Jens Lehmann initially turned out for Arsenal between 2003 and 2008 – making 147 Premier League appearances for the Gunners before leaving for Stuttgart.
The 61-time Germany international then returned to Arsenal in the latter stages of the 2011-12 campaign due to an injury crisis which left the club with just one fit senior goalkeeper.
As it transpired, Lehmann, who also represented Schalke 04, AC Milan and Borussia Dortmund during his career, made his 200th Arsenal appearance in April 2011, before retiring from professional football at the end of the season.
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The 48-year-old is now amongst Arsene Wenger’s coaching staff at Arsenal, and the club’s Twitter account paid tribute to the German throughout Monday afternoon.
As expected, a number of the Arsenal fans responded with their favourite memories of the former goalkeeper, and there is absolutely no question that he is one of the most popular players to ever turn out for the Gunners.
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Arsenal supporters absolutely love Lehmann, and a selection of the Twitter reaction can be seen below:
During Manchester United’s 2-1 win over Liverpool on Sunday – arguably the biggest result of their season thus far – the star of the show was, indisputably, Spain international Juan Mata.
The 26 year-old opened the scoring after 14 minutes with a deft finish into Simon Mignolet’s inside netting and followed it up the second half with an acrobatic stunner, twisting and turning his body mid-air to volley past the Reds No.1.
Not every display has been so significant and pomp since the former Chelsea star moved to Old Trafford for £37.5million in January 2014 however; his relationship with the starting XI has been a flirtatious one at best, managing just 33 starts out of a possible 46 in the Premier League over the last 18 months, with David Moyes and Louis van Gaal both struggling to find the diminutive attacker a regular role in their respective sides.
Those disrupting absences have only further aggravated two major lingering concerns regarding the midfielder; firstly, that Mata’s athletic and defensive limits puts too much of a burden on the rest of the team and, at times, render the attack rather dysfunctional; and secondly, that the Red Devils purchased the Spaniard for the wrong reasons – particularly, as a name to prove Moyes could attract top players to Old Trafford amid a January-window-poor-form-infused panic.
No doubt, Mata’s a bit of a luxury player. He lacks work rate and defensive awareness, which is exactly why Jose Mourinho was more than happy to let him leave Stamford Bridge – even to one of Chelsea’s biggest divisional rivals. After reminding the Premier League of his class during that impressive showing against Liverpool however, a real make-or-break match for the Red Devils’ Champions League bid, Louis van Gaal is faced with a dilemma; is Juan Mata a luxury player worth accommodating for?
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Although Mata’s world-class technical quality is often demonstrated through a plethora of diverse capacities, his defining strength remains output. He’s already bagged 13 goals and seven assists in just 40 appearances for the Red Devils, despite his inconsistent presence in the starting XI and regular reshuffles around the midfield, and since arriving in England from Valencia in summer 2011 has claimed the most goals and assists combined, a whopping 65, of any Premier League midfielder, trumping David Silva, Yaya Toure, Eden Hazard and even Steven Gerrard. Likewise, he now boasts the best goals-per-game ratio of any United midfielder in the Premier League era, barring Cristiano Ronaldo.
Goals aren’t an immediate concern for the Red Devils; they’re currently fourth in terms of goals scored in the Premier League and boast, at least on paper, one of the most formidable strikeforces in Europe through Wayne Rooney, Robin van Persie and Radamel Falcao. Yet, that kind of firepower and supply from midfield, especially when combined with Mata’s tidiness on the ball, this term recording the best pass completion rate of any United player at 89.6% and the best long-ball accuracy of any Premier League player, 81.5%, is difficult to ignore.
The problem however, is where to fit Mata in. His best position, without question, remains at No.10, getting him as close to the goal as possible and central to build up play, but long-term, that role appears to belong to club captain Wayne Rooney. Of late, even the cumbersome Marouane Fellaini’s been selected over the Spain international at the tip of midfield. Likewise, although the 26 year-old netted twice from the right wing on Sunday, he lacks the speed and power of his many United predecessors, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Ryan Giggs and Antonio Valencia, only adding to the Red Devils’ limited penetration, the absence of a genuine threat in behind opposition defences, going forward.
Furthermore, it now seems inevitable that Mata’s inclusion will have to come at the expense of United’s other flagship stars. Against Liverpool, Angel di Maria, Robin van Persie and Radamel Falcao were all absent from the starting line-up, rendering Mata and Rooney as the only stand-out attacking talents. In comparison, when LvG attempted to squeeze Mata, Rooney, Falcao and Di Maria into the same XI against Southampton in January, United lost one-nil, failing to record a single shot on target. Too many creative forces tends to leave the Red Devils rather congested, over-complicated and narrow in the final third, resulting in an imbalance throughout the team.
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Few dispute Mata to be a sensational talent however; a two-time Player of the Year award-winner at Chelsea and a 34-time representative of the Spanish national team, winning a World Cup and European Championship with La Roja in 2010 and 2012. Failing to forge him a habitual position in the starting XI seems like an unnecessary waste of both quality and finance, as if Moyes and van Gaal, somehow, have both missed the same trick.
Clearly however, the entire balance of the team needs to be addressed to accommodate the midfielder – particularly, a far superior, better-organised, defence and midfield behind him. Although it will likely be a particularly big summer for United anyway, making signings that compliment the Spaniard, playing to his strengths whilst hiding his weaknesses, should be one of Louis van Gaal’s immediate priorities.
Reading striker Pavel Pogrebnyak says that he is fully committed to the club, despite speculation surrounding his future.
The Russian front-man moved to the Madejski Stadium last summer, after seeing out a short-term contract with Fulham.
Despite a relatively successful time in Berkshire, Pogrebnyak’s future is far from certain, with rumours circulating that he could return to his homeland with Zenit Saint-Petersburg.
However, the 29-year-old played down talk of a move away from the club, insisting that he is focused on helping in the Royals in their quest for Premier League survival:
“The season is not over, so it would be too soon to talk about the future.” He is quoted by Sky Sports via Sport-Express.
“Now, I focus on helping Reading to get important points in the Premier League.”
Pogrebnyak has netted five goals for Reading this term, but has been unable to prevent the club from slipping to 19th place in the league.
He spent two seasons with Zenit earlier in his career, before moving to Germany to play for Stuttgart.
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The Russian giants are believed to be keen to bring their former man back, and could pull off a swoop should Reading fail to avoid an immediate return to the Championship.
The 51-time England international started his professional career at Millwall back in 1983, and scored 93 league goals for the club before joining Nottingham Forest.
Sheringham’s first spell at Tottenham Hotspur came between 1992 and 1997, and he managed 75 league goals in 166 appearances before joining Manchester United.
The centre-forward continued to enjoy success at United as he famously won the treble with the English giants – ultimately spending four years with the Red Devils before returning to Tottenham for two seasons.
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Sheringham later represented Portmouth, West Ham United and Colchester United before retiring from football at the end of the 2007-08 campaign.
The fact that Sheringham did not win his first England cap until the age of 27 is an absolute tragedy, but he more than made up for it in his latter years.
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Sheringham turned 52 on Monday, and Tottenham’s official Twitter account posted a birthday message for the former ATK manager, which led to a host of praise from the Spurs fans.
A selection of the Twitter reaction from the Tottenham supporters, who have also been reacting to the latest news surrounding head coach Mauricio Pochettino, can be found below:
March is one of those months where fans start to speculate who will win the Premier League and, equally importantly, who will fall through the relegation trap door in to the Championship.
The bottom six are separated by just nine points, but with nine games to go of this year’s highly entertaining season still to play, the table could change quite considerably. But if the bottom teams maintain the form they have displayed for the last seven months then the following three teams might find themselves preparing for life in England’s second tier come the end of May.
Leicester City look set to yo-yo back into the Championship next season after gaining promotion just last year. The Foxes last won a Premier League game in January – beating Aston Villa 1-0 – and have lost three of their last five.
Sitting in bottom place, the players continue struggling to pull themselves out of this desperate situation and with Leicester only scoring 24 goals all season, they may have to rely on other teams to slip up if they are to have any chance of staying up. Argentine forward Leonardo Ulloa has only managed seven goals so far – and is still their top scorer this season – so it’s difficult to see where they can turn to in order to get those crucial table climbing points.
Winning four matches and losing 17 proves that the Foxes just aren’t ready for the high tempo and quality of the Premier League and there is little manager Nigel Pearson can do about that now.
Queens Park Rangers are another team who made a return to the Premier League this season but they’ve been looking like a side ready for a swift return back to the Championship for some time now. Rangers have suffered the most defeats, 18, with 12 of those coming away from Loftus Road.
Since Harry Redknapp took the highly unusual step of resigning back in February, QPR have tried to see it as a new chapter and an opportunity to rescue their season. To think that the appointment of Chris Ramsey could get them out of the hole they had dug themselves in all season in just four months has proven fans to be too optimistic.
Don’t get me wrong, Ramsey is a nice man and a capable coach, but even Jose Mourinho would find it difficult to get this group of players to finally click with so little time available. No other team has had more goals scored against them (49), and with matches against Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester City to come, that number is only going to increase.
I was tempted to include either Aston Villa or Sunderland in my list until I saw Burnley’s fixtures. All three clubs have had a disappointing season, but Burnley still have to face Southampton, Tottenham, Arsenal and Stoke. The Clarets have a huge task on their hands with it looking seriously likely that they will be back playing in the Championship come August.
The Clarets’, yet well deserved, victory over champions Manchester City at the weekend will have given them the belief that they can do the unthinkable, but it remains a pretty steep mountain to climb for Sean Dyche’s men.
Top scorer Danny Ings has done his best – finding the net nine times – but it won’t be enough and I can’t see Burnley finding a mass of goals from anywhere between now and the end of the campaign.
The race to beat the drop is always an intense affair for all involved – and the aforementioned clubs all have a bit of a job on their hands if they are hold on to their top flight status.
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But with Tim Sherwood seemingly working miracles at Aston Villa and Sunderland today sacking Gus Poyet, the current three in the relegation zone may find their ‘Great Escape’ efforts even more difficult to achieve.
Brendan Rodgers is trying to make the best of a bad situation, I get that. The tie isn’t over yet, and why would it be? Zenit scored twice at home and still have to travel to Anfield. For all the money they’ve spent in recent transfer windows, Zenit are not that good.
The Liverpool manager might be forgiven for consciously protecting his players, even if he believes they should come in for some criticism. Describing the away loss as “near-on perfect” is what you’d expect from a manager, as how often do they stand before reporters and publically slaughter their own team? But sometimes you’d like that, and at the very least, it would be better if managers didn’t try and convey something that is as far from the truth as can possibly be.
Andre Villas-Boas was guilty of similar actions earlier in the season, at a time when he was still finding the right level of comfort for the hot seat at Tottenham. He was overly confident of his team’s performance in the 5-2 loss at Arsenal, while having absolutely no evidence from the 90 minutes at the Emirates to support his claims.
But that’s what managers do, and some go to greater lengths to try and paint a better picture than what is actually a more worrying reality.
How does Rodgers realistically defend his Liverpool side after the trip to Russia? For starters, Hulk, who isn’t really worth the fee Porto received from Zenit, opened the scoring with a scorcher – one of his few party pieces. Where was the Liverpool defence? Why allow someone of his ability from range the time and space to size up Pepe Reina’s goal?
The finer details of the Liverpool performance can be dissected elsewhere and the topic of the team’s quality over the course of the season will continue to be much debated.
But it’s Rodgers. It’s whether he believes what he’s saying. It’s whether he’s still struggling to find that position in the Liverpool dugout that he’s had to look for since the start of the season.
What good do the manager’s post-match offerings do for his team? If he says the performance at Zenit was good, then his team are likely to accept that. Subconsciously they’re under the impression that they gave their all in a match where a better side came out victorious. That’s not the case, because again Zenit are not that good.
But it’s not just central to the away trip in the Europa League. This Liverpool team have not beaten any of the teams above them in the league; West Brom have done the double over them, and they’re out of the FA Cup. Yet Rodgers seems to offer small packages of praise to his players, as if all is well on the road to ultimate victory.
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Do you wonder if the pressure is starting to tell for the former Swansea manager? Maybe he is in at the deep end. I doubt he’s the type to admit defeat, but the wider footballing world are not going to be too forgiving, nor are they likely to offer leeway with the idea that Liverpool are on a long-term plan to rebuild.
It’s about status and maintaining a high level in English football. Liverpool are one of the most decorated teams in England, one of only two who are well ahead of everyone else. Chelsea and Manchester City still have a lot to do to match Liverpool and Manchester United, who collectively hold eight European cups and 37 league titles. However, the Liverpool manager speaking about wins at home against much lesser teams doesn’t create a pleasant image. Is he conceding that Liverpool have fallen that far and now have to take whatever they can get from wins against recently promoted sides?
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It isn’t really a surprise that Rodgers was part of Jose Mourinho’s coaching staff at one time, and you can see he wants to pick up traits from the Portuguese manager. But no one will allow that. Mourinho can do what he wants and wage wars where he feels the need, and for the most part he can leave you wondering whether he is actually in the right. You had to smile at the Real Madrid manager’s post-match interview following the 1-1 draw with Manchester United; calm, confident and maybe just a bit too cool considering the surrounding issues at the Bernabeu.
For Rodgers, it’s hard to talk about in him a similar light because he hasn’t earned that reputation in the game. It’s always necessary for managers to twist the truth in a manner which suits them and their team, but consistently drawing conclusions that do not sit at all right can become a damaging trend for Rodgers.
I’d like to see the Liverpool manager given the time he needs at Anfield and go as close to completing this five-year plan as he can, and then perhaps even go beyond that. But admitting sometimes that you weren’t quite good enough is always essential. Targeting underperforming players isn’t always a bad thing. Going stale, however, is the likely outcome from indulgence into the fantasy world.
John O’Shea has quashed reports that he plans to retire at the end of the season, and Sunderland fans are gutted.
Reports this week suggested O’Shea would retire when this season ends, as his contract at Sunderland runs out this summer, but the 36 year-old says this isn’t true.
The Irish defender has started 27 Championship games for Sunderland this season, who sit five points adrift of safety going into their clash with Derby County on Friday night.
While O’Shea certainly isn’t solely to blame for all the Black Cats’ problems, he has had a relatively poor season, and his lack of pace has been a real problem at times.
“When I wake up in the morning my body still feels good – believe me, if it didn’t I’d be the first one to admit it and finish up,” O’Shea said.
“There’s plenty of things to look forward to when my playing career ends, from coaching and management to media and punditry work, and spending more time with my family, but my wife is certainly happy I’ve decided to play on for another year!”
O’Shea says his fitness this season has shown he can still perform, but insists he is only focused on keeping Sunderland in the Championship.
“First and foremost, I’m concentrating on helping the team between now and the end of the season – that’s the big thing, that’s the only thing.”
Fans haven’t been particularly impressed by the defender this season, and they are even less impressed by his plans to continue playing.
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Some of the best Twitter reactions can be found below…
“People have very short memories in football”, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho told Clare Balding in an interview on BT Sport over Christmas.
It just takes some shortsighted hyperbole to flare up in the sensationalised tabloids to ignite a twitter storm that quickly exaggerates an opinion or assertion that should never really be attuned to. Then a cross-media outlet takes a satirical spin on it and then it’s well and truly embedded in public conscience, as it’s been to the abyss of the internet and back again.
It’s worrying how quickly opinions can spread through modern technology, how people can have their reputations severed instantly in a subjective manner, without a single coherent thought.
Radamel Falcao, the Colombian striker who’s made a slow impact at Manchester United this season, was the victim of the opinion driving media hunt. Within 24 hours of being left out of United’s defeat to Southampton there was an explosion of ‘analysis’ that his time in Manchester was basically redundant.
That’s not to deny that that there isn’t an aura of disappointment around his impact so far. Injuries have halted his progress and momentum – something that is often crucial to adapt to a new league. He’s hardly been able to play consistently since his Atlético days, so it’s not that surprising that his immediate impact has been negligible.
Take yourself back to his La Liga days and he was rightfully seen in a different light – he netted 71 times in 90 appearances, leading ex-England manager Fabio Capello to label him as the best player in the world. There’s little to doubt about the pedigree of this South American striker.
Perhaps, then, Falcao has joined the wrong club, at the wrong time. If you watch him, he’s quite a complete striker – not complete in the sense that he can play any form of role – but more that he’s the complete No. 9. He won’t drop deep into midfield to help link-up play, or make lateral runs to the flanks to draw defences out of positions.
Instead, he’ll stay outright as a ‘pure’ No. 9. He’s ‘complete’ in that sense because he’s two-footed, agile, strong, and an incredible force in the air. Falcao has joined a United team who already have excellent attacking options, and naturally the clauses of his ludicrously expensive contract make his time thus far difficult to justify, especially when he’s 28.
While third party ownership is banned in England, he’s essentially owned by a court of private investors who flaunt his services around Europe searching for extravagant fees. Placed in the Iberian shop window at Porto – in the same manner as many hot South American prospects are – Falcao’s deals thus far make him a poster boy for those looking to make money out of investing in young footballers.
The ‘Van Gaalactico’s’ probably seemed the perfect fit in September when the board in Manchester were after as many big names as possible to re-launch brand United. But now, four months on, the deal is looking less than logical.
And it probably never was. While United and chairman Ed Woodward clearly have money to spend, £43.5m on a 28-year-old striker was always going to be a push. But if you were to believe what you see and hear, the acquisition was doomed for failure as soon as it began, even if many of the same people were championing it at the time.
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That’s the hysteria that Mourinho and the rest of football’s top figures dealing with the media know all too well. In reality, United have in their ranks a world class no.9, who will almost certainly make a very important impact at some point this season. You’d be foolish to write him off so soon, and don’t be surprised if he pops up at a crucial time and makes a significant contribution to United’s season.
Victor Anichebe believes his Everton teammate Leighton Baines is the Premier League’s most lethal set-piece specialist.
Nigerian striker Anichebe netted the Toffees’ winner in the 2-1 win away at Newcastle on Wednesday.
But it was Baines’ free-kick that stunned all in the North East, as the superb strike just before half-time levelled the scores after Papiss Demba Cisse had given the Toon an early lead.
The Kirky-born left-back has established himself as a fine dead-ball specialist. He won Everton’s goal of the season two years ago for a stunning FA Cup free-kick against Chelsea, while he has never missed from the penalty spot in his Premier League career.
And, asked if his teammate is the best in the division, Anichebe told evertontv: “It would be very hard to find someone [better]. He’s definitely up there and he’s a great plus for the team.
“I haven’t seen a better free-kick. I was sitting on the bench and I saw him about to take it from 35 yards or whatever and I didn’t think he was going to hit it. I was shouting on the bench [for him not to].
“It was an unbelievable free-kick, but that just shows how good he is. He is unbelievable, every game he is consistent. I don’t see him playing badly.”
Baines is no stranger to Everton’s goal of the season award, after his exquisite free-kick last season against Swansea saw him shortlisted for the prize again.
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The England international has scored nineteen goals in all competitions for the Merseysiders since joining from Wigan in 2007.
Leeds United have been linked with Barnsley defender Andy Yiadom, and Leeds fans can’t decide what to make of the news.
According to the Yorkshire Evening Post, Paul Heckingbottom wants to raid his former club this summer and bring Yiadom to Elland Road.
The 26 year-old is a versatile full back who can play on either flank, and also on the wing. He has impressed suitors this season with his pace and power, and will be available on a free transfer when his contract runs out this summer.
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It is no surprise that the club is already planning for next season. Leeds’ season has gone from decent to bad to worse, and the arrival of Heckingbottom certainly did not have the desired impact.
While some fans are questioning whether the ex-Barnsley man will even still be in charge next season, the rest have been debating the move for Yiadom on Twitter, and it seems like a pretty even split.
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The flying full back has earned two senior caps for Ghana, and has had a good season despite Barnsley’s current condition.
Some of the best Twitter reactions can be found below…