manager Sam Allardyce is confident of beating Southampton at Upton Park this weekend and continuing his side’s good start to their first season back in the Premier League.
Both the Saints and the Hammers enjoyed promotion back to the top-flight last season but have enjoyed opposite starts to the campaign.
After sevem games Nigel Adkins’ Southampton sit just a point outside the bottom three with just four points while Allardyce’s West Ham are in eighth with 11 points.
And the West Ham manager believes his side have what it takes to continue what has been a solid start to the season.
Speaking to West Ham’s official site he said: “I think we have coped with the Barclays Premier League very well at the start of this season and I also think we had a group of fixtures that were less challenging than Southampton’s.
“From a Premier League point of view our experience is probably better than theirs so hopefully that will be a telling factor on Saturday. Our confidence is also very high because we have been very good at home.
“I am hoping to see the same kind of performance that I saw against Aston Villa, Fulham and Sunderland. If we play like that we will create opportunities and have a very good chance of winning the game.”
Allardyce also feels that Adkins’ Southampton are a team still looking for the right formula that should see them start climbing up the table.
“It is usually more difficult to score goals than it is to concede. Southampton have found it easier to score but in doing so they have left a lot of gaps,” he added.
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“There are two ways of playing the game and that is in possession and out of it. If you do not get both right you do not win. What you do out of possession in the Barclays Premier League is just as important as what you do with it, especially during your first season.
“If you can get both of those on an equal par you will do well.”
According to Le 10 Sport, Newcastle United want to sign Lille midfielder Thiago Maia this summer, and the Magpies have already had at least one bid rejected.
Newcastle boss Rafael Benitez is reportedly still unclear as to what type of transfer budget he will have to spend in this summer’s window.
However, it is understood that the Premier League club are busy behind the scenes, and have identified Maia as a potential summer arrival.
The 21-year-old, who is valued at £3.6m by transfermarkt.co.uk, has previously been linked with a move to Liverpool.
He joined Lille from Brazilian outfit Santos in July 2017, and made 37 appearances in all competitions for his Ligue 1 club during the 2017-18 campaign.
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Newcastle are not exactly short of options in the middle of the park, but Mikel Merino could be moving on in this summer’s transfer window.
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The club’s supporters have been reacting to the transfer speculation surrounding Maia, and it would be fair to say that they are struggling to agree on the midfielder.
A selection of the Twitter reaction can be seen below:
Southampton are reportedly hoping to push through a deal to bring Spartak Moscow forward Quincy Promes to St Mary’s before the January transfer window slams shut on Wednesday, and it is a move that could have implications for Nathan Redmond’s future.
The south coast outfit have struggled for goals this season with just 24 in their 24 Premier League matches so far, and Mauricio Pellegrino’s men currently lie in the relegation zone and a point from safety going into their crucial top flight clash against Brighton and Hove Albion at home on Wednesday.
Saints have never really looked to be the same team following the departures of Graziano Pelle and Sadio Mane in the summer of 2016, and they will hope that the arrival of Guido Carrillo from Monaco and the potential addition of Promes will finally be the like-for-like replacements they have been looking for.
The Dutchman has scored 58 goals in 115 matches for the Russian Premier League despite often playing out wide, and if he did sign he would likely go straight into the side on one of the wings in Pellegrino’s preferred 4-2-3-1 system.
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Promes’ potential move to St Mary’s would certainly be bad news for Redmond though, who has had an up and down time with the south coast outfit since joining them from Norwich City in the same summer that Pelle and Mane left.
The winger wasn’t a regular for the Canaries as they were relegated from the Premier League, and some Southampton fans were certainly sceptical about him potentially being Mane’s replacement given the huge impact the Senegal international had in his final season with the club.
The fact that he was a young English player certainly worked in his favour at the start of his Saints career, with the St Mary’s faithful ready to be more accommodating than they perhaps would have been for others.
However, while the 23-year-old scored on his Premier League debut against Watford, the fact that former Southampton manager Claude Puel decided to play him as a striker and compared him to Arsenal legend Thierry Henry certainly didn’t help his case, and placed immense pressure upon his shoulders to get goals on a regular basis.
While Redmond had some highs in his first season with the club – including scoring the winning goal in his side’s 1-0 win against Liverpool in the first leg of their EFL Cup semi-final tie – one goal and no assists in the final nine top flight games of the campaign wasn’t too impressive.
With the fans getting on the back of Puel and the players after they failed to score in the final five top flight matches at St Mary’s last term, the wide man was one of the players that came under criticism from the supporters because he was often visibly seen moaning at his teammates on the pitch.
Of course, that could be because the 23-year-old simply wants to win, but it is a part of his character that has seen Southampton fans often turn against him.
This season, Redmond has failed to score in 21 Premier League appearances – providing three assists – despite being a regular in the starting line-up at the start of the campaign.
However, ever since the 5-2 defeat against Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley on Boxing Day, the winger has found first-team minutes hard to come by.
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Two brief substitute appearances against Manchester United and Crystal Palace were followed by him being left out of the squad in the 2-2 draw against Watford, while he was an unused substitute against Spurs earlier this month.
The 23-year-old was also left out of the 18 against the Hornets in the fourth round of the FA Cup on Saturday, which suggests there has either been a breakdown in his relationship with Pellegrino, or he perhaps he hasn’t been showing a good attitude on the training pitch.
With Sofiane Boufal, Dusan Tadic and James Ward-Prowse all playing out wide in recent weeks – and with Promes potentially joining them – Redmond’s future with the south coast outfit looks to be in doubt, and he could be offloaded in the summer unless there is a drastic change in the current situation in the coming months.
At some point in their lives everyone believes in something ridiculous. A blind, illogical, unwarranted trust that an agent higher than themselves knows what they’re doing. Be it gods, parents, politicians or the Clear Browser History function, the human propensity to follow our faiths off a cliff should never be underestimated.
There’s a perfectly good reason for this of course. People are idiots. The chronicled history of our breakthroughs as a species is a long and exhaustive list of the men and women who knew more than people. People read the Daily Star. People watch reality shows. People vote for Jim Davidson on reality shows. People voted for Hitler, while George Washington was elected without a popular vote. If we lived in a perfect democracy we’d be erecting statues of Joey Essex and ruled by a yawning kitten. People are overrated, and largely awful.
No more so than in football, where every man and his cab has an opinion and every message board is bursting with know-it-alls, transfer muppets and weird tactical bods with heat maps making those confusing screenshots of arbitrary moments doodled with arrows and little coloured circles.
In science and politics we notice when it’s gone wrong, but are mostly pretty sure we wouldn’t have the faintest idea how to fix it. “Ha! Those idiots at the Large Hadron Collider have suffered a magnet quench again. They should never have discharged their electricity to the helium enclosure,” says absolutely nobody.
In sport however, we do know. We could’ve scored that. We would’ve given that penalty. We would’ve picked a better team. Sport is transparent. You show your workings on the pitch. And yet the workings out of sight – the day-to-day management, the ownership, the several confusing levels of director – are still much of a mystery.
So when those in such positions do things that seem contradictory to our accepted wisdom, one reaction is simply to trust that they know what they’re doing. They’ve got this far, why wouldn’t they? When a 15-year-old video of Harry Redknapp chastising a fan for doubting a curtain haired boyband Frank Lampard, this steaming nugget of viral gold seemed to vindicate that wisdom.
And it’s this wisdom that many fans fell back on when Manchester United appointed David Moyes. There had to be something else to his appointment beyond the surface. A huge, submerged iceberg of reason beyond the mere tip we could see. Something hidden, something magic, something blatant yet unbeknownst to us layman mortals because everyone without a vested interest could see the collapse coming a mile off.
Every average Joe, every cab driver, every publican. Every phone-in junkie and keyboard monkey had some kind of inkling this would happen. From the moment he was announced there were jibes about him ‘Evertonizing’ the Champions, finishing mid-table and failing in Europe. As the summer transfer window limped on, the running gag that he’d sign Fellaini gathered more traction. People opined that he was a boring, functional, defensive manager who wouldn’t provide the free flowing attacking style United craved, and asked why a team who’d won everything going but the FA Cup would respect a man who’d won sweet F.A? His dismal away record against big sides was whooshed into graphic form on Sky Sports News so frequently everyone knew the score. Those ‘I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I’M DOING’ memes began on his first day in the job.
And with the eye rolling predictability of a Jamie Redknapp post-match analysis, it all happened. Literally. In glorious, ghastly slow motion. In an almost satirical parody of itself. The subtlety of a BBC Three sitcom starring Frankie Boyle as Moyes and David Walliams as RVP was lost on the Chucklevision reality. And no one was really surprised. It seemed so obvious.
And yet for something so evident to everyone to be unknown, unappreciated and under researched, then accepted, approved and rubber stamped by everyone at Manchester United (MANCHESTER UNITED!) the most consistent and successfully run club in European football (whose record for consecutive Champions League appearances now looks doomed to be broken) seems virtually unconscionable.
The crux of accepting authority’s wisdom is that deep down, we want it to be true. For some it’s easier to accept conspiracy than entertain the idea those with power over our destinies are merely incompetent. Even evil competence is better than benign idiocy, and so predictably some are even questioning whether this was part of the plan. Whether Sir Alex Ferguson has deliberately set Moyes up for a fall, either to preserve his legacy or lower the expectation on his replacement. It seems ridiculous.
But is it any more ridiculous than the idea that Ferguson, Charlton, Gill and everyone at Manchester United are less football savvy than us? Than the man or woman on the street, in the pub, or on the Internet? That a man with more knowledge and success in the English game than any other would appoint a successor simply because he liked him and was a bit Scottish? That everyone at board level would ignore Jose Mourinho because Sir Bobby Charlton – a man retired for 30 years who made a mess of his own managerial career – gets a bit of an off vibe from him? That the Glazer family would accept slipping out of the Champions League just because they’d been told it was some mythical “United way” to stand by a manager?
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That’s ridiculous. Surely? No one in football would hire David Moyes to replace Sir Alex Ferguson unless they absolutely knew what they were doing. No one. The only explanation is that Moyes can turn it around. That he’ll come good. That he’ll suddenly start learning to play good football at 50 after 15 years in management and no previous inclination he knows how. It’s the only sane explanation. He’s the right man. He simply must be. Because he’s so clearly, patently, obviously not.
Newcastle will not lose strike pairing Papiss Cisse and Demba Ba to 2013 African Cup of Nations duty in January after Senegal failed to qualify for the tournament.
It will be a relief for Alan Pardew who faced the prospect of losing both of his main strikers for up to six weeks in January and February especially with only Shola Ameobi and Spanish misfit Xisco the only other strikers at the club.
However it is not all good news for the Magpies as they will be without Ivory Coast enforcer Cheik Tiote for a few weeks but the recent arrival of Vurnon Anita which has strengthened an already solid central unit.
The African Cup of Nations decider between Senegal and Ivory Coast was called off in controversial circumstances on Saturday with Ivory Coast leading 2-0 and 6-2 on aggregate.
The decision to award the visitors a penalty in the 76th minute, which Didier Drogba converted after his opener, sparked crowd trouble.
Elsewhere in the Premier League, Arsenal will lose the services of Ivorian forward Gervinho while Manchester City face losing brothers Yaya and Kolo Toure to the tournament.
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Nigeria have qualified for the competition thanks to goals from John Obi Mikel and Victor Moses which secured a decisive 8-3 aggregate win over Liberia and West Ham will lose Modibo Maiga after he helped Mali qualify over Botswana.
Fulham’s Mahamadou Diarra and Queens Park Rangers midfielder Samba Diakite could also be involved in the 6 week tournament that takes place in South Africa at the beginning of 2013.
According to The Times, Arsenal could sign Marouane Fellaini on a free transfer from Manchester United ahead of the 2018-19 campaign.
Fellaini, who is valued at £10.8m by transfermarkt.co.uk, will see his current deal with United expire at the end of this month, and it now appears likely that the Belgium international will leave Old Trafford this summer.
United boss Jose Mourinho has previously spoken of his desire to keep the 30-year-old, but it seems that the two parties have been unable to come to an agreement over a new contact.
According to The Times, Arsenal boss Unai Emery is a huge admirer of Fellaini, and has indeed already held talks with the former Everton playmaker over what would be a surprise move to the Emirates Stadium this summer.
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The Arsenal fans have been reacting to the news on social media, and it would be fair to say that the club’s supporters are against the deal taking place. On the other hand, the Everton fans would gladly welcome Fellaini back.
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A selection of the Twitter reaction can be seen below:
As the Premier League’s gap between the top six and the rest becomes more pronounced, the debate has moved onto the polarised nature of the league; the fact there now seems to be one division for those teams who can dominate games and play with the ball, and another who are forced somehow to sit deep and play without it.
That’s a debate borne out of frustration more than anything else. The gap in style, points and trophies pretty much comes down to one thing at the moment; the gap in money. It all seems to stem from that.
And as the first legs of the League Cup semi finals take place this week, it’s natural to feel even more frustration: three of the four semi finalists are top six sides, with the only exception being that of Bristol City, who sensationally knocked out Manchester United at the quarter final stage.
Not to negate the very fine achievement of the Robins in making it this far and rubbing shoulders with three members of the top divisions cream of the crop, but there’s something a little underwhelming about it: over two legs Bristol City beating Manchester City would appear to be nigh-on impossible.
It would be a much more romantic affair if it were a one-off game instead. Either way, the fact that it took such an upset to bring a team outside of the current top six into the semi finals of a competition no one seems to care about shows just where we are.
The Robins’ achievement is a rare feat which will only become even more so as the years go by. The last of such big achievements was Leicester City winning the league, and although not long ago, it certainly feels like a different era in Premier League history already – the final season before the superclub era made its presence felt fully.
Indeed, the Foxes were Pep Guardiola’s side’s last opponents in the competition in a quarter final tie which was characterised by weakened sides from both teams as the league was far and away the most important thing for the Cities of both shades of blue. But Leicester, thanks to reasonably wealthy owners even by Premier League standards and the prestige they’ve been able to build upon as recent Premier League champions are now part of the very small group of teams whom you can characterise as a top flight middle class.
They, Everton and theoretically West Ham and Newcastle United – if the relegation-threatened pair sort their clubs out – are about all you can point to as a genuine grouping of teams who should be finishing below the top six and well above the relegation strugglers. And although football doesn’t work like that, it’s the Toffees and the Foxes who are currently in comfortable positions a safe distance from the bottom three and looking up to seventh place at best.
Surely, though, these teams should be prime candidates for League Cup success. Like Leicester in the Martin O’Neill years, where a safe midtable-to-top-half finish was always secure, cup success should have been the goal: indeed, they managed to get to the final of the competition three years out of the Irishman’s four full seasons in charge. Despite being a competition that the biggest clubs haven’t always taken seriously, it was usually the best chance of silverware for the rest.
Leicester had a chance to change that and didn’t take it, but you can see why. The pressures of the league are such that only a few teams can realistically view the cup as a luxury they can devote time to. On the other hand, the big clubs seemingly now view the League Cup as a competition worth winning now that they’re all competing at the top and all looking for the same honours.
Winning any silverware is now a prerequisite for the big clubs and their super-managers, and so the first trophy of the season presents an opportunity these days, whereas before it was simply a distraction.
And so whilst it would have been great to see Leicester give it a real go with their best players all game against City in the quarter final, and perhaps even make the semi-finals of the competition a more egalitarian affair, it’s easy to see why they don’t: they can’t take risks in the league, nor do they believe they’ll get win a semi final even if they do.
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It’s not a go at Leicester, but it leaves you more frustrated than you were before: if the big clubs have wrapped up all the European places in the league, and have both pieces of domestic silverware wrapped up, then just what does that leave for everyone else? The best any other side can do is seventh place and a Europa League qualifying round spot (providing the domestic trophies do indeed go to the clubs who finished first to sixth). That was Everton’s prize last season, and they started their season in July because of it.
As the gap between the rich and the poor plays out in the table and on the pitch, it also might well play out in the interest football generates, too. Surely, at the very least, it’s bad for everyone when the smaller teams aren’t just priced out of the best players and the big honours, but are priced out of hope.
West Ham have denied reports that Ravel Morrison will go on strike in order to force a transfer, reports Sky Sports.
The youngster is reportedly interested in a move to Fulham, with Cottagers boss Rene Meulensteen claiming the Hammers have rejected a bid for Morrison. West Ham have since reported Fulham to the Premier League.
With West Ham boss Sam Allardyce busy with transfer business, assistant manager Neil McDonald told the media that Morrison will not be forcing a move by missing training: “It is all media reports and whatever has been said… I think the club and the Premier League are dealing with that so I’d prefer not to dwell on that any more.
“There seems to be a story about Rav every week. The lad comes in and trains, sometimes he has had a little bit of a groin injury, but we’ve man-managed that. He trained on Wednesday with a huge, big smile on his face with the rest of the squad so (reports he may go on strike) are news to me.
“We look forward to him being in the squad on Saturday, he should be fit, he’s been training with the lads and he’s brought a lot of joy, especially with winning against Cardiff – he cheered everyone up when he came back as well.”
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Morrison has been a bright spark for a struggling West Ham side, with his superb individual goal at Tottenham earlier this season a particular highlight.
Mark Hughes says that defender Anton Ferdinand, who is embroiled in the John Terry controversy, “has got to be big enough to handle” jibes from fans.
The QPR defender received abuse from some of the West Brom fans during the 3-2 victory for the Baggies at the Hawthorns on Saturday, with a selection of supporters chanting ‘There’s only one John Terry’. It comes after Terry was found guilty by the FA of racially abusing Ferdinand, which saw him receive a fine and a ban for four matches.
“You expect to recieve some flak when you go to away games but if he was singled out, there isn’t much we can do about it. If that was the case , then he has got to be big enough to handle it,” Mark Hughes said.
Saturday’s fixture ended with QPR yet again failing to win a game, with the loss to West Brom marking it the seventh match for them without a win in the Premier League this season. This is after it was reported that QPR bosses are worried that they have too many new players.
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The loss also saw owner Tony Fernandes attacked on Twitter by angry fans. However, he has spoken in an interview of being “1000 per cent” behind Mark Hughes. QPR will be hoping to end their time without a win in the league in their next fixture at home to Everton.
Marseille right-back Bouna Sarr impressed for his team despite their 3-0 defeat to Atletico Madrid in the Europa League final on Wednesday night, and his performance didn’t go unnoticed by Arsenal fans on Twitter, who urged their club to sign the Frenchman.
The 26-year-old may have been part of a defence that conceded on three occasions against Diego Simeone’s men, but he showed throughout what a good defender he can be – especially with his tackle success – while he also caused Atletico left-back Lucas Hernandez plenty of problems in the final third, too.
Meanwhile, it has been a tough season for Gunners right-back Hector Bellerin, who has often been criticised by his own fans on Twitter for his below-par displays.
He hasn’t been as good defensively as he perhaps should have been, and prospective Arsene Wenger successor Mikel Arteta may decide that he needs to be replaced this summer.
We asked Arsenal fans to vote on our poll to see whether they would want their club to sign Sarr to replace the Spaniard, and a huge 71% said they would.
The French defender could come at a cost however, considering he only recently extended his contract with the Ligue 1 giants until 2022.
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