.
What struck me, watching Tottenham entertain Liverpool at White Hart Lane, is just how slow the Red’s defence is. Patience amongst fans seems to be running out when it comes to Skrtel who wont have won anymore favour with his performance yesterday. I understand that Skrtel is being asked to play out of position, but it’s not like he’s been all that impressive when he’s played as a centre-half.
At best he’s a solid player and at worst he’s somewhat error-prone.
Then there’s Daniel Agger , a player who I greatly admire, but who tends to spend to long on the sidelines as a result of injury. Let’s face facts: he’s not a player you can rely on to play week-in and week-out. Whilst he can’t help the fact that he’s picked up injuries, his bad luck has cost Liverpool.
Whilst there’s plenty to be said about Jamie Carragher ’s sense of positioning, his lack of pace is somewhat alarming. The Premier League’s more pacey strikers will turn Carragher inside out with the greatest of ease and I’m not too sure how much longer Liverpool can continue to support his presence. He may well be a club legend, but if he’s not got the legs for it anymore, it may well be time to move on, or to let another player take up greater prominence within the squad.
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Whilst Sebastian Coates is a player with a great deal of promise, with all the uncertainty surrounding other members of Liverpool’s defence, you can’t help but feel that it won’t be enough if the Reds want to make it back into the Champions League.
With that in mind, I wish Kenny had bought a centre-back like Gary Cahill , Christopher Samba or even Scott Dann during the summer transfer window. Still, better late than never and Liverpool will have a chance to fix the situation when the transfer window re-opens in January. My personal preference would be for Bolton ’s Gary Cahill .
Not only is he the best out and out defender of the bunch, but he’d also very likely be available at a bargain price, given that he’d be only have six months left on his contract at the Reebok Stadium.
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What’s your take? Would Cahill be a good addition to this Liverpool squad, or do the Reds need to focus on other areas?
Read more of Harry Cloke’s articles at This is Futbol
Liverpool legend Robbie Fowler has hit out at Fernando Torres’ record-breaking move to Chelsea on the final day of the January transfer window.
Speaking on Friday in Perth, Fowler was part of a radio promotion to raise money for Queensland flood victims, where Perth Glory players had to wear a ‘Shirt that Hurt’.
Although many expected Fowler to wear a Manchester United or Everton jersey, he chose a number nine Liverpool top, worn backwards and emblazoned with Torres’ name.
The 35-year-old striker took the opportunity to express his displeasure at Torres’ 50-million-pound move to the London club.
“There is nothing wrong with the front of the shirt but it’s just the name on the back,” Fowler told the Perth Glory website.
“With what’s happened this week it’s a shirt that not only myself but many Liverpool fans would rather not wear just yet.”
“He (Torres) did not leave the club in great hands or great shape but thankfully they managed to go out and buy a couple of decent players.”
The stunt was Fowler’s second crack at Torres after the striker used his column in the West Australian newspaper to fire the first shot.
“There’s something not quite right about the Spaniard’s last-minute transfer to Chelsea,” Fowler wrote.
“As a Liverpool fan it was disappointing to see Torres leave because on his day he’s a world-class player and I want the best players at the club. But if I was a manager and a player said he didn’t want to be at the club I’d try to get the best deal I could.”
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“Only a couple of weeks ago Torres was talking about how much he loved the fans and the club. He won’t be getting a warm welcome next time he plays at Anfield.”
Travelling Liverpool fans will soon get an opportunity to voice their displeasure as the Reds play Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Sunday.
And, while the Blues feature Torres up front, Chelsea’s defence will have to be wary of the strike force Liverpool bought to replace the Spanish World Cup winner in Andy Carroll, a 35-million-pound capture from Newcastle, and former Ajax striker Luis Suarez, who scored for Liverpool in midweek.
“Unbelievable quality and talent” were the wisely selected words that Mikel Arteta used to describe compatriot and potential new teammate Santi Cazorla. Reports have been surfacing this week that Arsene Wenger is close to completing a deal for the Spanish International that would take the total of new Gunners acquisitions to a promising trio of talent. However, with a reported £20 million being requested by Cazorla’s current club Malaga, what makes the 27-year old so expensive and can he really assist in filling the void that may be left by Robin Van Persie’s imminent departure?
A popular face in his native country, Cazorla has already made 45 appearances for his national team; a feat that deserves unrelinquishing praise, especially given that the Spanish can arguably claim to have the most talented array of midfielders to have ever represented a national squad.
Having spent most of his career with Villarreal, the Llanera born playmaker was sold to Malaga last summer for around £16.5 million, after the ‘Yellow Submarines’ experienced major financial troubles. Cazorla impressed in his debut season with ‘Los Boquerones’, assisting the club to their first ever Champions League qualification and finishing second in the club’s goal scoring charts, with 9 from midfield.
The impressive superlatives used by Mikel Arteta to describe his compatriot may be valid. He is known as an exciting player, who has the rapidity and aptitude to alter the rhythm of a game. These attributes may allow him to slot in perfectly with Arsenal’s exciting brand of football.
If he were to make the move to the Emirates, Cazorla would be able to fill any position across the middle of the park. He is ambidextrous to the point of perfection with both feet, allowing him to flow with ease down either flank. His intelligence and speed could also allow him to play off a lone striker. However, when or daresay if Robin Van Persie departs the Emirates, it is likely that Cazorla would play on the wing, leaving new blood Lukas Podolski or Olivier Giroud to the impossible task of filling the void that will be left by their want away Dutchman.
A big money signing like Cazorla will be just what the Gunners supporters’ need. With their talisman searching for the exit, a new star needs to be crowned in North London and Cazorla and his eye-catching abilities could prove the remedy. Not only would the Spaniard inject energy and skill into the team, his international caps could prove vital to the younger members of Wenger’s squad. His small stature is more than made up for by his confidence and experience and with an unwavering eye for goal Cazorla could be the signing that many of the Emirates faithful hoped Andrey Arshavin would be.
About to enter the prime of his career, ‘Santi’ could have timed this move to perfection. Spanish flair is of small majority in the Premier League, with David Silva and Fernando Torres the only ‘Rojas’ to dip their talented toes into the English game. Not only could Cazorla become a favourite at Arsenal, he could also become a major player in the best league in the world.
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