When Arsenal went top of the Premier League against Luton last week, it wasn’t their fans who were celebrating. Comfortable in their two-goal lead, the home crowd were slipping out before the end and the stadium was empty soon after the whistle. But not entirely. Clustered in the south-east corner, nearly 3,000 Luton fans stayed to serenade their beloved manager. Oh for someone who looks at you the way a Lutonian looks at Rob Edwards.
Premier League clubs spent more than £400m on agents in the year to February 2024, with Chelsea handing over a record £75m to players’ representatives.
Figures released by the Football Association show that Premier League clubs paid £409m to intermediaries from 1 February 2023 to 1 February 2024, which includes the past two transfer windows.
My Premier League manager box-ticking exercise continues apace with Marco Silva and a line from the clever people at the Press Association:
Fulham ran riot against West Ham in December but boss Marco Silva insists that result will be meaningless in the return at London Stadium. The Hammers were routed 5-0 at Craven Cottage days after Fulham had thrashed Nottingham Forest by the same score.
Now Silva is attempting to steer his team out of a rut having won just one of their previous five Premier League matches.
“The result against West Ham is not going to have any impact on Sunday,” Silva said. “We all follow the Premier League - we are living this competition - and it’s really tough for any club to win a game - imagine winning 5-0. It was a moment that happened. OK, credit for ourselves, for our players, the way we did it. If it’s difficult to win a football match, imagine winning 5-0 back-to-back.
“It’s clearly much more difficult, and unusual as well, but we are not going to think about that result. We won against Forest as well with a clear result. And one week ago we went to Forest and our performance was not good enough, we didn’t reach the level that we should, and we lost the game.”
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Thomas Frank has warned Brentford they cannot afford to underestimate Sheffield United when they host them in the Premier League on Saturday.
“The last four games, they have been very much in form, great performances, very good results as well - 2-2 against Chelsea, Liverpool only just beat them at Anfield, 3-3 against Fulham, and 2-2 against Bournemouth. They have more fight and they are more difficult to beat.
“They are doing everything I would expect from a Chris Wilder team. I think he has done a very good job in general, and we are seeing what he is building at the club now, so I expect a difficult game.” (PA Media)
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Glasner hails 'inspirational' Klopp
A bit more here from Oliver Glasner of Crystal Palace. He’s poured praised on Liverpool’s Jürgen Klopp, who is moving on at the end of the season, before the Eagles’ trip to Anfield.
“I think Jürgen was inspirational for many German-speaking coaches because at the time when he was performing with Borussia Dortmund so well, he had maybe a new style of playing: very aggressive, very intense,” Glasner said.
“This was at the end of my career as a player, so his approach to the game had a lot of influence on my sights to the game. It still has because of how they play with this intensity, especially this season. I think they struggled a little bit last season because they didn’t have this power, this energy, this intensity in the games.
“When I see it in many games, when they lose the ball, what happens? It’s like somebody whistles and 10 players are hunting the ball and so it makes it so difficult for you.”
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When Portsmouth celebrated promotion to the Premier League in 2003 and lifting the FA Cup in 2008 which, it later emerged, came at a crippling cost, Southsea Common played host to the party. Fans also gathered there to toast winning League Two in 2017, though at that point they did not anticipate spending quite so long in League One. At the seventh attempt, a return to the second tier after 12 years away is in full view, John Mousinho having quietly revived a club that had been stuck in a malaise. Victory at Bolton on Saturday would not only guarantee promotion but crown Pompey champions. As the kit man “Big” Kev McCormack, part of the furniture after 25 years of service, says, the feelgood factor is back.
“I don’t think we’ll have Jarrod [Bowen] at the weekend,” says West Ham’s David Moyes, whose side host Fulham on Sunday. “Alphonse [Areola] I’m not sure about yet … Kalvin Phillips I’m not sure about … They’re the ones I need to wait on … I’ve not spoken to the medical team [about Konstantinos Mavropanos, taken off late last night].”
On the concession of two late goals against Leverkusen: “Huge disappointment. The players had done a great job. They had worked really really hard, tirelessly, to keep a good team down.
“But look, we knew Leverkusen are very strong … They’ve got 16, 17 players they play, they interchange them, they’re all very much part of their squad … He [Xabi Alonso] used them later on and they made that little bit of difference. But I was pleased with what we’d done, just disappointed with the latter stages.”
Leverkusen might have a Bundesliga title party before the second leg: “I don’t really know what Leverkusen are going to do. I do know it’s a good side and we’ll have to play well. We played the first part. There’s a second half to go now, and we have to try and do better.”
Moyes is asked: is he in favour of semi-automated offside technology? “Every time something new comes out we’re asked, are we in favour? Half the time we might say yes, we might say no … the truth is we probably don’t know. We need to see how it works, we need to see if it gets the results that are desired … I think it’s going to speed things up a bit and if so that would help … it’s difficult to ask us just now until we see it.”
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Let’s glance across the Channel to continental Europe, where Barça boss Xavi has been having a chat with pesky journalists in Spain …
Xavi is convinced Barcelona’s season would have been a “disaster” had he not announced his decision to leave at the end of it. The 44-year-old revealed after a 5-3 home defeat by Villarreal in January he would walk away after two and a half years in charge.
He said at the time his decision would free up his players, and they will head into Saturday’s La Liga clash with lowly Cadiz on a 12-game unbeaten run in all competitions - the last of them an impressive 3-2 Champions League quarter-final, first-leg victory at Paris Saint-Germain.
Xavi said: “With the decision made, I was sure we would be like this. If not, it would have been a disaster, and I told the president so. I looked and looked around the club. If I hadn’t decided, we wouldn’t be competing now.”
Asked if he might reconsider his decision to leave, Xavi said: “I’ve told you that at every press conference. Nothing has changed.”
Barça head into the game revelling in their midweek fightback in Paris, which saw them recover from a 2-1 deficit to win 3-2 at the Parc des Princes and secure a lead to take back to Catalonia.
They have won their last five in all competitions, although their hopes of closing an eight-point gap to leaders Real Madrid - their opponents at the Bernabeu Stadium next Sunday - appear to be receding by the week.
Xavi said: “Next week there is a Clásico that, if we win tomorrow, could leave us five points behind. If we lose tomorrow, the league is over.” (PA Media)
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Barring one of the most remarkable comebacks to have decorated Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool reign, his final European game at Anfield will have featured a flat performance and atmosphere, resignation to defeat and a divide between fans and club; everything, that is, that goes against the culture he has created over the past nine years. Rediscovering the spark and belief required to win a Premier League title, however, is the Liverpool manager’s more pressing concern.
“Of course, it’s going to be very difficult,” Aston Villa’s Unai Emery says of Sunday’s showdown with the current Premier League leaders Arsenal. “We have to be very demanding of ourselves to defend, to attack … but we are motivated, we are excited.
“They are dominating, imposing [themselves] on a lot of games … and they are fighting in Champions League as well against top teams like Bayern Munich. The level they achieved is very high, in the Premier League and in the Champions League.”
Thanks a lot Dominic. Hello everyone. Here’s a line from the busy people at the Press Association, and some injury news from Scotland:
Celtic could be without Daizen Maeda during the title run-in after the Japan international suffered a hamstring injury. The wide player will miss Saturday’s Premiership contest with St Mirren while the damage is assessed.
Brendan Rodgers said: “He picked up an injury high up in his hamstring, his tendon, so we will have to see what that looks like in the coming weeks. But he is certainly not available for the weekend.
“We will see where it goes in the next week or so and then we will understand better what inclusion he will have between now and the end of the season. Liam Scales has picked up a slight strain in his abductor so the likelihood is that he won’t be involved.”
With Luis Palma fully fit after a calf problem and Nicolas Kuhn settling in, Rodgers played down the potential loss of Maeda.
“He has done fantastic for us and was very, very good last weekend,” he said. “But if it is to be, and he is out, there will be an opportunity there for someone else to come into the game. What he brings, the intensity and pressing, of course that’s big for us. But it’s an opportunity for other players to step up.”
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Back to press conference waffle now and Ange Postecoglou believes Newcastle’s struggles represent something of a warning to his Spurs side.
Eddie Howe’s boys haven’t found it plain sailing this season despite qualifying for the Champions League and Big Ange has been vocal recently in reiterating that finishing in the top four (or five) is not the end game in itself.
Certainly there is a cautionary tale there that getting into Champions League also means greater demands. Demands on players, demands on the squad and you have to be geared up for it or else it can affect all parts of your season.
It has been tough on Newcastle this year because the progress last year was fantastic, the reward for that was Champions League and this year for whatever reason it has made it a really challenging season on all fronts for them.
“It’s a huge challenge at the best of times, going here,” says Luton’s manager, Rob Edwards, of his injury-depleted side’s visit to Manchester City. “But the players have been great, the players that are available have been amazing, for them to have given us what they’ve been giving us over the past month or so when it’s really tough, they deserve so much credit. And they’re going to deliver again tomorrow, I know that. What I can’t guarantee is a victory, or any kind of points.”
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“Conditions were perfect and are still perfect.”
That sounds perfect, Erik.
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