Liverpool supporters have been left reeling by the breakdown in talks between the Reds and Lyon over the transfer of star talent Nabil Fekir.
As reported by the BBC, the French club announced that he will not be moving to Anfield and will in fact will be staying with his current side in 2018/19.
His signing had previously thought to be imminent, with Liverpool fans excited about what he could bring to Jurgen Klopp’s starting eleven next season.
Now the German will either have to move onto other talents or risk counting on a late move for the midfielder later on in the transfer window after the World Cup in Russia.
Fekir had a phenomenal season in France last season, scoring 23 goals and providing 9 assists, the kind of direct goal contribution that could have made him a real fan favourite at Anfield.
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Supporters took to Twitter to share their thoughts on it all…
Everton may have finally found Leighton Baines’ replacement, and fans want a deal done as soon as possible for Bayer Leverkusen’s Wendell.
According to Sky Sports, Everton want 24 year-old Wendell to succeed Baines on their left flank.
The Leverkusen left back scored twice and assisted three more in 26 Bundesliga appearances last season, and like Baines he knows how to take a great set piece.
Marco Silva is on the hunt for summer reinforcements, but the Toffees’ massive summer spending spree last year might prevent them from going all out this summer, as Silva and new director of football Marcel Brands work together to try and trim the squad and wage bill.
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German left back Marvin Plattenhardt has also been linked with a move to Goodison, but the Brazilian Wendell is younger, faster and absolutely loves bombing down the left flank just like Baines.
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The 24 year-old averaged one key pass per game last season, while also averaging over two tackles and one interception per game.
Fans have been reacting to the links on Twitter, and it seems they’re desperate to get a quality replacement in for their ageing fan favourite. You can find some of the best reactions down below…
West Ham supporters in the Transfer Tavern are very much looking forward to the new era at the London Stadium following the appointment of Manuel Pellegrini as the new Hammers manager last month.
The Chilean takes over the reins at the East London outfit following the departure of David Moyes, who left the club at the expiration of his contract despite leading the Hammers to a 13th place finish in the Premier League. However, the club’s hierarchy decided against extending his stay as manager and have instead drafted in former Manchester City chief Pellegrini, who led the Citizens to the league title, and indeed two League Cup triumphs, during his time at the Etihad Stadium.
As such, there are many excited and indeed expectant West Ham fans in the Tavern at present, several of whom are likely to be interested by recent reports suggesting that Danny Ings is free to leave Liverpool this summer.
And with the Hammers struggling in the striking department last season, Pellegrini would solve a key problem at the London Stadium with the addition of the available £7.2 million-rated star (as per Transfermarkt).
Ultimately, while West Ham didn’t have the worst offensive record in the top-flight last term, they will have to improve upon their tally of 48 goals in their 38 Premier League games if they are to move forward and perhaps challenge for the European spots this time round.
How far will England get in Russia? Tell us now
Marko Arnautovic was the only man to reach double figures last season in netting 11 times for the Hammers, which itself further emphasises their difficulties, as does the fact that Andre Ayew, who left the club in January to move to Swansea City, finished as their third highest goal-scorer with six.
Thus, Pellegrini has to address that this summer if he is to take the East London club to the next level, and 25-year-old Ings could well give him the answer.
The one-time England international has only mustered 24 senior appearances for Liverpool since his move there back in 2015, with injuries decimating his time at Anfield after what was a promising spell at Burnley to earn him a move to Merseyside.
Nonetheless, one mustn’t forget that Ings scored 11 goals in 35 Premier League appearances for the Clarets back in the 2014/15 season to underline his credentials in the top-flight, with that return in particular earning him that solitary England cap in the autumn of 2015.
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Yes, there will be obvious concerns among our resident Hammers fans given that Ings has not played much football in the last few years, but he certainly looked sharp in the latter stages of last season when turning out for Liverpool, and showed a predatory instinct in front of goal at Burnley which is unlikely to ever leave him.
As such, with the East London outfit clearly in need of further attacking reinforcements, alongside Ings’ desire to leave Liverpool, Pellegrini must seek to solve a key West Ham problem by capturing the 25-year-old this summer.
It is no secret that Manchester United are in the market for a centre-back this summer having finished second behind neighbours Man City last season.
What’s the story?
Last month, according to the Manchester Evening News, United opened negotiations with Tottenham over a deal for Toby Alderweireld. The Red Devils’ offer of £55m would be the most the club have ever spent on a defender, but the offer is still said to be £20m short of what Spurs are asking for.
The 29-year-old looks to be on his way out of the North London club this summer as Mauricio Pochettino looks to free up funds for more transfers.
Alderweireld only featured in 21 matches in all competitions for Spurs last season after a long lay-off for a hamstring injury meant he lost his place to Colombian Davinson Sánchez.
Now it seems Jose Mourinho’s sights are set on a different defender. Gazzetta Sport have reported that Inter Milan have rejected a €65m bid for Slovak centre-back Milan Skriniar.
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Milan from Milan
Skriniar signed for Inter from Sampdoria just one year ago and is adept at building attacks from the back with his range of passing and quality on the ball.
Much like Alderweireld, Skriniar isn’t blessed with pace but his reading of the game more than makes up for this. The 23-year-old could be the perfect partner for Eric Bailly after Victor Lindelof struggled to make an impact at Old Trafford.
Skriniar played 38 times in Serie A last season, chipping in with four goals for Inter and would be a much better option for United in the long-run than Alderweireld.
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A round-up of the third day’s action from the seventh round of the Ranji Trophy Super League
Cricinfo staff17-Dec-2009
Group A
Scorecard Abhinav Mukund returned to form with a double century•ESPNcricinfo Ltd
On a depressing day for Hyderabad at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Abhinav Mukund’s double-century virtually guaranteed their relegation for the first time. Mukund returned to form with a nine-and-a-half hour 257 and with the help of yet another hundred from middle-order rock, S Badrinath, Tamil Nadu finished the day 247 runs ahead. With only one day remaining, and needing an outright win to stay in the Super League, Hyderabad’s slim hopes were further eroded after the dismissal of both Badrinath and Mukund by a quick half-century from ICL-returnee R Sathish.
Scorecard Gujarat’s batsmen made a spirited chase of Mumbai’s mammoth first-innings 648, reaching 432 for 3 on the back of centuries from Parthiv Patel and Bhavik Thaker. On a docile track, against an indisciplined Mumbai attack that sent down 24 no-balls, Parthiv and Thaker added an unbeaten 234 runs for the fourth wicket to keep Gujarat in the hunt for first-innings points. The pair came together after Mumbai had struck twice in the day’s first session and played out more than 70 overs . Both overnight batsmen, Niraj Patel and Rikin Chauhan, went to half-centuries but were dismissed in the 50s.
Scoreacard It wasn’t all bad for Mumbai, though, as Railways, the team challenging them for a spot in the quarter-finals, slipped up against Punjab at the Karnail Singh stadium. At the start of the day, Railways would have fancied their chances of taking the first-innings lead when Punjab were 122 runs behind with six wickets remaining. However, Uday Kaul went on to make his sixth first-class century and his 91-run stand with Vikas Bhalla steered Punjab past Railways’ first-innings score. To make matters worse for Railways, No. 8 Rahul Sharma posted a brisk 79 to push Punjab’s total past 400.
Scorecard Vinit Indulkar batted through the day to reach his fourth first-class century and hold together Himachal Pradesh’s second innings against Orissa. He combined with Kuldeep Diwan for a 173-run sixth-wicket association that stalled Orissa’s march to victory. Their partnership bailed HP out from 174 for 5, still trailing Orissa by 17 runs, and put them in a position from which some assistance from the tail could help their side escape with a draw.
Group B
Scorecard Yusuf Pathan’s first-ball dismissal in the second innings, which completed left-arm medium-pacer Samad Fallah’s hat-trick, has almost ended Baroda’s chances of making the quarter-finals. Chasing 101 for victory over bottom-placed Maharashtra, Baroda needed to win by ten wickets to get the six points that would have helped them level with Delhi (who will move to 16 points in case of a likely draw against Bengal). A victory by a margin of less than ten wickets will only give Baroda five points, which means barring a bizarre day in the Delhi game, Baroda’s Ranji season will end on Friday. The dismissal overshadowed a superb day for bowlers: first Fallah ripped through the Baroda tail, taking the final five wickets to finish with 8 for 98 in the first innings; then Irfan Pathan and Munaf Patel combined for seven wickets to bowl out Maharasthra for 207 in the second innings.
Scorecard Saurashtra’s Ranji odyssey will also end on Friday and there will be no chance to complete a hat-trick of semi-final appearances, but their batsmen put up a solid effort in the second innings against table-topping Karnataka. Openers Chirag Pathak (88) and Sagar Jogiyani (45) put on 132 for the first wicket, which was followed up by a 66 from Cheteshwar Pujara. A similar score from Pratik Mehta, who added 85 for the eight wicket with Vishal Joshi, guided Saurashtra towards 400 by stumps.
Scorecard Bengal may have staved off the threat of relegation but their push for a win was stalled by a dogged Delhi batting effort. Overnight batsmen, Aditya Jain and Mithun Manhas, stretched their partnership to 145 runs before Jain fell for 56. Three overs later Manhas was also dismissed, falling 12 short of triple figures, leaving Delhi at 161 for 4. Puneet Bisht’s breezy century, during which he formed a 85-run alliance with Gaurav Chabra for the sixth wicket, kept Delhi fighting. Bisht is still unbeaten but Bengal are still favourites to take the first-innings lead.
MS Dhoni, the India captain, has said dew contributed significantly to his team’s defeat against Sri Lanka in Mirpur
Cricinfo staff06-Jan-2010MS Dhoni, the India captain, has said dew contributed significantly to his team’s defeat against Sri Lanka in Mirpur and would prefer if the start times of the games were brought forward for the remainder of the tri-series in Bangladesh.Kumar Sangakkara won the toss for the second time in the tournament and sent India in to bat, preferring to chase in wet evening conditions. India posted 279 for 9, a total which Sri Lanka chased down with five wickets in hand and two overs to spare.”It was always going to be difficult to defend a total like 280-285. Dew became a huge factor. We knew we had to pick early wickets. After the first 10 overs there was nothing for the bowlers,” Dhoni said. “It was difficult for the spinners to grip the ball. The ball kept slipping out. There were no yorkers, no reverse-swing and no spin for my bowlers.””We can make a request for an early start but if you have to play at the same time, you have to come up with something else.”Sri Lanka had the better of the conditions in the series opener as well. Bangladesh scored 260 for 7 after losing the toss, a target which Sri Lanka chased for the loss of only three wickets with 31 balls to spare. Shakib Al Hasan, the Bangladesh captain, had said the dew hade made conditions “almost unplayable and unfit to play” during the second half of the match.
Jesse Ryder will return to action in the practice match between Wellington A and the England Under-19 team, after recovering from an abductor injury that had put him out of action since September 2009.
Cricinfo staff07-Jan-2010Jesse Ryder, the New Zealand batsman, is set to make a comeback after recovering from an abductor strain that he aggravated during the Champions Trophy in South Africa. Ryder will appear for Wellington A in a practice game against the England Under-19 team which is in New Zealand for the Youth World Cup. This is a significant step in Ryder’s recovery from an injury that has troubled him since the Indian Premier League in March 2009.Gavin Larsen, the chief executive of Cricket Wellington, said, “He’s progressing well. He’s getting fitter and stronger by the day. We’re treating this as just another step, albeit a significant one, in his recovery.”Larsen said that he was keen to ease Ryder into action slowly. He said that while the authorities were anxious to have Ryder participating in the HRV Cup soon, they were “really conscious of not wanting to go back to square one”. Ryder will bat with the assistance of a runner and will not take the field during the game, in a recovery plan which is part of a programme negotiated between Wellington and New Zealand Cricket (NZC).NZC physiotherapist Kate Stalker viewed the match as an opportunity for Ryder to check if the injury had improved sufficiently to let him bat for an extended period of time.
“Hopefully this will help him build up some batting endurance,” Stalker said. “Jesse is progressing well, but until he has completed his rehabilitation and has passed a range of intensive fitness tests he will not be available for full selection for Wellington.”
From a position of relative strength to utter disarray in the space of
half an hour – that was Bangladesh’s story on the final day of the series
in Mirpur
The Bulletin by Dileep Premachandran27-Jan-2010 Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were outMohammad Ashraful resisted the Indian attack initially, but his dismissal opened the flood-gates•Associated Press
From a position of relative strength to utter disarray in the space of
half an hour – that was Bangladesh’s story on the final day of the series
in Mirpur. From 290 for 3, they lost six wickets for 14, and only a couple
of hefty blows from Mushfiqur Rahim ensured that the innings defeat was
avoided. But Zaheer Khan, who had spent much of the morning wearing a
back-brace before returning to scalp three in an over, needed just three
balls after lunch to make a mess of Rubel Hossain’s stumps, and when
Shakib Al Hasan’s second ball went for byes, the match was over.Pragyan Ojha had taken the wickets of Mohammad Ashraful and Shakib Al
Hasan, before ceding the limelight to Zaheer, easily the pick of the
bowlers in the series. But there was no hint of the drama to come as
Bangladesh made serene progress in the opening hour. Ashraful drove Zaheer
through cover, but was largely an amused onlooker as Shahadat Hossain, the
nightwatchman, took to the attack with some gusto.
Smart stats
India’s 2-0 win in Bangladesh is their fifth series win in a row. They last lost a series in Sri Lanka in July 2008. Since then they’ve beaten Australia, England and Sri Lanka at home, and New Zealand and Bangladesh away.
The win is India’s sixth in seven Tests against Bangladesh. Three of those wins were by an innings.
Zaheer Khan’s 7 for 87 is only the ninth instance of Indian fast bowlers taking seven or more wickets in an innings. Kapil Dev has done it five times, while Lala Amar Singh, Javagal Srinath and Irfan Pathan have done it once each.
It’s Zaheer’s first ten-wicket haul in a Test – his previous best had been 9 for 134 against England at Trent Bridge in 2007.It’s also his fourth Man-of-the-Match award, two of which have come against Bangladesh.
Tamim Iqbal’s 151 is the second-highest score by a Bangladesh batsman in Tests. He fell only seven short of Mohammad Ashraful’s unbeaten 158 against India in 2004. Bangladesh’s three highest individual scores have all come against India.
A pull for four off Ishant Sharma bolstered his confidence and though a
subsequent top-edged heave over slips betrayed his tail-end roots, there
was nothing fortuitous about a lovely straight six off Ojha or a copy-book
cover-drive off Zaheer. With Gautam Gambhir then conceding four
overthrows, and Ojha clubbed for another four through midwicket, there
would have been Indian supporters whose minds strayed to the prospect of a
tricky fourth-innings chase.The sense of unease was compounded when Amit Mishra dropped Shahadat at
deep midwicket after he’d given Harbhajan Singh the big heave-ho. There
were 51 runs scored before drinks and it was only when Shahadat tried to
wallop Harbhajan over long-on again that the wheels came off. This time,
Amit Mishra held on to the catch, and the 68-run partnership was over.Ashraful, who had shown uncharacteristic patience all the while, followed
in Shahadat’s wake, undone by a beautiful Ojha delivery from round the
wicket. Shakib played the most bizarre of innings, striking the first ball
he faced for a straight six, and then sweeping one straight to Gambhir at
square leg. Resistance breached, MS Dhoni turned to his best bowler.Brace or no brace, Zaheer was a man on fire. Raqibul Hasan shouldered arms
to one that came in with the angle from round the wicket, while
Mahmudullah was defeated by late movement and a magnificent catch from
Murali Vijay, who took the catch an inch from the ground while diving to
his left at second slip. Shafiul Islam’s stumps were splayed next ball,
and it took some defiance from Mushfiqur to make India bat again. In the
event, they didn’t even need to play a shot in anger.
Despite the return of regular captain Shahid Afridi, the PCB does not want to change leaders in the middle of tours
Osman Samiuddin08-Feb-2010Shoaib Malik will captain both Twenty20 internationals against England in Dubai later this month despite the return of regular captain Shahid Afridi because the board does not want to change leaders in the middle of tours.Malik led Pakistan in the Melbourne Twenty20 against Australia last week, after Afridi was banned for two matches for tampering with the ball during the last ODI against Australia in Perth. That ban means Afridi will also miss the first game against England, on February 19, though he returns for the second game the following evening.But because the tour is so short, the PCB has decided against changing the captaincy and keeping Malik in charge. There has been speculation since Afridi was caught on TV biting the ball repeatedly that his future as the format’s captain is in doubt. Malik, Pakistan’s captain in all three formats as recently as last year, is being talked about as a candidate again but
Wasim Bari, the board’s chief operating officer, played down such notions.”It is not a good idea to have one captain in one match and another in the next,” he told Cricinfo. “There is no point in doing it match to match so we decided, as it is a short tour, to just keep Malik as captain for both games. Afridi is our captain in the format. Had there not been a ban, there would not have been a problem.”Incidentally, Malik is reunited as captain with Yawar Saeed, who accompanies the side as manager once again. Exactly one year ago today Saeed was part responsible for a series report in which he wrote that Malik was a “loner” and “aloof” and that he should be replaced by Younis Khan as captain.Of equal significance is the absence of Intikhab Alam, Pakistan’s coach, from the squad and his future with the side. Most often the public face of Pakistan in defeat, Intikhab has come in for increasingly heavy criticism after the Australian tour. He is due to appear before a board inquiry committee later this week and Ijaz Ahmed, coach of the Under-19 side and who will alredy be in Dubai as head of the A side, will join the senior squad as a batting and fielding coach. Perhaps tellingly, Bari refused to be drawn over Intikhab’s future.”There is no word yet on Intikhab’s future. There is an inquiry being held at the moment and subsequently it will be decided. Ijaz is not the coach but the batting and fielding coach for the side there,” Bari said. “Daniel Vettori and New Zealand also toured without a coach and it has happened before so it is not so unusual.”
Damien Wright continued his outstanding season with a five-wicket haul that restricted his former state Tasmania to 222 on the opening day in Melbourne
Cricinfo staff10-Mar-2010
ScorecardDamien Wright’s 5 for 49 kept Victoria on top•Getty Images
Damien Wright continued his outstanding season with a five-wicket haul that restricted his former state Tasmania to 222 on the opening day in Melbourne. Tim Paine, the acting captain of the Tigers, did his best with 69 but by the close of play Victoria had significantly boosted their chances of hosting the Sheffield Shield final.Rain delayed the start of play and when things did kick off, Wright helped Victoria make a strong start as the Tigers stumbled to 4 for 48. Jon Wells made a drawn-out 38 that took nearly three hours as Tasmania tried to rebuild from the early losses but he was the fifth man to depart, caught behind off Wright when he tried to leave the ball.The first innings of Daniel Marsh’s final game didn’t go to plan as was out for 7, before Paine and the lower order provided some resistance. Paine was the key man with 69 but his fightback ended when he was lbw to Bryce McGain, to leave Tasmania at 8 for 178.Wright grabbed the final two wickets to finish with 5 for 49 and now has a remarkable 30 victims at 14.76 in his fifth match of the summer. Victoria faced three overs before stumps and reached 0 for 4 with Michael Hill having scored all the runs and Nick Jewell yet to get off the mark.The Bushrangers and Queensland are guaranteed of places in the decider but the hosting rights will be determined by the current round of matches. Victoria are three points clear of the Bulls and if they take first-innings points they will be well on the way to securing the final, as Queensland were on the back foot after the opening day of their match against Western Australia.