Football News: Review Of The Day 27th May 2023

Review of the Day

Contracts

Coventry City assistant manager Adrian Viveash has signed a new 4-year contract with the surprise Championship play-off finalists.

Ben Garrity has signed a new 2-year deal with Port Vale.

Bristol Rovers have given Josh Grant a 1-year deal with an option for a further year.

Club top scorer Ryan Hardie has agreed a 3-year contract with Plymouth Argyle.

Peterborough United manager Darren Ferguson has a new 3-year contract.

Mansfield Town have given veteran midfielder Stephen Quinn a new 1-year deal.

Newport County have extended Jamie Clarke's contract by 2-years.

Elliott List has been given a new deal by Stevenage despite injury limiting him to just one appearance this season.

Transfers

Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp says that he has "no worries" about Mohamed Salah's future after the Egyptian forward posted up a social media post stating that he was "devastated" about Liverpool's failure to qualify for the European Champions League. Klopp said of Salah: "Mo loves being here and Mo was part of it. He said apologies for what 'we' did - not apologies for 'what the other guys did, but I had to go with them'. It is all fine."

Erik Ten Hag has warned Manchester United that he needs to bring in more players to compete in the Champions League next season: "In the summer we can work with the squad we have but we need to strengthen."

Michael Beale has confirmed that he is prioritising the signing of a striker for next season, despite Rangers confirming that Norwich City midfielder Kieran Dowell will be with them next season on a free transfer. Leaving Rangers are Filip Helander and Scott Arfield.

Former Wolverhampton Wanderers youngster Niall Ennis has signed for Blackburn Rovers on a free transfer from Plymouth Argyle.

Peterborough United have put Johnson Clarke-Harris (League One's joint top scorer), Christy Pym, Frankie Kent, Josh Knight, Joe Tomlinson, Dan Butler, Oliver Norburn, Jeando Fuchs and Ben Thompson on the transfer list. Ben Mensah and Nathan Thompson have been released.

Former Newcastle United youngster Jamie Sterry has signed for Doncaster Rovers on a free transfer from Hartlepool United.

Mansfield Town have picked up Calum MacDonald on a free transfer from Bristol Rovers.

Salford City have released Ashley Eastham, Jason Lowe and veteran defender Adrian Mariappa.

Adam Clayton, Abo Eisa, Charlie Wood, Cole Roberts, Jack Wilson, Kian Scales, Oscar Threlkeld and Yann Songo'o have been released by Bradford City.

Jake Reeves has re-signed for AFC Wimbledon following his release from Stevenage.

Rotherham United's veteran defender Richard Wood has signed for Doncaster Rovers on a free transfer. Former Manchester City goalkeeper Ian Lawlor is also re-signing for Doncaster, returning from a spell with Dundee in Scotland.

Surprise early pace-setters in the Bundesliga Union Berlin have released Niko Giesselmann and Levin Oztunali.

Sunderland have let Carl Winchester go.

Eintracht Frankfurt have paid €1.9m for German left-back Philipp Max from PSV Eindhoven. Frankfurt have also released Almany Toure.

Hertha Berlin have released former Manchester City striker Stevan Jovetic and sold Omar Alderete to Getafe for €4m.

Former Liverpool and Celtic winger Gary Mackay-Steven has been released by Heart of Midlothian.

Crystal Palace have released Luka Milivojevic and James McArthur.

39-year-old Barcelona legend Andres Iniesta has been released by Vissel Kobe.

Real Sociedad have released Asier Illaramendi.

Bayer Leverkusen have released Andrey Lunev.

Injury Round Up

Manchester United winger Antony has picked up an ankle injury which United fear might be a recurrence of the injury that kept him out for his final two months of the 2021-22 season while at Ajax.

Aston Villa's January signing Alex Moreno has undergone surgery on a hamstring injury. The 29-year-old Spaniard is likely to miss two to three month according to Unai Emery, meaning he will almost certainly miss the start of the next Premier League season.

Job Changes

Fleetwood Town's chairman Andy Pilley has resigned and stepped down from being a club director after his conviction for fraud and money laundering during the week. Chief executive Steve Curwood will take over as chair on an interim basis and vice-chairman Phil Brown will join the board as a director. A club statement also confirmed that Pilley has put his majority share in Fleetwood up for sale: "The club have this week entered discussions with the EFL in relation to requirements surrounding a change of ownership and control. The club would also like to clarify there will be no other changes to the board before the planned change of ownership. In the meantime, the club will continue to operate business as usual and will make a further announcement in due course."

Derby County have removed Darren Wassall from his role as Academy Director in a restructure of their youth set-up. Wassall has been academy director since April 2009 but the club will no longer operate with an academy director in the future.

Disciplinary Charges

43 AZ Alkmaar fans have been banned from the club's stadium over the violence which saw them attack the section when West Ham United players' families and friends were sat during the Europa Conference League semi-final. The Hammers beat Alkmaar 3-1 on aggregate and Alkmaar are warning that there is a possibility that even more bans may be handed out: "AZ has now issued 43 stadium bans in response to last week's disturbances. It concerns visitors who were involved in the misconduct surrounding the European semi-final in Alkmaar. It is by no means excluded that even more local stadium bans will be imposed. Apart from this decision from the club, the criminal investigation by the authorities is still ongoing."

It has been revealed that Brentford striker Ivan Toney's ban was reduced from 11 months to 8 months after a psychiatry expert gave evidence that he believe Toney was a gambling addict that needed help. Toney had been found guilty of 232 offences, which included gambling against his own team and admitted repeatedly lying during initial interviews with the FA. Initially, before Toney pleaded guilty, the FA were looking to make the ban 15 months due to his attempts to conceal his betting as he knew it was against the rules. Brentford manager Thomas Frank has called for a review of the relationship between gambling and football: "Football and gambling's relationship needs a review. We got a massive reminder. Do we do enough to educate our players? The authorities have a massive task to make sure we do this much better. If I can't speak to him, I guess they will have to ban me as well. If I am not allowed to support him there must be something wrong." I do agree with Frank that there does need to be a review and that gambling should not be advertised, but Toney also has to take some responsibility for his actions and that includes accepting his punishment. He knew what he was doing was wrong as he bet via third parties and deleted related messages from his mobile phone, as well as giving "clearly false answers" during interviews with the Football Association. Toney should use his time out of the game to get counselling and take control of his life.

La Liga president Javier Tebas has claimed that they could reduce the amount of racist incidents in Spain in six or seven months if the league was given the "necessary powers". Tebas, who told Vinicius Jr on social media that Vinicius's failure to attend meetings with La Liga was to blame for Vinicius getting racially abused, told the BBC: "We are convinced that if we had those powers, within months we would get rid of this problem. At least we would improve it considerably in general and specifically in the case of Vinicius. But if we don't have the powers, all we can do is file complaints." It would also help if Tebas did not constantly looking to blame the victim of the abuse for getting abused. Before he blamed Vinicius for celebrating in a provocative manner for the abuse, now it is because Vinicius missed a few meetings to discuss why La Liga do nothing but blame Vinicius for being abused. Ooops sorry, I mean missed a few meetings to discuss the (lack of) action that La Liga is to take to combat the racist abuse that Vinicius, in particular, suffers in Spain. If Tebas maybe gave some support to the victim, rather than seeking to blame him, perhaps that would be a first step towards reducing it.

Wigan Athletic's suspended 4-point penalty has been imposed on them for next season after they failed to meet a deadline set by the English Football League. Owner Abdulrahmen Al-Jasmi had been ordered to lodge money to cover the club's next wage bill during the week but failed to do so, after repeatedly paying the club's staff late throughout the 2022-23 season. The club will start the season on minus eight points, after they had already been given a four-point penalty for the repeated late payments. The EFL had given Al-Jasmi an extension to ensure that he was able to get the 125% of the expected monthly wage bill but still failed to meet the deadline. The EFL said: "This follows a previous sanction of four points after failing to pay its players' wages on time in March 2023 and May 2023. The EFL has spent the past 48 hours in dialogue with the club in an attempt to find a positive outcome to the issue but as of 09:00 BST Friday morning the required funds have not been deposited." Club chairman Talal al Hammad said that the ownership group would look to learn lessons from the problems of the season: "The inflated wage bill resulted in cashflow issues which meant we could not adhere to the agreed decision with the EFL in January. However, everything possible was done to ensure wages were paid. Delays are a common occurrence with overseas transactions, but that is not and cannot be an excuse for late payments. We have learnt from the unsustainable wage budget of this season and consequently have developed a more sustainable strategy for the club, focused on the development of younger players, especially those that have come through the academy. As an ownership group and board, we recognise we have a lot of trust to rebuild and this starts again now. We will start next season with a points deduction and that we truly regret and apologise to all fans and stakeholders. This is a culmination of the struggles of the past season. We cannot change the past, but what we can do is look to the future. We recognise we must rebuild trust with you." All I can say is this smacks of a group failing to do due diligence before buying the club if they had failed to realise that the wage bill was inflated and unsustainable. They should have understood that before ever agreeing to buy it and had a plan in place to deal with it. This is all on the ownership group and they are totally and utterly to blame for these issues. This was a club in serious financial difficulties when they bought it, so it is not like it should have been a surprise that the wage bill needed to be reduced!

Gillingham have been charged with 3 counts of misconduct by the Football Association related to games against Colchester United, Sutton United and AFC Wimbledon. The charges relate to racist and/or sexist abuse from their supporters during those three matches.

Written by Tris Burke May 27 2023 09:12:16