Everton could be set to break their transfer record for Real Sociedad striker Willian Jose, and the stats show he could be the perfect project for Marco Silva.
According to Mundo Deportivo, Everton are interested in a summer swoop for Sociedad’s top scorer, but they could have pay over £50million to land the striker.
The report claims the Toffees could meet the player’s whopping €60m (£53m) release clause, so what’s all the fuss about?
Well, that fee may sound absurdly high, but it is surely better to splash out big on one or two top quality players opposed to spreading money around several signings as the Toffees did to little effect last summer.
The 6 ft 1 Jose has not had the most glistening career in European football, but his development over the last couple of seasons has been extremely impressive, and his movement, instincts and clinical finishing could make him a force to be reckoned with under Marco Silva.
After some decent loan spells in Spain, the Brazilian joined Sociedad in 2016, and his performances last season have been quite simply superb.
The 26 year-old grabbed 15 league goals last season, as well as five in the Europa League, but it is his influence off the ball that could make him a better option than Cenk Tosun for Everton.
Across 34 appearances, the striker created nearly a chance per game for his teammates according to Squawka, and also won at least one aerial duel per game.
[brid autoplay=”true” video=”252976″ player=”12034″ title=”Watch 21 things that will definitely happen at the World Cup”]
While his aerial presence is nothing close to the dominance Tosun offers, he is technically superior to the Turkish international, and his link up play and movement to create space for teammates was a major reason Sociedad scored 66 goals in the league last season, a total bettered only by Barcelona and Real Madrid.
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If Silva is serious about bringing fast, attacking football to Goodison, the Sociedad striker could be the perfect man to spearhead it, and having two top goalscorers available in Jose and Tosun would be huge for the Toffees.
If fans can get their heads around the big asking price, which is quite simply the going rate for a top goalscorer in Europe these days, then Jose could be the absolute perfect signing for Silva and Everton.
So, Everton fans, what do you think about the links to Willian Jose? Is he an upgrade on Tosun? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below…
The dust is starting to settle on perhaps the most accusative parting statement a Premier League club has ever produced; Watford implying Everton’s pursuit of Marco Silva eventually forced them to sack the Portuguese.
There are two sides to every story and it will be interesting to hear Silva’s after insinuations that his over-ambition saw standards slip at Vicarage Road, but if it’s true that a manager revered as the most promising in the Premier League when he left Hull City had his head turned after just 26 games in charge, the Pozzo family only really have themselves to blame.
After all, while the Pozzos’ returns on the pitch are difficult to argue with – solidifying Watford as a midtable force in the Premier League and overseeing their most consecutive campaigns in the top flight since the 1980s – they have turned the Hornets into something of a faceless stepping stone, lacking any real incentive to remain loyal excepting the weekly pay cheques.
That may seem a harsh evaluation of a club with its own proven model for success, but it’s hard to ignore facts; Watford haven’t played a single academy product in the Premier League this season while last summer saw 22 players either join or leave the club in the space of a single transfer window. There’s no identity, no continuity, no link to Watford’s history or between the players and the fans.
There are of course a few exceptions to the rule – the likes of Troy Deeney – but on the whole, Watford are less a football club and more a corporation that hires and fires employees with a particularly quick turnaround.
And that only rings truer with the managers. Javi Gracia is now the eighth manager to work under the Pozzos in five-and-a-half years, and none of those have lasted longer than Gianfranco Zola who oversaw just 66 games. Even the manager who took the Hornets to the Premier League, Slavisa Jokanovic, failed to earn a new contract with promotion and was replaced by Quique Sanchez Flores. He too would last just one year in the job, despite guiding Watford to a comfortably safe finish upon their return to the top flight.
Not that how Watford have treated previous managers justifies Silva losing focus because he was declined the chance to join Everton, if that was indeed the case. But it’s more a question of what culture that approach has created in Hertfordshire; one where the players, the coaches and the managers all know they won’t be there very long. It’s a constant revolving door, a stop-gap club that either brings about better personal opportunities or quickly moves you on if you fail to fulfil your purpose.
Even if you do, there’s a good chance you’ll be leaving anyway. Eventually, that reduces what should be the incredibly holistic experience of playing for a football club, especially one as family-oriented as Watford, to little more than a job to pay the bills. The shirt stops representing community, club and passion and becomes football’s equivalent of a McDonald’s uniform.
That has been evident during Watford’s every Premier League campaign thus far under the Pozzos; once the initial bounce of new players and a new manager begins to fade away and the target of Premier League survival comes within grabbing distance, performances and results quickly turn sour. Tellingly, Watford suffered 23 of their 37 Premier League defeats over the last two seasons after the turn of the year.
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Silva’s apparent hopes of leaving Watford for Everton in November, despite joining the club just a matter of months prior, is a symptomatic reaction to that culture. Why shouldn’t he look to join a club offering a better salary, a greater challenge and bigger transfer budgets when his current employers have discarded their managers indiscriminate of success or failure? Why should there be any loyalty on Silva’s part to a club that churns through managers and players at will? Why did he owe it to Watford to rebuff the Toffees’ interest and stay at Vicarage Road? If anything, the quick management turnaround while pocketing Watford £8.5million seemed to fit perfectly into the club’s ruthless model.
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Perhaps that’s why Watford eventually took such a tough line with Silva; in addition to leaving the Hornets just four points above the relegation zone after a blistering start and amid a run of eight defeats in eleven games, they needed to do something to stop the idea of the club being little more than a stepping stone, an intermission in the careers of players and coaches. Sacking Silva did, at the very least, give them some sense of control of the situation.
And yet, it remains a case of being treated by others how you treat them. As long as Watford remain a revolving door, ambitious managers like Silva will always feel justified in walking out either side of it. For all the success the Pozzos have brought to Vicarage Road, they’ve also made Watford something of an empty vessel. Managers and players fill it for a time, but never long enough to become truly connected with the club.
Liverpool owner John W Henry has confirmed that Luis Suarez did have a £40million buy-out-clause in his last contract, according to Sky Sports.
The club managed to hold onto their star striker, despite Arsenal attempting to sign the Uruguayan for £40m and £1 last summer.
Suarez made it clear he wanted to leave Anfield in the summer, but Henry sees the 27-year-old as a major part of the club’s future along with Daniel Sturridge and Raheem Sterling.
Suarez was on target once again at the weekend in the 3-0 win over Southampton at St Mary’s, taking his tally for the season to 24.
“Luis Suarez is the top scorer in the English Premier League which is arguably the top soccer league in the world,” Henry said.
“And he had a buy-out clause – I don’t know what degree I should go into this – but he had a buy-out clause of £40m. So Arsenal, one of our prime rivals this year, they offered £40m and one pound for him and triggered his buy-out clause.
“But what we’ve found over the years is that contracts don’t seem to mean a lot in England – actually not in England, in world football. It doesn’t matter how long a player’s contract is, he can decide he’s leaving.
“We sold Fernando Torres for £50m. We didn’t want to sell but we were forced to. For the first time (with Suarez) we took the position that we weren’t selling.
“Since apparently these contracts don’t seem to hold, we took the position we’re just not selling and it’s been great for Luis, it’s been great for us, and what will happen at the end of year, I think we’re going to make Champions League and we have a small chance of winning the Premier League this year.
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“We have three gentlemen up front: Suarez, Sterling and Sturridge. Those three are young, and I think Luis and those three could be together for a long time.”
Tony Pulis has slammed Liverpool striker Luis Suarez for committing what appeared to be a blatant dive against the Potters, in the 0-0 draw at Anfield yesterday.
The Stoke City boss has been regularly making the point that the FA should be clamping down on simulation, as similar scenarios occurred with both Ivanovic and Oscar when his side travelled to Stamford Bridge earlier this season.
Pulis was not shy to comment that he was baffled by the decision from the referee not to book Suarez.
“The FA should be looking at this. Give him three games (banned) and he will stop falling over,” he told Sky Sports.
The Stoke manager was however, happy to praise Glen Johnson for his reaction to a full blooded challenge from Jon Walters earlier in the game, saying his “behaviour was fabulous”.
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Stoke face a trip to Old Trafford to take on the last season’s Premier League runners up on 20th October.
Liverpool fans are enjoying themselves ahead of Saturday’s Champions League finale, and they can’t believe the Spanish reports on how Madrid will stop Mohamed Salah.
According to a report in the Spanish press this week, Real Madrid will stop Mohamed Salah with a “triangular cage”, consisting of Marcelo, Sergio Ramos and Casemiro.
There has been plenty of talk this week about Marcelo, with many fans feeling the marauding left back will leave plenty of space for Salah to exploit.
Real Madrid will of course be conscious of this, and the press suspect it will be a joint effort between the three Galácticos to stop the Egyptian.
Liverpool fans have already been bashing Ramos today after he took a dig at the comparisons between Salah and Cristiano Ronaldo, and they feel Madrid’s master plan will only make them more vulnerable.
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The Reds’ three pronged attack has demolished every team in their path in Europe this season, and too much focus on Salah could certainly leave the ever improving Roberto Firmino and the electric Sadio Mane plenty of space to strut their stuff.
Whether the report is just paper talk or a genuine insight to Zinedine Zidane’s tactic is yet to be seen, but the Reds are extremely confident their attack can best the Madrid men, and some of the best Twitter reactions can be found down below…
West Ham United manager David Moyes has named his team to face Bournemouth at the London Stadium on Saturday, and Irons fans believe that forward Andre Ayew could be on his way after he missed out on a place in the squad.
The Ghana international has been a substitute in the east London outfit’s last two Premier League matches and started against Shrewsbury Town in the FA Cup in midweek, but he didn’t make the 18 for the clash against the Cherries.
However, the 28-year-old, who has been linked with a return to former club Swansea City, has scored six goals and provided a further two assists in 24 appearances in all competitions for the Hammers this season.
West Ham supporters were quick to have their say on the attacker’s omission via social media, and while one said “Ayew surely gone now”, another said “hopefully he’s off”.
Here is just a selection of the Twitter reaction…
Kyle Walker is a man who dazzles and disappoints in equal measure, a polarising force that is often the subject of intense terrace and pub criticisms. It may therefore come as a slight surprise that Tottenham have seen fit to tie the young Englishman down to a new long-term contract that will keep him in North London until 2019.
For all the prudence of Daniel Levy, the audacity of this deal may come as a blot out of the blue.
The Premier League club have shown their loyalty here, so is it high time Kyle Walker started repaying the faith?
I am maybe a little bit harsh on Walker here, at 23 he is still in his defensive infancy and much of his naivety is to be expected at his age. However Walker is a man with bags of ability and so many Spurs fans appear more and more frustrated with his inability to translate this into consistent performances on the pitch.
Whether it is a question of footballing intelligence or not, Walker continues to show lax positional awareness and often directionless attacking bursts. For a man who picked up the PFA young player of the year gong in 2012, fans expected him to kick on rather than to rest on his laurels.
On his day Walker is central to everything good that Spurs produce, an ever-growing relationship with Townsend that offers Walker the opportunity to overlap down the right and feed the array of attacking talents that Spurs now possess. Even defensively Walker’s pace allows him to screen the backline, so when the high line is breached you can always expect to see a rampant Walker chasing back to cover.
Regardless of his shortcomings, I do think Spurs have got it right by offering the youngster a new deal. In the modern game there is a worrying shortage of top-level wingbacks and for that reason Spurs are right to show some loyalty to the youngster. Beyond Lahm and Cole there really isn’t a long list of world-class names. Fast becoming the undisputed England right-back and already one of the first names on the team sheet at Spurs, if the club play their cards right they could potentially have one of the worlds best on their hands.
I think this is the general feeling with Walker, a man with bags of potential but someone who needs the support of his club to help cultivate it. In AVB Spurs have one of the most highly respected coaches in the world and if anyone is going to help Walker become the player that we all hope he will become it is the Portuguese tactician.
Walker gave the response that fans were looking for when giving his reaction to the news on Spurs TV:
“I’m very thankful to the chairman for giving me an extension on the contract and hopefully I can repay him by putting in the performances on the pitch and getting that top-four spot we need,”
“When I first signed here, when I was 18, I always wanted to make it a long stay,” he said. “I’ve given my career to the club for [the next] five years now so hopefully there’s a lot of medals to come with that.”
The club have shown their loyalty and now in my opinion it is time Walker honoured that by kicking on. A mutually beneficial relationship, Spurs will offer the platform from which Walker can finally emerge as the world-class right back that he should be. It isn’t an over-exaggeration to suggest that Walker will be central to the club’s Champions League charge and I’m sure if he can help the club pick up a few medals on the way their faith will be wholly justified.
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The importance of Walker is only evident when he isn’t there, Naughton is a capable understudy but like for like there is no comparison. When afforded space and freedom to run Walker is as dangerous a wide man as there is in the League, quick feet and an eye for goal he is the scourge of defences up and down the country. The area where he needs to work on, like much of the Spurs side, is in breaking down sides that place a premium on time and space. When pressed and harried the Englishman looks a totally different prospect, and this is some thing that AVB will have to work on.
Similarly his defensive resilience is often tested by sides that attack with comparable pace to Spurs, and Walker needs to quickly realise that this one size fits all approach doesn’t work. A dynamic and less one-dimensional Walker is a world-class option, something that Spurs need to realise fast.
England have finally got a world class training facility In St George’s Park, and it can’t come quick enough for Roy Hodgson.
The England head coach knows that the next generation of England managers will have a facility that will mould players to be able to cope against the heavy hitters of world football, something which England have struggled with in the past.
“The place has blown me away. All the lads are buzzing to be here. We’re lucky to have facilities like this, the England head coach told the Metro.
“Now we have got the best stadium in the world and the best facilities.”
Proof that English football is lacking to some of its European counterparts was evident in the latest round of Champions League fixtures.
Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City were all in action in Europe’s elite competition, but only managed to field six outfield players of the 25 man squad that Roy Hodgson has put together.
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Where Hodgson could pick a decent five a side team from English players in Champions League action, the likes of Spain, France, Germany and Portugal could have picked strong starting XIs.
In contrast, Spanish manager Vicente Del Bosque had a field of 14 players to choose from, which also included two superstar subs, David Villa and Andres Iniesta.
Playing in a Champions League final is arguably the biggest match that any footballer can participate in for his club.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has told reporters that Emre Can is “desperate” to be involved in Saturday’s showdown against Real Madrid in Kiev, but that has not been welcomed by every fan.
The midfielder has not played since mid-March due to a back injury, and he recently received bad news that he will not be in the Germany squad for the World Cup in Russia this summer.
Can returned to Liverpool training last week, but he is not yet at optimum fitness for the final.
The 24-year-old’s eligibility to compete in the showpiece is not solely dependent on his injury status, according to some fans.
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According to The Independent, the midfielder is expected to leave Anfield this summer and join Juventus on a free transfer as his contract expires in a few months’ time.
With that in mind, some supporters are against the idea of Can taking part in the final, while others think that Liverpool need to field their strongest side regardless of questionable loyalties.
As reported by Irish Sunday World journalist Kevin Palmer, Liverpool are on the brink of securing a £70m move for Southampton’s Virgil van Dijk in the January transfer window.
Securing the defender’s signature would end the saga surrounding Liverpool’s long-term interest in the player and perhaps go a long way to fixing a defence that has shipped far too many goals in the English Premier League this season.
Van Dijk hasn’t quite hit the heights he is capable of this term, but is still a quality option and coming into his prime at 26 years of age, would be a significant acquisition for any of England’s top clubs.
Supporters generally seem excited by the prospect of signing him in January, many believing he is exactly what they need to sort out Jurgen Klopp’s defence.
However, there are some dissenting voices with some feeling the potential fee would be far too large and others worried about his form this season so far.