Manager Avram Grant has revealed that he will prepare West Ham United for Saturday's trip to Stoke City but he will not personally be in the dugout at the Britannia Stadium.
The Israeli coach has confirmed media reports that he would not be at the match due to a clash with the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur.
But Grant, who delayed taking the reins at former club Chelsea due to a similar clash three years ago, has dismissed suggestions that the Hammers will be unprepared for the trip north.
"I will have all the input except I will not be in the dugout," he explained."The meeting with the team, the talking with the team, the tactics, the training and the preparation for the team is the same.
"The staff know exactly what they need to know in any situation and so do the team."
The Hammers are currently rock-bottom of the Premier League table after four successive defeats this season, but Grant insists he never considered changing his mind about missing Saturday's game, adding:"It is the one day I have respected since I was a child and unfortunately it came on a Saturday this time.
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"The team will be ready. We prepared the team. I will not be in the dugout, but that's why we have staff. I have a good staff and the team will be ready 100 per cent and that's what is important."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
Liverpool midfielder Jay Spearing has stated that he is eager to show Kenny Dalglish his worth in an attempt to nail down a regular starting place in the side.
The 23-year-old is currently serving a three-match ban after being sent off against Fulham on December 3rd, but may play an important part of the remainder of the season for The Reds following Lucas Leiva’s knee ligament injury.
With the Merseysiders likely to be toying with the idea of buying a new central midfielder in January, Spearing wants to stay in the manager’s plans.
“The club is massive worldwide and the owners have come in and shown that they’re going to back the manager. A club the size of this is always going to attract big players,” he told the LFC magazine.
“It has always been my dream to play week in, week out so it’s up to me to prove to the manager on a daily basis that when the transfer window does open and he has money at his disposal that he can look at a position like mine and think: There’s no need to sign anyone there – we’re pretty strong.
“Kenny has given me a lot of confidence and has shown the faith that young local lads like me need to get a chance. But half of it has to do with myself as well; the effort I put in day in, day out. There’s a lot of stuff in training that not a lot of people see.
“It’s the way I’ve been brought up because you don’t get much from life without hard work. My dad said to me that I had to take each day as it comes and prove every single day that I was better than the last one.
“The only way that I was going to get games was by working harder than anybody else in training; not necessarily show that I was better than anybody else but prove that I could compete and not be overawed – to show them I’m up for the fight,” he concluded.
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Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore has admitted that he is concerned by the number of foreign players in the English top flight, and feels it may be a detriment to the national side in the long run.
Only 38% of the players who participated in Premier League fixtures over the weekend were qualified to represent England, which is much lower than the other major European leagues.
When quizzed whether he was concerned by the figure, Scudamore admitted to wanting more home-grown players.
“In a way they do which is why we have put such an emphasis on the Elite Player Performance Plan,” he stated to Sky Sports.
“We are making huge strides under our director of youth Ged Roddy, with everybody at the Football Association and Football League on board with the development plan which is entirely designed to bring through more and better young players, coached in better environments by better coaches.
“That is not to decry anything that is going on at the moment, but we would like to see that balance reduced. We don’t want it eliminated, we still want to attract the best foreign talent we can. They have graced our Premier League, but certainly we do want to see more home-grown talent.
“You can’t get involved in numbers. I want that number increased and if it was back towards 50% that would be good, if it was higher I would only want it to be higher if the English talent was good enough.
“We’re not going to set high targets on this, it depends on how the rest of the game develops. Say we’re sat here in 10 years’ time with 100% of players English home-grown because football economies in Russia, China and the rest of the world have developed where all of the world’s best talent drains off to these places, it would be a false number,” he concluded.
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With Stewart Downing on the brink of completing his £20m move to Anfield, questions are being raised over the future of Joe Cole who, according to the Metro, is set to move in the other direction as a potential replacement for the Villa winger.
Kenny Dalglish has made no secret of his desire to strengthen the Liverpool midfield, and is believed to have spent somewhere in the region of £50m on Jordan Henderson and Charlie Adam as well as Stewart Downing. These signings can only suggest King Kenny is not entirely happy with his current crop in midfield, and players such as Joe Cole and Raul Meireles must surely be considering moves away from the Kop rather than being benchwarmers for those players that have been brought in.
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Having profited significantly from the sales of both Ashley Young and now Stewart Downing, Aston Villa chief executive Paul Falkner has insisted that “there are replacements in the market who can strengthen our squad.” Alex McCleish is said to be keen to bring Cole to the West Midlands, and will be desperate to fill the voids left on both flanks following the departure of Young and Downing. Villa are also chasing Charles N’Zogbia of Wigan and it is thought that should talks between Cole and the Liverpool hierarchy confirm that the 29-year-old is not part of Dalglish’s plans, then this will almost certainly pave the way for Aston Villa to offer him an escape route.
With results like this, there is no point or need to dissect or analyse; everything just went right. What makes me happiest, as a Red, is that under Kenny, I’ve been able to say that more often than not. Not a single player shirked his duty, hid from the spotlight or let up for a second. Those were the things we’d been used to for a good few years and it feels as if those times are slowly returning.
However, a special mention should go to two players: Maxi Rodriguez (obvious, yes) and Jay Spearing. Firstly, Maxi stepped in and bagged a hat-trick. With this little Argie it’s either one or the other. There’s not grey area; he’s either anonymous or one of the best players on pitch and on Saturday he put in a superbly intelligent performance. Some may say he was just ‘in the right place at the right time’ but that requires a sharp, incisive footballing brain. There are strikers who would love to have that ability and Maxi showed on Saturday that he is more than capable of being much more than just a squad player. Keep it up Mr. Rodriguez.
As for Spearing, I would be the first to admit that I’ve never rated him very highly but he has had a fantastic couple of games. He’s stepped in to a pretty massive void and we haven’t missed the man that would normally fill it. That’s not to suggest that Spearing is going to replace the Captain; that’s absurd but as a stand in, he’s been doing a great job and I’d be more than happy for him to continue in this vain and continue to prove me wrong.
It’s Newcastle up next and we take a run of great performances and results, with a cumulative 11-1 goal difference from our past three home games, Newcastle have got a lot to do if they want to match us. And the two aforementioned stars from the weekend are more or less guaranteed to start; it’d be criminal to replace them after their showing on Saturday.
Read more of David Tryer’s articles at the excellent Live4Liverpool
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Listen to the third episode of our brand new podcast – The Football FanCast. – Featuring Razor Ruddock, Gary O’Reilly and singer/songwriter Alistair Griffin, who performs a live version of his cult tribute to Mark Viduka, with Razor on backing vocals!
Endorsing a stadium with a corporate name isn’t a new phenomenon. Back in 1912, John I. Taylor, owner of the Boston Red Sox gave the name Fenway Park to their home ground. He claimed it was due to the proximity of the stadium in the Fenway area of Boston. Others have suggested that the family business of Fenway Realty also gave an added incentive.
A businessman such as Taylor must have surely been aware of the commercial value of attaching his company to a successful sporting outfit.
A century later and the issue of ‘naming rights’ is at the fore of the business known as Premier League football. Manchester City have recently signed a deal with Etihad Airways, the chairman of which is Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, half-brother of Sheikh Mansour.
As well as sponsoring the company’s shirt, the airline will now pay £10.2million per year for the next decade to have the stadium formerly known as Eastlands named after them.
This has caused much consternation in the corridors of City’s rivals. Arsene Wenger was the first to call the deal into question, citing the links between Mansour and Al Nahyan. Liverpool ’s commercial director Ian Ayre has also voiced concerns.
The general argument goes like this: Manchester City could never have commanded the amount of money for the naming rights (incidentally a similar amount to what Wenger’s Arsenal is receiving from their naming deal with Emirates) without the links between the two Sheikhs.
Perhaps this is true. After all, despite last season’s success City is still some way from eclipsing the likes of Liverpool in terms of name value.
The deal is being viewed by critics as the easiest way for City to side-step the ‘fair play rules’ being brought in by the governing bodies to force clubs to only spend what they have made, thus eliminating the ability of the so-called sugar daddies to transform a club from mediocrity to greatness.
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For me the argument is a mute one (in much the same way as the argument of the ‘tapping up’ of players). By this I mean that everyone does it. Any club in City’s position would be doing exactly the same thing. Bolton Wanderers play at the Reebok stadium whilst both Liverpool and Chelsea have investigated selling the naming rights to their homes.
Wenger himself was happy to sell the rights for Arsenal’s new stadium. Having left behind one of the most iconic names in European football he realised the need for the income to support the club in the future. All of this is a born out of a need to compete.
Money is the lifeblood of modern football and those without it are destined to struggle for survival. The days of a club needing nothing more than a Brian Clough to inspire them to success are over. Now, they need higher ticket prices, Sky’s TV money and the windfalls of a top-four finish to have a realistic chance of battling for trophies. Their income in turn affects their ability to pay fees for, and wages to, the best players in the world.
Manchester United has been the best team in England for twenty years. And they have done this partly by paying high transfer fees and huge wages. Chelsea’s leap from nearly-men to contenders was only ignited by an oligarch’s spending spree, which brought in a top manager and gave him the funds to transform the club over a single summer. And, whilst the amounts were greatly inferior, Blackburn Rovers won the Premier League on the back of a huge investment by Jack Walker.
The greatest cost of sacrificing history and tradition for the corporate cash is that of football losing what remains of its soul. With the antics of players and the extortionate ticket prices to watch top-flight teams the sport has already haemorrhaged a lot of the affection people felt. Now, to see iconic homes such as White Hart Lane and Anfield possible being replaced with Americanized monikers like ‘M & T Bank Stadium’ and ‘Home Depot Centre’ would be another finger wrenched from the grip of nostalgia.
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The cost of the naming rights to Manchester’s Commonwealth Games stadium is not the issue here. It is the cost on the clubs involved to maintain and fight their corner that is taking the biggest toll.
Read more of Alan Bradburne’s articles at This is Futbol
Sunderland manager Steve Bruce has confirmed that he allowed Kenwyne Jones to join Stoke City in an £8million deal because he felt the striker was not playing up to his full potential.
The 25-year-old frontman scored 28 goals in 101 appearances for the Black Cats, but Bruce felt that Jones could have done better.
He told the Sunderland Echo:“There has always been a frustration with me, and I think with supporters, who have watched Kenwyne that you see an abundance of talent, but it has not come out often enough for us for whatever reason.
“In management you get paid to make some important decisions sometimes. Stoke have been badgering me for a year. Everyone knows they love a big, traditional centre-forward and he might go and suit them.
“Towards the end with Kenwyne, things were not working out, so I have accepted Stoke’s offer and given him permission to speak to them.”
Having allowed Jones to move on, the Black Cats are poised to sign Manchester United frontman Danny Welbeck on a season-long loan.
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As Harry Redknapp stated after the game, it was inevitable – we all knew the minute that Thierry Henry took to the pitch in the FA Cup clash with Leeds that he would score. Henry duly did, looking like he had never been away, and brought new meaning to ‘The Return of the King.’ It may not only be Aragorn who has to watch his back however, as Henry showed a great deal more than the ability to score a goal during his short time on the pitch earlier this week.
Gunners captain RVP, not to mention the rest of the current crop of Arsenal players would do well to show even half of the emotion and passion that Henry displayed upon scoring the goal, leading to the question of is this what Arsenal have been lacking this season?
Now don’t get me wrong, no one can deny the brilliant job RVP has done this season, along with players such as Song and Szczesny, Arsenal after a rocky start have pulled themselves up and have put up more than a challenge for a top four spot, and I am by no means suggesting that Henry is better than any of these players or that if Arsenal had him, they would be in the title race.
Henry has after all only scored one goal, and against a team who despite having world class support cannot say the same about their defence. It is entirely plausible that Henry will struggle in the Premier League, and not make much of an impact – yet it is more than his touch on the ball that he will bring to the club. Henry is Arsenal, nearly as much as Wenger is, and has a love for the club that is unparalleled.
It is this, and the experience he has that could well prove the difference for Arsenal in the short time he is at the club. Whilst RVP has most certainly been the MVP, he is still young and is carrying such a burden on his shoulders of not only having to score, but to be skipper and inspire the fans and team.
I am not saying he has not done a great job – in fact I feel RVP is more of a captain than Fabregas was and is certainly a leader on the field, yet having Henry around to alleviate some of the pressure and as someone who the fans can also focus their expectations on, not to mention the media, may provide a welcome relief for RVP.
Nor is this an attack on the current Arsenal squad – the vast majority of them do give 100% when they play and genuinely want the club to do well, yet there is a difference between this and what Henry feels for Arsenal – ‘when it comes to Arsenal my heart does the talking’ just about sums it up, whereas most of the players would say their weekly wage does the talking, and that is the difference, and what is missing not just at Arsenal, but at clubs up and down the country who lack a player who really cares – the days of Neville, Carragher and Shearer are virtually over, with the Nasris, Coles and Tevez type players now more about them than the club.
It is credit to Henry – both in terms of the kind of player and also the type of man he is that nearly every football fan wanted him to do well and score on his second coming, and with the exception of Spurs fans, Henry’s celebrations would even melt a heart of stone. I am not an Henry fan by any stretch of the imagination – in fact during the season Chelsea won the title for the first time Henry took an outrageous free kick before the whistle and inspired the Gunners to a 2 -2 draw, not to mention scored a very cheeky goal which I have never really forgotten!
Despite this, and my general dislike of all things Arsenal, I am a football fan first and foremost, and want to see players who genuinely love their club – Henry is this, and more so than anyone at Arsenal at the minute. Not only will this give the players a lift, but also the fans, who will draw on this, and the inspiration provided by Henry’s return and could well get a boost for the second part of the season because of it. Henry may not be quite the player he once was, but he has heart, passion and love for the club – and despite what people may tell you, there is no substitute for that.
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Striker Garry O'Connor does not know whether he has a future with Birmingham City beyond January.
The Scotland striker was handed a six-month contract during the summer following an injury-plagued last season.
The 27-year-old started Saturday's 2-0 home victory over Blackpool after steadily climbing the pecking order in recent weeks but his long-term future remains a mystery.
"Nothing is being said at the moment about a new contract," he explained.
"The gaffer has got faith in me. It is just about people upstairs at the club.
"I would love to stay at Birmingham. It's a fantastic club and I've enjoyed my time here and hope it can continue.
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"I've got to keep my head down and keep working hard.
"But, if it doesn't happen for me here, I can move on being happy with my form at the moment."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
Tottenham move into the top four with an excellent 2-0 victory at White Hart Lane.
It was a pulsating affair although Tottenham always seemed the team most likely to take the points throughout. Harry’s men didn’t make life easy for themselves after Younes Kaboul got himself sent off with an act of petulance, although it is fair to say that perpetrator can consider himself fortunate that he was even on the pitch at that stage after the referee continually gave him the benefit of the doubt after some late tackles went unpunished. Tottenham were able to hold on with 10 men for the second time in so many days and a wonderful solo strike by Gareth Bale sealed the points for the home side, much to the delight of the White Hart Lane faithful.
So how do Tottenham fans feel about today, and what are the five things we learnt from Harry’s men this afternoon?
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