Manchester United and Chelsea reportedly remain interested in Paris Saint-Germain's Randal Kolo Muani after ruling out signing Alexander Isak.
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With Joe Root seemingly unable to trust Moeen and Craig Overton, he repeatedly asked more of his senior seamers
George Dobell05-Sep-2021There was a telling moment, about 140 overs into the India innings, when Jasprit Bumrah launched a delivery from Chris Woakes down the ground.It wasn’t just the sight of England’s best bowler, in this match at least, being thrashed to the boundary by a man who came into this Test with a batting average of 4.81 that was revealing. It was also the fact James Anderson had to trot from his position at mid-on to fetch the ball.Related
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Joe Root, at mid-off, had attempted to intercept it. But he appeared to slip and, for a moment, clenched his leg in pain. So it was left to Anderson, as it so often is, to make amends.At that point, Anderson – the 39-year-old Anderson – had bowled 33 overs. Despite his age, despite the fact he has played in every Test in the series and despite the fact that England would like to include him in the final game, which starts in Manchester on Friday, he had bowled more overs in the innings than any of his colleagues.Anderson had, by his own admission, tried everything to gain some lateral movement. He had tried to swing the ball and seam the ball. He had tried to bowl cutters and tried to find reverse. He had bowled from both ends. In the end he settled for simply attempting to bowl dry and build pressure that way. Woakes and Ollie Robinson had, more or less, come to the same conclusion.The problem was, such a plan requires more than three bowlers to execute. And, at that stage of the innings, Craig Overton, the fourth seamer, had only bowled only 16 overs while Moeen Ali, the spinner, was conceding four-and-a-half an over. So Anderson, Woakes and Robinson were forced into spell after spell. Even when it became obvious, from their pained expressions and, in Robinson’s case, diminishing pace, they had to bowl as, to put it bluntly, their captain appeared to lack confidence in his other options.It was a passage of play which may well have consequences for the rest of the series. With the final Test starting on Friday, England will be loathe to press Anderson and Robinson, in particular, into service once again. They have already lost Jofra Archer for the T20 World Cup and Ashes. They have already lost Stuart Broad for the rest of this season. They really don’t want to be in a position where they are taking risks with Anderson or Robinson. It was, perhaps, telling that neither emerged after tea on day four. The exact reasons for this are, at the time of writing, unclear. But it is far from impossible the team management simply said “enough”.
“England have already lost Archer due to an injury which may have been caused by an excessive workload. They have to find a way to spread the load more evenly”
“We’re all feeling it,” Woakes said afterwards. “I think we have all bowled 45 overs plus in the game. Naturally, you’re going to be a little bit sore. There are occasions in England where you can maybe bowl at about 90 percent but here you had to slam every ball into the pitch to get anything out of it. Naturally that takes it out of you, so there’s a few sore bodies in the dressing room.”None of this reflects especially flatteringly on either Overton or Moeen. Overton had a really encouraging match in Leeds where the surface provided assistance for his brand of fast-medium seamers. But if he is going to be a viable option in Test cricket, it is on days like this he must earn his living. It is on days like this he must ease the burden on his celebrated colleague and fulfil the task of stock bowler with hours of grunt work. It was his job to bowl 35 overs for around 60 runs and ensure Anderson and co could be used in shorter, sharper bursts. But such was Overton’s profligacy on day two – when he conceded four an over – Root seemed to have little faith in him.Much the same could be said about Moeen. He passed Jim Laker’s record for Test wickets during India’s innings (only Graeme Swann, among English offspinners, has more) but it was not a day which enhanced his reputation. England desperately required control but Moeen, in conceding 4.53 an over, was unable to provide it. He claimed a couple of big wickets – he has now dismissed Virat Kohli six times in Test cricket – but also made a fearful hash of an important run-out opportunity, was involved in the decision to use (and squander) all three reviews and, by his own admission, brought India back into the game with his dismissal in England’s first innings.”When I was batting in the first innings, I felt we had them down a bit and I tried to hit a six and got out and that brought them back in a bit,” he told Sky. “It was a crucial time.”Joe Root wears a dejected look•PA Images via Getty ImagesJack Leach may not offer Moeen’s ceiling with the bat or ball. But he is reliable, worthy and, in his Test career to date, has never let England down. You wonder if Root might not have wished he was around a few times during the day.In mitigation, it must be noted that India’s bowlers found the pitch no less heartbreaking than England’s. While there is just a little rough for the spinners to work with outside the left-handers’ off stump, there is almost no other encouragement for bowlers. As Moeen put it, “if Bumrah comes in and hits Woakesy straight down the ground, it’s a great wicket.” Moeen also pointed out that he has hardly played red-ball cricket in recent months and that his action is “a little bit off”. As he admitted: “I could have bowled better.”England have some lessons to learn here. They have already lost Archer due to an injury which may well have been caused by an excessive workload. They have to find a way to spread the load more evenly if others are not to follow.It was said long ago that Anderson was a sports car being used to deliver scaffolding. These days he is a classic sports car being used to commute to work, ferry the kids to school, hired out for weddings and to deliver scaffolding. And remember, that second-innings bowling average in his 15 most recent Tests is now 60.57. In the same period, his first-innings bowling average is 17.87. Over such an extended sample size, those are statistics that cannot be ignored. The warning signs are there.Still, all results are possible going into the last day. And there will be a sellout crowd at the Kia Oval on Monday for the fifth day in succession. It reflects well on this venue and this series. Test cricket faces many issues, many challenges. But the reason for sustained optimism is that we have a great game. Monday might just offer us something of a classic final day. Anderson will be hoping that, for once, England can get by without him being required a make a contribution.
Manchester City are now interested in a surprise move to sign a £35,000-a-week player from Chelsea, according to a new report.
As they did in January, City are expected to be very busy this summer, as Pep Guardiola eyes several incomings as well as outgoings. City have already announced the signing of Rayan Ait-Nouri from Wolverhampton Wanderers. The deal is thought to be worth around £31 million with £5 million in add-ons, after Guardiola identified him as the player to solve their left-back problems.
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Man City’s squad overhaul looks set to continue this summer, amid Tijjani Reijnders’ expected arrival.
By
Robbie Walls
Jun 4, 2025
And the Blues have also agreed a deal worth £46.3 million with AC Milan to sign midfielder Tijjani Reijnders. The Dutch international underwent his medical on Sunday, and he is now expected to sign a five-year deal before the Club World Cup.
The final player City are trying to get in before Tuesday’s deadline is Lyon attacking midfielder Rayan Cherki. It was claimed last week that discussions have been held over a deal, and they are now close to agreeing a deal for around £35 million. His potential arrival at the Etihad could see him become the man to replace Kevin de Bruyne, who has now departed the Blues.
While City work on deals to get players in before the start of the Club World Cup, they also have their eyes on players they would like to sign further into the summer transfer window. Now, according to The Telegraph’s Mike McGrath, City are lining up a move to sign goalkeeper Marcus Bettinelli from Chelsea.
The Blues want to bolster their goalkeeper options for next season, given that Scott Carson is now leaving the club following the end of his contract. Bettinelli has been identified as a replacement, as City feel his character makes him ideal to be their third-choice keeper.
Leading up to the summer transfer window, there has been a lot of talk about the future of current number one Ederson, who has been linked with a move to Saudi Arabia. That has yet to progress, but it seems it could be all change in the goalkeeper department at the Etihad Campus.
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Marcus Bettinelli’s Premier League record |
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Apps |
7 |
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Goals conceded |
20 |
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Clean sheets |
0 |
The 33-year-old, who earns £35,000 a week at Chelsea, has been at Stamford Bridge since July 2021. He joined the club on a free transfer from Fulham, and in those four years, he has played just one game for the Blues, and that came in the FA Cup in the 2021/22 campaign. The goalkeeper is under contract until 2026.
Compared to their nearest competitors, this has been a quiet transfer window so far over at the Emirates Stadium for Arsenal.
Did you expect anything less? While Manchester City have spent a shedload on Rayan Cherki, Rayan Ait-Nouri and Tijjani Reijnders, Manchester United have added Matheus Cunha to their ranks.
Over in Merseyside, Premier League winners Liverpool have already confirmed the arrival of Jeremie Frimpong to replace Trent Alexander-Arnold. Florian Wirtz is also set to arrive from Bayer Leverkusen in a British transfer record £116m fee too.
So, Mikel Arteta and Andrea Berta better whack out the cheque book soon with plenty of new recruits needed, particularly in attack.
Two of the biggest priorities at the Emirates are bolstering the wide positions and signing a brand new centre forward.
Out wide, we’ve seen notable links to the likes of Athletic Bilbao’s Nico Williams and Real Madrid’s Rodrygo.
As for the striker position, it’s all about Benjamin Sesko. Arsenal reportedly opened talks regarding a deal for the Slovenian a few weeks ago. Now, according to German reporter Florian Plettenburg, there is a ‘positive’ feeling around the deal, but no agreement is in place yet over a deal that could reach £68m to £85m.
If a deal cannot be done for the RB Leipzig star, then it’s likely Arsenal will aim to conclude a deal for Sporting superstar Viktor Gyokeres.
The Gunners were interested in the Swede’s services last summer and that interest has remained over the last year. What’s the latest on this one? Well, amid interest from Premier League rivals, Manchester United, it appears as though Gyokeres would prefer the Gunners.
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Mega money deals, controversial moves and big-name flops. This is the home of transfer news and opinion across Football FanCast.
That’s according to Saturday’s edition of Portuguese newspaper, Record. They suggest that north London and Arsenal is now a ‘dream’ destination for the 27-year-old attacker.
As a result, Record reveals that Man United are ‘no longer an option’ for the Sweden international. That’s despite the fact the Red Devils are now coached by Gyokeres’ previous manager at Sporting, Ruben Amorim.
According to previous reports, Arsenal have already lodged an offer worth £55m, of which £10m are bonuses.
The great debate of the 2025 summer transfer window for Arsenal fans is whether Sesko or Gyokeres would be the better signing.
Well, as far as the raw numbers dictate, it would be the latter. There are few better finishers in the game right now than the Sporting sensation with the Swede scoring a ridiculous haul of 54 goals in 52 games throughout all competitions in 2024/25.
In the league alone, Gyokeres trumped Sesko considerably with the former now being described as “the best striker in Europe” by the Athletic, while former Chelsea defender Mario Melchiot even posed the question: “Is he the best striker in the world right now?”
That question is a tricky one considering the level the big Swede has been playing at, but regardless of that, he’d surely be a sensational signing for Arteta’s attack.
They need goals and in the form of the Sporting star, they would find more of them. But, what qualities could be bring just outside of the goals?
Well, there are echoes of a certain Alexis Sanchez here. While the Chilean was certainly better on technique alone and he boasted better close control with the ball, they do have similar builds and running styles.
Indeed, one of the most notable traits Gyokeres can bring to the game is his bulldog-like style. His slightly stockier frame means he is a “human battering ram” in the words of the Athletic’s Mark Carey.
Outlining what makes him so difficult to deal with, Peter Kisfaludy, who was academy director at Gyokeres’s former Swedish club Brommapojkarna, once said: “He is a box player but he can also drive forward with the ball because he is fast and strong.”
What Arsenal have arguably lacked since the days of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Sanchez up front is pace. Gyokeres would bring that, but like Alexis, he’d also bring the physicality to stand up to the test of rugged Premier League defences.
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Alexis Sanchez in English football |
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Season (club) |
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Goals |
Assists |
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2014/15 (Arsenal) |
52 |
25 |
12 |
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2015/16 (AFC) |
41 |
17 |
10 |
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2016/17 (AFC) |
51 |
30 |
18 |
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2017/18 (AFC & MUFC) |
40 |
11 |
9 |
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2018/19 (Man Utd) |
27 |
2 |
4 |
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Stats via Transfermarkt. |
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The Chile superstar has a similar bulldog-like approach, described by FourFourTwo as someone who “plays like he hates losing”, hassling defenders and never giving them a moment’s peace.
Ultimately diminutive in size, Sanchez has a compact build like the Swede and his muscular frame, particularly in the upper half of his body, meaning he could drive forward and burst past defenders with the same sort of power we see from Gyokeres.
There are obvious differences, we cannot deny that, but by luring the Sweden international away from Lisbon, Arsenal may finally find a ruthless centre forward with the same level of efficiency, one who’s capable of replicating the South American’s incredible impact at Arsenal.
Can you just imagine Alexis in this current Arteta side? We can only dream.
He's a dream for Rice: Arsenal are about to submit bid for £84m "magician"
The outrageously talented international would be game-changing for Arsenal.
By
Jack Salveson Holmes
Jun 12, 2025
Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney find themselves in a position where they may have to start paying players to leave Wrexham.
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England collapse after Archie Vaughan’s 60 before Bennie Hansen steadies run chase
ECB Reporters Network22-Jan-2025Daniel Bosman took three wickets in four balls as South Africa Men U19s clinched the Youth ODI series against England Men U19s with a four-wicket win in Stellenbosch.Young Lions captain Archie Vaughan top-scored with 60 but his dismissal prompted a collapse of four wickets in seven balls as the tourists were bowled out for 156.South Africa skipper Bennie Hansen then hit 56, falling just short of guiding his side home, after Tazeem Ali’s three wickets had caused a mid-innings wobble. The hosts steadied to reach the target in 35.1 overs.It was spinner Bosman who turned the game with his three wickets in the 37th over immediately after Vaughan, who had struck six boundaries, was caught off a miscue to the final ball of the previous over from Bandile Mbatha.Bosman’s key over saw Joe Moores bowled attempting a lap sweep before Harry Moore was stumped thanks to sharp hands from Hansen. Bosman then parried a return catch from Eddie Jack and saw it fall to him as he stumbled to the ground.South Africa made a solid start as Adnaan Lagadien and Chad Mason added 49 for the first wicket before Hansen took up the attack with a 46-ball half-century.The Young Lions battled back through Warwickshire spinner Ali, who returned 3 for 51, but the hosts needed only seven more when Hansen edged Alex Green to wicketkeeper Thomas Rew on 57.The two-Youth Test series begins at Coertzenburg Cricket Club in Stellenbosch on 27 January.
TORONTO — The Toronto Blue Jays are out to change baseball, one stinking, annoying, pesky, skin-crawling, chalkboard-scratching, stone-in-my-shoe, please-make-it-stop foul ball at a time.
“That’s our goal,” says Toronto infielder Isiah Kiner-Falefa. “To change baseball. We’re doing something that’s not taught anymore. We’re trying to bring baseball back to … well, baseball.”
It is a lofty goal that is three wins within reach after such a pestiferous 11–4 World Series Game 1 victory Friday over Los Angeles that after it, Dodgers pitchers should have been reaching for calamine lotion instead of ice.
After five seasons in which only a top-four home run team has won the World Series, Toronto (11th in homers, first in lowest strikeout rate) wants to turn the baseball world upside down, if not back to the 1970s.
The Blue Jays scored their 11 runs on 14 hits, including three homers, while striking out just four times. Talk about retro. They turned the baseball clock all the way back to 1978, the time of bell bottoms, love beads and the only World Series game in which a team had so many runs, hits and homers with only four strikeouts: an 11–5 win for the Dodgers over the Yankees in 1978 World Series Game 3.
So artful was Toronto it had nearly as many hits as swings and misses (15). The Blue Jays fouled off 39 pitches, 19 of them with two strikes. Their turn at bat in the sixth inning played out like one of those floor-borne domino cascades in which the tiles topple over one-by-one in serpentine style; there was artistry in a chain reaction that seemed to go on forever.
Twelve batters against three pitchers in that inning saw 44 pitches, including 15 pitches with two strikes without a swing and miss, fouled 12 pitches, put nine balls in play, drew two walks, took a hit by pitch and hit two homers.
“The epitome of how we play baseball,” infielder Ernie Clement calls it. “That inning is pretty much all we do as a team, as a group.”
The Dodgers brought to the series the best swing-and-miss pitching staff in the National League, especially Game 1 starter Blake Snell, who had a 50% whiff rate in three postseason starts this year. Now they know they have a fight on their hands with the toughest team to put away in baseball, whether that refers to when the Jays trail (they scored 11 unanswered runs after falling behind 2–0) or when they have two strikes.
“He had his stuff tonight,” Kiner-Falefa says. “We did a good job of getting into their bullpen. The moment he came out of the game we took advantage. We wore him down as much as we could. And it’s tough to wear him down when he’s in the zone as much as he was.”
What is happening in this war of resistance in Canada is a synchronicity of hitting philosophy and sports performance experts on both the athletic training and strength training sides. Everything is connected. Everything is coordinated by first-year hitting coach David Popkins, 35, and assistant hitting coaches Lou Iannotti, 32, and Hunter Mense, 41, none of whom played a day in the big leagues but have plenty of experience playing independent ball.
Each day, for instance, the team posts a readout of each player’s bat speed from the previous night’s game.
“So, if a guy’s bat speeds are down, then he’ll hit the weight room,” Kiner-Falefa says. “Or I'll back off on the field [pregame work]. And if my bat speed’s down again, then I need to go in and get in the weight room and get with the hitting coaches and make the mechanical adjustment to get the bat speed back up.”
Mostly all the Blue Jays also wear Catapult vests that track daily energy expenditure.
“We wear those Catapults and they’d be like, ‘Alright, you’re working out too much,’” Kiner-Falefa says. “It was the first time where I saw it where they helped you get ready for the game. It wasn't just like tracking how much you did. They’re tracking your [swing] rotation to see, ‘Hey, my rotation's 50% low.’ It’s very skill specific.”
Sometimes the fix is physical.
“It could just be as simple as something’s locked up in your body,” Kiner-Falefa says. “Okay, then you go in the training room. And this is the best health facility, weight room and training staff I have ever seen.”
In recent years the Blue Jays so meticulously overhauled their home clubhouse facilities—which stretch from home plate to the leftfield foul pole—that they modeled their recovery room after a Four Seasons resort, complete with sauna, hot and cold tubs and a rock waterfall that spills over a giant Blue Jays logo in a stone wall.
“The hitting coaches will send me to the weight room, like if I’m not hinging properly,” Kiner-Falefa says. “The weight training coaches will send me to the training room and say, ‘You're not able to hinge,’ or ‘do your RDL [Roman deadlift] right. You gotta get worked on.’ They are so in sync that last year when I was here, I had my best offensive year, and I felt like it had a lot to do with weight training coaches and training staff.”
The hitting coaches encourage finding different ways to beat opponents, not just the modern way of selling out for home runs and accepting strikeouts as the tariff. Each day, in addition to posting daily bat speeds, Popkins and the hitting group keep track of an internal points system, which is used in the minor league system as well.
“So, it’s things like balls-in-play points,” Clement says, “and then it’s based on your swing decisions. Like, ‘Did you swing at strikes?’ And then it’s like, ‘How likely was the swing that you had to be at least a base hit or have damage?’
“We did a lot of it in Triple A, not so much here, but I like to kind of check the numbers and see where we're at. I mean, it definitely reinforces the idea of what you're trying to do, right?”
Popkins’s philosophy also adheres to a tenet that is anathema to most teams: ground balls are okay.
“Other teams I played on were more about home runs,” says Kiner-Falefa, a former Yankee. “It’s just, ‘We're going to beat you with home runs.’ But I feel like this team, sometimes it’s better to put a ball on the ground—in certain situations. Where I feel like I could get a hit that way. So, the hitting coaches do a great job of letting you go out there and be like, ‘It’s okay to hit the ball on the ground. Just hit it hard.’
“As opposed to in New York, it’s all pull-side in the air. And if you don’t, if you hit the ball on the ground, you’re in trouble. So here it’s like, we don’t care about the results—I mean, we care—but we care about how hard we hit the ball and putting the ball in play and swinging at good pitches.”
The way Toronto teaches two-strike hitting is fascinating in its posture-based approach.
“Our hitting coaches do a great job of making us be athletic,” Kiner-Falefa says. “They try to make everybody athletic so that when you get to two strikes you’re not breaking down and you’re not stiff. They want us to get our swings off but at the same time it’s not being stiff. It’s just fighting and there’s a [priority on] competing out there and there is pride in putting the ball in play, which is rare these days.”
The Blue Jays had four walks to go with their four strikeouts. It had been 20 years, going back to the 2005 White Sox, since a team opened the World Series with four or fewer strikeouts and just as many walks.
The key storyline at the onset of this series was the matchup between the red-hot swing-and-miss pitching staff of the Dodgers against the red-hot, put-the-ball-in-play hitters of the Blue Jays. Good pitching, as the adage goes, is supposed to win those battles. But Game 1 set up the possibility that maybe it’s good hitting’s turn to win. Maybe putting the ball in play is the postmodern way forward. Maybe the Blue Jays are the future of baseball—or at least for the next week.
Premier League CEO Richard Masters has refused to be drawn on Manchester City’s FFP case, merely stating that “rules are very clear”.
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Asalanka, Buttler, Babar and Warner round out top five performers
ESPNcricinfo stats team15-Nov-2021Sri Lanka’s Wanindu Hasaranga is the MVP of the T20 World Cup 2021 according to ESPNcricinfo’s Smart Stats (all matches from start of Super 12s have been considered). In the Super 12s, Hasaranga took ten wickets and conceded runs at just 5.84 per over in the so-called Group of Death. Hasaranga also took a hat-trick against South Africa, but that was not enough to get his team over the line.ESPNcricinfo LtdNumbers, however, do not do full justice to Hasaranga’s impact.To gauge that, we need to look at Smart Stats, which looks at every batting and bowling performance through the prism of match context, and the pressure on the batter and bowler at each delivery when they batted or bowled.The games against England and South Africa stood out. All ten wickets that he took were of batters in the top seven.Hasaranga bowled three overs at the death too, taking four wickets at 6.66. In the middle overs, he bowled 14 overs and conceded just 6.14 runs per over. Hasaranga was the partnership breaker for his team, taking key wickets when they were required. He dismissed Aiden Markram, Temba Bavuma and Dwyane Pretorius against South Africa, while he got Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow and Eoin Morgan against England.Hasaranga took wickets when others struggled, which also helped him top the impact charts. Hasaranga’s match impact of 71.6 was way ahead of his team-mate Charith Asalanka, who was next.Asalanka had a match impact score of 55, and scored 225 runs at an impressive strike rate of 153.06. No one had a better strike rate than Asalanka among the top 20 run-getters in the competition. Asalanka’s unbeaten 80 against Bangladesh was a knock under serious pressure, with his team struggling at 79 for 4 in the tenth over chasing 171.Openers Jos Buttler, Babar Azam and Player of the Tournament David Warner complete the top five.ESPNcricinfo Ltd
While Hasaranga and Boult took pole positions in terms of MVP and best bowler, the match-wise best batting and bowling performance went to Martin Guptill and Shadab Khan respectively. Guptill’s 93 from 56 balls in tough, humid conditions against Scotland was the top batting performance.This was the only game that was won by a team batting first in Dubai. Guptill single-handedly powered his team, hitting seven sixes and six fours. His partner in a century stand for the fourth wicket, Glenn Phillips, scored at a strike rate of just 89, making it that much tougher for Guptill.\The only century of the tournament was by Jos Buttler. His brilliant unbeaten 101 against Sri Lanka in tough batting conditions was the second best batting performance of the tournament. Buttler scored 62% of his team’s runs, and at one stage had made only 35 from 38 balls. In his next 29 balls, he smashed 66 runs in bowler-friendly conditions. Kane Williamson’s 85 in the final, Najibullah Zadran’s 73 against New Zealand and Asalanka’s 80 from 40 balls against Bangladesh complete the top-five best batting performances.ESPNcricinfo LtdAmong the impactful bowling performance, Shadab’s 4 for 26 in the semi-finals topped the chart.Defending 176, Shadab took the key wickets of Glenn Maxwell, Mitchell Marsh, Steven Smith and David Warner. He conceded just 6.25 runs per over when all other bowlers went upwards of 8 per over. Shadab’s four wickets were worth almost seven Smart Wickets. What should have been a match-winning performance sadly ended in a losing cause. Hasaranga’s two spells against England and South Africa are in the top five along with Hazlewood and Boult’s efforts in the final.
Liverpool’s pre-season schedule commences on Sunday July 13, at the Deepdale Stadium. It’ll be a feeling-out process, but one which Arne Slot will hope to use his new recruits.
And the head coach might have a range of new options to pick from. Indeed, Jeremie Frimpong is already signed and sealed as Trent Alexander-Arnold’s successor on the right flank, left-back Milos Kerkez is the subject of advancing talks with Bournemouth and the outcome of Darwin Nunez’s future move (he’s “planning to leave”, reports Fabrizio Romano) will see a new striker brought in.
But, of course, the name on everyone’s lips is that of Florian Wirtz, with the playmaker’s Bayer Leverkusen employers locked in talks with Liverpool sporting director Richard Hughes to agree to a British-record transfer.
Wirtz is quite the player. While biased in his opinion, former Leverkusen striker Patrick Helmes has described him as “the best midfielder in the world”, which is high praise indeed and justifiable, if subjective.
Liverpool have done so well to beat off competition from Manchester City and Bayern Munich to come to the closing stages of a deal for Wirtz, which isn’t there yet.
Until the negotiations are brought to an agreeable close, fans will continue to bite their nails, with Liverpool seeing a £110m bid rejected. The Werkself are holding out for a British-record £120m fee.
While it would be a travesty if the bid unravelled now, it wouldn’t be unprecedented. Remember Nabil Fekir, anyone?
Liverpool would be wise to have a back-up plan. And they do.
As per TEAMtalk, Liverpool have joined a host of clubs in the race for Nottingham Forest star Morgan Gibbs-White, who has also attracted Chelsea’s attention following Manchester City’s earlier declaration of interest.
City might have the lead, but Liverpool may yet make their move for the £70m-rated playmaker, with Forest said to be bracing themselves for official bids.
Gibbs-White, 25, may have been monitored by the Anfield side for a while, but they will need to up their game in the coming weeks if they are to beat off the divisional competition.
One of the principal architects of Nottingham Forest’s extraordinary campaign, qualifying for Europe, Gibbs-White is now proving the Tricky Trees have received bang for their buck after forking out £42.5m for his services back in August 2022.
This season, the part-time Tricky Trees skipper scored seven goals and supplied ten more across 34 Premier League matches, creating ten big chances, averaging 4.5 successful duels per game, as per Sofascore.
Gibbs-White clearly boasts the kind of profile Liverpool desire for their midfield, especially since BBC analyst Raj Chohan has also humourously hailed him as “the Aldi Jude Bellingham.”
Real Madrid superstar Bellingham has opened up about his “hero” being the iconic Liverpool captain, Steven Gerrard, no doubt having fashioned elements of his game on Gerrard in his pomp.
Liverpool wanted Bellingham in 2023, but pulled out of the race for the Borussia Dortmund prodigy when it became clear he was leaning toward the Spanish capital, funds instead put toward making sweeping midfield changes.
The point is, though, that the Reds wanted Bellingham’s athletic, dynamic approach, and Gibbs-White could be the perfect man to bring such an identity to the Anfield heart, providing Slot with the perfect Wirtz alternative.
Ah yes, it’s probably worth noting Liverpool would only make their move for Gibbs-White if a deal for Wirtz falls through, which would strike a sense of profound numbness across Merseyside if it came to be.
But the Forest man has the skills to succeed under Slot’s wing. As per FBref, he ranked among the top 12% of Premier League attacking midfielders and wingers last term for goal-creating actions, the top 15% for progressive passes, the top 9% for through balls, the top 12% for interceptions and the top 15% for aerial battles won per 90.
One scout has even remarked that the all-action midfielder has a “Steven Gerrard mentality”, so influential and willing to take control of a match, to spearhead the pursuit of victory.
Once called a “real character and leader” for his club by Tottenham Hotspur historian John Wenham, Gibbs-White might not be in the same talent bracket as Gerrard once was, but that’s not to his discredit.
Gerrard was in a different sphere to the lion’s share, in fairness, retiring as one of the standout midfielders of his generation and perhaps the greatest player in Liverpool’s history, devoting his entire European career to Anfield and its denizens.
A supreme leader and fiercely rounded midfielder, Gerrard’s blueprint has been replicated by new blood, but he’s never been overtaken.
However, Gibbs-White could perform the role to an emphatic effect, breaking lines, inspiring his teammates and providing a combative sheen too, the complete player.
|
Most Liverpool Appearances in History |
||
|---|---|---|
|
Rank |
Player |
Apps |
|
1. |
Ian Callaghan |
852 |
|
2. |
Jamie Carragher |
737 |
|
3. |
Steven Gerrard |
710 |
|
4. |
Emelyn Hughes |
664 |
|
5. |
Ray Clemence |
663 |
|
Stats via Transfermarkt |
||
Maybe he wouldn’t succeed in becoming quite so legendary a Liverpudlian as Gerrard, who featured 710 times for the Merseysiders, his boyhood club, but he could play an instrumental part in winning the Premier League, breaking clear of Manchester United and becoming the most successful
It would be nice to bring Wirtz in, for he is matchless in his position right now. However, Gibbs-White would do a job in Slot’s system.
He’s still an immense midfielder with a vibrant personality and a persistent attitude besides. If Liverpool wish to continue to make gains over the coming years, this is exactly the kind of profile they should be going for.
If the move for Wirtz doesn’t come to fruition, of course.
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