His manager Claude Puel has insisted he will come good but the 22-year-old needs to start delivering soon and the EFL Cup would be the perfect timeOne thing has been missing from Southampton’s rise over recent years and this season would be a fine time to change that. The club have won promotions and plaudits since 2011, playing their way stylishly from League One to the upper reaches of the Premier League while becoming a model of shrewd development, but they have yet to garnish that progress with major silverware. An EFL Cup triumph this season would put that right – and soften fears their progress is stalling.Victory in the 2010 Johnstone’s Paint Trophy, a competition for lower league teams,...
Plymouth’s defence was classy and defiant, Ndidi excelled on Leicester debut, Batshuayi proved little and Stourbridge showed romance is alive, even in defeatThe triumphant celebrations after Plymouth Argyle’s 0-0 draw at Anfield were further confirmation that giant-equalling is the new giantkilling. In the modern world of the FA Cup, it is enough for David to draw with Goliath – especially as it means a second payday for clubs often in need of such a financial boost. For Plymouth’s players, it was about more than that. It’s easy to be sniffy about their ultra-defensive approach against the youngest team in Liverpool’s history, but most League Two teams would not have been good enough to pull it off. Plymouth defended with such...
Some got roughed up by Gary Neville, others had an obsession with Twitter, but from Michael Ricketts to Oumar Niasse, these players all have a dismal January transfer in commonAt 11.30pm on the first ever January transfer deadline day, Middlesbrough sealed the signing of the striker who was intended to revolutionise their team. “I was stuck in a rut at Bolton, training was the same all the time, things weren’t going the way I planned,” he revealed. “Hopefully that’s going to change here.” It didn’t change there: at the end of the following season, 18 months, 12 league starts and three goals after his arrival, he left for Leeds on a free transfer. Related: Premier League’s fear of the drop...
Leicester hope to party like it’s 1963, Liverpool must find a way to stop Joe Allen scoring and it is eight years since Phil Brown’s infamous Hull City team talkEvery year for more than half a century folks have been hoping for a repeat of the Boxing Day fun of 1963, when the 10 top-flight fixtures produced a record tally of 66 goals. We can’t get an exact repeat of that this year because half of the teams who were in the First Division back then are now in the lower leagues (although, as it happens, Ipswich and Fulham are meeting in the Championship this Boxing Day so Mick McCarthy could point to progress if his team do better than...
Claude Puel’s rotation proves a winner, opportunity finally knocks for Michy Batshuayi, and Mesut Özil’s invisibility at City should worry Arsène Wenger Related: The Dozen: the weekend's best Premier League photos Related: Premier League 2015-16 fans’ verdicts part one: Arsenal to Manchester United Related: Premier League fans’ half-time verdict part 2: Manchester United to West Ham Continue reading...