All posts by h716a5.icu

Many Everton fans have been left fuming as a clip emerged of Andy Robertson challenging Allan in the Merseyside derby.

In the clip, the Liverpool defender can be seen lunging in on the Brazil international after passing the ball to his captain Jordan Henderson. However, the incident happened off of the ball and it is up for debatable whether Robertson meant to do it or not.

The game finished 2-2, with Carlo Ancelotti’s team twice coming from behind through goals from Michael Keane and Dominic Calvert-Lewin, before Richarlison got himself sent off in the closing minutes.

However, if Robertson had been sent off for the challenge on Allan, then it may have been a completely different match, but in a game that was jam-packed full of incidents, that is purely hypothetical.

Everton fan reaction to Robertson challenge

These members of the Goodison Park faithful were fuming on Twitter after looking back at the incident, with one Everton supporter describing the challenge from Robertson as ‘dreadful’:

Evertonians, should Robertson have been sent off? Comment below with your views!

Mohamed Elyounoussi has potentially caused irreparable damage to his Southampton future. After being substituted by loan manager Neil Lennon in Celtic’s recent match, the striker was seen using his phone on the sidelines whilst the game was still playing out.

The Hoops boss is furious over this and it’s sparked a lot of angry debate amongst former professionals. But one man who will be deeply disappointed in Elyounoussi is Ralph Hasenhuttl.

Is there a way back for Elyounoussi?

Chris Sutton has slammed the Norwegian for his “unacceptable” behaviour during the Europa League clash.

“That’s scandalous. Is he committed to the cause? Is he committed to the club? Totally unacceptable,” he said (via Daily Record). “That’s a selfish, self-centred, egotistical individual who doesn’t care about the rest of his team-mates.”

Elyounoussi’s actions have landed him in hot water with his loan club, but it’s what awaits him back on the south coast he should be worried about. Player attitude is something that Hasenhuttl holds to an extremely high regard, and news travels fast. Once the Austrian learns of his player’s controversial actions, he could completely take back everything he said about a potential St Mary’s return.

Hasenhuttl recently stated that he is monitoring Elyounoussi’s progress and admitted he could be looking at a return to first team action once his loan spell at Celtic finishes. The 26-year-old’s status with the Saints was low after failing to impress, but it’s been a different story up in Scotland.

He has contributed seven goals and four assists so far this season and could may well have been looking at challenging Che Adams upon his Southampton return. However, the £8.5million-rated ace’s recent foolish behaviour could have just undone all of his hard work this campaign and he may well have lowered Hasenhuttl’s opinion of him.

In other news, Kyle Walker-Peters could be given huge Southampton responsibility amid crisis…

Following the injury to Joe Gomez recently, Jurgen Klopp is now desperately short of centre-back options in his side and as a result, it seems extremely likely that they will be bringing in another defender in the January transfer window, with RB Leipzig’s Dayot Upamecano seemingly top of their list.

It was reported by The Athletic that the French international is now the Reds’ main target ahead of the January window, with the likes of Ben White, Ozan Kabak and Gleison Bremer also on the shortlist. 

The Merseyside club have also lost Virgil van Dijk to a long-term injury, as well as makeshift centre-back Fabinho who picked up an injury last month, leaving just Joel Matip as a senior option in Klopp’s side.

The injury-prone nature of the Cameroonian also suggests that it would be extremely risky for Michael Edwards to not sanction a deal for a centre-half in the upcoming winter transfer window.

Therefore, Upamecano represents a very attractive proposition for Klopp, as the French international has plenty of experience in both the Bundesliga and the Champions League, despite being just 22-years-old.

However, the young defender will not come cheap, as he is currently valued at £54 million by Transfermarkt, and still has three years left on his contract.

He also earned the praise of Jermaine Jenas and Rio Ferdinand after keeping Diego Costa quiet in a game against Atletico Madrid last season, with Ferdinand saying:

‘Upamecano was the best player tonight, he was formidable on the pitch.” (per Daily Mail)

This is certainly high praise from a man who was certainly one of the best centre-backs of the Premier League era, so there seems no reason why the Leipzig man couldn’t be a success if he were to join Liverpool in January.

Although he won’t come cheap, Klopp will surely need to add a quality centre-back to his ranks as soon as possible if he wants his side to have the best chance of retaining the Premier League trophy this season.

Money, money, money. That has been the mantra at Sunderland AFC in the last few years.

Despite years of continued relegations and failed promotion campaigns, the club have never been afraid to wave their wallets around.

Of course, this is a huge club, one playing well below what their facilities, stadium and history dictate.

They are a Premier League club in terms of their ground and training academy but they find themselves in England’s third tier, picking up the pieces of Ellis Short’s troubled reign and the shambolic state of affairs in the finance department.

The likes of Stewart Donald and Charlie Methven have tried to replicate things but having stayed in League One, they have found themselves needing to think about the sustainability of Sunderland in the long run.

That, you would think, would mean spending fewer sums of money. Of course, they have managed to make cuts but they have also spent where they haven’t needed to.

In 2019, Donald was priced out of a move for Will Grigg but ended up paying £4m for his services. He has scored just eight goals since and has played no part in improving the club. It’s a shame the way it’s worked out but it’s just a number of financial blunders the Black Cats have made over the last decade.

The biggest one that springs to mind is paying £70,000-a-week to Jack Rodwell. Of course, he walked through the door when Sunderland were still a Premier League outfit but he every quickly became a waste of money.

Rodwell stayed on those wages even when the club fell into the Championship but after taking a wage cut to around the £40,000 mark, he was still bleeding Short and Margaret Byrne dry.

Once he finally departed in 2018, the total transfer – one that initially cost £10m – was worth £22.7m accounting for his wages.

Not only was Rodwell a problem for Byrne but his contract saga was a big issue for Martin Bain, the ex-CEO of the football club.

Unfortunately, though, Sunderland now find themselves in a similar situation with Aiden McGeady. It’s thought that the Irishman is on £31k-a-week at the Stadium of Light which for a number of reasons defies belief.

First of all, this is now a League One club, and secondly, he’s not even playing – just like Rodwell.

With an EFL salary cap now introduced and Sunderland clearly needing new faces in January to take their promotion bid to the next level, McGeady is holding them back.

Sunderland couldn’t spend much in the final year of Rodwell’s contract because he was on such a meteoric sum of money. Donald and whoever their new owners are will ultimately face the same problem.

For the good of the player and Sunderland as an organisation and a football club, he needs to go.

Meanwhile, here’s how Sunderland can KICKSTART their promotion party…

Former England international Rob Lee, while speaking exclusively with Football FanCast editor James Beavis, has claimed that injuries to Lucas Digne and Seamus Coleman are a far bigger blow for Everton and Carlo Ancelotti than losing Fabian Delph.

The Toffees are set to be without Delph for this Saturday’s Premier League clash with title-chasing Chelsea after the midfielder limped off during the first half of last weekend’s draw at Burnley clutching a hamstring injury.

Blues chiefs are resigned to losing the former Manchester City star for the early stages of the festive period, fearing that rushing him back will only worsen the issue having been plagued by injuries since moving to Goodison Park in 2019.

Ancelotti was already without his first-choice full-backs Digne and Coleman for the trip to Turf Moor, forcing the Italian to hand Delph only his second start of the league campaign to fill in at left-back.

Digne is facing up to three months on the sidelines after surgery on an ankle injury, while Coleman has been plagued by hamstring problems this season that have ruled the Republic of Ireland international out of action for five of Everton’s last six top-flight fixtures.

Lee, who earned 21-caps for England during his playing career, feels the loss of Digne and Coleman has thrown Everton’s season off course and into the rough, as the pair brought energy and balance that Ancelotti cannot find elsewhere in his squad.

“I think the bigger blow is his full-backs. I think that’s why they started like a house on fire, Lucas Digne and Seamus Coleman. But they’ve got so much energy, they can get up and down and give so much balance and I think they miss them more than they miss anybody else,” Lee told Football FanCast. “It helps that Dominic Calvert-Lewin has been on fire, he’s scoring all their goals.

“But I thought at the start of the season, they look good, they look like they have a really, really good balance to their team and it just goes to show you that if you lose a couple of your wider players and lesser players come in, or maybe they don’t know how to do the job, that they just seemed to be set up so well under Carlo Ancelotti. And they now, they look a bit not quite as fluent as they were. And I think it’s down to both their full-backs.”

Everton have won just once in the five Premier League fixtures they have been without Coleman for, coming at newly-promoted Fulham, while losing to Southampton, Newcastle and Leeds United.

Ancelotti fielded central defender Ben Godfrey at right-back against Southampton after stating he has “no doubt” in the summer arrival’s ability to play on the side, before favouring Jonjoe Kenny at Newcastle, Tom Davies against Leeds and Alex Iwobi at Burnley.

Godfrey is now expected to move to left-back in place of Digne and Delph when the Toffees host Chelsea on Saturday night, with Ancelotti seemingly opposed to utilising former Olympique de Marseille prospect Niels Nkounkou.

The young Frenchman has featured for just 69-minutes in the Premier League since moving to Merseyside in the summer and been omitted from Ancelotti’s last four matchday squads, despite playing all three Carabao Cup ties through to the end and providing one assist.

It remains to be seen who Ancelotti favours on the right of his defensive line, with Coleman’s absence denying the Italian his joint-most productive defender for successful tackles (14) and ground duels won (27), per SofaScore, while Digne accounts for the second-most key balls (16) and big chances created (5) by any Everton player in the league this term.

AND in other news, Everton already have their answer to a 48-goal target “every coach wants”.

Glasgow Rangers are back in action this afternoon as they travel to take on Dundee United at Tannadice for their first game in the Scottish Premiership since the 4-nil rout of Ross County last weekend.

Steven Gerrard’s side beat Lech Poznan in Poland to win Group D of the Europa League on Thursday night as the Ibrox boss took the opportunity to rotate his squad, so several key men are set to return to the starting XI.

The Gers hold a 13-point lead over Celtic at the top of the table and will be looking to build on their sizeable advantage when they face the Terrors, who lost at Livingston last weekend, which ended their unbeaten run of six games.

With that in mind, here is our predicted starting line-up for this afternoon’s action, which sees Gerrard ring seven changes to the side that beat Poznan in midweek.

Allan McGregor will replace Jon McLaughlin between the sticks, as he is Gerrard’s trusted man for the big occasion.

Connor Goldson is expected to continue at centre-back, although fit-again Filip Helander may push for a recall, with Leon Balogun dropping to the bench.

Borna Barisic will most likely start at left-back as usual, whilst the ever-reliable James Tavernier will replace Nathan Patterson, despite the teenage prodigy impressing in his European debut on Thursday night.

New summer recruit Bongani Zungu offered little against Lech Poznan, so switching Joe Aribo to the left of the centre circle and bringing Steven Davis back into the midfield should be a tempting option, with Scott Arfield also likely to start, having scored four goals in his past seven games in all competitions, via Transfermarkt.

Cedric Itten could be in contention to start with Alfredo Morelos still struggling for form, but the Colombia international is likely to lead the line, with Ryan Kent and Kemar Roofe slotting into place alongside him on the wings.

This means there is no room for Ianis Hagi, who will have to settle for a place on the bench.

AND in other news, Rangers boss Steven Gerrard must unleash Steven Davis vs Dundee…

Arsenal’s woes continued this evening after they slumped to an eighth defeat in the Premier League.

The Gunners were beaten 2-1 by Everton at Goodison Park as pressure continues to mount on under-fire boss Mikel Arteta.

They fell behind to an early Rob Holding own goal as the visiting centre-back, and skipper for the night, had the ball bounce off him from a Dominic Calvert-Lewin flick-on.

Nicolas Pepe responded just after the half-hour mark with a strike from the penalty spot, but Yerry Mina nabbed the winner on the stroke of half-time, defeating the diminutive Ivorian winger to a header from a corner.

Once again, many of Arsenal’s biggest stars underperformed on the night – journalist Charles Watts at football.london accused Willian of ‘simply not trying’ during the break, but there was perhaps an even more anonymous player in the shape of David Luiz.

He is arguably the most experienced player in this Gunners’ XI and he badly let his manager down. You could tell from his body language that he just wasn’t bothered on his return to the side.

Calvert-Lewin left him for dead to practically score the opener, so the fault must lie with him rather than Holding.

Per SofaScore, the 33-year-old veteran failed to win a single duel in the 90 minutes he was on the pitch. Luiz also lost possession eight times and made only 25% of eight long balls.

Wasteful.

The fact that he was a mere passenger was summed up by his failure to record a single interception or tackle from 93 touches of the ball. In reality, the Brazilian was only there to pass out from the back.

Luiz was graded a four out of ten by football.london in their post-match ratings. They wrote:

“The Brazilian simply had no idea where Dominic Calvert-Lewin was for the opening goal and perhaps could have done more to go to the ball for the second.

“He is in the team, however, for his passing ability and given how much possession Arsenal had in the second period you would have hoped David Luiz could do more.”

The £100k-per-week star must be doing so much more to justify such extortionate wages in north London. Arteta ought to axe him ahead of Gabriel’s return.

AND in other news, KSE can land the Gunners a huge BARGAIN in January with swoop for “revelation”… 

West Brom will still be hurting from the embarrassment of Tuesday evening but Sam Allardyce’s men must put that behind them as they host Arsenal at the Hawthorns this evening.

The Baggies were thrashed 5-0 by Leeds United earlier this week, meaning the 66-year-old has picked up just one point from his opening three matches in charge.

A run of form that has also seen his side leak eight goals, so surely changes are afoot with Big Sam left reeling at his players.

Here’s the XI we’re predicting this evening…

There could be as many as four changes with the Gunners in town.

Big Sam was already without several key players going into the festive period, and now Kieran Gibbs has joined the likes of Hal Robson-Kanu, Kyle Bartley and Sam Field on the treatment table.

Lee Peltier replaced him last-minute against United, but his inexperience at this level is worrying, so we are expecting two-time PL winner Branislav Ivanovic to come back in with young Dara O’Shea moving across to left-back.

It means Sam Johnstone remains between the sticks with Semi Ajayi and Darnell Furlong also starting again.

Jake Livermore is still suspended, so Romaine Sawyers should continue in defensive midfield, even despite his own goal on Tuesday. Although, he could well be joined by rarely-seen 20-year-old midfielder Rekeem Harper.

He was an interesting inclusion on the bench in midweek, and he carries box-to-box characteristics that should be right up Allardyce’s street, though he’s only started four games in the past 18 months.

It can’t hurt to give him a run-out alongside Chelsea loanee Conor Gallagher.

We may even see Matheus Pereira finally return to the starting XI as his creative influence is desperately needed. He’ll go in at right wing with Grady Diangana on the other flank.

Big Sam also has a massive call to make on misfiring summer signing Karlan Grant, he’s likely to be axed in favour of Charlie Austin this time around having failed to score in 11 of 12 starts now.

AND in other news, Ideye 2.0: Sam Allardyce must avoid “foolish” former player who “spat his dummy out” in Jan…

Southampton are continuing to be linked with a move for Leicester City winger Demarai Gray ahead of the summer, with the 24-year-old set to be available on a free transfer when his contract with Leicester expires in the summer.

Signing the former Birmingham City man could help Ralph Hasenhuttl unleash Ryan Bertrand’s attacking potential in his Southampton side, with the 31-year-old having struggled to form a connection with Moussa Djenepo and Nathan Redmond so far this season.

The former Chelsea man is out of contract at the end of this season but the club are reportedly confident that he will sign a new deal, having been a regular in Ralph Hasenhuttl’s side so far this campaign; making 16 appearances in the top-flight.

The left-back’s goal and assist returns have dried up in the past two seasons, whilst Kyle Walker-Peters has shown himself to be dangerous at times this year pushing forward on the right-hand side, which is perhaps due to the connection he has formed with Stuart Armstrong.

Therefore, if the Saints were to bring in Gray on a free transfer in the summer and he were to establish himself in the first-team ahead of Djenepo and Redmond, both of whom having struggled at times this season, then it could allow Bertrand to start providing more of an attacking outlet on the left-hand side.

Although the Leicester City man will have to work on his defensive contribution if he wants to become a regular for Southampton, with WhoScored describing that as one of his weaknesses, they also suggest that he likes to dribble, and his trickery could allow Bertrand the space to overlap on the left-hand side where he could hopefully pick up some assists.

Earlier in his time with Leicester, manager Brendan Rodgers was full of praise for the 24-year-old, who earns £55k per week with the Foxes, saying:

“He is a big talent and he showed that when he came in.”

Therefore, if Gray can find his feet with Southampton he could be a great addition to Hasenhuttl’s squad and he could well form a partnership with Bertrand.

And, in other news… Exclusive: Carlton Palmer hints Southampton target would “feel loved again” working under Hasenhuttl

Liverpool’s woes in front of goal continued as they played out a stalemate with Manchester United on Sunday afternoon.

One player who will have disappointed Jurgen Klopp with his display was Georginio Wijnaldum.

The Dutch international, who is widely expected to leave Anfield in the summer when his contract expires, put in an uncharacteristically poor display against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side.

As per SofaScore, the former Newcastle United man earned a 6.5 rating for his performance, marking him as the worst Liverpool player of all of those who started the game.

The 30-year-old midfielder was limited to just 63 touches of the ball against United and completed 38/45 passes, resulting in a solid, if unspectacular, 84% pass success rate. However, this was lower than his season average of 88.6%, suggesting that his passing was below his usual standards against the Red Devils.

He also lost possession on 12 occasions and won just five out of 13 total duels, resulting in a success rate of just 38%, suggesting that the United midfielders had the better of him on a number of occasions.

For example, Scott McTominay won 11/15 of his duels during the game and earned an impressive 7.3 rating, suggesting that he was the more impressive of the two midfielders at Anfield on Sunday.

In Wijnaldum’s last Premier League appearance against Southampton, he lost possession on just four occasions and won four out of eight total duels, suggesting that his performance against Manchester United was way below his usual standards.

Back in 2019, Klopp had this to say about the Dutch midfielder:

“Is he the perfect midfielder? From the skillset 100 per cent. He has all the things you need.”

However, his performance against United was far from perfect and you worry that as exit rumours continue to grow, the midfielder may not be fully focussed on Liverpool, which may lead to disappointing performances in the future.

It will be interesting to see if the 30-year-old is selected from the start in Liverpool’s next game, when they take on Burnley at Anfield on Thursday.

And, in other news… Klopp can sign his next Coutinho at LFC in 26 y/o who scores and assists