Gossip: Three Saudi Pro League clubs want Son
Saudi Arabian clubs Al-Ahli, Al-Nassr and Al-Qadsiah have expressed an interest in Tottenham's Son Heung-min, with the trio each prepared to pay £34m for the forward. (Talksport), externalWant more transfer news? Read Wednesday's full gossip columnFollow the gossip column on BBC Sport
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
35 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Pep Guardiola is adamant he does not need to change – this season is the acid test
Pep Guardiola regards Manchester City's lost season of 2024-2025, and his team's great winter slump, chiefly as an aberration brought on by an injury crisis that he saw as unprecedented – and that view seems to get stronger as time goes on. After Juventus were dispatched by City in the last group-stage game of the Fifa Club World Cup in Orlando on Thursday, Guardiola was saying much the same. He spoke of the absence last season of Rodri, the Ballon d'Or winner, now back in the starting XI. Of all the training sessions that did not function properly because of those missing, and the impossibility of succeeding in the Premier League if a team cannot train as they would play. In Guardiola's mind, last season's downward curve was a question of personnel and not one of style – and this season will put that theory to the test. Certainly against Juventus there was a familiar sense of control about City. An echo of the mighty football machine built to grind an opposition back behind its passing arc of doom, while City await an overload, an error, that signals the moment for an incursion. This defined the Premier League's Guardiola era and there were times when it felt unbreakable. Then, in the space of a few weeks last November and December, the spell was broken, and Guardiola and his players were like any other club on a dismal run. 'We had an incredible squad and team,' Guardiola said on Thursday, 'but we were injured, 50 per cent of the players, so it means we went down and cannot compete.' He talked about the weeks last season when 'all the central defenders [were] out' and there were times when none of his four first choices were properly fit. Even when City were out of the worst of it – that period from the end of October to Boxing Day when they lost nine and won just once in 13 games – there were still bad results. They went from two up against Paris St-Germain to conceding four in 25 minutes. Arsenal beat them 5-1; Real Madrid beat them home and away; Liverpool won at the Etihad and Nottingham Forest grabbed a late win over City at the City Ground. There was, of course, no Rodri for any of this. Yet at the same time the successful teams of the season, Liverpool and PSG most notably, were playing a different style of football – more direct, less risk-averse than Guardiola's own brand of the game, sans Rodri. It is easier to imagine a City team without Erling Haaland than it is one without Rodri. The midfielder is fundamental to Guardiola's need for control. But there also is no doubt that both Liverpool and PSG showed there was a way to disrupt the Guardiola approach and this season one expects they will try to do so again. From PSG's point of view, that moment could come as soon as next week at the Club World Cup, should both teams make it to the final. Then there is the question of what a summer of tournament football might mean for City, and for all the Club World Cup's European sides as they return to domestic competition. There are other factors too, further beyond Guardiola's control – the culmination of City's epic legal battle with the Premier League, the departure of Guardiola long-term ally, sporting director Txiki Begiristain. Guardiola's ability to maintain the standard of his side while changing it completely into what will be his 10th season in the Premier League has been remarkable. Generally speaking, City have bought the right players, Guardiola has corralled them into his vision and the results have been spectacular. Some, like Matheus Nunes, have taken longer to assimilate and only very few, Jack Grealish among them, are rejected. By the same reckoning, the departures have been timed unerringly. A whole title-winning team was dismantled in Guardiola's first six years. Monday's opponents in the Club World Cup last 16, Al-Hilal, have João Cancelo, another cast out by Guardiola. Kevin De Bruyne would have liked another year but Guardiola thought otherwise. Even the coaching staff goes through cycles, the seat next to Guardiola now occupied by former Liverpool assistant Pep Ljinders. All the change has been a key part of the Guardiola aura, a restlessness that reflects the unyielding nature of what happens on the pitch – it never stops. Even the biggest names are being borne imperceptibly towards the exit. At the back of his mind Rodri will know that this season must go well for him or, turning 30 next June, doubts will foment around him, too. Although one wonders if Guardiola feels the same way. Whatever the challenge, his has been an extraordinary 18 years as a coach – it barely needs repeating how his influence has touched the game right through its levels. He has adjusted and innovated. But last season was by far the biggest challenge to the Guardiola supremacy since he started winning Premier League titles. Guardiola is sure that the method is sound, and that both in terms of the style and profile of his squad – its ambition, age and experience – he has arrived upon the right dynamic. In the last six months City have bought young players, as everyone must now, but they have also signed more established individuals. Like Omar Marmoush, among the very top players in the Bundesliga, and Tijjani Reijnders, who enjoyed the same status in Serie A. Being right has been the professional calling card of Guardiola's career and it is the most powerful asset a manager can wield. As other greats before him have shown, most notably Sir Alex Ferguson, it can transform a club and elevate the careers of some players far above those of their peers. And year after year it has to be refreshed.
Daily Record
an hour ago
- Daily Record
The half hour with Sir Alex Ferguson that David Gray will never forget as Hibs boss built career on Man Utd values
Gray will never forget the moment Sir Alex took him and his parents into his office to sign him for Man Utd Sir Alex Ferguson was in his office with less than an hour to go before a Premier League clash against Everton kicked off at Old Trafford. He had named his Manchester United starting XI and left the home dressing-room to return to his personal space at a time when managers would normally be consumed by last-minute thoughts. But another important job was occupying the legendary boss. Namely convincing 16-year-old David Gray – and more to the point his parents Elaine and Peter – to sign up for his Red Devils. Gray will never forget the moment. How could the boyhood United fan? As a top-level manager himself now, 21 years later, he still can't believe it ever happened. But those were the lengths that arguably the greatest ever manager to have lived would go to make sure he signed the best young talent. From there on, it was on the talented teens to match Fergie's standards, professionalism and work ethic to give themselves the best chance in the game. Gray would only ever make one top-team appearance for United, starting a 2-1 League Cup win at Crewe in 2006. After that he headed out on loan to Royal Antwerp and Plymouth and forged an impressive career that culminated in him being crowned a Hibs legend. But he maintains the standards that coursed through Old Trafford two decades ago helped drive his entire playing career. And in a rare look back at his time at the club, Gray admits those values remain crucial now as a young manager on his own path at Easter Road. 'Definitely,' he said. 'Those years helped set a standard I've kept for my whole career. 'Sir Alex is incredible. His level of detail and knowledge was incredible. From day one, when you arrive, he knows everything... about every player. 'You'd pass him at the training ground and he'd be asking: 'How's your mum and dad? Peter all right?' 'Sir Alex came up to Scotland and had conversations with mum and dad before I signed then we all went down to watch a game. 'It was Everton at Old Trafford in the Premier League, I was only 16. 'We were sitting in his office after naming his team. 'It was my mum, my dad and me, sitting there with Sir Alex ahead of a Premier League game – and we're talking about me! 'He took half-an-hour off before kick-off to make sure I signed for United. It was incredible. 'When I think back now, as a manager, to give up half-an-hour at that point on matchday to try to get a 16-year-old to come to the club, it just shows the dedication and the quality of the man. 'He put everything into it. To be honest, being Scottish he had a wee soft spot for me. But I learned so much from those years at United. 'It wasn't just about being a player. It was about being a professional and how to conduct yourself on and off the pitch.' That's a key element Gray and this backroom team are striving to instil in every player each day at Hibs. From internationals in the top team right down through the academy where the Under-18 side have just been crowned Scottish champions again. Gray's vision is to give academy products a real pathway into his top-team plans, helping improve the damning stats that show a lack of Premiership minutes for homegrown players at our top clubs. As Sir Matt Busby famously said in a mantra Sir Alex followed: 'If you're good enough, you're old enough.' That journey begins in the pre-academy stage, headed up by Kevin Bracks, before they progress through the key years with ex-Hibs stars Darren McGregor, Guillaume Beuzelin and Gareth Evans in the Under-18s. Funnily enough, for a man who would become a bona fide Hibs legend, Gray had spent that key stage between 12 to 16 at Hearts. His age group included Lee Wallace, Calum Elliott and Andrew Driver, among others. They all went on to become first-team Jambos players as teenagers but Gray opted for a different route at his boyhood heroes. He went south, moved into digs that had been home to fellow Midlothian lad Darren Fletcher and was taken under the future Scotland captain's wing. He said: 'Fletch used to take me to the cinema to make sure I was all right. Because he was from Mayfield he looked after me. 'He'd take me out for something to eat every now and again because he was playing in the first team regularly but still living in digs. 'My first year, our age group had Gerard Pique, Giuseppe Rossi, Jonny Evans, Ryan Shawcross, Fraizer Campbell, Darren Gibson, Lee Martin and Danny Simpson. 'It was a right good crop of players. And Sir Alex definitely thought if you were good enough then it didn't matter what age you were. 'I got one competitive appearance for United, which was brilliant, but I had injuries along the way. 'I was lucky to have the best facilities, the best coaching and to be playing every day with some of the best players at my age group. 'That can only improve you. Those years are so important. Young players need to try to grab their chance with the help of coaches. 'The coaches in the academy here at Hibs are fantastic. The level of coaching is incredible. 'When I watch Bracksy in the academy and the pre-academy stuff, it's brilliant. The facilities are superb and we're trying to get satellite centres all over the place. 'Producing our own players is a massive part of what Hibs have done throughout the years. 'It shows, when young players come to the club, that there is a pathway – that there's a reason why you come to Hibs. 'It's to try to get into the first team and if you're good enough it doesn't matter how old you are.'
Times
2 hours ago
- Times
Keith Andrews: Can the new Brentford head coach win over doubters?
The backlash had already started before Keith Andrews' appointment as Brentford's new head coach was even announced and predictably enough it was led by Martin O'Neill, clearly still smarting at being criticised by Andrews all the way back in 2017. O'Neill is a bearer of grudges, by his own admission. As a European Cup winner, he doesn't like being criticised by those who haven't ascended to those lofty heights, if they are Andrews or even Fabio Cannavaro, who captained Italy to the World Cup but never won the world's premier club trophy, as O'Neill once famously reminded him. O'Neill's criticism of Andrews as a 'lower league player' hardly fit to lace his boots was clearly something the Dubliner was keen to turn on its head when he gave his first interview as Brentford's new head coach on Friday, as well as addressing the more widely held view that he doesn't have the necessary coaching experience to step into such a big role.
