Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
A SPURFECT ENDING
Sparkling run means Bale could stay put
THE SIGNS ARE GOOD
GARETH BALE could now be set for a permanent switch to Tottenham with Real Madrid ready to capitalise on his sudden burst of form.
Bale scored twice in Spurs’ 4-0 win over Burnley (netting their fourth goal, above) to take his tally to four goals in four games, a spectacular return to form after a patchy first four months of his loan from Real.
But Spurs manager Jose Mourinho is now ready to plead with Wales to go easy on Bale, 31, in their World Cup qualifying games at the end of this month.
He will still have a year left on his Bernabeu contract at the end of this season, but Real want to clinch a permanent deal with Spurs and get Bale’s £600,000-a-week wages off their books.
Wales face Belgium away in their opening World Cup qualifier on March 27, then meet Mexico in a friendly three days later, before taking on the Czech Republic in another qualifier on March 30.
Before that, Spurs face Fulham on Thursday, Crystal Palace on
Sunday and Dinamo Zagreb at home in the first leg of their Europa League last-16 tie. That’s before the north London derby against Arsenal on Sunday, March 14. They then face the second leg against Zagreb and a trip to Aston Villa before the international break.
The last-16 Europa League tie against Zagreb has been switched by UEFA to avoid a clash with neighbours Arsenal, so Mourinho’s team will now play the home leg first next Thursday.
Spurs and Arsenal, who face Greek club Olympiakos in their last-16 tie, were both due to play their first legs away on March 11 and the second leg at home a week later.
As domestic cup winners, Arsenal’s tie takes priority, so Tottenham’s game has been reversed, leaving them without a trip overseas ahead of the potentially pivotal derby.
Bale had only started two League games before Sunday, had had a series of niggling injury problems, with Mourinho at one point criticising the Welshman’s Instagram post for giving a “totally wrong” impression about his fitness.
At that point, Bale’s loan spell looked certain to end unhappily – with his agent Jonathan Barnett even suggesting that he was nearing the end of his career.
In November, Bale played in both Wales’ Nations League games, against the Republic of Ireland, where he played for the full 90 minutes, and Finland, where he featured for 61 minutes.
But the Wales icon sat out the friendly against the USA just before the two Nations League games.
Bale has 33 goals so far from his 87 caps for Wales.
IN A BIT OF A STU Referee Attwell courted controversy at Stamford Bridge on Sunday
AFTER Saturday’s incident with Lee Mason, and Sunday’s episode with Stuart Attwell, the time is now right to introduce pan-european refereeing.
I’m watching our officials through my fingers these days because so much of their work has become cringeworthy.
And it’s no longer the case that we have the best referees in the Premier League because I’m afraid those in the Bundesliga, Serie A and La Liga are doing a much better job.
Not just on the field but there seems to be much more common sense at play with VAR, too.
The introduction of video refs and the numerous TV angles we now get at every game has brought it to a head.
And what we’re seeing is the result of referees not just making decisions based on what they see, but on what they think pundits such as Jamie Carragher, Gary Neville and Alan Shearer might point out in analysis that is beamed into just about every front room in the country.
That’s what happened with Mason on Saturday, when he allowed Lewis Dunk to take a quick free-kick in Brighton’s clash with West Brom (Dunk and Mason, below).
It was a case of, ‘I’ve given the decision, it’s the right one, but hang on, the optics are bad, I’ll blow the whistle again’. Then all hell breaks loose and it ends up looking dreadful.
So what I’d love to see now is UEFA being clever enough to be able to say at any given time, ‘Right, we will give permission for Daniele Orsato or Felix
Brych to take charge of Manchester United versus Liverpool and they will bring their on-field experience and their knowledge of VAR’.
That way, Attwell, Mason and co will get to work with and learn from the best across the continent, and I guarantee the refereeing standard across Europe will become much more level.
We can start to get away from the conversations fans have here, which are then echoed in the media, along the lines of, ‘Oh no, we’ve got so and so again’.
Because, if we had a European pool, a club might only see a ref once a season, if that. Let’s face it, the best referees in Germany and Spain will make mistakes, too, and at least then it’ll get back to being, ‘Well, refs are human, they all make mistakes’, instead of the parochial stuff that gets spouted right now.
Look at it from the other angle as well – if our refs got to experience working abroad then it would benefit them and, as a result, the rest of us.
How good would it be, for instance, if Mason did well in a Milan derby this weekend or Attwell had a stormer during, say, Sevilla versus Valencia?
It would do wonders for their confidence.
‘I’m watching our officials through my fingers’
RUTHLESS Pep Guardiola has threatened to axe any of his Manchester City stars who let their standards drop.
City remain on course for a historic quadruple this season following a stunning run of 20 straight wins.
Guardiola’s men have charged into a 12-point lead in the title race and can equal the club’s all-time record of 28 games unbeaten tonight when they host Wolves.
But despite all their recent success, Guardiola (with Gabriel Jesus, above) admits he would not think twice about kicking someone out if he thought he was not pulling his weight. The
Spaniard said: “In the area of individual performance, every player can improve. Every player feels they can improve in some details because normally we work and they work on different things. The qualities they have, they know what they have to do.
“When every individual player can improve, the team will improve. That’s why we can always do better. That is the target for us. As much as we win and get results, as much as we have to demand and be over the players and say, ‘We can do better’, this is the moment when I feel that everyone is thinking the job is done, or how good it is, then this guy is not going to play.
“I’m so intuitive to know exactly the guys who are not ready to continue what we have to do.” David Moyes hailed City as the best team in Europe following West Ham’s 2-1 defeat on Saturday.
Wolves did the double over City last year but at Molineux in September, Guardiola’s side won 3-1.
However, the manager reckons his side are not even the best team in England – let alone Europe.
Guardiola added: “The champion is Liverpool, we are not. To do it, we still have to win eight, nine or 10 games and it’s a lot.
“They know how demanding I am. We’ve had three sunny days in Manchester but we do not relax for one second. There are still a lot of nice things to play for. The best team in Europe is Bayern Munich because they won everything, they are the best.
“In England, the champions are Liverpool, they are the best. The crown, if you want to take it, you have to win. In March, no one is the champion.”
EVERTON finally cured their Goodison Park blues to put themselves firmly in the top-four fight.
Carlo Ancelotti’s side moved level on points with bitter rivals Liverpool, who are sixth in the Premier League table, with a controlled victory over struggling Southampton, thanks to an early goal from Richarlison.
It was the Brazilian’s fifth in his last five games and it ended a run of three straight league defeats here for the Mersey club. And with a game in hand over the teams above, at West Brom on Thursday, it means they could break into the Champions League places.
They were good value for the win too in a tense, lifeless game in which the visitors, until a late rally, looked every inch a side who have lost eight of their last nine matches.
Ancelotti had said on the eve of the contest that Richarlison’s recent impressive return in front of goal was welcome but no more likely to see the Brazilian play in his preferred central role up front. “He’ll play where I tell him to play,” the Italian said, somewhat in jest, but explaining more seriously that he needs his centre-forward to play with back to goal and Richarlison is better playing off a central striker.
They were prescient words because, within 10 minutes of kick-off, the 23-year-old had illustrated the point perfectly, some good old-fashioned No.9 play from Dominic Calvert-lewin a key factor in the goal.
The England forward twice won the ball in the air, allowing Gylfi Sigurdsson to slip the loose ball through for Richarlison to stylishly round the keeper and score from a tight angle.
It was the perfect moment for Ancelotti’s unusual front three, with Sigurdsson playing just behind Calvertlewin and Richarlison running behind them both. The set-up caused so many problems for the Southampton defence in the early stages.
Calvert-lewin was inches away from grabbing a second in the 20th minute when Fraser Forster took the ball from his feet as he lunged to make contact with Sigurdsson’s ball.
Everton dominated the opening half and thought they had scored a deserved second when Michael Keane headed home from close range, but Mason Holgate had strayed just offside in setting up the finish to force a VAR overrule.
Sigurdsson’s set-piece delivery is every bit as deadly as James Wardprowse’s for Southampton and he twice almost created a second with pinpoint free-kicks, Richarlison and Calvertlewin both inches away from the cross.
Saints, for their part, created little, but crucially stayed in the game to at least give their injury-ravaged line-up a chance of ending a dismal run of form.
And in the closing moments they twice went close to grabbing an equaliser. First Moussa Djenepo fired across the Everton goal when he really should have done better after great build-up play by the Saints.
And then, as injury-time approached, big centre-half Jannick Vestergaard found himself with the goal at his mercy following a melee in the Everton box but seemed to slip as he fired goalwards and allowed Jordan Pickford to smother.
Everton hung on and, though it wasn’t a pretty three points, it was definitely a priceless three points.
THEY are a club built on a rich tradition of glorious, cavalier football.
But at the start of one of the most important weeks of the season, Manchester United find themselves accused of betraying their heritage when it comes to facing their direct rivals.
Last Sunday, it was a 0-0 draw at Chelsea; this Sunday, they go to Manchester City.
By the end of it, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side could be 18 points adrift of the leaders.
In seven games against other members of the established ‘Big Six’ this season, United have managed just one goal... and that came in a 6-1 defeat at home to Tottenham at the start of the campaign.
In the goalless, soulless draw at Stamford Bridge, United had 11 shots – two of which were off target.
And it means they now have failed to score home and away against Arsenal and Chelsea this season and not managed to find the back of the net against arch-rivals Manchester City and Liverpool.
Tomorrow they go to Crystal Palace and then it is the runaway leaders, with former striker Andy Cole (below with Solskjaer) claiming his old club cannot afford to draw another blank against a major rival.
“Manchester United can’t play like that,” said Cole yesterday, his pained expression and exasperated tone laying bare his frustration.
“It has to be a concern.
If you think you can genuinely win the title or challenge for it, you have to score goals. “Playing under Sir Alex Ferguson, the only thing he used to say to us was, ‘Go out and enjoy yourselves and entertain’.
“That’s what United are supposed to do, you’re supposed to entertain. You have to show your opponents respect but you can’t fear them.
“Everyone wants to be tight, of course. You don’t want to concede goals. “But if you concede a goal and you’re scoring goals yourself, I don’t think anyone’s that fussed, because you’re playing the way United should play. United’s history is about playing good football, trying to win games by playing a certain way, not being tight at the back and trying to nick a 1-0 win.
“United can’t play like that and, when they’ve tried to, they’ve come unstuck.
“Let’s get this straight – if you’re ever going to win the league, you have to knock over the big teams as well. Draws aren’t going to do it.”
Cole, 49, who scored 121 goals in 275 games for United, said any title hopes the Reds had, went with their shock home 2-1 defeat to Sheffield
United. “I felt like I’d played in that game, I was so disappointed and upset,” said Cole. “Then there was the draw at West Brom. If you’re going to win the title, you have to beat these teams.
“If you can’t knock these teams over – which other teams are doing – can you really be looked at as title contenders? For me, no.
“City are top and are the best team for a reason. They deserve that fear factor, just for the way they play. I take my hat off to City’s players, Pep Guardiola and his staff for the way they’re playing and this incredible run they’re on.” Despite Cole’s dismay at United’s failure in big games, he said ex-team-mate Solskjaer was doing just as well as predecessors Jose Mourinho and Louis van Gaal, despite trailing City by 12 points.
Cole said: “We can all debate whether Ole is the best man for the job. But managers have gone before him, who everyone thought was the best man for the job, and it’s not worked out.
“You bring in a big name and pay him whatever you want to pay him, but what does he guarantee you? Nothing.
“If it doesn’t work out with Ole, then naturally they’ll move on and bring someone else in. But that’s better than bringing the big-name manager in and trying to buy the title.
“We’ve tried that and it’s not worked out.”
‘You have to show your opponents respect but you can’t fear them’