United has uphill battle to climb in Premiership
Hadergjonaj backs Huddersfield to take points from Man City Arsenal Suffers injury blows
Manchester United’s lack of new signings combined with the uncertainty surrounding the team’s strategies and form gives the club a very small chance of challenging for the Premier League title, former midfielder Paul Scholes has said.
United manager Jose Mourinho has expressed his frustration over the club’s transfer activity on multiple occasions, with goalkeeper Lee Grant, midfielder Fred and defender Diogo Dalot the only new arrivals ahead of this season.
United finished 19 points behind champion and cross-town rival Manchester City in the league last term and Scholes, who played more than 700 matches for United, said the club is lagging behind City and a strengthened Liverpool this season and does not see Mourinho’s side eclipsing their rivals.
“When you look at Manchester City, possibly Liverpool, I don’t think United has the quality of those two teams at the minute,” said Scholes, who retired in 2013. “Liverpool has made some really good signings. United finished above the Reds last season.
“I just don’t see United getting closer to City. City are a really good side, great manager, some great players, a way of playing that they all know about.
“United seems to be not too sure what’s going on. You don’t really know the team, you don’t really know the players, you don’t know how they’re going to perform from one week to the next.
“I don’t see them challenging for the league this year.”
Meanwhile, Huddersfield Town must use the positives from last season’s results against Manchester City as motivation to collect at least a point against the Premier League champion in Sunday’s match, defender Florent Hadergjonaj has said.
The West Yorkshire club suffered a narrow home defeat by City early last season, but earned a surprising goalless draw against Pep Guardiola’s dominant side in the reverse fixture in May.
Swiss international Hadergjonaj is confident Huddersfield can emulate that performance and recover from its opening 3-0 league defeat by Chelsea last weekend.
“We have shown last year that we can take points off every team,” said Hadergjonaj. “Last year we got a 0-0 result against Manchester City away, so I don’t see why we can’t do that again in the new season.
“We have to keep going and look back at this game and take the positives out of it, and take them into our game against Manchester City.”
Hadergjonaj also backed Huddersfield to avoid relegation for the second season in a row following the club’s 16th-place finish last term.
“We know that it will be hard, it’s even harder in the second year, but I can’t see why we can’t do what we did last year and survive again,” he added.
“The teams who have come up look strong and have bought a lot of players, but we are very confident that we can stay up again.”
Also, Arsenal defender Sead Kolasinac and midfielder Ainsley Maitland-Niles have been ruled out until October with injuries, the Premier League club has said.
Kolasinac, 25, sustained a left knee injury in a pre-season match against Chelsea earlier this month while Maitland-Niles was substituted off in the first half of Arsenal’s 2-0 defeat by champions Manchester City in the opening league fixture.
The 20-year-old Maitland-Niles has a fracture to his left fibula. Defender Carl Jenkinson has also suffered a sprain on his right ankle and will be out for up to two months.
“Sead has a left knee injury. We are aiming for him to return to training in October,” Arsenal said on its website.
France international Laurent Koscielny, who missed his nation’s World Cup-winning campaign with an Achilles tendon tear, is on the mend and is expected to return to training in November.
Arsenal has been boosted with striker Danny Welbeck and defender Nacho Monreal participating in full training ahead of Saturday’s league match against Chelsea.
Safety issues delay Tottenham’s move to new stadium
Tottenham Hotspur has delayed the opening of its new stadium for at least a few weeks because of “issues with the critical safety systems.”
The Premier League club, which finished third in the standings last season, had been scheduled to play its first game at the new 62,000-capacity White Hart Lane venue on September 15 against Liverpool.
However, that game along with the subsequent home fixture on October 6 against Cardiff City and an NFL match that was scheduled for October 14 have all been switched to Wembley Stadium.
The National Football League said the Seattle Seahawks-Oakland Raiders game was moved because of ongoing work at the new Tottenham stadium.
The game is one of three NFL contests scheduled for London this year.
The Tennessee Titans will play the Los Angeles Chargers on October 21, while the Philadelphia Eagles will meet the Jacksonville Jaguars on October 28 in other games at Wembley. Tottenham said recent testing had shown up the safety system issues, which meant test events that should have taken place on August 27 and September 1 cannot be held.
“At the start of the project we asked for your support during what we knew would be a complex and challenging build and now we ask for your continued patience,” club chairman Daniel Levy said in a statement. On TV: English Premier League Week 2: Saturday: Cardiff City vs Newcastle United (live on Sport 1 at 2:30 p.m.); Everton vs Southampton (live on Sport 1 at 5 p.m.); Tottenham Hostpur vs Fulham (live on Sport 2 at 5 p.m.); Chelsea vs Arsenal (live on Sport 1 at 7:30 p.m.). Sunday: Manchester City vs Huddersfield Town (live on Sport 1 at 3:30 p.m.); Burnley vs Watford (live on Sport 3 at 3:30 p.m.); Brighton & Hove Albion vs Manchester United (live on Sport 2 at 6 p.m.)