Football News: Review Of The Day 7th March 2018

Image from: portadelaidefc.com.au

Review of the Day

Arthur Nervous About Barca Move

Arthur Melo has admitted he is nervous that a move to Barcelona will fall through. The 21 year old Brazilian sparked off rumours when photographed with Barca sporting director Robert Fernandez last year and he has admitted he is keen to leave Gremio to join the Catalan giants. "Of course I am nervous," Arthur said. "It's normal to feel anxiety - this is a really important moment. But between me, Gremio and Barcelona, I am sure that there's going to be an agreement which benefits everyone, that's the important thing. I speak daily with my agent and with everyone at Gremio, but I still don't know the result of the negotiations. Until Gremio say there's a good deal for them and for me, I will remain focused on my current team. I am grateful to Gremio because they invested and bet on me, so with my transfer I feel obliged to help them with their financial difficulties. I have insisted that Gremio be well remunerated. If everything goes through, it will be good for Gremio and everyone involved." Inter Milan and Atletico Madrid also have an interest in the uncapped youngster.

Some Things Never Change

Football fans attempting to disrupt rival team's sleep on away games is a trick as old as time and still goes on as PSG's ultras attempted to stop Real Madrid players getting a restful night's sleep ahead of their Champions League clash. Real Madrid's security team were forced to call police after around 50 Paris Saint-Germain fans were outside the Hotel du Collectionneur at 1:30am making noise and firing fireworks at the hotel.

Balotelli Feels He Has Matured Enough For A Serie A Return

Mario Balotelli has returned to form in France's Ligue 1 with OGC Nice and now the Italian says he is ready to return to Serie A with Juve or Napoli. Balotelli said: "My agent Mino Raiola is taking care of my future. All I know is that I have matured and I am ready to come back to Italy. I think it'd be very difficult to come to Milan, as it would be the third time, but Juventus and Napoli are two teams that I like." The question is, would either of those teams want Mario?

Diouf Ruled Out Through Injury

Struggling Stoke City will have to make do without their forward Mame Biram Diouf for a while after he injured his shoulder in the 0-0 draw with Southampton on Saturday. The striker is hoping rest will avoid season-ending shoulder surgery, and so will sit out the home games against Manchester City and Everton.

Mitchell Injury Worse Than Expected

Hearts are facing up to the prospect that on-loan full back Demetri Mitchell may have played his last game for the Scottish club. Mitchell returned to parent club Manchester United for assessment on his knee injury and scans have confirmed it is more serious than first thought. The 21 year old has suffered a torn meniscus tendon which is likely to rule him out for the rest of the season.

Mo Salah Once More Shows His Heart

Mohamed Salah has shown repeatedly that he is more than just a top class player, he has also shown he has the class off the pitch to go with it, with numerous charitable acts to help his home country of Egypt. It was recently revealed he partially paid for an Egyptian child's bone marrow transplant surgery, donated 30,000 euros to the Association of Veteran Egyptian Players to help 120 families who were struggling financially and he sent a new Liverpool shirt to fan Mohamed Abdel-Karim after a picture of him wearing a torn jumped with Salah 10 handwritten on the back went viral. Egyptian news are now reporting that he has donated a sum of around £500,000 to a children's hospital in Cairo. All of this while scoring over 30 goals from the wing for Liverpool. Must be why he has not had the time to practice his InstaTwit dance moves and haircuts....

Werner Reveals Premier League Dream

German striking sensation Timo Werner has admitted to FourFourTwo that he dreams of playing in the Premier League. Werner said: "Yes, playing in the Premier League is a dream for me. I would like to play for two or three clubs, and Manchester United are one of those clubs. But probably not in the next few years - later, when my English is a little bit better! I'm very comfortable at RB Leipzig, though. Manchester United and Liverpool were the teams I watched quite a lot in England. They were the two that I'm a little bit a fan of, because they have so much history. When Alex Ferguson was the coach, United won everything and were outstanding. In Liverpool it's also their stadium and the atmosphere," he says. "But when I have to decide, I'm more Manchester United than Liverpool. I'm now at a point where at some stage in the future I'd like to play in a team that wins titles."

Funes Mori Declares Himself Ready

Everton defender Ramiro Funes Mori came back from injury to play a full 90minutes for the under 23s, his 3rd appearance following 2 surgeries on his knee. He now believes he is ready for first team football: "I've been training [well] these past weeks," he told evertonfc.com. "Even though I wasn't playing for the first team, I've been playing for the Under-23s to get the rhythm, get the tempo. I'm 100-per-cent fit to play and I'm ready for Saturday."

Poch Tried To Sign Astori

Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino has revealed that he tried to sign Davide Astori while he was managing Southampton. The Italian centre back sadly passed away in his sleep at the weekend at the age of 31. Pochettino said: "I want to send all my condolences to David Astori and all the people that love him, and I think it's a massive tragedy. I had the possibility to meet him five years ago because it was my idea to sign him when we were at Southampton. I took three hours to have lunch with him and he was a great kid, great person, great professional, great player. It was very sad news, we were devastated to hear the news and we share the pain with all the people in Italy and Florence, and I send all my energy to his family."

Laszlo Given Backing

Dundee United plan to stick with manager Csaba Laszlo even if they fail to win promotion. New chairman Mike Martin has said that the club are already preparing for next season with Laszlo in charge with a budget in place to continue in full time football in the Championship. Martin also believes the funds are in place to avoid administration as the club's financial woes have been eased, in large part due to his recent arrival as a shareholder and purchase of their youth training facility.

Fiorentina And Cagliari Retire Astori's Shirt Number

Both Fiorentina and Cagliari have retired the number 13 in honour of Davide Astori. Astori joined Fiorentina in 2016 after 8 years with Cagliari. "In honour of Davide Astori's memory, Cagliari and Fiorentina have decided to retire the number 13 shirt," a Fiorentina statement read.

Transfer Round Up

A quiet day in transfers as, in the Polish Ekstraklasa, centre back Maciej Dabrowski left Legia Warsaw to join Zaglebie Lubin on a free transfer.

Werder Bremen's Lamine Sane, who had been suspended from the first team at the end of January after skipping two day's training, has left the club to sign for Orlando City of the MLS.

Hammers Announce Profit

In the kind of news that all football fans love to hear while their team is flailing around the pitch struggling against relegation, West Ham United have posted large pre-tax profits, despite the need to repay millions to directors David Sullivan and David Gold in interest on shareholder loans. Selling the Boleyn Ground (or Upton Park as most knew it) and Dmitri Payet, added to the massively increased TV deal, lad to a pre-tax profit of £43.5m, compared to a previous loss of £4.9m. Net debt was reduced by over £20m to £45.6m. Unsurprisingly, with a per annum interest of 4-6%, unsecured loans from shareholders had their repayment date extended to 1 January 2020 to allow for the build up of more interest repayable, no doubt, on top of the already owed £12.7m, split almost equally at just over £6.3m each between Davids Gold and Sullivan. A partial settlement of £10m of interest accrued on shareholder loans was paid, though it was not confirmed if it was paid from the £12.7m owed to the two Davids. Accounts also disclosed that wealthy American investor J. Albert Smith's company had provided the Hammers with a £9.5m interest-free loan, repayable only in the event of a change in ownership. That backs up reports from last year that Smith had taken a 10% stake in West Ham.

Draxler Criticises Umery

PSG wideman Julian Draxler has hit out at his manager Unai Emery for being too timid in the second leg of their Champions League clash with Real Madrid. With the Parisians 3-1 down from the first leg and Madrid leading 1-0 on the night, Draxler was set to come on in the 71st minute, only for Emery to delay the change as Paris Saint-Germain's Edinson Cavani made it 1-1 on the night. "It was insensitive, " he said of the decision not to bring him on in the aftermath of Cavani's goal to ZDF. "I didn't know what was going on. I was surprised and angry. The goal for 1-1 went in but it did not change anything for us. I felt we needed to keep pressing and playing offensively. We lost a man, and even though we got it to 1-1 the whole stadium knew the game would not turn around because we didn't have the intensity on the pitch. Real Madrid played it out confidently and were not nervous at all. We played the ball back and forth but you cannot score just doing that. You have to put pressure on Real Madrid when you are 3-1 down, not just pass it back and forth and hope something falls for you. We needed to put pressure on the opponents right from the start. We didn't do that so we deserved to be eliminated. In the summer we spent €400m and everyone was talking about how it was going to change things, but we have failed to get through this round again. I am still convinced this team has a lot to give, but you can see in games like this that there is still something missing if we want to win the big trophy. That should make us think again."

Bizarre Post On Mahrez's Facebook Hints At Retirement

A highly suspicious post on Leicester City's wantaway winger Riyad Mahrez's verified Facebook page has suggested the Algerian international is set to retire from playing football. In the first post since 24th February, a picture of Mahrez was uploaded with the accompanying caption: "After the last consultation with many doctors, I've decided to stay away from football ,As my time as a football player comes to an end , I would like to say few words. I want to thank everybody for the kindness and support they have shown me in this incredible city , you will be always in my heart ." Whether it is a hacker, a joke or some kind of sponsorship deal is not clear, but it does seem to be almost certainly a hoax.

Reggiana Owner In Bizarre Rant

MLB star Mike Piazza bought the struggling third tier Italian club Reggiana in the hope of leading them back into Serie A. However the club were forced to sell their stadium after going bankrupt prior to his ownership and it is now owned by neighbours Sassuolo. Piazza held a press conference purely to rant about how "fricken pissed off" he is over the lack of a public stadium and how he will not get extorted by corporations. Oh and something about not looking for charity, just help, how he has had to buy a new car for his sporting director to work for other clubs and numerous other subjects including the New York Times. He also seems to have a real problem with the table in front of him considering how many times he slammed his hands down on it. I really recommend you find and watch it as it defies description.

Guerreiro Back In Full Training

Borussia Dortmund have had to do without left back Raphael Guerreiro for a large chunk of the season as the 24 year old has suffered with muscular problems. He has finally returned to full training with the team, unlike Marco Reus, Andre Schurrle, Roman Burki and Lukasz Piszczek, who were all training individually to recover from injuries.

Van Der Vaart Admits Nap Almost Cost Him Spurs Move

Dutch playmaker Rafael van der Vaart has admitted that he very nearly missed out on his transfer deadline day move to Tottenham Hotspur because he was taking a nap. Then Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho had told van der Vaart he was surplus due to the arrival of Mesut Ozil says the 35 year old: "It was very last minute. Jose Mourinho had been honest about my chances, telling me they had bought Mesut Ozil to play in my position. He said I could stay, but that I wasn't in his starting XI. At that point I was still keen to stay at Real Madrid for another season, so I headed to a training camp with the Dutch national team. But at around 4pm on deadline day, my lawyer called me to say that Tottenham were interested in signing me. I asked him if I could think about it. He replied that I had to decide within two hours. I started to evaluate everything, then took a little nap... Suddenly I was jolted awake by the phone going off. It was about 5.40pm and my lawyer was on the phone again, telling me that I had to decide there and then. I thought for a split second, then said, 'Yeah, let's do it'. I had no time to overthink it or discuss it with anybody - it was pure intuition. Very soon I realised how happy I was with the decision. From the first moment I arrived at Spurs Lodge, I felt at home."

Agent Confirms Biglia Wants Milan Stay

Milan midfielder Lucas Biglia wants to end his career with AC Milan, according to his agent Enzo Montepaone, even rejecting the lure of China's vast wages to stay put in January. Montepaone said: "It is true. There was a request from Guangzhou Evergrande but there was never any chance. He wants to finish his career at Milan."

Canadians Buy Half Of Peterborough United

Canadian investors Dr Jason Neale and R Stewart Thompson have bought 50% of Peterborough United. The pair will now sit alongside chairman Darragh MacAnthony as directors.

And Finally

PSG midfielder Marquinhos who is proving that not all footballers are stupid with his insight following their defeat at the hands of Real Madrid. Without anyone helping him to figure out, the Brazilian said: "I don't think we can win the Champions League right now."

Written by Tris Burke March 07 2018 05:59:26