Claude Puel’s reign at Leceister City is at its end. Winless in 7 league games and having lost the confidence of his players, the club were left with little choice but to move him on. 

According to Sky Sports, Newcastle man Rafa Benitez is on the Foxes’ shortlist of potential replacements, and in truth, they would struggle to find a better option. 

Benitez is free to leave in the summer unless he signs an extension and the prospect of joining Leicester could, perhaps, intrigue him. The former Premier League champions still have a relatively star-studded team – but Puel just hasn’t properly utilised the players at his disposal.

So many players have underperformed, and Benitez has proven his worth at Newcastle with regards to getting the best out of a group of limited individuals.

Knowing his experience at the top, Benitez can not only have them playing attractive football but bring back hopes of winning trophies. While the Foxes may not be strong enough to challenge for the Premier League, with a few upgrades, they can definitely compete on a few fronts in England.

The Spaniard may also help to convince Kasper Schmeichel to stay, while also getting Jaime Vardy and James Maddison back to their best.

He can also utilise their young talents perfectly while attracting more stars to join him at Leicester. Benitez can reinstall a winner’s mentality at Leicester and bring back joy at King Power stadium, making everyone forget about Puel’s disappointing reign.

Thoughts?

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Tottenham fans will absolutely love the latest transfer rumour out of Spain, as reports claim Gareth Bale could be open to a return to north London.

What’s the story?

According to Marca, via Sport Witness, Real Madrid are once again considering selling Bale.

The Welsh wing wizard was the source of plenty of speculation after last season’s Champions League final, but of course it was Cristiano Ronaldo who departed, with Bale supposedly set to take the helm in Madrid.

That hasn’t happened though, and the report from Marca claims Bale “doesn’t rule out” a return to Spurs, while also including the Lilywhites as one of the interested parties.

According to the report, Bale has been overshadowed by Karim Benzema and Brazilian youngster Vinicius, and he could be used as part of a swap deal to land Christian Eriksen.

Is he worth losing Eriksen?

Real Madrid paid around £90m for Bale back in 2013, and that was before the transfer market exploded due to players like Paul Pogba and Neymar, so they will be looking for a hefty fee even as the Welshman approaches his 30th birthday.

That said, it is likely that the Lilywhites would have to sacrifice Eriksen to land Bale just like Marca claims, with the Danish international yet to show any signs of penning a new deal at the club.

Eriksen will be out of contract in the summer of 2020, but Daniel Levy and Mauricio Pochettino should be doing everything in their power to stop him from leaving, as the fan favourite playmaker is far younger and less injury-prone than Bale.

Bale may be a world-renowned superstar, but he has suffered countless muscle injuries in his five-and-a-half years in Madrid, and Eriksen is a more proven fit in Pochettino’s system.

Eriksen must be the club’s priority, but all things considered Bale isn’t exactly a bad contingency plan.

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Match of the Day 2 pundit Alan Shearer said, via Football.London, that Leicester City clearly identified Tottenham Hotspur full-backs Danny Rose and Kieran Trippier as weaknesses in Spurs’ 3-1 win at Wembley on Sunday, and he was particularly critical about the latter.

What’s the word, then?

Well, the north London outfit knew that they needed three points to remain in the Premier League title hunt following Liverpool’s straightforward success against Bournemouth at Anfield the previous day, but they certainly will have considered themselves fortunate to take all three points against the Foxes.

The visitors had their fair share of chances including a missed penalty from Jamie Vardy and some wayward finishing from Harvey Barnes, and Shearer was left unimpressed with Trippier from a defensive point of view in particular as he was caught out time and time again.

The Newcastle legend told MOTD2, via Football.London: “They knew [Kieran] Trippier and [Danny] Rose were going to play high, give Tottenham the width, and Trippier did not get inside to cover.

“Poor positioning. Quick ball through, in behind the full-back position. Should do better.”

Another poor display from Trippier?

Despite being a solid player for Tottenham in recent years and enjoying a brilliant 2018 World Cup with England, the 28-year-old simply hasn’t been up to scratch this term.

The full-back has struggled from a defensive point of view in particular – as he did again against Claude Puel’s men – and weak performances in those areas is something that the north London outfit can’t continue to get away with if they are serious about winning the Premier League title.

With no disrespect to Leicester a better team would probably have picked Spurs off at the weekend, and Trippier needs to up his game in the coming weeks.

Harry Kane gets his hands on the Super Bowl and Dele Alli gets his hands on a superb owl in the latest episode After 90 below…

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Despite producing a battling, determined performance, Queens Park Rangers fell to a 1-0 defeat to Premier League side Watford at Loftus Road on Friday night. The defeat saw Steve McClaren’s Championship side eliminated from the FA Cup.

The hosts fought hard, but could find no response to Etienne Capoue’s first half strike. The closest the Rs came was when centre-back and club captain Toni Leistner slid in to meet a fizzing cross at the far post, but from only a few yards out the 28-year-old could not turn the ball into the unguarded net. 

Watch the video below to see the most insane overhead kick you will see this week…

It was a horrible miss, and one that the German defender won’t forget about in a hurry. The Hoops will feel that they did enough to deserve a goal, and a way back into the game, but Leistner could not apply the finishing touch at the vital moment.

Aside from the miss, Leistner contributed to an impressive and dogged defensive display. After the match, plenty of QPR fans took to Twitter to discuss the captain’s contribution against Watford…

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Despite a good deal of early encouragement the experiment in importing Sarri-ball to the Premier League is now a big dead duck bobbing in the water.

Over a period of many months the players have tried to master their new coach’s highly exacting demands and for reasons that warrant an essay in itself they have substantially failed to do so.

Maurizio Sarri himself has publicly admitted on several occasions that he is struggling to motivate his squad into replicating the ferocious and exhilarating football we all marvelled at in Naples.

To expect everything to click into shape anytime soon is to expect a miracle and frankly we are at the point where either the system goes or at least five or six very expensive players are allowed to leave for a fraction of their true value so that the club can recruit personnel who might – might – better execute it. At any club we know which of the two is sacrificed in this situation. At Chelsea we really know.

There is a third option of course. Sarri could compromise on his beliefs. But Sarri will absolutely and unquestionably not compromise on his beliefs. All of this leaves us with a big dead duck bobbing in the water.

So why is it then that pundits and journalists alike are queuing up at present to insist that what is needed in west London is time and patience? Give Sarri time, they state. Chelsea can’t keep chopping and changing managers.

It is a vacuous proposition with very little substance to back it up beside a much-parroted comparison to Pep Guardiola’s first season at Manchester City; an analogy that was lazy to begin with and is positively comatose now.

Granted the current title holders initially struggled to adapt to a new and complicated style of play but crucially there the players collectively bought into the ethos from the get-go. And at this stage of their baptising campaign they had ironed out the kinks, on route to losing only once more – ironically away to Chelsea, where the visitors were the better side throughout – until the season’s end.

Can anybody imagine Sarri’s Chelsea doing likewise, while blasting fives past multiple opponents as City did in the latter half of 2016/17? Seriously, does any single person reading this now consider a transformation of Chelsea’s fortunes to be even a remotely realistic scenario?

Heading north to Goodison Park leads us to another manager who is walking the green mile. It is not working out for Marco Silva at Everton and it’s not going to work out. I know it. You know it. We all know it. The fans are dispirited and disillusioned. The football is stolid and predictable.

In the past year the 41-year-old has had his reputation widely reassessed and most of us now acknowledge that perhaps we were premature in elevating him as an elite coach. All that will play out from this point until Silva is inevitably sacked is the gradual atrophy of the Toffees’ season.

What will be the fate of Chelsea’s Kepa after his Carabao Cup antics? Ingood Nick wades into the debate below…

You wouldn’t know any of this though by switching on the telly, reading a paper, or trawling half of the internet.

Give him time, say the pundits. Patience is needed, insist people on Twitter in response to anything that could be deemed critical of his ways. Everton can’t keep chopping and changing managers, is the hoary old trope. Some stability is needed.

It could be argued that stability for stability’s sake is akin to lying on a very uncomfortable bed each and every night because you’ve gone through a few beds of late. It could be argued that only stability with the right person makes sense, and if that person doesn’t even have a fighting chance of taking a club forward, then staying with them is completely and utterly counter-productive.

It could be reasoned too that sometimes in football – and I appreciate how highly contentious this suggestion is – the stars do not align and on occasion it is better for both club and manger to go their separate ways. And it really doesn’t matter if that happens six months in or six years in. Indeed it’s probably beneficial to all concerned if it’s the former.

Sadly, that perfectly logical truth now resides on the margins of discourse. Because what takes centre stage are two warring factions, one being the knee-jerkers who call for a manager’s head after a singular defeat and judge a new signing a flop a mere fortnight in. They’re loud. They’re quick to fury and quicker to condemn. They’ve reduced social media to a coliseum of juvenile boos, chorused for the slightest of slights.

And on the other side you have those who really, really don’t want to be mistaken for that lot. That’s why you have pundits espousing status quo at the Bridge. That’s why you have journalists looking down their noses at rightfully disgruntled Evertonians. By trying to distance themselves from the hysteria around them they seek out the higher ground believing that is where sense is occupied.

Plus, let’s be honest, they probably think too that it makes them sound really intelligent in comparison to the snap calls for change.

This week I wrote for another publication on Riyad Mahrez and queried aloud why it was proving so difficult for Manchester City’s record signing to establish himself as a starter. After all, it couldn’t be about adapting to English football because the Algerian has excelled in the Premier League for several years now. Surely then he is experiencing problems integrating himself into Pep Guardiola’s intricate system.

Unlike Sarri or Silva further up this piece at no juncture did I suggest there was a best-by date on the situation. I did however point out that Mahrez has played over a thousand minutes in a sky blue shirt and still hopelessly looks like an individual within a team structure: that after countless training sessions with the world’s best coach he remains a square peg in a round hole. In short, I was saying that enough time has passed to adamantly state there is an issue that warranted discussion.

Give him time, came the angry response. He’s only been here half a season.

The knee-jerkers have a lot to answer for. A sensible time to assess and act upon decisions made has now become forever lost. It is either an instant judgement call or extreme caution due to a fear of being regarded by a stranger as an idiot. Regrettably, in the case of Sarri, Silva, Mahrez and countless other coaches and players, the answer usually lies somewhere in between.

Should Rangers manage to overcome Aberdeen in their Scottish Cup quarter-final replay then Steven Gerrard’s side will take on Celtic in the semi-finals.

Joe Worrall cancelled out a Sam Cosgrove penalty on Sunday afternoon as Rangers came from behind to draw 1-1 with the Dons.

The two teams will do it all again next week and the prize will be a last-four clash with Celtic.

Rangers have not won the Scottish Cup since 2009, but Celtic have lifted the trophy in each of the last two campaigns.

To suggest that they will be desperate to tackle their rivals in the semi-finals of the competition is a slight understatement.

Aberdeen will be no pushovers in the replay, though, and will certainly have their own ambitions of booking a last-four spot against the Hoops.

The Rangers fans have been on social media offering their views on a potential semi-final with their bitter rivals in the middle of next month.

And a selection of their Twitter reaction can be seen below:

كشف آلان إرفين، مساعد مدرب وست هام، ديفيد مويس، تفاصيل إصابة الأخير واثنين من اللاعبين بفيروس كورونا، قبل انطلاق مباراة الأمس أمام هال سيتي.

وتواجه الفريقان في دور الـ 32 من كأس رابطة الأندية الإنجليزية، حيث فاز وست هام بخمسة أهداف مقابل هدف.

وقبل المباراة، تم إعلان إصابة المدرب ديفيد مويس والثنائي عيسى ديوب وجوش كولين بفيروس كورونا، ولكن تم خوض اللقاء بشكل طبيعي.

وقال آلان إرفين، الذي قاد وست هام في تلك المباراة، في تصريحات نشرتها شبكة “فوتبول لندن” الإنجليزية: “في الساعة السادسة وعشرين دقيقة مساء أمس، حصلنا فجأة على بعض المعلومات من طبيبنا ورئيس فريقنا الطبي بشأن وجود ثلاث حالات كورونا إيجابية في الفريق، المدرب واللاعبين عيسى ديوب وكولين”.

وأضاف: “على الفور في تلك المرحلة كان التفكير منصب على فكرة أننا سنخوض مباراة في غضون ساعة وعشر دقائق فقط، لذلك كان علينا التركيز على هذا الأمر، وهو ما فعلناه، كان علينا اختيار فريق مختلف وإجراء تغيير في التشكيل، ومحادثة اللاعبين فيما حدث”.

وواصل: “كان من الأهمية بمكان أن يكون اللاعبون مستعدين نفسيًا، وأن يكونوا مستعدين لخوض المباراة وتقديم أداء جيد، وقد فعلوا ذلك بالتأكيد، لقد سررت بذلك، لم يناقشني اللاعبين في شيء ولم يبحثوا عن أي نوع من الأعذار حول ما حدث، لم يفكر في أي لاعب في مسألة تأجيل المباراة، كان الأمر إيجابي حقًا”.

واستكمل: “لم نكن نجلس بجوار ديفيد مويس، كانت غرفة الملابس كبيرة، ولكن تكن هذه مشكلة بالنسبة لأي منا، كنا في الملعب آنذاك، عادة ما نصل هناك من ساعة و45 دقيقة إلى ساعتين قبل المباراة، لقد صدمتنا الأخبار بالطبع لأننا أجرينا العديد من الاختبارات ولم يكن لدينا أي نتائج إيجابية، نحن نعلم أن الاختبارات ليست دقيقة تمامًا لذلك سننتظر ونرى ما سيحدث”.

وكان آرسنال قد واجه وست هام يوم السبت الماضي، في الجولة الثانية من الدوري الإنجليزي الممتاز.

وعندما سُئل عما إذا كان قد حدث تواصل مع آرسنال عقب ثبوت حالات الإصابة لتحذيرهم، أجاب: “لم أفعل ذلك، ولا أعرف ما إذا كان أي شخص آخر فعل ذلك، لقد كنا ملتزمين للغاية بشأن البروتوكول منذ بداية الوباء”.

واختتم: “يدرك فريقنا الطبي جيدًا ما يحدث، كما أن هناك لدينا مختص في هذا الشأن، وقد اتبعنا البروتوكولات المحددة طوال الوقت”.

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Mohamed Salah returned to form on Saturday and it is no coincidence that Liverpool, too, got back to winning ways.

The Egypt international was deployed on the right flank against AFC Bournemouth and scored as the Reds won 3-0.

On the chalkboard

Liverpool’s return to 4-3-3, and Salah’s move to the flank, brought the best out of the forward almost immediately.

He has been used in central roles recently and was quiet in the Reds’ last two league outings, in draws against Leicester City and West Ham United.

This time out, however, Salah was at the centre of everything Liverpool did right.

Former Wigan & Fulham man, Jimmy Bullard recently showed that he’s still got it! Check out the video below…

Per WhoScored, Salah touched the ball just 42 times against Leicester and completed just 16 passes. Similarly, the forward touched the ball 47 times in the draw with West Ham, completing 24 passes.

By comparison, Salah had 77 touches in the win over Bournemouth and completed 43 passes. His contribution, essentially, was doubled, as he was given the freedom to roam into the centre and affect play further forward, instead of having his back to goal.

It is no surprise, then, that he scored, and also made three key passes.

Stick with a winning formula

It makes no sense for Klopp to change this now.

Liverpool have a remarkably tough week coming up, as the Reds face Bayern Munich in the Champions League before a clash with high-flying rivals Manchester United.

United are yet to lose a game under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and they will be out to stop the Reds’ title challenge in its tracks.

It would be logical, then, for Liverpool to stick with 4-3-3 and allow Salah the freedom to roam.

He is a world-class wide player but his effectiveness is limited when he is deployed through the middle.

Against the defences of Bayern and United, he should play on the right, and be allowed to wreak his own inimitable brand of havoc.

أكد هشام عبد ربه محامي النادي الأهلي أن السويسري رينيه فايلر المدير الفني للفريق الأول استفاد كثيرًا من تواجده في الأحمر، مشيرًا إلى أن المدربين الأجانب ليس لديهم انتماء.

وقال عبد ربه في تصريحات إذاعية عبر أثير راديو مصر: “الأهلي أفاد فايلر وأضاف إليه الكثير، ولو فاز ببطولة دوري أبطال إفريقيا ستضاف قيمة كبيرة في تاريخه”.

وتابع: “المدربون الأجانب ليس لديهم انتماء، والمال هو المتحكم الوحيد في الوقت الحالي”.

ويرفض فايلر تجديد تعاقده مع الأهلي ويرغب في العودة إلي موطنه في سويسرا، ومن المقرر أن يتم حسم مصيره الخميس المقبل.

وعن قضية اللاعب البرازيلي هيندريك مع النادي الأهلي أوضح: “القضية تم إغلاقها بالتصالح وكان ذلك في شهر مايو الماضي، ووقعنا عقد اتفاق مع اللاعب بعد تفاوضنا مع محاميه”.

وتطرق للحديث عن عقد علي معلول قائلا: “عقد معلول لا يوجد به شروط جزائية، وحصل الصفاقسى على 700 ألف يورو”.

وأكمل: “وذلك بزيادة 200 ألف إضافة على الشرط الجزائي الذي كان في عقد معلول مع النادي التونسي”.

وعن قضية نادي القرن وسعي الزمالك للحصول على اللقب، قال:”الجميع يعلم أن الأهلي نادي القرن، عندما يوجد شئ رسمي سنتحدث حينها لأنه لا توجد أي قضية من الأساس”.

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Tottenham Hotspur are lining up a move for FC Copenhagen midfielder Robert Skov, according to Sky Sports News.

Spurs are one of a number of Premier League clubs currently watching the 22-year-old, along with the likes of Wolves, West Ham and Watford.

What’s the word?

Skov, a Denmark Under-21 international, has enjoyed a remarkably prolific campaign in his native country thus far this season.

Playing as a right winger, he has scored 24 goals in 38 appearances in all competitions and has also laid on six assists.

That tally includes the winner in Copenhagen’s only Europa League victory this season, a 2-1 success over Bordeaux.

Sky Sports News report that Spurs are keen to recruit a versatile attacking player who can support Harry Kane from the flank, and have subsequently identified Skov as a potential target.

The 22-year-old, who is yet to make his senior debut for Denmark, has only been with his current club for a season, having cost them just under £1million last summer, per the aforementioned report.

A gamble

Spurs definitely need a right winger this summer but recruiting Skov would be a gamble.

Copenhagen are almost guaranteed to turn a tidy profit on the player, with Premier League clubs circling.

It would mark a significant show of faith, however, if Spurs were to secure a player from the Danish top-flight.

Vincent Janssen is perhaps the example. Having scored 32 goals and laid on seven assists in just 49 appearances for Dutch side AZ Alkmaar, the north London outfit identified him as the perfect man to offer support to Kane.

Instead, he has scored just six times for the club and is almost certain to leave in the summer.

Spurs had better tread carefully around Skov, then.