All posts by z3u9t.icu

Former Glasgow Rangers manager Alex McLeish has suggested Glen Kamara could leave the Gers this summer for the Premier League.

The Lowdown: Kamara linked with exit

After playing an important role in Rangers’ Premiership title win last term, Kamara has attracted plenty of interest from south of the border.

Watford (The Daily Mail), Arsenal and Leeds United (TEAMtalk) have all been linked with the midfielder, who started all three games for Finland at Euro 2020 (Transfermarkt).

The Latest: McLeish fears the worst

Speaking to Ibrox News, McLeish believes the £5.4m-valued 25-year-old (Transfermarkt) could leave the 55-time Scottish champions this summer. When asked whether the prospect of the Premier League would be too much to turn down for Kamara, he said:

“100%.

“It would surprise me if he did get offered the chance to go to one of those clubs and he turned it down.

“Listen, we hope that he would. I’m sure he has a massive attachment to Rangers, he knows what they have done for him, but life is short.

“A lot of players won’t waste the opportunity to leave and go to a bigger league, and the Premier League is bigger.”

The Verdict: Difficult

There is no doubt it will be difficult for Ross Wilson and co to hold on to Kamara this summer, which they will surely want to do. Yes, they can offer the potential carrot of Champions League football, but they must get through two rounds to make the group stages – there is no guarantee they will be able to do that.

After the last year or so, Kamara’s stock has grown massively, and that is only going to continue to do so after his Euro 2020 involvement.

Unfortunately, the Gers must prepare for the worse and plan ahead for beyond Kamara’s seemingly inevitable departure, whenever exactly that will be.

In other news, this Rangers man speaks about his Ibrox desperation.

Former West Brom midfielder Carlton Palmer has told The Transfer Tavern in an exclusive interview that he would be very surprised if Roy Hodgson returned to the Hawthorns.

Hodgson is out of work following his departure from Crystal Palace and is being linked with the West Brom job.

According to Football Insider, the Midlands club have actually made an approach for the 73-year-old, but that has been knocked back.

All in all, it is simply something Palmer cannot see happening, though the ex-West Brom player expects Hodgson to return to football in the near future.

“I don’t think Roy Hodgson is finished with football yet. I don’t think he’s finished with football,” Palmer said.

“But I’d be very surprised if he took on the job of West Brom right now knowing what job that entails at this moment in time.”

The Baggies’ search for a new manager is really starting to drag on, with David Wagner now out of the running having looked set for the Hawthorns dug out.

This comes after a deal to bring former Sheffield United boss Chris Wilder also collapsed.

It remains to be seen where West Brom turn to now but, like Wagner and Wilder, Hodgson also seems to be out of the equation.

Liverpool have been linked with a move for Sassuolo winger Domenico Berardi after another impressive season in Serie A.

What’s the story?

According to Italian outlet Gazzetta dello Sport (as reported by the Liverpool Echo), the Reds are monitoring the 26-year-old’s situation, with a possible bid being prepared.

The report claims that fellow Premier League outfit Tottenham Hotspur are also interested in snapping up Berardi this summer, meaning Jurgen Klopp may have to move quickly in order to secure his man.

New Mohamed Salah

After bagging an impressive 17 goals and providing a further eight assists in just 30 top-flight appearances last season, Berardi earned a place in Italy’s squad for Euro 2020.

The 6 ft forward has carried his fine club form onto the international stage, becoming one of Roberto Mancini’s standout performers in the group stage of the European Championship, with two assists in two games for the unbeaten Italian side leading The Guardian’s Nicky Bandini to say that he, and his club teammate Manuel Locatelli, have been at the heart of the revitalisation of Italy.

He’s been a highly-rated talent in his homeland for many years despite not featuring for one of Italian football’s biggest teams, drawing praise from former AC Milan and Italy coach Arrigo Sacchi back in 2014.

“Berardi is a player of great talent, a modern footballer who plays for the team all over the field,” said Sacchi. “He has liveliness, intuition, temperament, and strength combined with a good technique.”

A failed two-year stint at Juventus saw Berardi fail to make a single appearance for the Old Lady, spending the entirety of his time back on loan at Sassuolo, but he’s continually been linked with another exit since.

At 26, the pacey gem may think it’s the right time to take the next step in his career, and Liverpool’s director of football Michael Edwards could discover the club’s new Mohamed Salah with a swoop over the coming months.

The Eygpt international has fired the Reds to Champions League and Premier League glory since making his switch from Serie A outfit Roma four seasons ago, and Berardi could have a similar impact.

He’s contributed to 172 goals in 291 games for his boyhood club to date, highlighting the star quality he possesses. And he could become the next attacking talent from Italian football to steer Klopp’s charges to major trophies next season.

And, in other news…Edwards must seal Liverpool swoop for 18 y/o “incredible talent”, Klopp would love him 

Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa must make a ruthless call and sell Tyler Roberts this summer.

What’s the story?

Reports in recent weeks have suggested that the 22-year-old has snubbed a contract offer from Leeds, with the forward’s current deal at Elland Road expiring next summer.

The Wales international has now delivered an update on his long-term future at Elland Road, saying: “I think my agent has had a talk with them about what’s going to happen.

“I think it’s one of those where the season is so close to ending, you stay focused on the last few games and you sort that then. I think it’s all positive and, as I’ve said, I do love it at Leeds. The city, the fans, the experiences I’m getting are great so I’m happy.”

Not good enough for Bielsa

Whilst Roberts has delivered a positive update on his chances of signing a new deal at Elland Road, Bielsa must be ruthless with the under-performing Welshman this summer.

Former Leeds striker Noel Whelan insisted that the £9m-rated forward hasn’t shown enough in the Premier League to “convince” Bielsa – he managed just one goal in 27 top-flight appearances all season, and even that came in the penultimate game against Southampton.

The 46-year-old said: “With Leeds this season, he’s been given a long spell of games to convince Bielsa he’s worth keeping. In my opinion, I’m still undecided. I don’t think he affected the game during his time on the field.

“The only thing tempting me to keep him at Leeds is the fact that he’s young. He may still have a bit of growth to come.  If there’s interest from Newcastle and the contract isn’t signed, he might feel he needs a new start in his career. It’s massive to leave a club like Leeds. But once he comes back to Leeds I doubt he’ll start considering how Rodrigo finished the season.”

Whelan added: “Is he good enough? In my opinion he isn’t. I would love him to go out there and prove me wrong because I want everyone to succeed. I need him to show me more. He needs to show more fight and desire. I just do not see that.”

Given that Leeds will hope to see the best of Rodrigo next season after a year of adaptation at Elland Road, and that Bielsa will likely be looking to strengthen his squad in the summer, it’s difficult to see how Roberts’ current form and ability is anywhere near the kind of level that Leeds require if they are to kick on.

[snack-amp-story url=”https://www.footballfancast.com/web-stories/leeds-united-marcelo-bielsa-transfer-gossip-rumours-news-elland-road-rodrigo-de-paul” title=”Read the latest Leeds transfer rumours and news!”]

Roberts was handed plenty of opportunities to shine and lay down a claim this season, but he didn’t grab those. This summer must be the time for Bielsa to just be ruthless and get rid of him if the right offer comes in.

Meanwhile, Leeds must finally unleash this talented starlet next season…

Liverpool should axe Takumi Minamino this summer as Jurgen Klopp looks to rebuild his first team squad.

What’s the story?

According to Hampshire Live, the Anfield outfit have changed their stance over the 26-year-old and are now open to letting him leave during the upcoming transfer window.

The report claims that Liverpool are keen to make a profit on the player they bought for just £7.25m 18 months ago and that Minamino is open to a return to Southampton after enjoying a short-term loan on the south coast.

He’s been shocking

Although the Japan international arrived on Merseyside with a sizeable amount of expectation after impressing in Champions League fixtures against the Reds, he’s struggled to live up to those hopes during his time with Klopp’s charges.

Minamino managed just four goals and two assists in 31 Liverpool appearances before being shipped off to the Saints in January, despite his parent club’s struggles.

The fact that Klopp was willing to let the diminutive forward depart despite the huge drop-off in form Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino were experiencing throughout 2020/21 is rather telling of where the 26-year-old lies in the German’s plans.

However, Minamino’s time with Southampton was slightly more successful (two goals in 10 games), and his energetic style clearly won over manager Ralph Hasenhuttl.

“I must say. He was a very lively factor in our game, in the games he played. He not only scored fantastic goals but his mentality and his character really fit into our team. You can see why a club like Liverpool wanted to sign him,” said the Austrian.

“He did a good job here. We gave him a chance to show up. We will have a look what happens in the summer, we will see what Liverpool want to do. There are discussions going on, but we will have a look in the summer.”

Nevertheless, Minamino’s improvement under Hassenhuttl doesn’t hide the fact that the £75,000-per-week Liverpool flop was largely underwhelming, receiving a lowly WhoScored rating of 6.39 for the 2020/21 season.

Money is expected to be tight at Anfield this summer, and Klopp could use the funds generated by his sale to invest in the starting XI, greatly improving Liverpool’s chances of regaining their Premier League crown next season.

In other news… Imagine him and Fabinho: Klopp can form dream LFC duo with “complete” £58.5m-rated gem 

Plenty of Aston Villa fans have been sharing their love at the club’s official Twitter post regarding midfielder John McGinn on Wednesday evening.

The 26-year-old made his 36th Premier League start of the season in the 2-1 win over Tottenham, playing the entirety of the victory.

McGinn partnered Marvelous Nakamba in a defensive midfield role, with club captain Jack Grealish making his first start since February further forward.

The Scot put in an impressive display in north London, completing all of his attempted dribbles and winning six duels, as per SofaScore.

His all-action performance led to Villa simply tweeting ‘John McGinn’ during the second half. McGinn started an attack which led to Bertrand Traore shooting wide, with Villa’s media team going on to label his performance as ‘exceptional’.

Villa fans react

The club’s straight to the point tweet led to a number of fans interacting with the post. This is what these Villa supporters had to say about McGinn, with one describing the post as ‘perfect’.

“Wow @jmcginn7″Credit: @brainos_1001″Stop that”Credit: @jay_billingham”Perfect tweet”Credit: @edwards2779″Running the show”Credit: @GW_94″so true admin”Credit: @catrinedwards18″That’s the tweet”Credit: @ConCarp98

In other news: Many Villa fans share love towards official footage following Spurs win, find out more here. 

Many Manchester United fans have been left to fume after The Old Trafford faithful announced that Eric Bailly has signed a new deal at the club.

As per the official website of the Red Devils, the Ivory Coast international will stay at MUFC until June 2024, with the option of a further year.

This has certainly caused a stir among several United supporters, given that his injury record is nothing short of woeful (16 separate injuries at Old Trafford), and he has now been given a bumper contract despite having no guarantees over how many games he will be able to play due to his ongoing injury problems.

At 27 years of age, Bailly still has some resale value, and some Red Devils may have been wanting to sell the central defender in the summer transfer window as they may miss the chance to profit from his eventual departure as he approaches his thirties.

Manchester United fans on Bailly contract

These MUFC supporters fumed upon reading the news of Bailly’s deal on Twitter, with one fan even going as far as to claim that it was a ‘ridiculous’ decision:

“We should be shipping this guy out, how did he manage to get an extension?”

Credit: @Mo_Abdul14

“Crazy decision.”

Credit: @Lyncho_11

“Why do you like keeping hospital patients? Jones now Eric…”

Credit: @OsikomayaOmogb1

“Total waste of money and time. 100 appearances in 6 seasons is woeful. Phil Jones mark 2”

Credit: @robertf1986

“Ridiculous decision I like Bailly but giving 3 years at the club to the most injury prone defender we have barring Jones is absolutely ridiculous”

Credit: @DavidGi74108779

“Really poor business imo, really like Bailly but his injury record is ridiculous. For me this means we are not signing a CB this summer.. and we will be stuck with Maguire and Lindelof”

Credit: @davveneij1

In other news, find out whose display against Leeds United was slammed here!

Aston Villa manager Dean Smith must avoid risking another Carney Chukwuemeka nightmare with fellow academy starlet Louie Barry.

What’s the story?

Reports in recent weeks have suggested that Bayern Munich are leading the race to sign Chukwuemeka this summer, and it has now emerged that the youngster is keen on leaving Villa Park because of “broken promises”.

With Barry also knocking on the door for a first team chance, having played in the FA Cup four months ago, Smith must ensure that Villa don’t face the prospect of losing another one of their brightest young talents.

Villa fans would be livid

Former Villa ace Lee Hendrie has already revealed his disappointment and frustration at seeing Barry remain on the sidelines, exclusively telling Football FanCast: “I’m really disappointed that he hasn’t featured, not even really on the bench since that Liverpool game with the fabulous goal that he scored. He reminds me of a young Michael Owen in the fact that he’s very slight, small, but he’s very quick, and I’m surprised that he hasn’t been given a bit more of a chance since that game.

“I just feel that he should now be getting into the first-team squad, being on the bench and getting thrown on for the last 20 minutes, relieving a bit of pressure, just because he’s got that pace that he can burn off.”

Giving young players the confidence that they have a genuine pathway into the first team is vital to keeping them happy, and Smith already seems to have dropped the ball with Chukwuemeka, who delivered a stunning reminder of his qualities with a hat-trick in the FA Youth Cup semi-final against Newcastle recently.

[snack-amp-story url=”https://www.footballfancast.com/web-stories/villa-dean-smith-transfer-gossip-rumours-news-premier-league-buendia-berge-mcneil-trezeguet-villa-park” title=”Read the latest Villa transfer rumours and news!”]

Barry has already shown with his goal against Liverpool that he is capable of making an impact, but the longer he continues without getting a chance to prove himself in the first team at Premier League level, the greater the chances of him feeling like his career prospects are best served elsewhere.

Smith must desperately avoid letting that happen, or else Villa fans will understandably be fuming if two of the club’s brightest young talents elect to move on.

Meanwhile, Villa must land this £60m-rated star this summer…

Nuno Espirito Santo’s stay at Wolves is now done. He is out the door and barring a remarkable set of circumstances, will never return to Compton again.

His farewell on Sunday afternoon was an emotional one as he waved goodbye to the first set of supporters he’d seen inside Molineux for over a year.

His team didn’t earn all three points but it was a magnificent sight to see the stadium rocking in such a manner.

Wolves earned a boost from fans being back inside the stadium but it wasn’t enough to propel them to victory over Manchester United.

Despite Nuno’s exit, it was a timely reminder of how much is needed to be done this summer by Jeff Shi and co. After all, this has been a torrid season by their very high standards.

It feels like Nuno’s departure comes with the team at a crossroads. Since the Old Gold were promoted, this is undoubtedly their worst season.

They finished in the bottom half of the table and are now in need of a manager who can take them to the next level.

Bruno Lage is one of the names Wolves have been keeping an eye on but they’re also interested in Paulo Fonseca according to The Mirror.

The 48-year-old took Roma to the Europa League semi-finals this season but will leave his job in Italy this summer with Jose Mourinho set to replace him.

Fonseca amassed a win success rate of just under 52% but they failed to qualify for the Champions League or Europa League this term.

[snack-amp-story url= “https://www.footballfancast.com/web-stories/read-the-latest-wolves-transfer-rumours-and-news-soumare-dias-dembele-marques-nuno-santo” title=”Read the latest Wolves transfer rumours and news!”]

It was a difficult campaign for the Portuguese but he could help to revive Wolves.

The Jorge Mendes client is known for playing a high intense brand of football, one that focuses on the attacking element of football.

Nuno was striving to turn Wolves into a more attacking outfit this term but failed to ever transition the side from a three-man defence into a four-man backline.

Speaking at the start of the season, he said: “We have to grow in some aspects of our game. I would like to be more dominant, and I would like to have more of the ball.

“I would like to improve our tally of goals scored, and decrease the goals (against).”

Unfortunately, it never really came off. Wolves kept just two clean sheets in 14 league matches from October to January as the four-man backline ended up costing the Old Gold.

Fonseca, however, could finally help the Molineux outfit to dominate more.

At Roma, his side scored 1.9 goals per game which is considerably more than Nuno managed with Wolves; 1.3 per match.

The former Shakhtar Donetsk manager relentlessly talks about the need to be “brave”, something he installed in his players during his spell in Italy.

“I have my ideas and I want to implement them, but the main thing is to build a brave team. That’s the main objective and I believe with these players, we can build a brave team without any problems against the biggest teams, the small teams,” he once commented.

Fonseca’s philosophy revolves around neat and tidy play at high speed, a style that of football that wowed Pep Guardiola.

After Manchester City faced Donetsk in Europe, the Spaniard remarked: “Before every game against Shakhtar, I have the same feeling.

“The first time we face them in the group stage, my [scouting] team went to see them and they came back saying, ‘Wow.’ They were really impressed. In Barcelona all the time it was, ‘Shakhtar, Ukraine, who cares which players play, nobody knows them.’”

If he can leave someone like Guardiola in awe, there’s no reason why Fosun shouldn’t consider him.

AND in other news, Worse than Saiss: £75k-p/w Wolves liability who won 0 duels ruined Nuno’s final game…

Writing for football.london, reliable Spurs correspondent Alasdair Gold dropped a rather exciting update on the future of Son Heung-min.

Previous reports detailed that talks were on hold over a new deal for the South Korea superstar, partly due to financial circumstances caused by coronavirus.

Gold drops big Son Heung-min update

Before the new year, much speculation surrounded when Son was going to finally pen a new deal and commit his future to the Lilywhites – but supporters have had to wait eagerly for an agreement and announcement.

Now, writing for football.london, Gold has dropped the latest on the 28-year-old – and it’s good news for Spurs.

The reporter explains that Son has ‘always wanted to remain at Spurs’ and the long awaited new deal is ‘expected to be sealed before the new season begins’.

Gold explains that all major contracts will have been pushed back by certain financial issues – like getting a set date for the return of needed revenue streams. Most notably, this includes finally getting supporters back inside the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Transfer Tavern take

It is also unlikely that a ‘mega offer’ could turn to Son’s head at this point given the financial impact of coronavirus, with it now seeming inevitable that the attacker does sign a new deal.

News that it is expected to be announced before next season begins is surely exciting for Lilywhites supporters, and if he stays throughout the prime of his career it will surely prove to be a major boost for the club, regardless of which manager is in the dugout.

In other news: Tottenham starlet suffers injury blow, find out more here.