Rio Ferdinand could leave Manchester United in 2013 with clubs from the US and Middle East interested in signing him, the Daily Mail reports.
The 34-year-old defender is expected to be offered a one year contract extension with the Red Devils after overcoming his back problems and proving his fitness to the Sir Alex Ferguson, playing regularly for the last 18 months.
Ferdinand however has interest from the Middle East and US while also being an attraction to other Premier League clubs, although a move abroad would seem more likely.
He arrived at Old Trafford 10 summers ago from Leeds for a deal in the region of £30million, which at the time made him the most expensive British footballer in history.
Despite certain controversies off the pitch, the most publicised of course being the missed drugs test, Ferdinand has enjoyed a hugely successful time at the club. A mainstay of the United defence since his arrival in 2002, he has helped his side to numerous prizes, most notably five Premier League titles and a Champions League.
The player himself has not given any indication on his intentions for the future and whether he will remain at Old Trafford or continue his career at all, despite Ferguson openly expressing his desire for him to delay his retirement.
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It is believed that Ferdinand wants to see how his body copes with the demands of a busy fixture list over the Christmas Period before making a decision.
West Ham have been linked with a move for Lazio midfielder for what seems like most of the summer, and some Hammers fans think his latest tweet hints at his impending move to London.
The latest reports suggest that the Brazilian midfielder has handed in a transfer request to the Italian club in order to force a move, according to Italian news outlet Tutto Mercato Web.
Sky Sports reported that West Ham made an offer of £35million plus add-ons for the 25-year-old and it is thought that a move will be imminent for the player valued at £27million on Transfermarkt.
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However, the attacking midfielder’s latest tweet seems to have set West Ham fans’ hearts racing with many believing it is a sign that he is on his way out of the Roman club.
The cryptic message, when translated, reads: “Long live the goodbyes and all that they teach us!”
West Ham supporters have been reacting to the message with many thinking it refers to him saying farewell to Lazio, but it can’t be denied that the message does look deliberately vague.
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Here’s a selection of what the Hammers fans are thinking.
Tottenham Hotspur extended their unbeaten run in the English Premier League to 12 matches on Sunday with a thumping 4-1 win away to Bournemouth.
Going behind in the match, Spurs had to dig deep to secure the vital three points but found joy with goals from Dele Alli, Son Heung-min and Serge Aurier.
The win means they have moved up into third spot in the top-flight table at the end of the weekend’s action, after Liverpool lost to Manchester United on Saturday.
Fans were delighted with the win and overall satisfied by the performance, but did take issue with the display of one player – Danny Rose.
The left-back was starting his first match since February and looked off the pace throughout, struggling to find a consistent productive contribution in the final third despite getting into good positions.
Eventually subbed off in the 81st minute, fans were left wanting more from a player who showed such good form just last season.
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They took to Twitter to share their thoughts on his performance…
We all know that watching football live is a massive expense, but today such knowledge has well and truly hit home thanks to the BBC’s Price of Football Report. The figures have been crunched from tickets to the cost of pies to provide us footy fans with a detailed run down of just what we’re paying and what we’re getting for out hard earned cash, and it’s fair to say that the results raise eyebrows.
Instead of delving into the lengthy report, catch our ten lessons – breaking the big issues into little chunks…
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CLICK ON THE TICKET TO REVEAL THE TEN
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Arsenal rip off fans
We all knew it! Arsenal have been well and truly outed for the rip-off merchants they are! The Gunners’ prices are nothing short of eye-watering, with the cheapest season ticket at the Emirates priced at… £1,014. Their most expensive effort also comes in the highest in the top tier at £2,013.
It’s not jus bad news for regular viewers, with Arsenal’s £97 match day ticket the most expensive in the Premier League and over double the amount being charged for the most expensive pass at seven other English top tier clubs.
Man City aren’t greedy
Well, when you’re backed by Middle Eastern billionaires you don’t have to charge the earth for a season ticket. Credit to Manchester City though, as the reigning champions charge just £299 for their cheapest campaign long pass. To put it into perspective, the fee is lower than you would pay at 15 Championship clubs, 10 League One outfits, four League Two sides and even one in the Conference…
It costs more to watch Charlton than Barcelona…
Charlton provide the most cost-effective season ticket in the top four English divisions at £150… yet it costs less to watch Barcelona all season (£103). The Valley or the Nou Camp? Tough call…
Scotland’s prices only going up slightly
With the cost of a ticket, a pie, a nice cuppa and the obligatory programme taken into account, it costs, on average, £26.95 to watch a game in Scotland’s top tier. This is an increase of 61p on figures found last year.
Matchday revenues up
Match day revenues are now at a massive £585m across the Premier League, which is 6% higher than the numbers revealed in the last report. Also, Premier League clubs spend 71p of every £1 brought in on player wages…
Kidderminster Harriers have gourmet pies…
They better have some decent ingredients in their pies at Kidderminster, with the Harriers charging a stomach-churning £4.50-per-pastry. In the top four divisions, Brighton are the most expensive pie club, pricing their efforts at £4.10.
Football League thriving
Despite the increasing costs, the Football league is actually thriving with attendances having increased by 136,000. Not bad at all!
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Championship the fourth biggest league
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Only the Premier League (13.9m), the Bundesliga (13.1m) and La Liga (10m) boast higher attendance numbers than the Championship in Europe, with 9.1m fans passing through the turnstiles over the season. That’s an average of £16,500-per-match.
Lille are cheap to watch…
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Liverpool fans may want to head over to Lille to watch their loanee Divock Origi in action, with the cheapest ticket at the Ligue 1 side’s Stade Pierre-Mauroy coming in at just £5.87.
Don’t support Barnet…
As if you needed any further encouragement to avoid Conference side Barnet, their replica shirts are valued at £49.90… a higher fee than 11 Premier League clubs charge!
Zoltan Gera has insisted that he is happy being part of Steve Clarke’s rotation policy at West Brom.
Despite impressing in the Baggies’ impressive start to the season – which has seen them enter the top four of the Premier League – Gera has found himself dropped to the bench in recent weeks.
But the 33-year-old insists he is happy to share the midfield responsibilities with the likes of James Morrison, Chris Blunt and Graham Dorrans for the good of the club.
“I’m happy,” said Gera.
“I’m playing well, so if the manager sees I can help the team he will pick me. It’s no problem at all.
“We have a good squad with lots of good players.”
The Hungarian played a pivotal role during Saturday’s 2-1 victory over Chelsea but knows it wont guarantee him a start in the first team.
“Of course as a player I always want to play but I know we have other players who are as good as the ones in the team.
“So when I have a chance I want to play well to keep my place in the team.
“I wouldn’t say I’m happy when I’m not playing, but I expect it and there is no problem at all.
“After the first game of the season when I scored against Liverpool, I didn’t play the next two or three games.
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“But I said ‘it is no problem’ because I trust in the gaffer to know what is best for team,” he added.
“You always need to fight for your place now, there is no question about that.”
According to reports in The Express, West Ham United are ready to reignite their interest in Bournemouth midfielder Harry Arter this summer with a £10m offer.
What’s the word, then?
Well, The Express says that David Moyes had two bids – the last of which was £8m – for the Republic of Ireland international during the January transfer window.
The Express says that the 28-year-old remains a major target for the Scottish boss though, who intends a significant shake-up of the Hammers squad if he manages to keep the club in the Premier League this season.
The report adds that Moyes is confident that he can prise the energetic midfielder away from the Cherries and bring him to the London Stadium.
How has Arter done this season?
It has been a strange campaign for the 28-year-old.
He had been a key player for Bournemouth up until this term, and while he was a regular in the opening weeks of the 2017/18 season he was largely in and out of the team up to 2018, while he has only played 71 minutes of Premier League football since the New Year after falling out of favour under Eddie Howe.
Would he be a good signing for West Ham?
It’s difficult to say.
The fact that the 28-year-old hasn’t been a regular for Bournemouth in recent weeks would certainly be a worry for the Irons supporters, but Moyes obviously feels that he can add something in the midfield area.
Perhaps the fact that he was linked with a move to the east London outfit has affected his focus, and that must be taken into consideration.
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The fact that Arter has a never-say-die attitude and always puts in 100% will mean that he gets the London Stadium faithful on side quickly with his performances on the pitch, and in that way he seems similar to Irons captain Mark Noble which could perhaps throw his future with the club into doubt.
Will they get him?
Considering Moyes is clearly a big fan of Arter and he has fallen out of favour at Bournemouth, it seems that a move is on the cards – especially if West Ham cough up £10m for him in the summer.
It’s no haven at Craven Cottage at present; as if the ignominy of relegation from the Premier League after a thirteen-year sojourn wasn’t bad enough, West London club Fulham have started life in the second tier of English football in disastrous fashion, earning a solitary point from six league games, which sees them propping up the Championship table.
The same recurring issues are usually identified when examining a club going through a period of crisis; more often than not, this is any combination of financial instability, a universally despised or irresponsible owner, an unpopular, inept manager or a mutinous fanbase.
Fulham, however, seems to be an exceptional case insofar as none of the above appear to be the cause of the club’s current plight. The £11 million spent on Ross McCormack over the summer suggests that the club’s coffers aren’t exactly scarce, while the man who made such lavish purchases possible, club owner Shahid Khan, has so far been exempt from major criticism from a largely benign fanbase who are as likely to spark a mass protest as a North Korean at a mass rally in Pyongyang. Manager Felix Magath, meanwhile, is hardly clueless, having achieved great success as the coach of Bayern Munich and Wolfsburg in the past.
So what exactly is the problem at Craven Cottage? After Fulham’s most recent league defeat at the hands of Reading, even Magath seemed to suggest that the cause of the problem could not be explained. If the manager cannot pinpoint the source of the hardship then things do not bode well at all for the club.
The arrival of no fewer than 14 new players during the summer transfer window may be one explanation. This, coupled with the departure of experienced, long-serving players (in Fulham’s case Brede Hangeland, Damien Duff and Steve Sidwell) can often lead to a case of too much change coming too soon in football, and such rapid upheaval can have a destabilising effect on a football club (see Tottenham Hotspur circa summer 2013 for another example). Though Fulham do still possess a squad containing a good balance between experience (Scott Parker, Fernando Amorebieta, Bryan Ruiz) and youth (George Williams, Chris David, Cauley Woodrow), time is still needed for the squad to form a cohesive unit.
The continuing interference of former owner Mohamed Al-Fayed doesn’t help matters either. His feud with Magath, which started when the German blamed Al-Fayed for the club’s relegation last season, is bound to distract the manager from doing the work for which he is paid, while the businessman has also questioned Khan’s transfer dealings. With Al-Fayed being such a key factor in the club’s rapid ascent up the football league fifteen years ago, it is only natural that he retains an interest in the club’s fortunes, though such an interest may be unwelcome in the eyes of its current owner and manager.
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A number of Fulham supporters have understandably called for the sacking of Magath, though for a Championship club to dispense with the services of a three-times Bundesliga winner would be unwise. Although the miserable state of affairs currently being experienced at Fulham is hard to fathom, it may simply boil down to a case of a squad still getting used to playing together. With forty games of the season still to go, there is ample time for the troubled waters of the Thameside club to be calmed.
Liam Ridgewell believes West Brom deserve their current fifth spot in the Premier League table and more.
The Baggies have moved into this arguably unexpected position, after a 2-0 victory over Nigel Adkins’ Southampton on Monday night.
However, the defender has given a warning about the club’s busy schedule ahead, and insists that West Brom must keep gaining points.
“We deserve to be there. In fact, I think we deserve to have even more points, to be honest. We’ve done really well but the main thing is to keep that going and show people it’s not just the start of the season,” he told the club’s official website.
“We are going into a lot of games now with the Christmas period coming up and we’ve got to try to keep it going and keep picking up points. Monday was a big game because it was probably the biggest test for the new team since Roy left. I thought we did it very well and came through solidly.”
The left-back claims the team were not put under too much pressure by Monday’s match and that this relaxed approach helped them win the game.
“We didn’t really feel lots of pressure. Pressure is playing against Manchester United at Old Trafford when you’re bottom in the league. Monday was a night when we had to make sure we did the right things, start well, get the first goal and make sure they didn’t come back at us,” he added.
“If we’d lost people would have started saying it was a fluke start to the season, blah, blah, blah. But we know what we’re all about, we know we’re a good team and hopefully we can keep showing that.”
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Boss Steve Clarke has warned the team about not getting complacent following Monday’s victory reiterating that “you always have to be careful in the Premier League.”
Iago Aspas will not go down in Liverpool history as one of the greats; in fact he has not left any sort of legacy at Anfield.
Some fans, though, feel that the attacker had plenty of potential, but former manager Brendan Rodgers failed to get the best out of him.
Aspas joined the Reds from Celta Vigo in 2013 and spent two unsuccessful years at Anfield before rejoining the Spanish club.
Last season, the 30-year-old impressed by scoring 23 goals in 37 appearances for the La Liga outfit in all competitions.
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Aspas also created five assists, and he has played an important role at the World Cup for Spain.
On Monday, the forward replaced Diego Costa in the 74th minute of the nation’s final Group B clash against Morocco.
La Roja were trailing 2-1 before Aspas flicked the ball into the back of the net in stoppage time.
VAR was required to grant the goal, which helped Spain secure top spot heading into the last 16.
On Twitter, some Liverpool fans took aim at Rodgers for Aspas’s failings at Anfield.
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Have Manchester City been under any real pressure this season?
In individual games, for sure. Last minute winners were a common theme of the City of the autumn time, who were on such a hot streak that they just found a way to win somehow. There’s immense pressure in those final few minutes, and Guardiola’s side showed their mettle and held their nerve.
But there has only been, perhaps, one time all season in which the Blues have come into the game itself under pressure.
It wasn’t the Manchester derby in December. A win at Old Trafford was always going to be a bonus, and even a defeat was only going to cut their lead to five points – hardly win or bust. Every game since then, no matter how big, has been tempered by the knowledge that the league title is all but secured and even their Carabao Cup semi-final was played against a team City knew they could beat if they focused well enough.
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Instead, you probably have to go all the way back to the very end of September for the last time City came into the game itself under pressure. That was an away trip to Stamford Bridge to face Chelsea back when the Manchester clubs were neck and neck at the top of the Premier League table. That day, City bossed the game and came away with a 1-0 victory which seemed to prove just how good they were – that this wasn’t a fairweather team who would crumble when the going got tough.
And so there’s no suggestion that City will crumble now, either.
But the fact remains that only one trophy – from this vantage point, with the Premier League already won – would be a failure. Given how dominant this team have been, and how their football they’ve played has been historic, and will go down as some of the best in history, to only win the league would be disappointing. In effect, they won it before Christmas. If nothing else, lifting only one cup would mean having a failure of a second half of the season. But far from attempting to pile on the pressure, I believe this only shows how high this see-it-to-believe-it team have set the bar.
Out of the FA Cup now, there are only two more chances of silverware left for Guardiola’s side. The Champions League which is the holy grail, and given the level of teams in the competition there’s no shame in not winning it. And the Carabao Cup, in which the manager has done his job and brought his team to the final – now they have to perform on the day.
But that’s just the problem: City are coming into their first game in quite a long time aware of the pressure of what’s at stake. They have been almost too far ahead in the league for so long, with little pressure on each game. In the Champions League, the failure of Napoli to beat Shakhtar Donetsk meant that City never really had a challenge for progression and their reward was Basel, duly dispatched with ease.
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Now, suddenly, after defeat to Wigan, there’s pressure on City. Whereas they could have had a quadruple at the start of the week, they could be staring down the barrel of having to win the Champions League to lift a second trophy this year, and that’s no guarantee.
In some ways, defeats to Liverpool and Wigan could be something of a blessing in disguise, showing City they aren’t invincible in a way they Premier League table simply doesn’t. But it will also tell us a lot about this team like nothing else has so far.
On Sunday against Arsenal, we’ll see the real Manchester City: the one who will continue to dominate, or the one who will run out of steam before the trophies are handed out.