Manchester United have been alerted by the fact that long-term target Shinji Kagawa has rejected a new contract at Borussia Dortmund.
The Japanese winger has been a mainstay in the Signal Iduna Park side that has been crowned Bundesliga champions the last two seasons in a row.
The Asian superstar is out of contract in the summer of 2013, and despite the German clubs efforts, is refusing to extend his current deal with Jurgen Klopp’s men.
“I spoke to Shinji and his advisor last week and to date he is not willing to extend his contract,” Dortmund sporting director Michael Zorc told reporters, translated to English by The Sun.
“We have a Plan A and B and we will follow one of them.
“We won’t gamble, but he has a specific career plan and he plans to play in England.
“We have to accept that, even if we don’t find it good.
“Because he now has a certain market value, there is an economic rationality which has to be followed,” he admitted.
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United have been linked with a move for Kagawa in the past, who cost a mere €350,000, but is expected to be sold for around the £10 million mark.
Crystal Palace have had a solid first season under the management of former France midfielder Patrick Vieira.
The 45-year-old steered his side to an FA Cup semi-final in his maiden campaign in charge at Selhurst Park and has the team well placed for a top-half Premier League finish, which would be an excellent base to build from looking ahead to next season.
This weekend, Palace travel to the Midlands to take on Aston Villa, who only sit a point behind them in the table in the race for a top-half spot.
With both teams enjoying decent runs of form, it’s hard to predict a winner, although Vieira has been handed a big lift which will please Eagles supporters.
Speaking about the availability of his squad for Sunday, the 45-year-old said: “Everyone trained this week and the only one out is Nathan Ferguson who is following his induvial training on the field.”
This will be a boost to the Palace faithful as the final three fixtures of the campaign loom on the horizon. With a fit and firing squad, Vieira will have plenty of options to choose from as they look to make it three wins on the bounce.
The Frenchman will be seeking some form of revenge against Steven Gerrard and his side following a 2-1 reverse in November in the 41-year-old’s second match in charge of the Midlands club.
Vieira will be looking at Wilfried Zaha for inspiration, with the winger arguably one of the Eagles’ finest players this season, scoring 14 goals in all competitions and registering two assists.
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Whatever happens on Sunday, it has been an encouraging start for the 45-year-old in his first managerial role in England. There’s no doubt that he possesses a winner’s mentality from his hugely successful playing career, and next season could be an exciting one for Palace, who may feel they have every chance of a victory this weekend after this weekend’s good news squad-wise.
AND in other news, Vieira eyeing bid for £14k-p/w gem with “world at his feet”, imagine him & Zaha
In many ways, in both on pitch and off pitch terms, there’s plenty to be positive about at Manchester City.
2014 saw them win the Capital One Cup and the Premier League, which subsequently means they’ve now won every available domestic competition over the last four years.
Economically, despite failing to abide by Financial Fair Play rules, there’s been marked improvements too. Their revenue soared past the £300m barrier, rising 28% from £271m to £347m, while losses fell again for the third consecutive year. Broadcast revenue was up 51%, match day revenue 20% and commercial revenue 16%. In financial terms alone, the club look like they’re set to just about break even – but only just. Their ‘master plan’, as set out by chairman, is on track with revenues steadily rising and expenses falling.
Despite the positives though, the hard facts remain. The club reported a loss of £23m for this year, which is still short of qualifying for the terms of FFP. The ramifications of failing that have seen them fined £49m and their squad reduced from 25 to 21 players in Europe, of which £30m was suspended. This now means that they’re not allowed to increase their wage budget over the next two years.
While on a financial front things are healthy, they’re still in a precarious position – which makes the £30m acquisition of Wilfried Bony more and more contentious when you place in context of how they might alternatively allocate resources.
Granted, Bony has had an excellent year- he scored more goals in the league than anybody else in 2014 – although that statistic is misleading in light of Alexis Sanchez and Diego Costa’s summer arrivals, the departure of Luis Suarez, and the injuries that Sergio Aguero and Daniel Sturridge succumbed to.
Alvaro Negrado is currently on loan at Valencia, which leaves Steven Jovetic and Edin Dzeko, who both earned lucrative deals at the Etihad because of how good they performed abroad. Jovetic offered perhaps less in terms of goals but was quite a force in Serie A, while Dzeko was one of the most highly rated strikers in Europe when he penned a January move to England – people forget the earnest interest that Bayern Munich showed at the time.
Both have hardly been as consistent as City would have liked, and there’s good reason for that. If Aguero is fit, he’ll start, because he’s City’s best striker. If Jovetic or Dzeko are fortunate enough to start alongside him, they’ll play a support role – Aguero will play off the shoulder and spearhead the attacks.
Essentially, as is common when high profile players become more peripheral figures at new clubs, their form will suffer away from the limelight where a team is built in a different and less focused way. The point remains; if Jovetic or Dzeko started every week without fail for Swansea and they displayed the form that won them their contracts at City, they would undeniably be talked about in the same way as Bony.
That, in turn, suggests two things of Bony’s arrival. First, that he’ll either slip onto the bench and lose the momentum that he’s generated so well, or second, he’ll play that elusive support role. If partnered with Aguero, there’s no reason to believe that Bony will impress any more than City’s current crop of firepower – no one seems to be at their best when acting as the Argentine’s sidekick.
Arguably, City are actually at their best when they only play one up front and centralise David Silva as a no.10. Those methods have generally gifted them more favourable results (especially in Europe).
But it’s not like Bony offers a tactical alternative either – Dzeko is more than capable of providing a physical and aerial presence up front.
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While Bony is in hot form and an attractive option for adding Premier League know-how and instant results (well, not until February when he returns from the African Cup of Nations), he essentially offers no upgrade on any of City’s strikers.
And in the midst of those financial imbalances and the warnings posed by further sanctions through Financial fair play, £28m is a huge sum of money to pay for what appears to be an expensive and needless luxury.
Judge him as a Swansea player for a reasonable fee and it’s a deal that makes sense. Placed in the context that he’ll be likely be on periphery, offering no change in style, for a huge financial fee, and it’s difficult to see the point of his arrival.
Footballers are not renowned for their trend setting abilities and being on the cutting edge of what is cool, particularly in the ’80s. We have seen mullets, shorts getting that little bit shorter and as we evolved into the Premier League era little was to really change on that front. Patrick Vieira brought the slapping a lump of Vicks onto the front of the shirt, Robbie Fowler had the nose plaster and more recently Gareth Bale has found some use for electrical tape, other than to protect wires within your home.
So as a homage to all that is truly naff and has graced the land of football is this top ten of the worst football fads and please feel free to add any you think I have missed in the comments section.
Click on Patrick Vieira’s Vicks stained shirt below to view the gallery
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Rana Dutta’s six-wicket haul, which included a hat-trick, put Tripura on track for an innings victory against Himachal Pradesh in Kalyani. Resuming the third day at 50 for 1, Himachal Pradesh were bowled out for 311. They lost their last five wickets for only 30 runs, with Dutta dismissing Rishi Dhawan, Sumeet Verma and Mayank Dagar in the 88th over. Having gained a lead of 238, Tripura enforced the follow-on and in the 2.2 overs possible before stumps got a wicket too, that of Pankaj Jaiswal, who had batted at No. 9 in Himachal’s first innings.Three-wicket hauls from left-arm spinnerShadab Jakati and right-arm seamer Felix Alemao, who was playing only his second first-class game, strengthened Goa‘s grip over Services in Cuttack.In reply to Goa’s 606, which was built on Sagun Kamat’s record triple-century, Services slumped to 228 for 7. Ravi Chauhan was the first to go on the third day when he was bowled by Alemao for 47 off 49 balls. Alemao then had Nakul Verma and Shamsher Yadav caught behind.Captain Soumik Chatterjee resisted with 12 off 77 balls before becoming Jakati’s first victim. Rahul Singh, coming in at No.6, supplied more fight with 89 off 180 balls before Jakati struck in the 92nd over. Services got through the remaining 11 overs with the eighth-wicket pair of Muzzaffaruddin Khalid and Diwesh Pathania at the crease, but they still trail Goa by a whopping 339 runs.After declaring their first innings at 517 for 9, Kerala made deep inroads into the Hyderabad line-up on the third day in Bhubaneswar. Seamer Sandeep Warrier, offspinning allrounder Jalaj Saxena, and left-arm spinner K Monish returned two wickets each to reduce Hyderabad to 212 for 7. B Sandeep was the only batsmen to make a half-century and were it not for some handy contributions from the lower order – Akash Bhandari made 40 and Mehdi Hasan, an unbeaten 26, Hyderabad would have struggled even more.Left-arm spinner Aamir Aziz’s maiden five-wicket haul bowled Andhra out for 255 and gave Jammu & Kashmir a first-innings lead of 79 at Brabourne Stadium. They eventually stretched it past 100, for the loss of two wickets late in the day.Having started the day at 72 for 2, Andhra stumbled to 90 for 5 and then 156 for 6. Dwaraka Ravi Teja and Ashwin Hebbar then mounted a fightback, putting on 94 for the seventh wicket. Ravi Teja top-scored with 81 off 194 balls, including nine fours. Once he fell, the tail was wiped out, the last four wickets tumbling for only five runs.Haryana captain Mohit Sharma took three wickets and left Chhattisgarh at 50 for 6 in a chase of 279 in Guwhati. Earlier Harynana were propped up by fifties from Himanshu Rana and Rajat Paliwal in their second innings. They were ultimately dismissed for 289 from an overnight 121 for 3. Seamer Pankaj Rao, who was playing only his second first-class game, did the bulk of the damage for Chhattisgarh, claiming 5 for 74. His new-ball partner Pratik Sinha, meanwhile, took 2 for 84.
It’s hard to remember when last a team was in such disarray before a must-win Test match. Pakistan’s injury problems began as a bothersome aside but have now taken centre stage as they have only three fit bowlers going into the Kolkata Test. India, on the other hand, are sitting pretty, with their one doubtful starter, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, having recovered fully from a twisted ankle. An SOS has been sent to the Pakistan selectors, but with flight connectivity to Kolkata not being the greatest, it will be a challenge to get someone in with enough time to spare to take the field in the second Test.More than a few experts have been surprised by the rise of Sohail Tanvir, who with his unorthodox action, delivering not quite off the wrong foot but releasing the ball before his leading foot lands, was a novelty in Twenty20 cricket before sneaking into the one-day team. Now, with one Test under his belt, he is likely to lead Pakistan’s pace attack, with Umar Gul out, and Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Sami struggling with chest infections and illness. Tanvir has Danish Kaneria and Abdur Rehman as his only fully fit bowling partners.Although India must be secretly boosted by Pakistan’s troubles, Anil Kumble insists his team are not thinking of the composition of the opposition side. “Ideally we should look to control what we can control. The team is raring to go and that is a good sign,” said Kumble a day before the game.It’s not a bad approach to take, for Pakistan could just be at their most dangerous if Shoaib or Sami, or both, are somehow fit when play begins on Friday, though that seems desperately unlikely. Pakistan now truly have nothing to lose and everything to gain, and this will mean that any relief they get is a positive and should boost them going into the game.India, meanwhile, have a choice of their own to make, with a thought to bring in a third spinner in Murali Kartik. However, in order to do so, they will have to do some significant juggling, either using one of the middle-order batsmen as an opener and leaving out Dinesh Karthik, who has scored heavily in Tests this year, barring the last game, or play just one fast bowler and use Sourav Ganguly as a medium-pace option. Both seem unlikely, though Ganguly did play a significant part with the ball in the first Test.”I think Sourav has done well in the last game, and I don’t think he should change whatever he has been doing to satisfy your definition of success,” said Kumble when asked about Ganguly’s effort with the ball. “I think his role in the team, as a bowler it was very important for us in Kotla. I am sure he will get a bit of bowl here as well. I hope he will be more successful here than in Kotla.”Either way, the decision on the playing XI will be made late in theday, after consultation with Dilip Vengsarkar, who is expected to arrive in Kolkata on the eve of the match. The only thing that could tempt the Indians into playing three spinners is the pitch, but it’s tough to say if there are strong enough indications that the pitch will crumble. The curator insists it will begin to take turn on the third day, but such predictions are dangerous.”It seems to be a decent wicket and it should play well,” said Kumble. “But it is for us to take the momentum from Kotla and ensure that we turn the screws on early. We need to bat to our potential, and we should not let them off the hook as we had done in the first innings in Kotla.”What makes it harder to believe that the Indians will play three spinners is the fact that Harbhajan Singh was quite significantly under-bowled in the first Test. He bowled 15 overs in the first innings and 17 in the second, and on both occasions even Zaheer Khan had sent down more overs.It’s too early to judge Kumble the captain, after just one Test match, but already he appears to be a man in control of his team. He’s been playing the game at the highest level for 17 long years and there’s little he has not experienced first hand.Malik, however, barely portrays the same picture. Again it would be unfair to slate Malik without inside knowledge of how he interacted with his team, but on the field he has not looked a leader. He has looked like just one of the boys, and with the results not coming, and the runs also reducing to a trickle, the pressure is fairly and squarely on Malik. One thing’s pretty clear, though, if he gets through these testing times unscathed, things are only going to get easier for him.Teams India (probable): 1 Dinesh Karthik, 2 Wasim Jaffer, 3 Rahul Dravid, 4 Sachin Tendulkar, 5 Sourav Ganguly, 6 VVS Laxman, 7 Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), 8 Anil Kumble (capt), 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Zaheer Khan, 11 Munaf Patel.Pakistan (from): Salman Butt, Yasir Hameed, Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, Shoaib Malik (capt), Misbah-ul-Haq, Kamran Akmal (wk), Sohail Tanvir, Mohammad Sami, Shoaib Akhtar, Danish Kaneria, Abdur Rehman, Yasir Arafat, Faisal Iqbal.
Shane Warne has usually registered his major wicket-taking achievements on overseas tours, but on Boxing Day he will have the chance to raise his 700th Test victim on his home ground in Melbourne. Warne passed Dennis Lillee’s 355 wickets in New Zealand, his 500 was reached in Sri Lanka and the 600 came up in England last year.After his 4 for 115, which pushed Australia to a 206-run win and earned them the Ashes, he will be cheered on by a crowd of close to 100,000 at the MCG as he attempts the one dismissal needed to become the first man to the mark. “What an amazing, remarkable milestone that will be,” Ricky Ponting said. “Shane could not have scripted the thing any better. I’m pretty sure he won’t be looking to do any training whatsoever in the lead-up in case he gets injured.”Warne started England’s final-day fall by bowling Andrew Flintoff, who played over and outside a full delivery, and he was on track for 700 until Ponting ran out Geraint Jones with a sharp underarm and Stuart Clark trapped Sajid Mahmood. As the WACA was only half full the scene was not appropriate for such a Warne occasion, but he made sure it would almost certainly occur in Melbourne as he dismissed Steve Harmison and Monty Panesar. After sealing the final wicket and the Ashes Warne was held in the air by Andrew Symonds for what seemed like minutes as the team huddled.Michael Hussey, the Man of the Match, was also consumed by the mass of bodies before the players spread around the ground to thank the supporters. A Western Australian who returned 74 not out and 105, Hussey received a lot of attention.”It’s pretty special, especially on my home ground and with my family watching,” Hussey said. What is also special is Hussey’s incredible average of 86.33 after 14 Tests, which has been boosted by four half-centuries and a hundred in this series. “What a great player he’s been and will continue to be,” Ponting said. “His preparation and his love of representing his country are second to none.”Coming into the one-day side he was remarkable and since he’s been in the Test side he’s been even better. I checked his figures the other day and he was averaging 85 so that would indicate he’s not doing too much wrong.”
The ICC has admitted that umpiring standards during the three Tests between Australia and West Indies slipped, but argued that the overall standard remained very high.Dave Richardson, the ICC’s general manager, said he was happy to acknowledge that errors were made. “There’s no point shying away from that,” he explained, “but having said that, we feel the overall standard of umpiring has improved in recent years, particularly with the advent of the elite panel.”The ICC maintains figures on every match, assessing the percentage of out and not-out decisions against each appeal deemed to be correct. Two seasons ago, when this scheme first started, the percentage was 90.9; last year, that rose to 94.8%. It is, however, unclear whether this includes the significant number of spurious appeals which are a feature of some games, or just the closer ones.”We expect the percentages [for the West Indies-Australia Tests] to be lower than those averages but for the first time we have the means now of providing the umpires with feedback and addressing that.” The West Indies board was so outraged with a series of poor decisions that it lodged a formal protest with the ICC.”We feel the overall standard of umpiring has improved in recent years,” Richardson added, “particularly with the advent of the elite panel.”The elite panel should number eight, but David Shepherd, who umpired his last Test in June, has yet to be replaced, adding to the burden on the others. In the last year, for example, Billy Bowden has stood in 12 Tests and 22 ODIs, a possible total of 82 days, discounting the time spent traveling and preparing. He has officiated in every major country except Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in that time. It is hardly surprising that the seven have begun to look jaded of late.Malcolm Speed, the ICC chief executive, indicated that the elite panel might well be expanded, but it will not be easy to find more officials to stand up to the intense pressure and time away from home the job involves. Peter Willey, regarded as one of the best umpires, declined a place on the elite panel as it would have meant him spending too long away from his family.
Ehsan Mani, the president of the ICC, has said that suspending England from international cricket was never really considered. On Wednesday, Mani watched the second one-day international at Harare Sports Club, when England beat Zimabwe by 161 runs."Talk of suspension was never on the radar," he told reporters. "The threat of suspension was a possibility, even if it was only a 1 per cent or 5 per cent or 10 per cent possibility. It could have been a terrible penalty, which would have hurt badly.”I felt terribly disappointed because the tour was hugely important for the development of cricket in Zimbabwe. The country has enough problems without adding another. The game would have gone backwards and that was my concern, not punishing England.”Mani is a resident of St. John’s Wood in London, close to Lord’s, and is aware of the antipathy in England towards the tour taking place. But at the same time, he supported the way David Morgan, the ECB chairman, has handled the entire affair. "He has gained a lot of respect in the ICC for the way he handled this issue. I could see that England were caught between a rock and a hard place, but he has been absolutely superb, honest and totally upfront with people. He has had to deal with a lot of domestic pressures, which is understandable because of the unique situation between England and Zimbabwe. The issue was not going to die down."Mani wants to meet with England’s players within the next few day to talk about all aspects of their experience of Zimbabwe. “It is very important to hear their views," he said. "I want to know what they think about the level of cricket in Zimbabwe and their experiences in the country so far.” England are due to play back-to-back one-day matches at Bulawayo over the weekend.
There is justifiable pomp and ceremony going on up in Durham at the moment as the raring-to-go Riverside revs up for its first taste of Test cricket. A special clock at Chester-le-Street has been counting down the seconds till the match starts – possibly with Durham’s own Steve Harmison bowling the first ball, if the fates conspire to get the toss right.That clock was set in motion 101 days before the match. Why 101? Well, it has been 101 years since England last tried a new Test ground. That was Bramall Lane, in Sheffield, which staged the third Test of the 1902 Ashes series. Australia won by 143 runs, with Clem Hill scoring the only century – and England never played there again. It’s unlikely that Chester-le-Street will be such a one-cap wonder.The 1903 Wisden intoned that the defeat was "a severe disaster for England", but observed: "The match – the first of its kind ever decided at Bramall Lane – naturally proved a strong attraction, but a mistake was made in fixing it for the latter part of the week, Monday being always the best day for public cricket at Sheffield."Nowadays the Sheffield public can’t see first-class cricket on any day of the week, as Bramall Lane cannot stage it any more. Even in 1902 it was primarily a football ground – Sheffield United’s – and in 1973 a stand was built across what was the square to make the ground a proper four-sided soccer stadium. In case you’re wondering why England played there anyway, it’s probably because Yorkshire’s headquarters were at Bramall Lane until they moved to Headingley in 1903. (That didn’t stop them playing a Test at Headingley in 1899, though.)In fact, in 1902 they liked the new-ground idea so much they tried it twice. Three weeks before the Bramall Lane game, England and Australia kicked off the Ashes series in the first match ever staged at Edgbaston. We have some idea of the arrangements for that game, because Rowland Ryder, the son of Warwickshire’s secretary at the time, wrote about it in his book Cricket Calling (Faber, 1995). Ryder recalled that his father had no assistant and no telephone. The only help in counting the gate receipts came from the groundsman, and they toiled till 3am to do it. Fortunately for the dedicated duo, Tests at the time were only scheduled to last three days.The backroom staff at Chester-le-Street will number rather more than the secretary and a groundsman-cum-cashier. But some of them will still be awake at 3am before the Riverside’s Big Day – especially if rain is threatened.Steven Lynch is editor of Wisden CricInfo.