Football News: Review Of The Day 14th October 2022

Review of the Day

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Contracts

Plymouth Argyle have given captain Joe Edwards a new deal that runs until 2025.

George Maris has extended his contract with Mansfield Town until 2024 with an option for a further year.

Major League Soccer side New England Revolution have given Henry Kessler, Maciel, Jon Bell, Justin Renicks, Damian Rivera, Jacob Jackson, Ryan Spaulding and Earl Edwards Jr. one-year deals. The MLS side also have a 2 year club option on Jackson and a 1-year option on Spaulding.

Transfers

Newcastle United Sporting Director Dan Ashworth admits that the level of spending they have made since the Saudi Arabian takeover is unsustainable. Ashworth said after the club spent £200m on players following the takeover: "You can't keep doing that every year. You just can't, so consequently we have to look at some emerging talent, enhancing our academy and getting the players through from a different route. I can't lie to you and say we'll never have to sell a player, we'd always be able to hold on to our top talent. That doesn't happen anywhere. Liverpool sold Mane - you have to sometimes make a pragmatic decision to go, 'OK, we'll do that because that's a way of reinvesting in the club'. But as a rule of thumb, I would like to think we'll be able to hold on to our top talent in order to drive our ambitions of driving up the league and competing for cups."

Queens Park Rangers have signed free agent former Arsenal youngster Elijah Dixon-Bonner. The 21-year-old left Liverpool in the summer.

Veteran free agent forward Theo Robinson has signed for Hartlepool United.

AC Ajaccio have added free agent Algerian winger Youcef Belaili to their squad.

Injury Round Up

Sheffield United duo Jayden Bogle and Sander Berge have both been ruled out of action until after the World Cup following injuries picked up in the defeat to Queens Park Rangers earlier this month. Bogle was only just returning to action following a long-term knee injury.

Job Changes

Nottingham Forest have sacked Head of Recruitment George Syrianos and Head Scout Andy Scott. The pair headed up a spending spree that saw 23 signings join the club for around £145m.

Mike Cave has handed in his notice with Fulham to take up the role as Assistant Technical Director at Brighton & Hove Albion. Cave is currently Academy Director at the Londoners and will leave next month to work for BHA.

River Plate's most successful head coach of all time, Marcelo Gallardo, has announced that he will be leaving the club in December when his contract expires after 8 years in charge. Gallardo has won 14 trophies in his time as River boss and been the target of numerous big European clubs during that time, but he always chose to stay with the club he spent time playing for as well.

Disciplinary Charges

RSC Anderlecht have apologised for the behaviour of their fans after the end of their Europa Conference League match against West Ham United was marred by violence. With the Hammers winning, fans threw seats, several flares were set off by Anderlecht fans and one was thrown. Police were needed to keep the two sets of supporters apart and an Anderlecht spokesperson said after the game: "We want to apologise to West Ham. We don't tolerate this and strongly condemn this behaviour. We will take it up with Uefa and our own fans." Four police officers were injured, with two requiring hospital treatment.

Borussia Dortmund have accused a Sevilla player of racially abusing 17-year-old Guinean midfielder Abdoulaye Kamara during the UEFA Under-19s Champions League game between the two teams. When Dortmund's staff complained to the match officials, they were told the noises were not "unambigously racist" and so the game was not stopped. According to Dortmund, there were racist insults and monkey noises, so I am not sure what would be considered unambigously racist if that is not counted? Especially when the first match between the two sides saw a similar problem where Dortmund even notified the officials they would walk off if any more racist abuse happened. Dortmund academy director Lars Ricken stated: "Sadly, the whole incident relates back to something that happened in the first leg a week ago, when the same Sevilla player from yesterday targeted racist abuse at our player Abdou Kamara. After last week's incident, we had hoped to see a firm stance taken by Sevilla. In light of prior events, we turned to the refereeing team and asked that they act with increased sensibility in this regard, which they agreed they would do. Yet after the same thing happened again, and Abdou Kamara tried to bring it to the fourth official's attention, the refereeing team claimed that the unmistakable monkey noises could not be considered a clear incidence of racism."

The feud between La Liga and Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi has taken a new twist after La Liga boss Javier Tebas took time off from attacking Al-Khelaifi in the media to take him to court over unpaid broadcasting rights. Al-Khelaifi is the chairman of the BeIN Media Group which owns the rights to televise La Liga in 35 countries, including France. On Friday 7th October, La Liga filed an application in a Madrid court to freeze BeIN's assets, claiming it was owed around £44m in late payments. The application was granted on Monday, with the judge ruling that it was otherwise risking the group moving the money to bank accounts outside of its jurisdiction. £44m was put on hold pending a full hearing of the case.

Pointless List Of The Day

Today's pointless list is Training Ground Guru's Academy Productivity Rankings, which rank English team's academies based on how many English players that have attended them are playing in the English league system. That does mean players like, for example, Wilfried Zaha are not counted, as he is classed as an Ivory Coast player, due to his international allegiance, despite being born in England. It also excludes players out on loan to foreign teams or who have moved to a foreign team, such as Jude Bellingham not helping Birmingham City's ranking.
1. Chelsea - Category 1 Tier 1 - 168.04pts
2. Manchester United - Category 1 Tier 1 - 164.61pts
3. Arsenal - Category 1 Tier 1 - 163.43pts
4. Manchester City - Category 1 Tier 1 - 148.81pts
5. Tottenham Hotspur - Category 1 Tier 1 - 122.67pts
6. Everton - Category 1 Tier 1 - 118.8pts
7. West Ham United - Category 1 Tier 1 - 104.27pts
8. Leeds United - Category 1 Tier 1 - 100.15pts
9. Crewe Alexandra - Category 2 Tier 3 - 94.5pts
10. Liverpool - Category 1 Tier 1 - 91.46pts
11. Southampton - Category 1 Tier 1 - 89.43pts
12. West Bromwich Albion - Category 1 Tier 2 - 85.32pts
13. Reading - Category 1 Tier 2 - 83.28pts
14. Aston Villa - Category 1 Tier 1 - 81.65pts
15. Norwich City - Category 1 Tier 1 - 77.82pts
16. Charlton Athletic - Category 2 Tier 3 - 72.47pts
17. Fulham - Category 1 Tier 2 - 71.93pts
18. Sheffield United - Category 2 Tier 2 - 67.66pts
19. Blackburn Rovers - Category 1 Tier 2 - 67.28pts
20. Middlesbrough - Category 1 Tier 2 - 64.66pts
21. Leicester City - Category 1 Tier 1 - 63.48pts
22. Bolton Wanderers - Category 3 Tier 3 - 59.5pts
23. Crystal Palace - Category 1 Tier 1 - 59.13pts
24. Ipswich Town - Category 2 Tier 3 - 57.66pts
25. Birmingham City - Category 1 Tier 2 - 56.16pts
26. Wolverhampton Wanderers - Category 1 Tier 1 - 53.33pts
27. Newcastle United - Category 1 Tier 1 - 53pts
28. Brighton & Hove Albion - Category 1 Tier 1 - 52.98pts
29. Sunderland - Category 1 Tier 3 - 52.82pts
30. Exeter City - Category 3 Tier 4 - 51.33pts

Ratcliffe Looking For A Prem Club

Britain's richest man Jim Ratcliffe has admitted he is looking at buying an English Premier League club. Ratcliffe's Ineos group already own French Ligue 1 outfit OGC Nice and Swiss club Lausanne and missed out on Chelsea when it changed hands recently. Ratcliffe admits he met with two of the Glazer family, who told him they were not interested in selling Manchester United: "It is owned by the six children of the father and they don't want to sell. I met Joel and Avram and they are the nicest people. They are proper gentlemen. If it had been for sale in the summer, yes, we would probably have had a go following on from the Chelsea thing. But we can't sit around hoping that one day Manchester United will become available." Ratcliffe also confirmed that he is still looking for a "premier club".

Mbappe And PSG

Kylian Mbappe's mother has retweeted claims that her son has been the victim of a smear campaign aimed at pushing him out of Paris Saint-Germain. There have even been claims made that PSG had commissioned an external agency to create fake social media accounts to tarnish the reputation of some of the club's players. Similar to the way Jose Maria Bartomeu had operated at Barcelona. Though it does seem unlikely with PSG owned by Qataris who are well known for their good treatment of their employees, and they have of course denied the claims. The claims go back several years with accounts claimed to be critical of him when giving interviews, even when they were favourable towards PSG, telling him to "work in silence". Which again seems unlikely from Qataris, as we all know they are very good at allowing their staff to be open about any problems they face. The bots were said to have particularly targeted media companies, which are rivals of BeIn, but were also targeting a number of players. One is claimed to have said of Adrien Rabiot, while he was still playing for PSG: "Adrien Rabiot. Fat SOB. He doesn't move." It was tweeted during a period when Rabiot, his mother (and agent) Veronica and PSG were at odds. That is just one of many hundreds of nasty posts that are claimed to have been the result of the external agency working to instructions.

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Written by Tris Burke October 14 2022 10:27:26