Leeds United will be hoping to gain some momentum in the Premier League tonight as they take on Wolves at Molineux.
Jesse Marsch’s side finally got their late-season rescue act underway with a much-needed last-gasp victory over Norwich last time out, but tonight they face a Wolves team who are battling for European qualification next season.
The Whites boss will have some tough calls to make, but one ruthless decision he must surely consider is finally dropping Pascal Struijk from his starting line-up.
The Dutchman has been part of a leaky Leeds back-line which has conceded a league-high 65 goals this season, and while he looked a touch more assured against the Canaries, he should be given a rest here.
His performances in 2022 have very much left a lot to be desired, and his first couple of games under Marsch saw him look really troubled.
In his post-match player ratings following the match against Aston Villa, Leeds Live’s Beren Cross gave the 22-year-old a five, saying: “Unlucky to see his attempted block go beyond Meslier for the opener, but looked like he had an error in him all evening. Ball trickled away from him at one stage in the second half too without punishment.”
That followed on from his role in Leicester’s 1-0 victory in Marsch’s first game in charge of the club, with Rio Ferdinand slamming: “As a defender, if you’re on the halfway line with Jamie Vardy, you know what you’re playing against.
“I don’t know why he’s playing in the same line as him when he’s not even quick. You’ve got to give yourself a yard or two to see ball and man. The moment you get into a foot race with this guy, it’s curtains, it’s over for you.”
Indeed, as per WhoScored, the Dutchman hasn’t averaged a single game over a 6.8 in Leeds’ past nine fixtures in all competitions, including a shocking 4.9 and 5.3 in back-to-back encounters against Manchester United and Liverpool last month.
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While match ratings certainly aren’t the be-all and end-all, there’s no questioning that Struijk has found Leeds’ slump more of a struggle than most, especially when you consider that he’s still a very young defender having to cope with a very attacking tactic which demands a lot out of him both in terms of concentration and reading of the game.
The £17m-rated youngsyer must surely be taken out of the firing line, allowing him a mental breather.
AND in other news, Beren Cross reveals huge behind the scenes Leeds decision, Jesse Marsch will be fuming
Liverpool have been told that they will not sign Barcelona midfielder Seydou Keita in January according to the player, however the Mali international refused to rule out a move in the summer according to the The Sun.
Keita; who has a £90million buy-out-clause in his contract, has struggled to establish himself as a regular at the Nou Camp since his £14million move from Sevilla in 2008; seemed keen to move away from the Catalan club but not until the season is finished.
Liverpool stated their interest in the 31-year-old midfielder earlier this month and although Keita was flattered by the interest and was keen to praise the Premier League, he could not see a January move happening.
Just nine appearances in the first four months of the season and the arrival of Cesc Fabregas from Arsenal in the summer have prompted the Mali midfielder to discuss his future.
Keita said: “Liverpool are a great club and it is fantastic to hear they are interested in me but you know how I feel about Barcelona.
“But we are in football and nothing is an absolute, so let’s wait until the end of the season.
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“I want to play more games and the Premier League is very attractive and exciting for anyone.”
Arsenal goalkeeper Lucasz Fabianski has admitted that he may leave Arsenal in the next transfer window, as opportunities in the Emirates first-team are becoming limited for the stopper.
The Poland international has had to play second fiddle to countryman Wojciech Szczesny for the bulk of this campaign, after a number of high-profile blunders cost him his place in the team.
The 26-year-old is motivated in trying to win the number one jersey back, but has admitted he will have to wait and see what happens in January.
“It is really difficult. Of course not playing doesn’t make me happy. I want to play, that’s my goal,” he told Mirror Football.
“But as well, sometimes you have to be patient. Like I said, I am just fighting, fighting.
“If there is an opportunity, I want to play as well as I can and help the team. We will see what happens.
“At the moment, I focus on Arsenal. There is still time until January, almost two months. We will see what happens.
“I am going to keep fighting for the place. Wojciech is doing well, but I have to fight, work hard and see what happens,” he concluded.
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It has been some five years now since Arsenal’s Aaron Ramsey made his debut in senior football. His first touches came at the KC Stadium at Hull in April 2007, where he replaced Paul Parry on the Bluebirds left wing during stoppage time.
Jump forward to present day and Ramsey finds himself embroiled in the engine room of Arsenal’s midfield three pairing, aiming to thread through those intricate passes to the likes of Robin Van Persie to convert. But is the central midfield position the best that the man from Caerphilly can vacate? Let us identify why he may be better suited elsewhere going forward.
Ramsey’s major attributes include his innate passing abilities. Being two-footed he has the ability to pick a pass; whether long or short, and is one of the few Gunners players to often employ the cross field pass amidst the clubs tippy-tappy culture.
According to the Opta Index, Aaron Ramsey ranks a high fourth amongst 20 Premier League players judged upon their distribution abilities. He achieves 86.5% productivity per minute whilst on the ball.
Although it may be argued that Ramsey fulfils his current central position by spotting runners either side, gaining the full picture of Arsenal’s attack ahead of him, his talents could be much better employed further forward.
The attacking midfield position or glorified ‘number 10’ role requires skill, agility and the ability to create space. Ramsey is this man.
Mikel Arteta may disagree but a fully fit Arsenal side would include Alex Song sitting at the base of the midfield, Jack Wilshere slightly advanced and on his favoured left foot, with Ramsey at the forefront of this trio in a new attacking position.
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Whilst Aaron creates many assists, he would be the first to admit he doesn’t score enough goals. His last Premier League goal and fifth league goal of his Arsenal career came way back in October in the defeat to Tottenham. At international level he has too notched five goals but in much fewer appearances; 20 compared to 56 league games at Arsenal. But why such a contrast?
Indeed, it was the late, great Gary Speed who used Ramsey in the attacking midfield mould and actually gave the midfielder the number ten jersey in the latest friendly international with Norway. Andrew Crofts and Joe Allen were employed as sitting midfielders in behind him. Ramsey is much more of an attacking menace in this position and can use his intricate passing skills to thread those eye-of-a-needle passes to the Bellamy’s, Morison’s and Van Persie’s of this world. Ramsey notched a goal from this very position in a rejuvenated Wales’ sides triumph against Montenegro, in the country’s final Euro 2012 qualifier back in September.
Arsene Wenger heavily relies on the goals of Van Persie as all Arsenal fans would admit, with the Dutchman hitting 22 in the league with second placed Mikel Arteta managing just four. Ramsey still remains on one but a move to spearhead the Arsenal midfield may heighten his fortunes.
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It has been a long time since Arsenal fans purred over consistent goal tallies from the midfield positions including impressive hauls in the past from the likes of Robert Pires and Freddie Ljungberg.
It is now time for Wenger to alter his 4-3-3 formation and use Ramsey in an attacking midfield role to feed Robin Van Persie and kick start their most unpredictable of seasons to date.
Agree with me or is Ramsey already at home in central midfield? Join the debate @http://twitter.com/Taylor_Will1989
Steve Bruce is struggling. His Sunderland side are without a win so far this season and have already suffered losses against arch-enemies Newcastle and Championship Brighton during their miserable start to the campaign.
A month ago it all seemed so promising. Bruce was one of the most active Premier League managers over the summer, bringing 12 new faces into the Stadium of Light and waving goodbye to 14. This is a dramatic overhaul for any club but Sunderland had faded out badly at the end of the 2010/11 season and the flurry of activity was seen as a much needed breath of fresh air.
It is early days but the overhaul has not brought the improvement that many people expected.
Bruce was backed generously by Chairman Niall Quinn and owner Ellis Short in the transfer market, they have allowed him to reinvest the majority of Jordan Henderson and Darren Bent’s transfer fees back into signings but the manager has not utilised this healthy warchest effectively enough.
The most significant loss of all was Asamoah Gyan’s last minute departure to Al-Ain (a deal which surprised everyone) but Bruce claims that the player’s departure was an issue that had rumbled on for months. If that was the case why did he not find a replacement?
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At the start of last season Sunderland’s front three were Bent, Gyan and Wellbeck, now it reads Bendtner, Wickham and Ji Dong-Won. This is a step down in anybody’s book and Sunderland’s owners must be wondering whether Bruce can still be trusted with the cheque-book.
Since the departure of Darren Bent, Sunderland’s form has slumped. Alarmingly, Bruce has not yet managed to halt this slide. More worrying still is that Bruce is now yet again rebuilding and waiting for players to gel. He has a squad packed full of new faces as he begins his third season in charge.
The demands at Sunderland are realistic and simple. People want to see their side improve year on year (something that Bruce delivered successfully in the past two seasons) and challenge in every match. Trophies are not an immediate concern. From January, Bruce has seemed unable to meet these modest expectations and this is likely to make Niall Quinn and Ellis Short very nervous indeed.
Already a front runner in the dreaded Premier League sack race, Bruce seriously needs to get a winning mentality back into his side. If the summer overhaul was supposed to do it he now needs to try something else, and fast.
Is there enough quality in the side to improve on last season? Can Bruce be trusted with signings?
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Kenny Dalglish has stated that he was happy with Liverpool’s performance in their 2-0 win over Aston Villa on Sunday, and feels his side thoroughly deserved the three points.
First half goals from Craig Bellamy and Martin Skrtel gave the Merseysiders a comfortable victory, and the Scottish coach felt that his team defended well against Alex McLeish’s men.
“We passed the ball and moved it and hit the bar twice – I think it was a well-deserved three points for us,” he told Sky Sports.
“I think the first goal was a little bit fortunate but the second one was a good flick-on from Martin. We get pleasure taking three points and that’s the greatest reward you can get from the work you do in training.
“We’ll go forward as a team and defend as a team. If we don’t have the ball the first person is the first defender.
“There is no point having one part of the team good and another rubbish. We do everything together and we’ll move forward together,” he concluded.
The win lifts the Anfield team up to sixth place, equal on 29 points with Arsenal.
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Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson has admitted an interest in Lille playmaker Eden Hazard and has personally watched him play.
The Scottish coach was in attendance at the Ligue 1 champions’ fixture against Lyon last month, and has confessed to monitoring the attacking midfielder amongst other players.
The Belgium international is one of the hottest prospects in world football, and has gained suitors such as Real Madrid, Inter and Arsenal over the last 24 months.
With Hazard admitting that he will leave the French club this summer in search of a move to a bigger club, Ferguson has expressed his interest in bringing the schemer to Old Trafford.
“I was at the game and watched Hazard, as well as other players,” the Red Devils supremo told RMC, translated to English by Mirror Football.
“That’s part of my job, looking at good players.
“Hazard is a very good player and has a lot of qualities. He’s particularly quick over the first 10 yards,” he concluded.
A bidding war is set to give Hazard numerous options this summer, but he is believed to prefer a move to England over Spain or Italy.
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Perception of FIFA is at an all time low right now. People see football’s international governing body as a corrupt and pompous old boys dictatorship. They are not wrong. After the success of Qatar’s World Cup bid, the accusations of corruption and bribery have further tarnished an already unpopular organisation, prompting talk of smaller federations (such as UEFA) splitting from FIFA, but would this improve the state of the game?
The first thing to know is what FIFA actually does. Every four years it organises the World Cup. Attempting to make it more celebrated and more profitable than the one before. It then spends the next four years reinvesting the money generated from the competition back into football by way of all the other unprofitable world cups such as the Under 20’s, the women’s world cup and so on as well as investing in countless development projects.
Whilst it may be difficult to look past the fact that an organisation with such a responsibility to the game and such vast sums of money, ($2 billion profit from the 2010 World Cup) is in the hands of a select bunch of questionable individuals, it is crucial to see that the international game is actually in a good state right now. Whilst the men who run FIFA may rightly be entrenched in scandal it has still successfully served its purpose of expanding football throughout the globe. Blatter’s recent attempts to host World Cups across the continents have proved successful and the sport has never reached more people (the last World Cup drew 26 billion views).
As an organisation FIFA does a fantastic job of generating vast revenue from the World Cup. Purely from a business perspective it seems foolish to break away from an organisation that is bringing so much money into the international game.
The question is, could the game be run better? There are certainly concerns about how well this money is reinvested and the percentage that goes back into the game but it is fair to say that due to the relentless expansion of the World Cup they now pump more money back into the game than ever before with $700 million set aside for development projects over the next four years.
I am aware that all this makes me sound like a staunch supporter of FIFA. I am not. Their exploitation of the bidding process and the control they exert over the host nation is deplorable. The cries for dramatic reform of the bidding process and the committee members are entirely justified. However, if you look beneath the dirty top layer there is an incredibly successful machine operating underneath. Splitting away from it just because of the dodgy goings on at the top would be a very extreme and potentially costly decision.
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Hard-Fi, the guests of the first Football FanCast video show of the season (which you can watch here), have just released their third album, ‘Killer Sounds’. Following on from ‘Stars of CCTV’ and ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’, ‘Killer Sounds’ is Hard-Fi’s latest offering and we’re giving you the opportunity to win a copy of the album signed by lead singer Richard Archer and drummer Steve Kemp in our Hard-Fi competition.
The four-piece have been busy working on their third studio album for the past eighteen months, which was released last month. The album was co-produced by the band’s frontman, Richard Archer, with assistance from big names such as Stuart Price (Killers, Madonna), Grey Kurstin (Lily Allen) and Alan Moulder (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Killers) and recorded in Cherry Lips Studios as well as Los Angeles.
Following a triumphant return to Glastonbury 2011 to headline the Leftfield Stage, four years after their last appearance at the festival, Hard-Fi plan to play a string of shows in September. The tour kicks off in Norwich on September 21 and includes a sold-out London Forum show on September 23. Tickets are continuing to sell fast and are not to be missed. With the band’s million-selling debut ‘Stars of CCTV’, the number 1 follow-up ‘Once Upon A Time In The West’ and two BRIT award nominations (2006’s ‘Best British Group’ and ‘Best British Rock Act’) already under their belts, Hard-Fi are set to reign the charts once again.
See what Richard and Steve have to say about their love of football…
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To win a signed copy of ‘Killer Sounds’ answer this simple question…
Where are Hard-Fi originally from?
A) Aldershot
B) Staines
C) Slough
To enter this fantastic competition, email your answer to [email protected]
The competition closes on Monday 26th September at 9am so make sure you get your answers in now!
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Here’s Razor asking Richard and Steve some (not so) quickfire questions…
Following a 2-0 loss to Liverpool on Tuesday the pressure is back on the Premier League’s youngest manager. Following three defeats in four games, two against the Reds, his reign at Stamford Bridge looks to be hanging from a thread.
Since Roman Abramovich shelled out an eye-watering £13.2 million to bring the 34-year-old to London this summer, expectations have been sky high and Chelsea’s indifferent start to the campaign has had people suggesting his time may be over already. It is a disastrous statement about the world of football that one of the brightest young managers around may be thrown onto the scrapheap after five months as a Premier League boss because his philosophy of playing sexy football has not taken off.
With every game being scrutinised, particularly at Chelsea where the axe is never far away, defeats against fellow top sides is a cardinal sin but while it is often managers that pay the price for poor results, AVB cannot be held fully responsible for the problems he faces.
Since the departure of Jose Mourinho the team has only been patched up by his successors, papering over the cracks by splashing cash, trying to implement their own playing style into a squad that has been set up a completely different way and the team he has inherited dangerously lacking in youth.
Frank Arnesen legacy at the Cobham Academy is staggeringly small considering his reputation and the money spent on the facilities. Josh McEachran has come through the system and looks to have a bright future despite not being given much of a chance, but after that, who else is there? Patrick Van Aanholt and Jeffrey Bruma are both out on loan as is Gael Kakuta, a player that they spent a lot of money on ‘poaching’ from Lens, and none of them look likely to break into the side any time soon.
Meanwhile, twelve members of his team are over 30 and while that brings experience it means there is a distinct lack of pace throughout the team which has left them struggling with the pass-and-move style of play and high defensive line that is now the norm at the bridge. John Terry has is a world-class defender but pace is not something he has ever had in abundance and with opponents now looking to get the ball in behind them it is making his life a lot more difficult, particularly when he is having to deal with the eccentricities of David Luiz alongside him.
The most frustrating factor for Villas-Boas must be the long-term injury to Michael Essien. The Ghanaian would be included in the midfield without a second thought when available. He can play in defence, in the holding role or pushing forward and does so with the pace and enthusiasm that is lacking from the team at present. When the 28-year-old returns to action he will be able to replace John Obi Mikel who has looked weak in the centre of the park. His ability on the ball is way below par for somebody playing top-level football. He is playing in an important role in the team and isn’t up to the level of other holding midfielders but unfortunately for Chelsea, he is the best available at the minute.
Then there is the trouble of Torres. He has been better this campaign than last season but is still nowhere near justifying his £50 million price tag. His struggle to get on the scoresheet is a big concern and doesn’t look like ending soon. Meanwhile, Didier Drogba has been favoured recently but at 34, he is not a long term fix and has only scored twice himself this term, and while Daniel Sturridge has been in good form AVB is still not confident enough to play him down the middle, a position that will bring the most out of him.
Off the pitch, the club’s failure to sign Luka Modric in the summer took the wind out of the sails. Having secured the unlikely capture of Fernando Torres in January, Abramovich believed anything was possible in the transfer market but came crashing back to Earth after failing to negotiate a deal with Daniel Levy, his main target was out of reach. He was a player that would have fitted in perfectly with AVB’s masterplan but without him he’s relying on people that he would not have bought himself.
Perhaps more worryingly are the off-field events. With the club looking to move home, they have become preoccupied with trying to buy back Stamford Bridge from the Chelsea Pitch Owners, which is alienating fans who want to stay where they are.
Captain John Terry bagged a goal on Saturday but even he will admit that this is not his finest campaign. Since the incident with QPR’s Anton Ferdinand, he has had other things on his mind and that isn’t what is needed by the club’s cornerstone. He has been the best central defender at the Bridge this season but that is predominantly down to Sideshow Bob lookalike David Luiz pressing the self destruction button at every opportunity and Alex being way short of his English counterparts’ skill level.
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At the top of the tree, Abramovich is currently facing a £3 billion lawsuit from his former friend, Boris Berezovsky, who claims that he was intimidated into selling his share of an oil company they co-owned to the Blues owner for a fraction of their actual worth. This case will of course be playing on his mind and when his biggest investment is not reflecting the money he has put in then it will be irritating and cause the new boss to be under added pressure to impress.
However, he isn’t totally blameless. Unlike the Special One, the 34-year-old is trying to please his demanding boss by trying to play attacking football despite it exposing their vulnerability when the ball is played behind them.
The constant squad rotation is also affecting this transition because there is no chance for the team to get used to the new style and develop an understanding with each other.
His aggressive responses to the comments of pundits like Gary Neville also show a sign of nervousness about the current predicament when confidence is needed. Neville’s comment that David Luiz was playing like he was being controlled by a 10-year-old on the Playstation was justifiable but it showed a lack of experience by Villas-Boas when he rose to it.
Chelsea need a complete overhaul and that will take time. Abramovich must back his manager and give him more than one season to turn it round. He is a fantastic young manager and with the signings of Mata and Meireles it is clear he has a plan in his mind but if it is going to bring the success that the Russian craves then he must allow it to blossom.
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The owner must take a back seat and allow his big investment to do what he needs.
Villas-Boas obviously must survive the short term and currently he is nowhere near achieving what is required but that is down to the form of the teams near them at the top.
Manchester City are unbeaten and look formidable while United started the season in scintillating fashion and are picking up points despite not playing great. At the same time, Tottenham are playing mercurial football and could be a title contender and start that Newcastle United have made so far is gaining all the plaudits.
The start Chelsea have made has not been terrible but is below par. Give it time and he will succeed. But how much longer before the Russian’s clock stops?
What do you think is Chelsea’s biggest problem? Comment below or follow me on Twitter @jrobbins1991 and talk football.