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Football News: Nice One Naismith As Chelsea Turn The Corner, Maybe

Nice One Naismith As Chelsea Turn The Corner, Maybe
Image from: sportsmole.co.uk

1. Where do Swansea go from here?
With the club hovering just above the relegation places, and form disastrously bad, Swansea City sacked their manager, despite a previous season which was excellent. This is the first time in a long time that the club have had to remove a manager, rather than lose him to a bigger club. So what do they do now? Clearly the change was done with the intention of keeping the club in the Premier League, but this is a club that has its own style of play that it expects the manager to implement with the players at his disposal, so their options of replacements are limited. They have to find someone willing to look to play the Swansea style of play, which rules out many potential managers, such as David Moyes. It would not be their way to change the style of play, so it is likely they will have to once again look to a younger, up and coming manager to take over, but the club have moved up a level. This makes it a lot more difficult for an inexperienced man to make it work, so the sacking of Monk might be one they live to regret, especially if they do, as is the expected decision, turn to Brendan Rodgers again.

2. Well done Steven Naismith, again
Everton's Steven Naismith has once again shown that he is willing to help those less fortunate than himself, unlike so many other footballers. Many of today's multimillionaire football players are so busy spending their money on luxuries that very few remember where they come from. Thankfully former Rangers player Naismith is one of those that gives as well as takes. The Scottish forward has been giving out free match day tickets to Goodison Park to unemployed people in the past, now he has stepped in to help out a Glasgow charity that is providing festive lunches to homeless people in the city. He was not content with just sponsoring the event, he also went along and spent some time publicising the charity, Loaves and Fishes. Good to see some players have a heart.

 

3. About time Sullivan shut his son up
Is there anything more indicative of the lack of professionalism at West Ham United than seeing one of the chairmen's son tweeting signings and injury news all the time? I am sure I am not the only one who sees that it is not the way to run a top level football club. It makes the club look amateurish.

4. Jose had a point
I know it is being talked up in the media as a really nasty sly dig by Jose Mourinho after his Chelsea side knocked Iker Casillas's Porto out of the Champions League and dumped them into the Europa League, but I am struggling to understand why it is such a big deal. Unless Casillas is a completely pathetic little spoilt brat, surely he can, once he gets over the initial pain of the defeat, see it as part of the banter that makes football so much fun. For starters, Jose actually had a point, it is a chance for Casillas to add that final trophy missing from his collection. For second, it was pretty funny and it is not like Jose has had a chance to gloat much this season, so he should be given a break over this one.

 

5. United start making excuses
Manchester United are already getting their excuses in for their failure in the Champions League. Not content with being dumped out in an embarrassing fashion, Louis van Gaal has decided to make it even worse by making lame excuses for their own failings. First off was the strange complaint about the dressing room being too warm, hardly a reason for defeat, those kind of things have always gone on, it certainly was nothing to do with the result. That is the kind of thing that should have been an inspiration to the team to go out and win, rather than a reason to lose. Next on the list of complaints was the way the English Premier League does not shift fixtures around to assist teams in the Champions League, unlike other leagues on the continent, but that never stopped all three of the other English teams in the competition, Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal, making it through the group stages. Still, the progress is obvious, according to LVG, as Man Utd made it further in the Capital One Cup. Not going out at the first stage is now seen as progress, it is almost as depressing as watching the team play for United fans.

6. Gaitan signs a new contract
Benfica's Argentinian international wideman, Nicolas Gaitan has been repeatedly linked with a move to Manchester United in recent years, but he has now signed a new four year contract with the Portugese giants. However the 27 year old has a 45m Euros release clause in his contract, in case anyone does decide to make a move for him.

 

7. Joel Campbell finally showing his worth
It has been a long wait, but finally this season Arsenal forward Joel Campbell is beginning to look like the player Arsene Wenger wanted. He always managed to impress for Costa Rica, but has struggled to gain a work permit to establish him with the Gooners. Loan spells with Lorient, Real Betis and Olympiakos followed as he waited on his work permit. Finally he got one but struggled to break into the team, ending up being loaned out to Villareal in January. In the end it took an injury crisis for him to establish himself, but right now he is reproducing his Costa Rica performances in an Arsenal shirt. On his return to Olympiakos with Arsenal, he played well enough to earn himself a standing ovation when he was substituted. The question is, has he done enough to keep his place when the injuries subside.

8. Rio says Koscielny is the best and it is hard to argue with that
It is not often that Rio Ferdinand can offer intelligent insight, but, for once, he has something right when he says that Arsenal defender Laurent Koscielny, on form, is the best defender in the Premier League. There is only really Vincent Kompany, on those infrequent occasions when he is fit, that can honestly say he has the same proven combination of athleticism, quality on the ball and defensive abilities. Now if only Arsenal would stop hamstringing him with Per Mertesacker as a partner and they would be genuine contenders for the Premier League title, without a doubt.

 

9. Have Chelsea finally turned the corner?
Or is this another false dawn for Jose Mourinho's boys? This is not the first team a good performance in the Champions League has been hailed as a sign that Chelsea have turned the corner and got back to form. This time though, there does seem a better spirit and attitude amongst the players, so maybe, just maybe, this is the real thing and Chelsea are finally going to start to recover from their poor start.

10. Pato spotted watching Chelsea
To follow on from Wayne Rooney spotted watching former club Everton play, now Alexandre Pato has been spotted at the Chelsea v Porto clash, cue the rumours of him signing for Chelsea now. It is not like footballers could possibly go to a match just to watch the game, it has to have some meaning behind it. In Rooney's case, it is given different meanings depending on the report you read. One report is suggesting it makes him a bad captain for not heading with the squad to Germany, another says it indicates him and Louis van Gaal are at loggerheads. When Steven Gerrard was back watching Liverpool, the reports were claiming he was signing on loan for them. In these days of wall to wall media, people just have to make a story out of every little thing.

Written by Tris Burke December 10 2015 12:36:43