Football News: Review Of The Day 24th July 2018

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Review of the Day

Transfers

Wigan Athletic have sold midfielder Josh Laurent to Shrewsbury Town for an undisclosed fee. The 22 year old was on loan with Bury for most of last season.

Ipswich Town have paid a £750,000 fee to sign Bristol Rovers forward Ellis Harrison.

Striker Mohammed Eisa has swapped League Two Cheltenham Town for Championship side Bristol City for an undisclosed fee. The 24 year old was playing in the 8th tier of English football in 2016.

Peterborough United have sold another player, this time midfielder Michael Doughty, this time to Swindon Town. Doughty has had two previous loan spells with Swindon.

Bristol Rovers have paid an undisclosed fee to sign Huddersfield Town defender Tareiq Holmes-Dennis. The 22 year old missed the entirety of last season with a knee injury.

Central defender Chancel Mbemba has left Newcastle United as Porto paid over £7m to sign the 23 year old DR Congo player.

Liverpool's Nigerian youngster Taiwo Awoniyi has joined KAA Gent on loan for the season.

Spanish youngster Rafa Mir has joined UD Las Palmas on loan from Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Barcelona's Brazilian right-back Douglas has moved to Sivasspor on loan.

Atletico Madrid have sold one of the Uruguayan centre backs to Rayo Vallecano. 24 year old Emiliano Velazquez has moved for a fee of £900,000.

A trade in MLS has seen Colorado Rapids and FC Dallas swap players. Dominique Badji has moved to Dallas, while Kellyn Acosta has gone to Colorado.

Valencia have signed Italian defender Cristiano Piccini from Sporting Clube de Portugal for a fee of over £7m.

Former Liverpool and Aston Villa left-back Aly Cissokho has left Yeni Malatyaspor to join Antalyaspor.

Fulham have picked up 30 year old goalkeeper Fabri from Besiktas.

Yeni Malatyaspor have released former Arsenal youngster Nacer Barazite.

Hearts Docked Two Points

Heart of Midlothian have been docked two points and fined £10,000 by the SPFL in the League Cup group stages. £8,000 has been suspended until the end of next season. Hearts were guilty of fielding an ineligible player in their win over Cove Rangers.

SPFL Reintroduces Reserve League

The Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) had scrapped reserve leagues and replaced them with development leagues in 2009. They have now decided to return to reserve leagues, with no age restrictions on players other than a minimum age of 16. They will also allow players loaned out to play in the reserve league for their parent club. There are to be two divisions for the 27 teams involved, 18 in the top tier and 9 in second tier.

Luiz Turns Up At Chelsea Fan's Family BBQ

A young Chelsea fan had posted a video up on social media inviting Chelsea round to his home for a family barbecue, after he found out the Londoners would be in his hometown as part of their pre-season tour of Australia. The youngster, Hudson McCarthy, got his wish when David Luiz took up his invitation and took Tiemoue Bakayoko and Ethan Ampadu (his mini-me!) along with him. The four year old got to have a kickabout with the players in the garden and was given a free shirt and tickets for Chelsea's game against Perth Glory.

Transfer Window Heats Up

Portugal midfielder Joao Moutinho is set to sign for Wolverhampton Wanderers from AS Monaco.

AFC Bournemouth have agreed a £10m+ fee with Leganes for Spanish full-back Diego Rico.

Richarlison has had a medical ahead of a move to Everton that could end up costing them as much as £50m.

Bordeaux have confirmed the sale of Brazilian winger Malcom to AS Roma. The 21 year old will cost the Serie A club a price which could reach as much as 40m euros. At least that was the state of play last night before claims flew round that Barcelona had gazumped the move at the last minute.

Striker Given 2 Year Match Fixing Ban

Italy's National Federal Court (TFN) has imposed a 2 year football ban and 20,000 euro fine after Parma striker Emanuele Calaio sent "suspicious messages" to former team-mates in the Spezia team, just before the two sides played each other. Parma have also been deducted 5 points for next season. A win over Spezia secured promotion back to Serie A for Parma.

Sane Backs Chelsea For Title Challenge

Manchester City winger Leroy Sane has tipped Chelsea to push City all the way to the title, despite the turmoil of changing manager in the summer. Sane said: "Chelsea have brought in a really good coach. The way Napoli played last season was really attractive. We really suffered against them. They might need some time to get used to his tactics but they could be a really tough team." Sane also said, when asked who were likely to be City's closest challengers in their quest to retain the title, "I think Chelsea".

Fabregas Confirms Formation Change

Chelsea midfielder Cesc Fabregas has told the club's official website that the team would move away from the back 3 system previous manager Antonio Conte and would be reverting to a more standard back 4. Fabregas said: "We need to learn. We have been two years with Antonio working in a system with 5-4-1, 3-5-2, depending on the game. It is very different to play with five or three at the back than it is to play with four. We need time to re-adapt to a back four and to what the boss wants from us but I believe we are intelligent players and players at the top level who will try to adapt as soon as possible."

German FA Denies Racism Behind Ozil Treatment

After Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil quit the Germany set up alleging racism, following a string of racial abuse from fans and prominent figures in the German public eye, the German FA (DFB) has denied the racism allegations. The DFB admit they could have done more to protect Ozil from abuse. Bayern Munich president Uli Hoeness took time out from evading tax to stick the boot into Ozil once more, saying: "I'm glad the ghost is gone. He spent years playing crap. The last big performance of him in the national team came before 2014, he wants to hide his pitiful performance behind what was unleashed after the photo with Erdogan. Every time we played against Arsenal we were looking for him, we knew it was the weak point of the team. It shines only when it plays against San Marino ... It has 35 million 'followers' that do not exist in the real world: they think it's extraordinary just because it plays a cross field pass." Bitter much? Ozil's agent, Dr. Erkut Sogut, responded with a statement: "The comments of Mr Hoeness miss the point completely, as they have absolutely nothing to do with football. He is trying to divert attention away from the real issue, the issue of racism and discrimination in Germany, which is resurging once again within everyday German society. As Mesut said in his statement, he accepts reasonable and fair criticism of his football, and deals with that as part of the job. However, Mr Hoeness cannot even provide any actual evidence to back up his foolish statements that are clearly exaggerated. In this case, the stats are clear. Twenty-three goals, 40 assists - which is a German record - and five-time German player of the year - three of which come after 2014. He claims that Mesut has been a 'ghost' for years, but what 'ghost' wins all these awards and has this much success? Mesut created more chances in the 2018 World Cup per 90 minutes than any other player, but, of course, he singles him out for criticism. As the president of Bayern Munich is it not best to focus on the performance of his own players seeing as eight of the Germany team play for the club. If Mesut is such a bad player, what does this say about his opinion on Joachim Low, Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho? These are three elite managers who praise Mesut as one of the best in his position. It is laughable that he thinks he is more qualified to judge footballing abilities than these people, with fabricated statistics. It is obvious that his comment about Mesut not making any tackles is completely made up and false. But, just so everyone knows, in both the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Euros, Mesut won over 65 per cent of duels per game, moreover he was the most important player in the games against France and Italy in 2016, again making a complete mockery of his ludicrous comments. The facts speak for themselves and anyway who is he to speak about Mesut in this way? These lies are cheap, stereotypical and baseless comments - made without any foundations - that allow hurtful news to spread. Mr Hoeness, we will not waste any more time or energy talking about a subject clearly you know nothing about. Not only is he a disgrace to yourself, but also and more importantly a shame to German football and the people of Germany." Now that is what you call a response. I wonder if he dropped the mic when he finished? If not, he should do.

Written by Tris Burke July 24 2018 06:34:08