All posts by h716a5.icu

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Having smashed the world-record transfer fee for a goalkeeper when bringing him to Anfield, Liverpool immediately placed a lot of pressure upon the shoulders of £66.8m Alisson Becker (as per the BBC), but he has shaken those pressures off and further cemented his status as one of the world’s best all-round keepers.

How has he fared?

The blue-eyed Brazilian international has enjoyed a phenomenal start to life on Merseyside since arriving from Roma. Alisson has managed to keep 13 clean sheets in his 23 Premier League starts (as seen on the Premier League website), helping his new side sit four points clear at the top of the league ahead of the reigning champions, Manchester City.

Alisson’s saves have caught the eye, on the rare occasions that he has to make one due to the watertight nature of the Reds’ backline, but it is his footwork and passing range that has transformed Liverpool’s counter-attack and left opponents fearful of over-committing.

Are the media letting Jurgen Klopp off lightly for his lack of silverware? The Pl>ymaker FC squad have their say in the video below…

Along with the Citizens’ stopper Ederson Moraes, Alisson is perhaps one of the best in the world in his position with his feet, often playing a crucial part in the build up to Liverpool’s goals with his juggernaut kicks and ability to drop the ball on a sixpence.

In his 23 league starts, he has let in just 13 goals, less than any other keeper has conceded. His expert passing ability is demonstrated by his impressive 79 per cent pass accuracy, an impressive number considering how often he attempts to break through the opposition with long passes.

For comparison, Everton’s Jordan Pickford, who has also started every league game, has a 55.6 per cent success rate (per Whoscored).

The Verdict

The haunting memories of Simon Mignolet, Adam Bogdan and Loris Karius are no more. Liverpool have immediately transformed one of the weakest areas of their team into arguably the strongest area, with Alisson perhaps being the most important player for Klopp along with Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah.

Additionally, given the fact that Chelsea smashed the world-record fee for a goalkeeper not long after Alisson signed, when they bought Athletic Bilbao stopper Kepa Arrizabalaga to Stamford Bridge for a whopping £71m fee (as per the BBC), the value and significance of the modern day keeper has sky rocketed – £66.8m for Alisson, especially at just 26-years-old, could look like a snip in a couple of years.

According to Sky Sports football reporter Keith Downie on Twitter, Sunderland are planning on buying striker duo Tom Eaves and John Marquis before the end of the month. 

Eaves is currently with Gillingham in League One, while Marquis is with Doncaster in the same league, and are both being eyed as replacements to Josh Maja at the Stadium of Light.

This would be a wonderful move for Eaves, who is floundering at the bottom of the league with Gillingham. Currently sitting in 19th place, The Gills are embroiled in a relegation battle this season. With 15 goals and four assists this season, Eaves has, in truth, carried his club. So much so that the next best scorer has nine fewer goals. He will want to test himself at a better club, and promotion-chasing Sunderland are certainly that team, who can offer him the prospect of Championship football. It may spell the end for Gillingham, but it will be very promising for The Black Cats.

Meanwhile, Marquis will be another huge signing for Sunderland. When a club lose the league’s joint-second top scorer in Maja, the only thing they can do to improve that is sign the top scorer, which The Black Cats are proceeding to do. Marquis has 16 goals in the league this season, and with the added quality of Sunderland around him, he will only improve and could possibly make The Black Cats favourites to secure promotion.

Maja’s loss will be huge, but by recruiting two players like this, Sunderland will be taking massive steps forward rather than backwards.

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Loads of Sunderland fans have been discussing their current form, and they are not too happy with the team’s set piece troubles.

Sunderland sit just three points off the automatic promotion places after their 1-0 win over Wimbledon, but there are still some weak points in Jack Ross’s squad.

The Black Cats have not lost since the 3-1 defeat at Portsmouth back in December, but more than a few teams have threatened the Wearside outfit at set pieces this campaign.

Ross’s side are better in possession than most of the teams in League One, but they have struggled at times when defending set pieces, and the lack of goals at the other end from dead balls is equally frustrating.

Barnsley, who sit three points above the Black Cats in second, looked like scoring with every set piece during the thrilling 4-2 encounter at the Stadium of Light back in November, where the towering Kieffer Moore scored twice.

Being one of the more dominant teams in division, there will no doubt be games between now and the end of the season where Ross’s side can’t find a way through a packed defence, and corners could provide a vital solution, a solution that promotion rivals Barnsley have perfected.

You can find some of the best Twitter reactions down below, where fans are in total agreement that the side needs to improve this aspect of their game…

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Everton are crying out for a leader in the heart of defence, and Jamaal Lascelles’ latest interview suggests he could be the perfect transfer target.

Why do they need him?

Well, Everton have signed three centre backs in the last 18 months, adding Michael Keane in 2017 before signing both Yerry Mina and Kurt Zouma last summer.

While Zouma is only at the club on loan, it is clear that Marcel Brands and Marco Silva have identified the defence as an area that needs massive improvement, but their big problem at the moment is they don’t have a leader.

With Phil Jagielka coming to the end of his reign in the heart of the Toffees’ defence, Silva and Brands must look for leadership qualities in the transfer market above all else, and Lascelles has been linked with a move to Merseyside before.

Be sure to check out the incredible story of the man who rose from a Tanzanian refugee camp to become one of Australia’s biggest football stars in the video below…

What has he said?

Lascelles was visibly furious with Newcastle goalkeeper Martin Dubravka on Monday night, as the pair clashed after Dubravka’s error gifted Wolves a late equaliser.

Speaking with Sky Sports about the incident, the Magpies skipper said: “On the pitch there and then, I was just angry with everything.

“It wasn’t necessarily to do with him, it was just to do with everything. They scored at that minute but when I looked back at it, it was as clear as anything that it was a foul.

“So I apologised to him and I shouldn’t really be doing that to him. I hold my hands up but at the same time I’ve got a job to do.

“I haven’t got the armband because I’m technically the best or gifted. It’s because I’m honest and I’m hard-working. I won’t change in that aspect.”

The perfect leader?

Lascelles touched on three things there that Everton simply don’t have at the moment – anger, honesty and work ethic.

Lascelles may not be the best centre back at Newcastle, and in fact he may not even be the second or third-best given how well Fabian Schar and Federico Fernandez have played this season, but this sort of commanding leadership does not come around too often.

The 25 year-old is brutally honest, extremely passionate and hard-working, and will give his life for the fans who support him and his teammates around him.

This is exactly the attitude currently missing to give a talented Everton squad that killer instinct needed to kick on to the next level, and the Toffees should absolutely re-visit their interest in Lascelles this summer.

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Liverpool travel to Old Trafford on Sunday for an all-important Premier League clash with bitter rivals Manchester United. Victory will see the Reds pull clear at the top of the table, with Manchester City engaged in Carabao Cup action elsewhere.

Defeat, however, would dent the Anfield club’s title hopes and could turn the tide of the battle in the favour of the reigning champions. Whatever the outcome, the psychological impact of the result of Sunday’s match could be season-defining for Liverpool.

With the stakes so high, Jurgen Klopp will be desperate for victory. Success will not come easily though. The Red Devils have been in fine form since Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s appointment. The Norwegian coach has revitalised the club, as evidenced by the seismic improvement in star man Paul Pogba’s form.

Watch how to cross the road like a boss with freestyler Ben Nuttall in the video below…

If Liverpool are to stand any chance of victory on Sunday, then Klopp must find a way to stop the 25-year-old midfielder. Football FanCast outline three suggestions below…

Man-marking him

The obvious solution is to try and take the Frenchman out of the game by tasking one man with the job of marking and tracking him relentlessly throughout the 90 minutes. Either Fabinho or Jordan Henderson would be well-suited to this task. The Brazilian would certainly be a physical match for Pogba. 

By tasking Fabinho with restricting Pogba, the French midfielder may find his ability to find space and influence the game limited. This could lead to him getting frustrated – he was sent off against PSG last week – or even taken off by Solskjaer in order to try a different approach.

Cutting off the supply lines

An alternative, but potentially equally effective, method of restricting Pogba’s ability to assert his control is by cutting off the supply lines to the 64-cap France international. Solskjaer’s side know that the World Cup winner is their key man, so they naturally try to get him on the ball as often as possible. Pogba’s midfield partners, such as Ander Herrera and Nemanja Matic, will constantly be looking for the former Juventus man.

However, Liverpool can make picking out Pogba an arduous task. By closing down and harrying the man on the ball, and cutting off passing lanes to Pogba, Liverpool can force the United players to have to find an alternative option to giving the ball to the 6’3” midfielder.

Structurally, that could come in the form of, simply, three flat central midfielders who position themselves between Herrera, Matic and the space between the lines that Pogba likes to occupy.

Crowding him out

A more industrial approach to stopping Pogba would be to use raw physicality to impede him. This doesn’t just mean cynical, tactical fouling – though, that’s certainly a part of it – but by crowding the Frenchman out, consistently jostling him, and generally never giving him an inch to establish command over the midfielder.

However, this is a risky strategy. If executed clumsily it can lead to cards being shown and dangerous set piece situations being conceded. There’s also a danger of Pogba beating the press, which will inevitably leave gaps throughout the rest of the team.

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Chelsea have been hit with a hefty fine after Fifa found that the Stamford Bridge outfit had been breaching rules in relation to the signing of foreign youth players, namely Bertrand Traore of Lyon.

The more concerning matter for the Blues, though, is the fact that the £460,000 fine is accompanied by a two-window transfer ban, which will prevent the London club from signing any players in the next summer and winter windows.

Fortunately for them, they have a plethora of players out on loan, most of whom will return at the end of the season, thus lessening the impact felt by the embargo – Kurt Zouma is included in this number and so the likelihood of Everton keeping him at Goodison Park beyond this term look far slimmer.

In this era of ‘big 6’ dominance, has finishing 7th become as good as winning a trophy? The Pl>ymaker FC squad have their say in the video below…

Marco Silva expressed his delight with the 24-year-old’s performances on Merseyside and discussed the possibility of signing the athletic centre-half permanently, telling The Liverpool Echo:

“Let’s see what we can do or not in the future.”But it’s also about his opinion, about his future. But we are really happy with him.”The Portuguese will surely have been dismayed reading the news this morning, as are the Toffees faithful who reacted on Twitter…

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Leicester City have chosen to appoint Celtic manager Brendan Rodgers as Claude Puel’s successor, as confirmed by the club’s official website.

The Bhoys boss has returned to English football for the first time since 2015, when he left Liverpool.

News of Rodgers’ appointment comes about after reports that Rafael Benitez was also under consideration.

The Newcastle United manager is attempting to steer the Magpies away from the relegation zone and they are currently 15th in the Premier League, four points clear of 18th-placed Southampton.

Ironically, the club are also just four points behind the Foxes, who dispensed with Puel after a 4-1 loss to Crystal Palace at the weekend.

But fans of the Magpies insist that they were never worried that Benitez would depart St James’ Park in the middle of the season, with Rodgers foregoing the chance to win his third successive SPL title in Glasgow to take the reins at the King Power Stadium.

When The Chronicle revealed earlier in the day that Rodgers was set to take the job, Newcastle fans responded by claiming there was never any need to panic…

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Arsenal face Manchester United this weekend in what could be described as their toughest game of the season so far.

The Gunners have played United twice this season and have failed to win both games, drawing 2-2 in the Premier League and losing 3-1 in the FA Cup. In fact, they have not tasted victory over United since 2017, when Granit Xhaka and Danny Welbeck scored the goals in a 2-0 win. Wayne Rooney started up front for United that day.

Ever since, it appears there has been something of a mental block, an intangible problem that has prevented the Gunners from getting one over on the Red Devils.

Perhaps much of that can be put down to the Jose Mourinho effect. In his entire career, spanning two spells with Chelsea and one with United, the Portuguese has lost twice to the Gunners. One of those games was the 2-0 defeat in 2017, the other came in the 2016 FA Cup final, with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain scoring the only goal.

Against Arsene Wenger, Mourinho, of course, enjoyed superb success over a man he dubbed a “specialist in failure”. On the Frenchman’s 1,000th game in charge, Chelsea welcomed Arsenal to Stamford Bridge and thumped Wenger’s side 6-0, and that mental stranglehold transmitted to Old Trafford.

Now, though, as the battle for Champions League qualification reaches a crunch period, the two sides are separated by a point. There can be no excuses from Unai Emery as he bids to mastermind a victory which would take the Gunners back into the top-four.

Mourinho – who never lost to Emery in La Liga, when the Portuguese was managing Real Madrid and the Gunners boss was with Valencia – has long since vacated the premises at Old Trafford.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has restored some belief and swagger to United and helped the side to a miraculous Champions League comeback win over PSG in midweek, but Arsenal will perhaps enter the game as favourites.

They play Rennes on Thursday in the Europa League and Emery has repeatedly followed in Wenger’s footsteps by blooding youngsters in Europe’s secondary competition; he is likely to follow suit this time around as he bids to keep his first-team stars fresh for the weekend.

United, moreover, have injuries. The likes of Alexis Sanchez, who tormented his former club in the FA Cup tie earlier this season, Ander Herrera, Jesse Lingard, Juan Mata and Nemanja Matic are all on the sidelines; so thin is their squad, currently, that both Tahith Chong and Mason Greenwood came on as substitutes at Parc des Princes.

Arsenal are missing Hector Bellerin, Rob Holding and Welbeck, but they are long-term injuries and Emery will have long since known of their absences.

Their key starting XI is fit and firing and they will be out for blood. A 1-1 draw with Tottenham Hotspur last time out was perhaps unjust as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang missed a last-minute penalty, while they also thumped AFC Bournemouth 5-1 in their last outing at the Emirates Stadium.

Against United, then, it is merely a case of overcoming the psychological barrier that seems to rear its head whenever the Red Devils come to town.

If Arsenal play as they can, they should win, and there was evidence against PSG that it was a case of the stars aligning more than any great display from United; Kylian Mbappe, indeed, twice lost his footing after being put through on goal, while the decision to award Marcus Rashford the chance to score from the penalty spot in the dying minutes has provoked fierce debate.

As Solskjaer prepares to take his men into battle once more, they are wounded and relying on their reserves. It has worked so far, but Arsenal are well-placed to take advantage of the deficiencies gripping the Red Devils.

Emery and his men should end their hoodoo this weekend, and deal United a bitter blow in their bid to qualify for the Champions League next season. There can be no more excuses.

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Arsenal fell into a state of predictability under Arsene Wenger both on and off the field: an outdated philosophy was religiously applied to a squad which was seldom shaken up by the arrival of a marquee signing; the promotion of youth reigned supreme. “The problem with Arsenal is they always try and walk it into the net”. Boring, boring, Arsenal.

Inevitably and paradoxically, Wenger’s own success was conducive to his demise.

Rather than being taken out in an instant by a camouflaged sniper, the French legend’s character assassination was open for spectators to feast their eyes over during a number of years. As another Arsenal fan TV clip went viral on social media featuring actual grown men willingly signing up for yet another slice of public humiliation, a piece of Wenger’s credibility was removed.

But the three-time Premier League title winner stood firm and by his principles, until less than six months before his watch came to an end. Wenger stood before his sworn brothers a broken man, battered and tired of the familiar narrative, before confirming that Mesut Ozil had been awarded a £350,000 per week contract amid fears that he could leave the club.

This was an aberration in the Wenger era but one deemed necessary after losing Alexis Sanchez to Manchester United just a few days before. The figure was unprecedented for a club who had seemingly been unwilling to join their top-four rivals in offering mega wages to star players.

With the benefit of hindsight, though, Arsenal will be deeply regretting their decision to break the mould which they had kneaded for themselves. Ozil has fallen from grace at a rate akin to that which 99% of reality TV stars experience exactly four weeks after they disappear from our screens, and the club’s hierarchy may well be questioning whether they should have caved to pressure from supporters who vehemently called for a new deal.

Pl>ymaker FC Exclusive: Jermaine Jenas reveals he would have snubbed Tottenham for Arsenal if they’d come knocking in 2005…

Alex Iwobi is a fine example of how promoting from within can be incredibly cost effective. The Nigeria international may not unanimously scoop the plaudits for his style of play, but in terms of value for money he serves as a quintessential example of why promoting youth remains at the core of Arsenal’s DNA.

That Unai Emery has consistently trusted the 22-year-old this season – including in games against top-six rivals – underlines how highly he is regarded by the Spanish tactician. And when directly placed under the microscope alongside Ozil it’s clear to see exactly how dramatically Arsenal’s agreement with the enigmatic playmaker has backfired.

The above comparison demonstrates how the numbers simply don’t add up. Just over ten minutes of football for Iwobi is worth just one minute of Ozil’s time on the pitch; Ozil’s goals have been seven times more expensive than Iwobi’s; there is little to separate Iwobi’s yearly salary from the price of a single Ozil assist.

The master is not justifying this mind-boggling financial disparity over the apprentice.

A break in the trend was perhaps only a temporary blip: Emery’s willingness to stay true to club principles has manifested itself through the selection of academy prospects Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Eddie Nketiah, Joe Willock, Emile Smith-Rowe and Bukayo Saka.

Matteo Guendouzi, Lucas Torreira and Bernd Leno – earning £40k, £75k and £100k per week respectively – all represented progressive signings with the long-term firmly at the heart of the decision-making process.

In light of the disastrous panic-stricken decision to offer Ozil a bumper new deal – one made with a warped perception that somehow his experience compensated for the lack of leadership credentials which the club are craving – it’s fair to say that there is now concrete financial evidence to vindicate Emery’s emphasis on providing opportunities for young players.

Perhaps Wenger was ahead of the curve all along.

An idealistic mind can often be a thing of danger.

Crystal Palace are realising this the hard way, with manager Roy Hodgson’s philosophy not exactly matching their own. The experienced manager took them a long way in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, only to fall disappointingly to Watford, rendering the rest of the campaign pointless.

In a game pitting the new style against the old, Javi Gracia proved why the new and emerging tactics will always be more effective. Watford outwitted Palace in their own game, giving them enough respect to hold their line and nudge through a win. Hodgson, however, was lacklustre with his approach.

The Hornets wouldn’t allow a repeat of the 2016 FA Cup haunt them. Despite Michy Batshuayi’s world-class strike serving as a beacon of hope, the Hornets crushed their hopes immediately afterwards. A lack of concentration or organization caused the Eagles downfall. Unlike Gracia, Hodgson wasn’t pragmatic enough with his approach and went into the game thinking his side as the “bigger” one, something which came back to haunt him.

However, much to everyone’s surprise, he discarded the FA Cup “as a bonus”, reiterating the Eagles’ focus on securing a better Premier League finish. He’s done a lot of good work at Palace, but Hodgson doesn’t have that winning mentality anymore.

Under his reign, the Eagles will keep on strutting ahead and never really achieve anything commendable anytime soon. The Eagles had the opportunity to fly high in the FA Cup once again yet failed. As good a job Hodgson has done, he’s beginning to look behind the times.

Yet Hodgson’s careless approach tarnished their hopes, robbing the fans of a date with Wembley.

Palace fans, do you feel Hodgson should be replaced next season? Join the discussion by commenting below…