Football News: Review Of The Day 3rd August 2022

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Review of the Day

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Contracts

Liverpool forward Diogo Jota has signed a new 5-year deal.

Leeds United have given a trio of youngsters new deals. Joe Gelhardt has signed up for 5 more years, while Sam Greenwood and Crysencio Summerville have signed 4 year contracts.

Transfers

Fulham have signed German goalkeeper Bernd Leno from Arsenal for £3.24m.

Chelsea have reached an agreement to sign teenage midfielder Carney Chukwuemeka from Aston Villa for £20m. Seems a strange move for both parties, Chelsea already have a stack of quality young midfielders that they never give a chance in the first team. It does not seem to benefit either in any way than fatten Chukwuemeka's wallet. Possibly leaving the Blues is Timo Werner after talks were held with his former club RB Leipzig about a return for the German international.

Norwich City have signed their first ever Chilean in the shape of 22-year-old international midfielder Marcelino Nunez from Universidad Catolica for an undisclosed fee.

Luton Town have paid an undisclosed fee to sign John McAtee from Grimsby Town and then loaned him back to the Mariners for the season. Also joining the Hatters is teenage striker Bim Pepple from Canadian Premier League side Cavalry FC.

An undisclosed fee has been paid to National League side Aldershot for Jayden Harris by Carlisle United.

After his release from Southampton, former Manchester City youngster Benni-Smales Braithwaite has secured a contract with Barrow following a pre-season trial period.

Chelsea have paid £8.18m to sign Chicago Fire goalkeeper Gabriel Slonina, with a further £4m possible in add-ons. The teenager was then loaned back to the Fire for the rest of the Major League Soccer season.

A cross-MLS transfer is Jacob Shaffelburg joining Nashville on loan from Toronto for a loan fee of £184,000.

Brighton & Hove Albion have loaned Andi Zeqiri to Basel.

AC Milan have completed the £28.8m signing of Charles De Ketelaere from Club Brugge despite interest from Leeds United.

Spezia have taken Viktor Kovalenko on loan from Atalanta.

Orlando City have signed Wilder Cartagena on loan from Ittihad Kalba.

Former Leeds United left-back Ezgjan Alioski has joined Fenerbahce on loan from Al-Ahli SFC, the Saudi Arabian Pro League side.

West Ham United's Arthur Masuaku has joined Besiktas on loan.

HNK Rijeka have paid £675,000 to sign Nais Djouahra from Real Sociedad.

Yangel Herrera has joined Girona on loan from sister club Manchester City.

Dijon have signed Xande Silva from Nottingham Forest.

Union Berlin forward Anthony Ujah has joined Eintracht Braunschweig on a free transfer.

VfB Stuttgart have paid £2.57m for Luca Pfeiffer from Midtjylland.

Juventus' Cypriot midfielder Grigoris Kastanos has joined Salernitana.

With Issa Diop's future at West Ham United the subject of rumours, the 25-year-old centre-back took to social media to post the following message: "Stop making up stories when you don't know what's going on in my life, thank you".

Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis has ruled out signing any more African players "unless they sign a waiver giving up their right to participate to the Africa Cup of Nations tournaments or between AFCON and the championships in South America".

Borussia Dortmund's CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke has confirmed that the club will be signing a new striker in this transfer window: "To put everything on Youssoufa Moukoko's shoulders now - he's 17 years old - that would be a bit too much. So I think we'll do something again in terms of our personnel. But it's difficult to find a really good solution, because there aren't exactly many players on the market. Ideally, something should happen in the next eight to ten days."

Injury Round Up

Juventus midfielder Paul Pogba has been given some good news regarding his knee injury. The 29-year-old French international does not require surgery and should be back playing within weeks, allaying fears that he would miss the World Cup this winter.

Arsenal midfielder Emile Smith Rowe is closing in on a return to fitness, revealing he would be back in training this week following a groin problem.

Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Oliver Skipp looks set to miss out on the opening weekend. The academy graduate suffered a freak training ground incident before Spurs played Rangers in a friendly and was left with a deep cut in his foot from a team-mate's stud. The wound required a number of stitches.

Dominic Calvert-Lewin is now a doubt for Everton's opening match against Chelsea after picking up an injury in training.

Borussia Dortmund's former Bayern Munich centre-back Niklas Sule has picked up a slight muscular injury in his thigh which has sidelined him for three weeks. Better news for BVB is that their defensive midfielder Salih Ozcan is back in team training after recovering from the injury he picked up in the first week of pre-season training.



Job Changes

After a group of US-based investors bought 20% of Plymouth Argyle via their investment vehicle Argyle Green, LLC, Florida-based businessman Michael Mincberg will take a place on the southern club's board. Argyle Green is made up of 12 individuals and 3 organisations, including a former ice hockey star Victor Hedman, who twice won the NHL's top prize, the Stanley Cup.

Manchester United have confirmed the appointment of Tom Huddlestone as a player-coach in their Under-21 side Premier League 2 side. Premier League 2 has changed from being an Under-23s to become an Under-21 competition this season.

Disciplinary Charges

Coventry City fans are being investigated after Sunderland allege that both sets of fans complained about a "small minority" of Coventry fans. According to Sunderland there were complaints about objects, including pyrotechnics, bottles and coins, thrown towards the the home fans at the Stadium of Light during their Championship match on Sunday.

Bristol Rovers have been fined £16,500 over fan disorder in their final day win over Scunthorpe United last season, where the Pirates secured automatic promotion to League One. Scunthorpe's 17 year old keeper Owen Foster was assaulted by a fan, smoke devices were thrown and there was an 85th minute pitch invasion which delayed the game by 20 minutes. Concern was cited by the disciplinary commission after requested CCTV footage was deleted by the club, which is rather convenient. The referee Charles Breakspear was also the target of abuse and one pitch invaded "attempted to grab him". Prior to the pandemic, Rovers were the subject of a number of fines and had been ordered to review the quality of their stewarding.

Real Madrid president Florentino Perez has been called as a witness to testify in the case against former Barcelona president Sandro Rosell. Rosell, along with Neymar, another former Barca president Josep Maria Bartomeu, Barcelona FC, Santos and Neymar's family, are standing trial accused of corruption and bribery over the signing of Neymar from Santos in 2013. Perez went on record in 2016, during an interview with Jugones, saying that Barca had shelled out around 150m euros in total for Neymar's signing.

Pointless List Of The Day

An analysis by Ofcom of 2.3 million tweets has found a large amount of abuse, 60,000 in that section alone, directed at Premier League players. More than half of the abuse was directed at just 12 players, 8 of which are Manchester United players, in particular Cristiano Ronaldo and Harry Maguire.
1. Cristiano Ronaldo - 12,520
2. Harry Maguire - 8,954
3. Marcus Rashford - 2,557
4. Bruno Fernandes - 2,464
5. Harry Kane - 2,127
6. Fred - 1,924
7. Jesse Lingard - 1,605
8. Jack Grealish - 1,538
9. Paul Pogba - 1,446
10. David de Gea - 1,394
The Alan Turing Institute, who did the research for Ofcom, found that 68% of players were abused at least once and that 7% receive abuse every day. Just 2% of players receive 50% of the abuse. And Twitter still claim to be trying to do something about it! Clearly they are still doing the sum total of f all as they always have done.

Henderson Complains About Criminal Treatment

Manchester United goalkeeper Dean Henderson has hit out at his treatment by the Red Devils last season. The 25-year-old England international is angered by the lack of game time he was given, despite being promised he would "be the number one". Henderson, who is now on loan for the season with newly promoted Nottingham Forest said: "To be honest, it has probably been the toughest 12 months of my career. It was frustrating, because I turned down so many good loans last summer for that reason, and they would not let me go. The conversation I had coming out of the Euros squad was: 'You're coming back here to be the number one.' I got Covid-19, came back, so I should have still been the number one but then nobody followed through with what they had told me. To sit there for 12 months, it is criminal really, at my age. I was fuming. I told the hierarchy that I need to be playing football and to let me go, and I was almost gone before the manager came through the door. I have not spoken to him since. I worked hard on and off the pitch to keep improving day in, day out, and now I am looking forward to the season with Nottingham Forest."

Davies To Donate Earnings

Bayern Munich's Canadian international defender Alphonso Davies is set to donate his World Cup earnings to charity. The 21-year-old, who was born to Liberian parents in a refugee camp in Ghana and spent 5 years there before they moved to Canada, said on social media: "Canada welcomed me and my family & gave us the opportunity for a better life. It enabled me to live my dreams. It's a great honour to play for Canada and I want to give back, so I've decided that I will donate this year's World Cup earnings to charity." Davies is the first footballer to become a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. It is yet to be decided how much Davies will be donating as discussions are still ongoing between the team and Canada Soccer over how much money the players will receive. The dispute caused the players to go on strike and refuse to face Panama in a friendly in June.

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Written by Tris Burke August 03 2022 09:52:55