Saturday, October 20, 2018

'Wayne Rooney? Never heard of him'

BBC Sport - Football
'Wayne Rooney? Never heard of him'
'Wayne Rooney? Never heard of him'
The former England captain is adjusting to his new US club but remains unknown among some Americans.

Friday, October 19, 2018

Jorginho enamoured with Chelsea: 'Impossible not to love it here'

Tribal Football - Football News, Soccer News, Transfers & Rumours
Jorginho enamoured with Chelsea: 'Impossible not to love it here'
Jorginho enamoured with Chelsea: 'Impossible not to love it here'

Jorginho says it is impossible not to love playing for Chelsea.

The Italian has fitted in seamlessly at Stamford Bridge since joining from Napoli alongside manager Maurizio Sarri.

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Thursday, October 18, 2018

The 10 most improved players in the Premier League this season

Football | The Guardian
The 10 most improved players in the Premier League this season

Eden Hazard, Gylfi Sigurdsson, James Milner and Callum Wilson have stepped it up this season

By Martin Laurence for WhoScored

Étienne Capoue can be a frustrating player at times. He has real quality, which he showed occasionally in his unsuccessful spell at Tottenham, but this is his longest run of consistently strong performances in the Premier League. He has forged a solid midfield partnership with Abdoulaye Doucouré at Watford and has even overshadowed his fellow Frenchman, the club’s player of last season. Capoue’s total of 53 tackles and interceptions is second only to Idrissa Gueye (54) in the league this season and, having fallen out of favour under Marco Silva, he is now among the first names on Javi Gracia’s teamsheet. Rating: 7.13, up 0.38 on last season.

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Wednesday, October 17, 2018

Chelsea fullback Alonso tips 'great' Barkley to fill England void

Tribal Football - Football News, Soccer News, Transfers & Rumours
Chelsea fullback Alonso tips 'great' Barkley to fill England void
Chelsea fullback Alonso tips 'great' Barkley to fill England void

Marcos Alonso believes Chelsea teammate Ross Barkley can fill England's creative void in midfield.

Alonso was on the field for Spain in Monday night's loss to the Three Lions, in which Barkley was instrumental for the visitors third goal.

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Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Mark Walters: ‘It wasn’t just fruit – people threw darts and a pig’s leg’

Football | The Guardian
Mark Walters: ‘It wasn’t just fruit – people threw darts and a pig’s leg’

The former England winger discusses the racism he faced when he joined Rangers and why having ‘all the badges and every award going’ never landed him a top coaching job

Mark Walters cannot help smiling about the time Mo Johnston, his then teammate, received a bullet in the post. “I said: ‘Mo, you’ve taken the pressure right off me!” he recalls of the death threat sent to Johnston after the striker, a Catholic and former Celtic hero, joined Rangers in 1989. “We had a good laugh about it,” says Walters. “I had all sorts thrown at me – bananas, darts, a pig’s leg – and I had letters from the Ku Klux Klan telling me where I should go and what I should be doing with myself. But I never got a bullet! Unless you’ve been in a professionals’ dressing room, it’s hard to explain the humour.”

Laughing off or blocking out hatred had been Walters’ modus operandi since long before he joined Rangers in 1987, when he became the only black player in the Scottish Premier League. He encountered abuse that may seem almost unbelievable today but says it was, in one respect only, easy to ignore because racism is boring and paying attention to it would not have helped him to fulfil his ambition of becoming a successful footballer. He achieved that, playing for his hometown club Aston Villa before winning three Scottish titles with Rangers, a cap for England and the FA Cup with Liverpool.

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Monday, October 15, 2018

Jake Clarke-Salter: ‘I was with players I played with on PlayStation. Crazy’

Football | The Guardian
Jake Clarke-Salter: ‘I was with players I played with on PlayStation. Crazy’

Chelsea’s defender, on loan at Vitesse Arnhem, draws comfort from Sergio Ramos after three red cards in his fledging career

As the referee reached for his back pocket less than half an hour into Vitesse Arnhem’s Europa League qualifier against Basel in August, it was easy to imagine what was going through Jake Clarke-Salter’s mind. The Chelsea defender’s previous loan, at Sunderland last season, was overshadowed by back-to-back dismissals and now another red card – and a harsh one, too – was about to be shown in his direction. Holding his head in his hands, Clarke-Salter had only one thought: “Not again.”

Pulling up a chair at St George’s Park ahead of England’s Under-21 game against Scotland on Tuesday, Clarke-Salter talks about “a massive learning curve” as he reflects on those red cards and his loan experiences, starting two years ago at Bristol Rovers, where he ended up having a metal plate inserted in an arm after a painful fracture-dislocation of his elbow.

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