Southampton manager Mauricio will wonder what has gone wrong at St Mary’s this season, with the hapless Saints languishing towards the foot of the Premier League table.
The south coast side had established themselves as a perennial mid-table side since their promotion to the top flight, but the club find themselves in serious risk of suffering the ignominy of relegation this season. The £75 million sale of want-away defender Virgil van Dijk has provided the club with the required funds to begin to move away from the bottom-three, and the Argentine boss is expected to utilise the funds to improve his squad this month. Fans here in The Transfer Tavern expect a big three weeks, with a number of areas within the squad in need of attention. Our landlord caught up with the St Mary’s bunch over a game of pool this week, with the transfer window the top item on the agenda. Conversation swayed to and fro around where the money should be spent, but the general consensus is that a striker should be the top priority.
The likes of Shane Long and Manolo Gabbiadini have struggled this term, with the Saints scoring just twenty-one goals in the league this season. Changes are needed, and our landlord couldn’t help but suggest a swoop for Norwich City man, Nelson Oliveira. The Portuguese striker harbours ambitions of making the national squad ahead of the World Cup in Russia this summer, and will hope to be on the plane to Eastern Europe alongside Cristiano Ronaldo and co. A Premier League move should seal that spot, and the player will certainly be keen on a switch. The Canaries are struggling in mid-table in the second tier, and appear likely to sell Alex Pritchard to Huddersfield Town this month. Pellegrino will hope to jump on uncertainty at the club, and an offer for the player should go in immediately.
Oliveira, rated at just £4.5m on Transfermarkt, possesses Premier League quality, and if Pellegrino can convince Norwich to sell, the Saints will begin to climb the top flight table.
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Tottenham Hotspur have made a bid for Paris Saint-Germain midfielder Javier Pastore, according to Calciomercato.
What’s the story?
Since Mauricio Pochettino became manager in 2014, the North London outfit have rarely spent in the January transfer window.
It seems, though, that the club are trying to change that, if reports in Italy are to be believed.
Via Gianluca Di Marzio’s official website, a story from Calciomercato claims that Spurs, along with Liverpool, have tabled bids worth between £21.9m and £35m.
The report states that Pastore has no interest in moving to the Premier League as he wants to go back to Italy.
The midfielder spent two years at Palermo before moving to France in 2011, and now reports have claimed that Inter Milan are working on a deal to sign him.
Should Tottenham give up?
If a player is dead set on joining a club then it can be difficult to alter his thinking, but Pastore would certainly be a welcome addition to Pochettino’s team.
The 28-year-old is technically strong and he has a winning mentality given that he has won 16 trophies at PSG, including four league titles.
In terms of Tottenham’s midfield, Christian Eriksen is the most creative in the middle of the park.
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Adding Pastore would give the North London club a different option and route to goal.
The problem that Tottenham could face is the potential for a bidding war, which would hike up the price.
Everton produced a slick performance in the English Premier League on Saturday to defeat Crystal Palace 3-1 at Goodison Park.
After being on the receiving end of a thrashing away to Arsenal last week, fans were looking for their team to bounce back this weekend and Sam Allardyce’s side responded, rushing to a 3-0 lead before their visitors scored a late consolation penalty.
Gylfi Sigurdsson, Oumar Niasse and Tom Davies were the goal heroes on the afternoon but it was another player that left supporters with their jaws dropped – new signing Theo Walcott.
The former Arsenal man was a constant threat throughout, combining well in the final third with his teammates and showing exactly why the club shelled out the money to sign him in January.
The Toffees haven’t made a tonne of successful signings over the last 12 months but Walcott is certainly showing a lot of promise and fans are overjoyed with his impact so far.
They took to Twitter to share their thoughts on his Saturday performance…
Tottenham Hotspur learned who they could potentially face in the FA Cup quarter-finals before even earning a place in the final eight themselves.
Mauricio Pochettino’s men play later today as they take on Rochdale at Spotland Stadium in the fifth round.
It is safe to say that the North London outfit are overwhelming favourites to progress at the expense of the League One club, but stranger things have happened.
After a handful of ties were played on Saturday, the draw was made for the quarter-final, and Tottenham learned that if they beat Rochdale they will face either Sheffield United or Swansea City in the next round.
The quarter-final tie will be on away ground for Spurs if they overcome Rochdale this afternoon.
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In fact, the so-called ‘big’ Premier League sides have avoided one another in the final eight, which means that a juicy tie could potentially await in the final.
Even though Tottenham are yet to make it into the quarter-finals, some fans already think that a final-four spot is secured.
In many ways, we put too much pressure on Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham team. Following consecutive challenges for the Premier League title, it’s easy to forget how young this side actually is – it has the second youngest age of any top-flight team this season – and by the traditional laws of footballer development, its biggest stars are only now entering the cusps of their peaks.
It’s as promising for the north London club as it is frightening for their Premier League rivals, considering the standards Spurs have already set, that their best is theoretically still yet to come. Young players already established as top-class could soon become world-class, and although this season hasn’t brought another bid for the domestic crown, Tottenham’s unforgettable nights in Europe – beating Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund at Wembley and pulling off a two-goal comeback against Juventus in Turin earlier this week – have shown real signs of a prodigious team coming of age.
In fact, maturity was the prevailing adjective yielded from Pochettino’s post-match comments following not only a domineering performance against a side that have reached the Champions League final twice in three years, but also a run of impressive results against key divisional rivals – a comfortable 2-0 win over Manchester United, a thrilling draw at Anfield and a 1-0 victory in the north London derby that could have been by a far greater margin.
The Juventus performance, particularly, is a far cry from how Tottenham collapsed during the Battle of Stamford Bridge at the end of 2015/16 as the Premier League title slipped away from them, not to mention when Tim Sherwood accused them of capitulation against the same opponents at the same venue two years prior.
“You can’t legislate for the capitulation – you can’t have that. Lack of characters, too many of them too nice to each other. You need to show a bit more guts and not want to be someone’s mate all the time. They need to drag it out of each other. It hurts me and I won’t forget about this when we hit the motorway, but some might.”
Indeed, Tottenham have continually grown under Pochettino’s watch and it now feels we’re looking at a far more complete, far more mature and far more varied side. And few players symbolise that transition quite as accurately as Christian Eriksen, the first of Tottenham’s youthful attacking cast to cross over the barrier of young and developing to footballer in his prime earlier this week upon turning 26. That’s not to say Eriksen can’t improve further, but he’s now reached an age where he’ll be judged almost exclusively on ability rather than further potential.
Which begs the question of what, aged 26, Tottenham truly have at their disposal. Where does Eriksen rank against his contemporaries, does he provide the consistency a 26-year-old should and Spurs desperately need, does he have the quality to take Spurs to a Premier League title and perhaps most pertinently of all, does he qualify as a world-class player? Let’s take a look at the statistics.
The ultimate problem with analysing No.10s is that there’s no strict template or obvious way to categorise them in terms of style, like with centre-backs or centre-forwards. No.10s come in all shapes and sizes and can play out wide, centrally, as part of the midfield or the attack. But there is one common denominator all No.10s share regardless of the qualities they offer or where they’re deployed; all are expected to score goals, create goals and return the freedom they’re granted with match-winning quality.
Some emphasise scoring over providing or the other way around, some are heavily involved in build-up play and some prefer to stealthily wait for their chances. But what is decisively clear from the 75-cap Danish international’s per-match returns in the Premier League this season is that he offers an important balance between all of those aspects. While he doesn’t rank the highest for chances created or shots at goal, he doesn’t rank the lowest on any of those fronts either from the seven No.10s we looked at spanning the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and the Bundesliga.
In fact, he ranks third on both fronts and when we combine those returns to create a unique statistic of shots per match Eriksen has either directly or indirectly contributed to, the only two No.10s to outperform his average of 5.1 are Kevin De Bruyne – the attacking dynamo of arguably the best side in Europe this season – and Philippe Coutinho, who has just completed a £142million transfer to Barcelona. Even if Eriksen isn’t the greatest No.10 around, he’s certainly keeping himself in exceptionally high, exceptionally lucrative company.
Where Eriksen does stand apart from his contemporaries though, is the level of precision in his shot-taking with 67% accuracy. As Harry Kane will readily vouch, it’s of intrinsic importance to make the goalkeeper work even when you’re not regularly finding the net. In comparison, his passing accuracy is actually a little on the low side at 82% – only Coutinho has fared worse this season – but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. If anything, it suggests a healthy mix between passes that retain possession and riskier balls to create attacking chances.
Likewise, Eriksen is a very consistent player, at least in terms of chance creation, arguably to a greater extent than many Tottenham fans would assume. There have often been criticisms of the 26-year-old drifting in and out of games and going missing just when Tottenham need him to deliver.
But there have only been five Premier League matches out of 26 in which he’s failed to create at least two chances this season, while he’s created at least three in more than half of them and more than three in just over a quarter. To give some comparison to show how impressive that is, the highest average return for any player in Europe’s top five leagues this season is Neymar with 3.5 created chances per match, and only four players have an average higher than three.
That’s not to say Eriksen is without flaws though. Although Tottenham are revered for their ability to press high up the pitch, Eriksen averages less than two ball-winning actions (tackles or interceptions) per match in the Premier League – a far cry from De Bruyne or James Rodriguez who produce at least one tackle per game.
Likewise, perhaps because he’s not a particularly effective dribbler and has never boasted the ability to speed past opponents, Erisken has the worst and second-worst returns respectively for times dispossessed and unsuccessful touches per match this season, essentially giving the ball away 4.3 times each game. By the standards of elite No.10s, that average is far too high.
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But if we’re talking in terms of who Tottenham could theoretically sign to upgrade on Eriksen, candidates are far from forthcoming, especially amid a Champions League campaign that has seen Tottenham and their chief playmaker truly rise to prominence. In Europe this season, only two midfielders have applied more key passes than Eriksen, only five have taken more shots at goal and only seven have produced a greater return than his two goals.
Of course, those rankings could quickly change by the time the Round of 16 is over, but they become truly significant when you consider the calibre of side Tottenham have faced – two teams that have reached the Champions League final and the first ever team to win the Champions League title in consecutive campaigns, all within the last five years. In terms of Premier League rankings, meanwhile, he’s in the top ten midfielders (wingers included) for goals, assists, shots and key passes.
So, does that put Eriksen into the bracket of world-class? While that description is always open to interpretation, even without the statistics it’s clear he’s not at the same level as the likes of De Bruyne, who has run the show at City this season, while he’s not as consistent a creator as Arsenal’s Mesut Ozil or as prolific a goal threat as Coutinho. Likewise, there are clear weaknesses to his game in terms of running with the ball and surrendering it to the opposition too easily at times. There are obvious grounds for further improvement.
But let’s not forget we’re talking about a player Tottenham picked up from Ajax for just £11million, who has since developed into one of the best in the business, even if he’s not the very best. And the real question now is whether Eriksen can handle the expectation of being a top-end footballer amid his peak years rather than someone we expect to further grow. That’s very much the difference between Eriksen bringing silverware to the north London club or failing to recognise Spurs’ progress with a much-deserved trophy.
“I think Christian had an amazing game. He was outstanding. He was fantastic. Christian is doing, in my few years, always an important player for us. He always steps up and I think he’s this type of player who represents our philosophy. He’s a player who links the team and he was fantastic. The team was great, but he was fantastic.”
But goals against Manchester United and Juventus in two of the most significant games of Tottenham’s season thus far suggests he’s ready to shoulder that responsibility. As Pochettino said after his Man of the Match performance against the Italian champions earlier this week, the attacking midfielder ‘always steps up’.
Newcastle fans have been sharing their thoughts on the impending relegation battle, and most agree their next two fixtures could decide their season.
Rafa Benitez’s men were swept aside without too much of a fight at Anfield on Saturday, losing 2-0 to goals from Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane. Needless to say, these are not the fixtures that will determine the relegation race.
Newcastle’s next two matches are against Southampton and Huddersfield – both at St. James’ Park. The Magpies had lost just one league fixture in 2018 before the trip to Anfield, so they will feel confident about getting something from both games against fellow relegation strugglers.
Southampton, who currently sit one point below Newcastle, visit St. James’ Park this Saturday. Newcastle don’t have another league fixture for three weeks after that, when they welcome David Wagner’s Huddersfield Town to Tyneside.
Benitez’s team follow those two games with trips to Leicester and Everton either side of a home fixture with Arsenal. They then end the season with a visit to Watford sandwiched between home games against struggling West Brom and Chelsea.
The Toon army have taken to Twitter to express their thoughts on the relegation race…
Following a shock defeat to Sevilla in the Champions League on Wednesday evening, it has now been ten appearances for Alexis Sanchez since he completed a January transfer from Arsenal, but Jose Mourinho is still struggling to find a way of effectively fitting him into this Manchester United side – a problem that only seems more apparent when the Red Devils’ other high-profile talent, Paul Pogba, is on the pitch as well.
Indeed, the Old Trafford outfit have won three and lost three of seven matches in which both players have featured together thus far, their win-rate plummeting by a staggering 28% compared to when one or neither have been involved in a United clash this season.
It’s often said that great players always eventually find a way to play together, but at least in the short term Mourinho is left with some tough decisions to make and we could soon see one sacrificed from the starting XI to bring some much-needed balance to the side.
Which ultimately begs the question of which player United fans would rather see sacrificed – the January signing or the 49-cap Frenchman. Let us know by voting below…
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The loan signing of Inter’s Joao Mario by David Moyes and West Ham United felt like an uncharacteristic but impressive signing at the time but the 33-cap Portuguese international has not quite hit the heights in East London so far.
He is yet to score for the Hammers but he is certainly not the only member of the club’s squad who has struggled under the intense pressure of the relegation battle, which is only intensified by the club’s off-field problems.
The contrast between Mario’s reputation and his recent performance led us to ask Irons fans whether they would like Davids Gold and Sullivan to secure a permanent deal for the former Sporting winger in the summer.
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The response was pretty overwhelming; 77% of them do want the club to make the transfer happen. They clearly believe there is more to come from the Euro 2016 winner and, based on his performances in that tournament, it is hard to dispute that.
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Newcastle United are on the verge of guaranteeing their English Premier League safety after securing a massive result away to Leicester City on Saturday.Winning 2-1 against the Foxes, Rafa Benitez’s side are now ten points ahead of 18th-placed Southampton, albeit having played a game more.With seven teams between themselves and the relegation zone with just a handful of games remaining, supporters can begin to relax and dream about next season in the top-flight.Central to the win against Leicester was midfielder Jonjo Shelvey, whose recent impressive form continued with a vital opening goal.Newcastle supporters are now calling on him to be selected for England’s World Cup this summer, believing he’s shown enough to be included.Shelvey hasn’t played for the national side since 2015 but has his season been impressive enough to convince Gareth Southgate to include him on the plane to Russia?Fans took to Twitter to share their thoughts…
Martin Atkinson has been appointed to referee the 176th Manchester derby, which could go down in history if City beat United to clinch their third Premier League title.
Winning the top flight crown on 7 April would be the earliest that any team has done so and nobody would put it past Jose Mourinho to draw on every trick in the book – including time-wasting and tactical fouls – to try and spoil Pep Guardiola’s party.
That means that 47-year-old Atkinson, who has taken charge of four United and two City matches this season, may well have to take a strict approach to keep a lid on proceedings.
We can see that Atkinson’s numbers are fairly middle of the road, although the win bias towards the home team may worry United fans.
He has yet to oversee a defeat for either side this season but he does have a penchant for booking United players – averaging 2.25 Red Devils bookings per game while awarding an average of 13.75 fouls per match against the side who currently sit second in the Premier League.
He has yet to referee a match at the Etihad Stadium this season and it remains to be seen how he will react, especially if there is an expectant cauldron of noise in a ground that is expecting to witness history.
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