Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino has criticised Blues striker Nicolas Jackson, despite him scoring a hat trick against Tottenham on Monday.
Football supporters have flocked to social media to express their sympathy for Luka Modric after he failed to win silverware with Croatia once again.
How many trophies has Luka Modric won in his career?
At club level, the midfield maestro has won essentially every major honour available to a European footballer. Indeed, with Real Madrid he has lifted the Champion League five times, La Liga three times, the Copa del Rey twice, the Spanish Super Cup four times, and the Club World Cup five times.
On top of that, he won the Croatian national league three times with GNK Dinamo Zagreb, as well as two domestic cups in his native country too.
While he has also won numerous individual accolades – such as Croatia’s Player of the Year five times – and most notably the 2018 Ballon d’Or.
Sadly, however, Modric has yet to win a trophy with his country and this unfortunate run continued over the weekend as Spain beat Croatia on penalties in the UEFA Nations League final.
After the game, the 37-year-old was seen looking dejected as he wandered around the pitch – even though his own fans showed him plenty of love.
Despite having been part of an excellent national side that keeps performing far above expectations, Modric doesn’t quite have a trophy to show for all his efforts.
After all, in the 2018 World Cup they picked up a silver medal after losing to France in the final. While at Qatar 2022, they came away with bronze.
And now, this time in the Nations League, the veteran Real Madrid star has fallen just short once again, with another silver medal to add to his international collection.
With all this in mind, fans took to social media to outline just how gutted they were for Modric. Here are some of the best reactions…
There was still plenty of love for Modric and his achievements though.
Giovanni Reyna's wait for a first Borussia Dortmund appearance of the season goes on after he was left on the bench for Friday's match at Hoffenheim.
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The United States international watched on from the sidelines as his side picked up a 3-1 win in the Bundesliga.
It is the third time in a row he has been named among the Dortmund substitutes but overlooked by coach Edin Terzic when it came to making changes.
Despite the 20-year-old's absence, Dortmund picked up another three points to ensure they remain unbeaten after six matches in the German top-flight.
Rangers are advancing in negotiations to sign on-loan Manchester United goalkeeper Jack Butland on a free transfer.
What's the transfer latest on Jack Butland to Rangers?
42-year-old manager Michael Beale is in the market for a new goalkeeper and has been linked with several names. Ivan Pandur was a serious option but it appears attention has switched to United's Jack Butland and a move to sign him is taking shape.
In late May, the Daily Mail reported that the goalkeeper was edging nearer to a move to the Scottish Premiership. He joined United on loan in January but will leave the club this summer without making an appearance.
Initially, Butland's salary demands "rocked" the potential for a move to Rangers but "a compromise" has since been reached over his personal demands. His £35,000/week terms with Crystal Palace are set to expire later this month and they will not recoup a fee when he leaves.
The Crystal Palace goalkeeper will leave this summer and Rangers look set to secure his services.
According to Fabrizio Romano, Rangers are in advanced talks to sign Butland, explaining on Twitter that the "deal is getting closer." Meanwhile, United will sign a new back-up goalkeeper to replace the former Stoke City star.
Why does Michael Beale need a new goalkeeper?
With 41-year-old Allan McGregor leaving the club after an emotional goodbye to the fans. It makes the end of his second spell with the fans after spending another five years at the Ibrox since joining in 2018, a move he described as a "no-brainer".
In total, the shot-stopper spent a lengthy period of time with Rangers, winning numerous titles including the Europa League win last season.
Looking ahead to next season, Michael Beale now needs to bring in a replacement and 30-year-old Jack Butland is now seemingly closing in on a move to Scotland.
Despite not playing any football during the 2022/23 season, training with Manchester United for a full year against the likes of Marcus Rashford may have benefited him.
Described by Guardian journalist Ed Aarons as "brilliant", Butland is in his prime years as a goalkeeper and could play a key role in Beale's squad next season.
Rangers will have to still qualify for the Champions League next season and after spending the business end of the season during United's push for the Premier League top four, Butland may still be able to take part in the competition himself.
Liverpool are interested in Southampton midfielder Romeo Lavia and could look to issue a swoop this summer following the Saints' relegation from the Premier League.
What's the latest on Romeo Lavia to Liverpool?
According to an exclusive from Football Transfers' Jacque Talbot, Liverpool are looking to ramp up their interest in Lavia and use midfielder Tyler Morton as a makeweight to complete a deal.
Morton has enjoyed a successful loan spell with Blackburn Rovers this term and has demonstrated his calibre in the Championship, which could be an enticing option for Southampton to consider, especially with Lavia's £40m buyback clause, inserted by Manchester City, enabling next year.
Lavia signed for his south coast club for £14m last summer and was subject to a £50m attempt from Chelsea that very same window, a value that Southampton will demand should he be prised away this year.
Should Liverpool sign Romeo Lavia?
Despite boasting just one year's experience at the top level, Lavia has swiftly asserted himself as one of the Premier League's most exciting prospects, producing an "exquisite" individual season, as remarked by The Athletic's Jacob Tanswell, despite Southampton's tepid fall into the second tier.
The "strong" Lavia – as dubbed by Paul Scholes – has made 28 appearances in the top flight this season, scoring one goal during a 2-1 victory over lacklustre Chelsea, and has maintained a respectable average match rating of 6.83/10, as per Sofascore. He has also completed 86% of his passes, averaged 2 tackles and 1.1 interceptions per match, and won 70% of his attempted dribbles.
As per FBref, the burgeoning Belgian also ranks among the top 5% of midfielders across Europe's top five leagues over the past year for blocks per 90, and still only a 19-year-old, the precocious "monster" – as heralded by Benjy Nurick – could yet light up the Premier League with an outfit challenging at the forefront of the table.
Liverpool have a past of securing talent from relegated outfits under Klopp's tutelage – Andy Robertson, Gini Wijnaldum and Xherdan Shaqiri spring to mind – and Lavia could emulate such success with a move to Merseyside, perhaps serving as the perfect understudy to Fabinho, who has not looked so imperious this season as Liverpool slumped from salience at the front of the domestic and European pack.
The Brazilian holding midfielder signed from Monaco for approximately £44m in 2018, and his 218 appearances have been vital in an illustrious period in Anfield's rich history, with notable triumphs in the Premier League, Champions League and FA Cup to name a few.
Indeed, Fabinho has averaged 2.5 tackles, 1.6 interceptions and 1.6 clearances across the entirety of his career, as per WhoScored, and was once hailed as "the best" in his position by Gary Neville.
Lavia certainly has a long way to go but his stats suggest he is already exhibiting robustness and tenacity in abundance, and at Liverpool, absorbing the fruits of the 29-year-old's labour could see him blossom into one of the very best.
Liverpool are interested in making a move for Lyon attacker Bradley Barcola during this summer's transfer window, according to a key update from journalist Fabrizio Romano.
Who is Bradley Barcola?
The 20-year-old is having an eye-catching season for Lyon, not always managing to be regular but still proving his worth as a strong squad player. He has scored five goals and registered three assists in Ligue 1 this term to date, as well as netting twice in the French Cup.
Barcola is currently contracted to Lyon until the summer of 2026, putting the French side in a strong bargaining position should clubs come in for him this summer.
The hope is that Liverpool are about to embark on a huge summer in the transfer market, with several additions needed all over the pitch in order to add the necessary quality to Jurgen Klopp's squad following a dismal campaign. It looks as though Barcola could be a key target following a new update.
Could Liverpool swoop for Lyon attacker?
Writing on Twitter on Friday morning, Romano claimed that the Reds are one of the clubs interested in snapping up the Frenchman at the end of the season:
"Many European clubs are tracking OL talented winger Bradley Barcola, born in 2002. Understand Liverpool are among teams monitoring his development with their scouts but the race is open.
"Barcola has 7 goals and 4 assist with OL first team this season."
It won't be easy for Liverpool to sign Barcola this summer given the aforementioned level of interest in him, but he could be a really shrewd addition if they manage to get a deal over the line. At 20, he will be at a stage of his career where his game is maturing and becoming more polished, and while he may not come in as a regular starter, he could be seen as a long-term prospect who can eventually become a vital part of Klopp's attack.
Called a "brilliant player" by football talent scout Jacek Kulig, Barcola has often taken up a right-sided role this season, but can also play on the left or in central areas, so he could even be looked at as Mohamed Salah's eventual replacement further down the line by coming in and learning from the Egyptian legend.
While attacking signings may not take precedence this summer – a number of midfielders and another centre-back are surely more important given their current options and most recent transfer activity – we think bringing in a youngster who is happy to be a squad player to begin with makes perfect sense.
Aston Villa will be hoping to continue their remarkable run of form under Unai Emery as they face Brentford in the Premier League this afternoon.
The Midlands side are currently just six points off a Champions League spot, and having won their last five matches in a row, the momentum is currently with the Villans as they chase a European spot which seemed out of this world just six months ago.
Emery’s men have no fresh injury concerns ahead of the match today, with several big-name players such as Boubacar Kamara, Matty Cash and Philippe Coutinho still all on the treatment table.
The tie represents a major opportunity for Villa to secure another three points, while Brentford have struggled as of late, picking up just two points from their last five matches, and despite having a solid season, they will be hoping to end on a high note.
We at Football FanCast predict the starting XI that Emery will select for the crucial visit to the Gtech Community Stadium this afternoon.
How will Aston Villa line up against Brentford?
4-2-3-1: Emiliano Martinez; Ashley Young, Diego Carlos, Tyrone Mings, Alex Moreno; Leander Dendoncker, Douglas Luiz; John McGinn, Emiliano Buendia, Jacob Ramsey; Ollie Watkins
Martinez will keep his place in goal and the Argentinian ‘keeper has kept a clean sheet in four of his previous five matches – with Villa conceding just one goal in that time – and he will be hoping to enjoy a comfortable afternoon.
Young will continue to deputise at right-back due to Cash being unavailable, while Alex Moreno will keep his place on the left side of defence.
Despite enjoying some solid performances of late, we think Emery could drop Ezri Konsa to the bench and give a runout to Carlos. The £100k-per-week centre-half – who was dubbed a “monster” by Watkins – hasn’t started a match since August, but he has recovered from his knee injury that has ruled him out of the majority of the season. Mings will partner him at the heart of the defence.
Dendoncker and Luiz will form the midfield axis like they did against Newcastle and will be hoping to replicate their performances against the Magpies.
Emery will yet again deploy three attacking players behind a lone striker. McGinn and Ramsey will operate on the flanks as the Englishman aims to build on his impressive display last weekend, where he scored and provided an assist. Buendia will hope to make things happen in the number ten role directly behind the in-form Watkins, who has scored 12 goals since Christmas.
Another three points will propel Villa towards the promised land of European football, but Brentford will make it a tough match as they seek their first win in over a month.
All the dress rehearsals are over. South Africa have prepared at home and away, they have played at home and away, they have won at home and away
Firdose Moonda16-Mar-2016
JP Duminy expects to play a key role with the ball in the World T20•Getty Images
All the dress rehearsals are over. South Africa have prepared at home and away, they have played at home and away, they have won at home and away. For good measure, they even lost at home, to Australia, and all of that will stand South Africa in good stead for the four matches they will play from Friday as they aim for a semi-final berth.Their World T20 group stage starts against England, an opposition they recently beat 2-0, but the real test will only come two weeks from now if they reach the knockouts. That’s when the fruits of all the training and playing and winning (and losing) will show. This time South Africa have a different plan and it’s nothing fancy at all.”When you are under pressure and your heart rate is 180, it’s hard to keep your thinking clear and that’s why we’ve spoken about doing the basics well,” JP Duminy explained. “If you focus on something that easy, it gives you a good chance of putting in a big performance in that situation.”South Africa learnt that from their most recent defeats, not the string of wins that saw them chase successfully for five matches on the trot. It was only when they fumbled in the field and sent down extras at the death against Australia, that the basics came into sharper focus and they have promised not to lose sight of them.For Duminy, that message has wider implications. There have been suggestions that South Africa’s highest run-scorer in T20 cricket is in the squad on reputation because his recent performances have been far from promising. He has not crossed fifty in 21 international innings since the team’s last visit to India, last October, but that is a statistic he is determined to put right.”I will be lying if I say it hasn’t been a really average season for me,” Duminy admitted. “But I enjoy these events and I feel very refreshed at a world event like this.”Already, Duminy has been back in the runs with 67 in the warm-up match against India and even though he only managed 22 in the second match – where he played for Mumbai Cricket Association XI against his own side – he knows he won’t have to face the bowler who removed him, Kyle Abbott, in the tournament.He will, however, have to bowl despite a summer where his role as an allrounder was scaled down in order for him to focus on his batting. In the subcontinent, South Africa are still likely to field only one specialist spinner – Imran Tahir – and will want a second slower-bowling option. Duminy wants to embrace the chance to contribute in another way. “I know that’s going to bring a lot of opportunities for me, especially in these conditions. Hopefully when given that opportunity I can make it count,” he said.Ultimately, the word opportunity is what South Africa have on repeat as they go into this tournament. They’re not viewing it as an examination of whether they can finally win a global trophy but as an opportunity to try and see if they can.”We’ve taken massive strides in these events. In the past, we’ve buckled under the pressure. If we look back to the last T20 and 50-over World Cup where we reached the semi-finals, we were outplayed,” Duminy said. “It’s when we haven’t given our best that we’ve let ourselves down. Quietly confident is the phrase that’s going around, especially in the shorter format. We are looking forward to this tournament.”
Presenter and YouTuber Conor McGilligan wasn’t impressed with Leeds United defender Rasmus Kristensen against Fulham on Tuesday evening.
The Lowdown: Cup exit
The Whites fell to a 2-0 defeat at Craven Cottage, with goals in either half from Joao Palhinha and Manor Solomon securing the win for the hosts. Leeds missed plenty of chances and saw Georginio Rutter’s goal ruled out in the first half when the scores were level.
The club’s sole focus now under Javi Gracia is on Premier League survival, but McGilligan wasn’t impressed with one player against Fulham, so perhaps they will play a limited part in that quest.
The Latest: McGilligan’s comments
McGilligan responded to one Leeds supporter on Twitter who described Kristensen as a ‘horror show’ during the first half.
The presenter of One Leeds Fan Channel said: ‘Some agent that lad has.’
The Verdict: New position
Gracia actually decided to use Kristensen, primarily a right-back, as a centre-back alongside Robin Koch. As per SofaScore, he finished with a match rating of 6.7/10, a better score than Junior Firpo, but Koch and Luke Ayling both outperformed the Denmark international.
Kristensen, who was making his first start under Gracia, did lose possession 11 times and was only involved in two duels, however, he did make two interceptions, completing one cross and a key pass.
Therefore, you could say that his display wasn’t all bad, but it wouldn’t come as a surprise if Gracia brought back Max Wober at centre-back on the weekend, with Ayling keeping his place on the right-hand side.
In an age obsessed with speed, Ramesh Powar is charmingly headed the other way. Siddhartha Vaidyanathan met him
Siddhartha Vaidyanathan07-Sep-2007
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It’s said that some cricketers belong to a different era. Ramesh Powar belongs to a different century.He is from an age when cricketers came in different shapes and sizes, wore outsized red sunglasses and delectable hair bands, and bowled slow, really slow. We’ve heard about the adrenalin rushes, speed barriers and shoulder-aches that the fastest bowlers experience. Now it’s time to celebrate the slowest among the slow.Over his last five games Powar has defied the modern notion that bowling in one-day cricket is about restriction. In a high-scoring series he has rarely darted the ball in at a flat trajectory, never beaten batsmen with speed. He has wound the clock back to the golden age of cricket, the Edwardian twilight preceding the first World War, and risked conceding runs for wicket-taking rewards. Expectedly he has got wickets (six in five games); surprisingly he has been economical (4.41). Only Andrew Flintoff, who has played two games fewer, has done better.A ten-minute chat with Saqlain Mushtaq, when the Indians played Sussex during the early part of the tour, made a big impact. Powar was fretting over not getting any of the Indian batsmen out in the nets. Saqlain’s advice was simple: “If you succeed in making these guys defend you, then you are bowling very well. Don’t think of getting a Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar or a Rahul Dravid out. Even if you are able to bother them in the nets, it’s good enough.”Powar has grown in confidence with every game since, so much so that he has not hesitated in slowing down his pace considerably. He usually operates in the 45-to-55 mph range. Occasionally, especially when he bowls the undercutter that goes straight, he gets slightly faster. More often, when he simply lobs up a moon-ball that goes straight, he gets slower. Once he dropped as low as 41mph. He admits it’s his slowest phase yet but, fascinatingly, thinks he can “easily get slower”.At Edgbaston, in the third game of the series, brought on in the 16th over, with Ian Bell and Alastair Cook at the crease, Powar slipped in a really slow one and nailed Cook on the top-edged sweep.”In the third game it struck me that if I bowl a little slower, they might sweep,” he said. “I knew they wouldn’t try to hit over the fence because they rely on batsmen like KP [Pietersen] and Bell to stay at the wicket. They couldn’t afford to take many chances. So I’ve been taking chances against Cook, Bell, [Paul] Collingwood and Pietersen.”It’s helped that Powar is usually operating with Piyush Chawla, the legspinner, who is comparatively faster. “It always helps with Piyush bowling at the other end, because the batsmen tend to always go after those bowling quicker. So, suddenly when the slower bowlers come on, it becomes difficult for them to work around it. And with my kind of pace, I don’t think they can do that easily.”Does he think he can slow it down further? “For left-handers I might go a lot slower because they play against the spin. For right-handers I think it’s fine. Because I’m an open-chested bowler, I can adjust my action easily. I deliver the ball behind my ear and lose pace since I am a side-arm bowler. And since I’ve been bowling like this for seven-eight years, I know how to lose pace with the same action. Sometimes you don’t tweak the wrist – just let it go. Sometimes you hold the ball in the palm, sometimes you hold it in two fingers rather than three. There are a lot of ways to lose pace and I’ve worked on different methods in the nets.”
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He usually operates in the 45-to-55 mph range. Often, when he simply lobs up a moon-ball that goes straight, he gets slower. Once he dropped as low as 41mph. He admits it’s his slowest phase yet but, fascinatingly, thinks he can ‘easily get slower’ |
Powar’s Headingley dismissal of Ravi Bopara, one of England’s best batsmen against spin, underlined the value of pace variations. Two quick ones, at around the 55mph mark, were followed by a straight dolly, lobbed up at 42.4mph. Bopara, completely deceived, popped a simple return catch.”They had changed the ball just then,” Powar said. “It was a newish ball and I knew that tossing it up may help getting some bounce. Maybe he didn’t expect it to spin or bounce that much. There was not much spin but some extra bounce.”Powar anticipates the batsmen’s intentions much better these days. He has always been a shrewd bowler but thinks his gut feel pays off more often these days. Paul Collingwood’s case is worth mentioning. “Collingwood always played the chip shot against me [lobbing over midwicket]. So I decided not to bowl any offbreaks that will help that chip shot. In ten balls I will probably bowl seven straight balls to him. I’m guessing better right now.”The straight one which he utilises so effectively was mastered by watching a great legspinner on television. “I learned that delivery watching Shane Warne bowl. I used to try it earlier also but it used to spin a bit. That’s maybe because at the Wankhede anything spins. When I tried it here in England at the beginning of the tour, it was going straight really well. I don’t know whether the release has changed slightly but it is working. That’s all that matters.”Powar’s trade requires him to bide his time and wait for success. His philosophy in life – one that has seen its fair share of tribulation – is similar. “I’m not the kind who wants success every day,” he says sombrely. “I’ve seen life in and out. So success and failure in a game shouldn’t be taken too seriously.” It’s a perspective that has made Powar the cricketer he is. It’s also helping him become the bowler he wants to be.