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West Ham United have secured a season-long loan deal for Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart.

The 30-year old was the Sky Blues’ No1 for eight straight seasons before being pushed out of the squad by new manager Pep Guardiola, who sent the England No1 to Torino for a season.

After returning from Italy, Hart will be joining a Premier League side with the intention of continuing to make his banishment look like a major mistake.

Manchester City are reportedly close to signing Pepe Reina from Napoli, which would be the club’s third goalkeeper signing since Guardiola became manager last summer, none of which have the talent level of Joe Hart.

Claudio Bravo was horrendous last season and appears to be nearing an exit, while the jury is still out on new signing Ederson, who has never played outside the Portuguese league.

West Ham have had their own goalkeeping woes of late. Adrian had been the club’s first choice since arriving from Real Betis on a free, but his poor form early on last season had given playing time to Irishman Darren Randolph, who also has failed to impress.

Both current Hammers keepers are 30-years-old, like Hart, but have never shown the ability that the English No1 has.

Hart certainly makes mistakes, ever apparent during England’s Euro 2016 failure, but he also can make the impossible save rather regularly. His performance against Barcelona in the 2015 Champions League is one of the best you’ll ever see.

Hart is also one of the Premier League’s greatest at keeping out his opponents, as his 119 clean sheets are the fourth most by any English keeper. He is tied with Petr Čech with the most Golden Gloves in history, and one of Čech’s was split with Wojciech Szczęsny.

Hart’s 71 England caps are currently fourth most for a goalkeeper in national history, and he is likely to pass both Gordon Banks (73) and David Seaman (75) in the coming year.

The bottom line is, sure Hart makes mistakes, like every goalkeeper, but when he’s in form, he is one of the best in the world.

Hammers fans, get excited. You’ve signed a top-class shot-stopper.

Sky Sports pundit Phil Thompson believes that Tottenham Hotspur will miss out on a Champions League spot this season if they do not strengthen their squad.

Some clubs in this window have gone past the £200m mark with regards to signings, but Spurs have not recruited a single player.

The only transfer activity that has occurred at the club is the sale of Kyle Walker to Manchester City, and it is unlikely that they will hunt for a replacement after handing Kieran Trippier a new contract.

Mauricio Pochettino’s men finished second in the Premier League last season, and they were the only club challenging champions Chelsea in the closing stages of the campaign.

Much like the 2015-16 season, Spurs failed to sustain their hunt for the crown, but they are steadily improving and will want to be in the chasing pack when the new campaign begins next week.

Former Liverpool defender Thompson is concerned, though, that if the likes of Dele Alli or Christian Eriksen get injured, Tottenham do not have any decent replacements.

With Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United and Everton all spending big chunks of cash in this window, Spurs could get left behind.

Thompson told Sky Sports:

“I hate giving predictions now because we don’t know who will come through the door. They could make some fantastic signings, as could most, but as things stand I think Spurs will finish fifth.”

If you haven’t been tinkering with your Fantasy Premier League team several times a day since it relaunched in July, are you even a proper FPL player?

It’s that time again when every football fan turns their attention to proper football and, of course, their FPL teams. So much research is needed before locking in your GW1 team these days.

Who is a nailed on starter? Is he worth his price tag? Who will be the next Riyad Mahrez or Michu? Can I justify leaving out Harry Kane from the very start? All key things you really need to consider before being anywhere near ready.

To help you make the finishing touches to your team ahead of Friday evening’s much anticipated GW1 deadline, we’ve taken a look at three bargain picks you should be considering for your team selection.

Bargain buys come in many forms. They’re either cheap options you use to rotate from your bench when fixtures suit, or those with low ownership but high potential for an increase in value and unexpected big points returns. Think Mahrez and Vardy from a couple of years ago. Or Michu before them.

The first of our three bargain picks is West Brom’s Jay Rodriguez. The England international has missed much of the last two campaigns through injury but upon his return to the Southampton team last season, he showed what he’s capable of.

Now at the Baggies and starting the season with a clean bill of health, Rodriguez will be eager to hit the ground running at the Hawthorns and prove that his injury woes are well behind him.

At just £6.0m he classifies as a low end forward on the game despite the likelihood of him being a regular starter for the Baggies. Only 3.2% of teams have selected him so far so if he starts smashing them in from the off you’re likely to gain ground in the rankings, and his value is certain to rise very quickly.

West Brom’s opening fixtures are favourable, too. They begin the season with a home game v Bournemouth before facing the likes of Burnley (A), Stoke (H), Brighton (A) and West Ham (H). Rodriguez will fancy himself to find the net in all of those fixtures.

Next up is Nathan Ake, who impressed heavily during his loan spell at Bournemouth last season. He made the move a permanent one this summer and will have no problems settling in and getting used to Eddie Howe’s tactics. He should know Howe’s game and the South Coast pretty well by now.

Before being recalled by Chelsea at the back end of last season, Ake had become a surprise pick for many an FPL manager.

While at Bournemouth he kept three clean sheets, scored three goals and assisted another, additionally pulling in eight bonus points.

The Dutch defender is priced at just £5.0m this season and while his TSB% remains below 10%, you’re likely to gain some ground in the rankings with him in your team if he picks up where he left off last term.

Lastly, and what we’re calling a pretty risky bargain buy, Christian Atsu may just surprise a few FPL managers this season.

He didn’t impress too much while on loan at Bournemouth a couple of seasons ago but a season in the Championship with Newcastle saw him improve immensely, netting five and assisting five as the Magpies made an immediate return to the Premier League.

The arrival of Jacob Murphy does cast some doubt on Atsu’s place in Benitez’s starting XI but given his performances last season you have to expect him to feature regularly one way or another.

At just £5,0m, Atsu is a cheap option who could indeed go on and return some crucial FPL points. His 2.4% ownership also makes him an attractive option – a big start to the season will see that rise quickly, as would his value, but if he doesn’t impress then his value is unlikely to decrease too much.

If Benitez trusts Atsu to start then expect the 25-year-old to make an impressive impact.

Other potential bargain buys include the following…

Tom Carroll (£4.5m), who has had an impressive pre-season with Swansea, will no doubt take up the creative role in the Swans’ midfield if/when Gylfi Sigurdsson leaves. He may not be on the same level as the Iceland international but he’ll still be in and amongst Swansea’s chance creation.

Crystal Palace’s Luka Milivojevic (£5.0m) only arrived in South London in January but he did make an immediate impact, netting twice and picking up five clean sheet points. The Serb is also Palace’s set-piece taker, which further increases his points potential.

Joe Hart (£4.5m) will be looking to reignite his Premier League career at West Ham this season after his loan-spell in Italy with Torino last term. The Hammers’ defence is still arguably their weak link and that means Hart will be facing a lot of shots, boosting his shots saved points return chances. At just £4.5m Hart is classed as a low end keeper and should not be ignored.

Boasting 359 appearances between them and having both worn the captain’s armband for extended periods, there’s no question Mikel Arteta and Per Mertesacker have been fantastic servants to Arsenal Football Club.

Yet, ever-stuck just outside the Premier League’s ultimate bracket of truly top-end talents in their respective positions, Arteta and Mertesacker’s last-minute arrivals in summer 2011 went on to underpin the malaise that manifested in the Gunners failing to qualify for the Champions League for the first time under Arsene Wenger last season.

Summer 2011 was the most chaotic transfer window in Arsenal’s history. Arsene Wenger’s squad was quite simply ransacked by European and divisional rivals; Cesc Fabregas making way for Barcelona and Samir Nasri and Gael Clichy trading north London for the incredible riches on offer at Manchester City. If those deals weren’t a sign of the times, Arsenal beginning to fade away from European football’s elite, an incredible 8-2 battering at Old Trafford in the absence of the departing trio certainly was.

It was one of the first occasions in which Wenger’s long-term vision of a team he’d once lead to the Premier League title undefeated and a club he’d moved into a new stadium at the sacrifice of investing in the first team truly moved from being quietly questioned to being seriously doubted. Nasri, Fabregas and Robin van Persie were seen as the next generation of potential Invincibles after seven years in the title-less wilderness, but two had just removed themselves from the master-plan seemingly convinced trophies would come quicker elsewhere. RVP would follow suit twelve months later.

After that humbling loss to Manchester United, Wenger knew had to act quickly, leading to four arrivals in the last two days of the summer window, Park Chu-Young on August 30th followed by Mertesacker, Arteta and Andre Santos on Deadline Day.

The former and the latter proved to be spectacular flops, the South Korean making just one Premier League appearance during his three years on the books at Arsenal and the Brazilian shipped off to his homeland after just 18 months. Arteta and Mertesacker, on the other hand, slowly but surely established themselves in the first team, becoming key parts in the sides that ended Arsenal’s silverware barren spell by winning back-to-back FA Cups in 2014 and 2015 – and perhaps more crucially, becoming two leaders amongst a largely passive dressing room.

Yet, neither truly replaced the quality that had been taken away from Arsenal that summer and both highlighted Wenger’s fanciful, after-thought approach to ensuring the quality of the defensive spine of his team; Arteta a playmaking, technical midfielder asked to operate as anchorman and provide the protection in front of defence, Mertesacker a talented and experienced centre-back, but one always plagued by fatal flaws that became particularly evident in Arsenal’s high line.

Tellingly, they were last-minute signings and stop-gap solutions that became near-permanent fixtures of the starting XI and inevitably, they maintained the soft underbelly that saw Arsenal constantly fall short of their divisional rivals. That’s as much a criticism of Wenger as a recruiter and a manager, his lack of ruthlessness and often blind faith in second-best, as it is the quality of the two players in question.

Fast forward to summer 2017 and Arsenal find themselves in an eerily similar scenario. They enter the final days of the transfer window on the backdrop of a 4-0 defeat to Liverpool at Anfield, one of their most abject, disorganised and pathetic performances in Premier League history, encircled by divisional rivals looking to capitalise on the wantaway status of the Gunners’ key players. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain appears to be leaving for Liverpool, while Manchester City are honing in on Alexis Sanchez. Then there’s Mesut Ozil, another who would seemingly prefer to move on in the next few days should the right offer come along.

If all three leave, Wenger will be compelled to grab what replacements he can at the last minute. But just as Arteta and Mertesacker sustained Arsenal’s status as underperforming giants and resident fourth-placers, you have to wonder what effect their 2017 equivalents could have. With limited options on the horizon and confidence around the club seemingly hitting an all-time low, Wenger’s Deadline day gambles this time around could be what compels Arsenal to the bottom of the Premier League’s big-seven mini-league for the coming years.

Now that the international break is over, Premier League clubs are gearing up for the return of the domestic calendar.

In a bid to get fans excited for Saturday’s fixture against Bournemouth, Arsenal posted a tweet on their official page urging the team to get back to winning ways.

Arsene Wenger’s men have had a tough run after their opening weekend 4-3 victory over Leicester City.

They were undone by a single goal from Stoke City and prior to the international break they were humiliated by Liverpool 4-0 at Anfield.

The players were targeted with some fierce criticism for their performance and now the pressure is on to get a result at the Emirates.

Judging by the fans’ comments, Arsenal’s social media team did not get the desired response to their video.

The clash against Bournemouth will be the first game since the transfer window closed.

Arsenal recruited Sead Kolasinac and Alexandre Lacazette, and they sold a handful of fringe players, as well as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to Liverpool.

Despite rumours surrounding the futures of Alexis Sanchez and Mesut Ozil, both players stayed at the club.

We’re not far away from Celtic and Rangers going head-to-head in the biggest match Scottish football has to offer. The two Glasgow giants love nothing better than locking horns for 90 minutes and trying to prove that they are the best in the land. In recent years of course the Hoops have dominated the fixture and last season Brendan Rodgers’ side won five of the six meetings between the two sides.

That makes them red hot favourites heading in this Saturday’s match, with some reckoning the match-up will be as every bit as lopsided as last season’s encounters were. It’ll still be hard work to pick up the victory Hoops fans are dying for though and a massive part of that will be Rodgers getting his team selection right.

With important players returning to full fitness, the Celtic boss has something of a selection headache on his hands, although instead of this being a burden as it has been on occasion so far this term, there are only positives this time around.

One of the big calls that must be made is deciding who starts in attack. With Moussa Dembele again available for selection and Leigh Griffiths managing to maintain fitness, both will be desperate to play at Ibrox and grab the headlines for themselves as they both did against the Light Blues last season.

One year on

This time last year, the fact Griffiths was missing for the first derby of the season was seen as a massive problem for the Scottish Champions. Griffiths had banged in seven goals in his first nine matches of the season before picking up an injury that ruled him out of Rangers’ visit to Celtic Park. Having scored 40 goals the previous season and Dembele still untested in Celtic colours, it was a major talking point in the week leading up to the match.

By the end of that 5-1 victory though, nobody was left in any doubt about who the new main man was in Scottish football. A sensational hat-trick from the Frenchman announced his arrival on the Celtic scene giving him the confidence and momentum to go on and have a fantastic season, scoring 32 goals and finishing as the club’s top scorer.

One year on, the case for starting the 21-year-old in the first match against Rangers is strong and there’s little doubt about his ability to put Pedro Caixinha’s side to the sword if called upon. However, can you discount Leigh Griffiths entirely?

Griffiths vs Dembele

There’s no doubting that Griffiths is as good a replacement for Dembele as Celtic could ever hope for. His development under Brendan Rodgers has been remarkable. For club and country he is now a dependable goalscorer in any competition home or away. He’s scored five goals this season already including one away to Astana in the UEFA Champions League. He’s also in line to become the first Hoops striker since John Hartson to score 100 goals at the club.

However, Dembele just offers something extra. For a start his physicality is more impressive. He can be more of a focal point in the Celtic attack and bring teammates into the game around him, while Griffiths is more suited to pressing and running in behind defences. Against Rangers it could be argued that the Frenchman’s style of play is better suited to the occasion.

There’s also the fact that the Light Blues are undoubtedly scared of the Frenchman. His five goals against the club last term devastated the team and their support. No-one has had such a dominating season against the other Glasgow club in decades. That’s enough in itself to warrant his selection on Saturday.

The truth is that both are likely to feature at the weekend at some point. Whoever starts, the other will likely play from the bench. With another hugely important against Anderlecht on the horizon, Rodgers needs to take that into account and have Dembele fit for that one too. The striker has only had an hour of football in months after all.

Starting Dembele is a statement of intent, one that says Celtic are turning up at Ibrox to re-assert their authority on the Govan side and if he’s fit enough to feature then he’s the man Rodgers must call upon.

Stan Collymore has suggested that Newcastle United captain Jamaal Lascelles shares similar qualities to former Liverpool skipper Steven Gerrard.

Lascelles has impressed at St James’ Park this season, guiding the team to three wins and a draw in seven Premier League fixtures.

The 23-year-old has marshalled from the back, but he has also scored twice to give the Magpies all three points.

Collymore, who played for Liverpool during his career, believes that manager Rafael Benitez may have another Gerrard on his hands.

The Spanish coach worked with the Liverpool legend at Anfield, and Collymore has suggested that the ex-Real Madrid manager is now moulding Lascelles into a similar version.

In his column for The Mirror the football pundit said:

“[Lascelles] is happy to call himself out, happy to call out teammates and his club, if he needs to. He demands standards, he is not afraid to ask questions and is a reminder that leadership is always an important quality. And where Lascelles is fortunate is that he has a boss in Rafa Benitez who worked at Liverpool with ­arguably the best captain in England – and maybe even the world – during the past 20 years.

“[Benitez] will have recognised how Gerrard managed Liverpool ­dressing rooms, something he can pass on to Lascelles. If Benitez has found a lite ­version of Gerrard in the Newcastle ­skipper, he will be very, very pleased.”

Benitez faced his former club on Sunday, and it was a positive result for the North-East outfit as they managed to seal a 1-1 draw at St James’ Park.

Philippe Coutinho put the Reds ahead with a stunning individual effort, but a matter of minutes later, Joselu found an equaliser.

Newcastle managed to frustrate Liverpool and pick up a point, which leaves them ninth in the league table.

According to reports in The Telegraph, Manchester United have suffered a huge setback in their attempt to agree a new deal with midfielder Marouane Felliani after his representatives rejected an initial contract offer.

What’s the word, then?

Well, The Telegraph says that the Red Devils are keen to tie the Belgium international down seeing as his current contract is due to expire next summer, and while United have triggered the 12-month option in his deal, the opening offer from the club has been turned down by Fellaini’s agent.

Despite often struggling to make a positive impression at Old Trafford following his move from Everton in 2013, the 29-year-old has been transformed under Jose Mourinho and has become a key player.

How has he done this season?

While Paul Pogba and summer signing Nemanja Matic started the campaign as Mourinho’s first-choice central midfield partnership, an injury to the former gave Fellaini a chance to impress and he took it with both hands.

After substitute appearances against West Ham United, Swansea City and Leicester City – a game in which he scored – the 29-year-old started in the wins against Everton, Southampton and Crystal Palace – scoring a brace against the Eagles.

As well as that, the Belgian also netted one and assisted one in the 3-0 win against Basel in the Champions League, although he suffered a knee injury on international duty which has seen him the miss the Liverpool and Benfica clashes this week.

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Why is he so important?

Largely due to his versatility and physical strength, but he is good on the ball too.

The Belgium international has impressed in the centre of the park because opposition midfielders have struggled to deal with his power, while he is also useful in both penalty areas because of his height and ability to win headers.

Mourinho will certainly be a big fan of his defensive abilities, as we all know he prides himself on his teams being solid at the back.

Will he sign a new deal?

You would think so, yes.

Fellaini will have had his confidence boosted by Mourinho after difficult spells under David Moyes and Louis van Gaal previously, but if he wants guaranteed first-team football then he could choose to reject a new deal and leave.

There seems little doubt that Matic and Pogba are the first-choice midfield pairing, and considering the 29-year-old also has Ander Herrera for competition, he may feel that his opportunities could be even less frequent in the future.

Leeds United will look to bounce back from defeat against Sheffield United when they play host to Derby County at Elland Road on Tuesday night, and Whites fans want Stuart Dallas to be handed a start.

Thomas Christiansen’s men suffered their fourth loss in their last six Championship fixtures following a 1-0 reverse at home to the Blades on Friday night, but they are still in fifth position ahead of the midweek matches.

Dallas missed the 3-0 success against Bristol City previously following the death of his mother, and he was an unused substitute in the Yorkshire derby against Chris Wilder’s men.

Leeds United supporters were quick to have their say on team selection ahead of the clash against the seventh-placed Rams on Tuesday, and while some simply said “Dallas must start”, others said they would be “quite annoyed” if he doesn’t.

Here is just a selection of the Twitter reaction…

Newcastle United left it late against Crystal Palace on Saturday, but picked up an important three points in the English Premier League to move up to sixth position in the table.

Substitute Mikel Merino was the hero of the day, rising to head home just four minutes from time to send Magpies fans home delighted with another victory on their return to the top-flight.

Rafa Benitez’s had struggled as an attacking force for much of the game, managing just three shots on target across the 90 minutes against a dogged Crystal Palace side.

Fans were of course delighted with the result but were left disappointed with the performances of the players who started the game and one of those on the receiving end of the fiercest criticism was Ayoze Perez.

The attacking midfielder struggled to impose himself on the match and was hauled off in the 66th minute, after which his side started to click into gear.

Supporters took to Twitter to share their thoughts on his performance, with some even hoping he doesn’t start for the club again…

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