Football Daily | Atlético Madrid and the hoovering up of unwanted Premier League talent

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now!

Julián Álvarez has won the World Cup, Copa América (twice), the Copa Libertadores, Big Cup, two Premier League titles, the FA Cup and the Fifa Club World Cup. Just about the only thing he hasn’t won is a Big Sports Day gold medal after France sent Argentina home from Paris after a serious grudge match. At 24, Álvarez’s palmarès (yes, palmarès!) surely makes him a top, top player. And yet, he’s not quite good enough for Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City. If City fans had a boo-boy target last season, it was the all-conquering Argentinian who wasn’t quite so all-conquering. He never quite fitted the gordian patterns painted on Guardiola’s wipe-clean tactics board.

I have a picture of it on my phone that I look at every day. I have a picture of me with both winners’ medals around my neck and another with my whole family and the Bundesliga trophy” – Nathan Tella gets his chat on with Ed Aarons about his journey from being a loanee at Burnley to winning the league and cup double with Bayer Leverkusen.

With reference to Peter Shearer’s roundabout way to get to Craven Cottage from Arsenal (Football Daily letters passim), I believe he would find the Piccadilly line to Earls Court, District line to Putney Bridge and a walk up the Thames toe-path a touch quicker and would remove the likelihood of a snarl up on the 220 route down the Fulham Palace Road. Also a stroll up the Thames would be far more scenic, and the extra estimated seven minutes walking would not be a bother for someone who could run it. However, good luck getting to Motspur Park for training” – Neil Baynham.

Pre-season summer tours of faraway countries? I highly doubt that Premier League clubs are after lessons learned (yesterday’s Football Daily). They just want £€$$on$ earned” – Peter Oh.

The Brighton high-up who called Pascal Gross the club’s ‘greatest Premier League signing in terms of his contribution on the pitch’ (Football Daily letters passim), was probably a regular at the Witch Inn in Lindfield. He knew that if Albion had not acquired Gerry Ryan in the days when the second division was actually called the Second Division, in 1978, his local would not in turn have acquired a hugely popular landlord once his playing days were over” – David Carr.

Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s prizeless letter o’ the day winner is … David Carr. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.

This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions. Continue reading...

Komentar

Posting Komentar

Postingan populer dari blog ini

Wiegman’s Lionesses rekindle lost energy to fire spectacular comeback | Jonathan Liew

Gambar
Nations League victory against the Dutch arrives at the last despite a lack of clarity and brittleness creeping into the team They’ll always have Paris. Throughout this Nations League campaign this has been an England team fighting its own sense of entropy, still giving everything, still trying the same plans and processes in the hope that eventually something would click. And at 9.34pm on a briskly cold Wembley night, it finally did. Ella Toone’s injury-time goal earned England three points and kept their faintly glowing Olympic dream alive. But somehow it also did so much more. It breathed life into a team and a cycle, and a moment that for so much of the evening had felt like it was drawing to its natural conclusion provided a rousing encore to a cast preparing for its final curtain. There will be new challenges and new frontiers to conquer soon enough, a fresh set of European Championship qualifiers in the spring, but for now this iteration of the Lionesses still has tricks up
Baca selengkapnya

US owners understand profit but do they appreciate clubs’ tradition and values?

Gambar
Half of the Premier teams are part- or fully-owned by Americans or US companies. Fans’ suspicions are understandable * Sign up to Jonathan’s weekly newsletter here It’s just over a year since Gary Neville declared US owners of English soccer clubs “a clear and present danger to the pyramid and fabric of the game”. The comment provoked a furore but the former England full-back turned high-profile pundit was unrepentant, insisting that if profit is the priority, there are vital aspects of the roles of soccer clubs that risk being lost. The issue, clearly, is not restricted to US owners. It’s unlikely that anybody who is not a fan who takes over a club is going to be acting primarily in the best interests of the community it represents. But given half the 20 Premier League clubs (and seven of the 24 Championship clubs) are part- or fully-owned by Americans or US companies, and given the prevalence of private equity companies whose sole interest is short-term profit, it’s perhaps
Baca selengkapnya

‘Emotional’ Leah Williamson to make first England start in almost a year

Gambar
* Euro 2022-winning captain missed World Cup with ACL injury * Defender brings ‘flexibility in defence’, says Sarina Wiegman Sarina Wiegman has confirmed Leah Williamson will start for England against the Republic of Ireland on Tuesday night in their second Euro 2025 qualifying group game. Williamson, the Euro 2022-winning captain, said she would be emotional at the Aviva Stadium when she steps out with England for the first time in almost a year, after she was sidelined with an anterior cruciate ligament injury last April. Continue reading...
Baca selengkapnya