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Hazard weighs up options

admin — Fri, 25 May 2012 02:30:43 +0000

Published: 24 May 2012 – 22:16:55

Eden Hazard has confirmed he is heading to England and the role he is offered will be a key factor when he chooses between the Manchester giants and Champions League winners Chelsea.

Belgian forward Hazard, 21, is poised to leave French club Lille for an expensive transfer to the Barclays Premier League, where he has been coveted by several clubs. He claims three of the biggest teams in the country are now waiting to hear if he will accept their approaches.

Hazard told Belgian news website HLN: “I do not know when I’ll make a decision about my future club. It will anyway be Manchester City, Manchester United or Chelsea. The decision will depend on the amount of play I would see and the position where I would play.”

He added: “Not everyone can say that he can make a choice between the three top clubs.”

Hazard’s agent John Bico said this week that agreement on personal terms has been reached with all parties interested in the young Belgium international.

Lille, however, said at the start of the week that they had not received a firm bid for Hazard.

Belgium play Montenegro in Brussels on Friday and then take on England at Wembley on June 2, after which Hazard is set to announce his destination.

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United dismiss Glazer health rumours

admin — Thu, 24 May 2012 17:00:34 +0000

Published: 24 May 2012 – 13:52:47

Manchester United have announced that rumours circulating on the internet relating to the health of owner Malcolm Glazer are false.

It was claimed on various Twitter accounts that Glazer had been reported as dead by a reputable media source in the United States.

However, club sources have verified this is not true and the actual source of the story was also incorrect.

Glazer has not been a particularly popular figure among United fans since his takeover of the club in 2005, which lodged a huge amount of debt next to the Red Devils.

The day-to-day running of the Old Trafford outfit has been overseen by his sons Joel, Avi and Bryan since the American owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers NFL side suffered a stroke in April 2006.

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Cleverley keen to put woes in past

admin — Wed, 23 May 2012 14:00:17 +0000

Published: 23 May 2012 – 12:47:02

Manchester United midfielder Tom Cleverley is keen to put a nightmare season behind him and look forward to starting afresh in August.

The 22-year-old seemed set to play a pivotal role for the Red Devils’ after an impressive start to the campaign but an ankle ligament problem curtailed his involvement and he did not start a Premier League match after October.

“It has been a nightmare at times but I am only 22 and have around 15 years ahead of me yet. I just hope I have got it all over and done with now,” he told the Manchester Evening News. “There were times when I thought I was the unluckiest footballer in the world. From a great start it became the hardest season of my life but it has made me mentally stronger.”

He added: “I’ve always had to cope with disappointments in my career. I had two injuries over the years (undergoing shoulder surgery and having a knee problem in loan spells at Leicester and Watford respectively) but I got through them.

“This was the hardest yet. If you had said to me after the Everton game in October that I wouldn’t start another Premier League game in the season I would have been massively gutted.

“But that turned out to be the case and it was tough to come to terms with.

“There is nothing more exciting in life than to be playing for Manchester United. To have that taken away is very hard to deal with.

“I don’t feel I am owed anything. I’ve had some bad luck and now I have just got to get on with it.”

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Berbatov Off To The Turks?

admin — Tue, 22 May 2012 20:00:20 +0000

Published: 22 May 2012 – 18:52:07

Manchester United striker Dimitar Berbatov could be moving closer to a switch to Galataseray after the Turkish giants said that they were confident of signing the Bulgarian.

Berbatov looks set to move away from the club after not being able to hold down a regular place in the United first team, he has been linked with Galataseray for some time.

Sporting co-ordinator Bulent Tulun said: “We are leading negotiations with players who will contribute very much to raising the level of our club.

“Berbatov is one of them.

“Negotiations with Berbatov are in an advanced stage.”

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NO Tony, Not Michael Owen!

admin — Tue, 22 May 2012 06:30:31 +0000

Published: 22 May 2012 – 06:46:41

Stoke chairman Peter Coates has confirmed that his club may be interested in snapping up Michael Owen on a free transfer.

That’s some of the noise coming out of Stoke HQ this week, Peter Coates has said Tony Pulis was interested at one time and could look at him again, and that’s it, loads of Stoke fans creaming their Jeans at the possibility of another old duffer coming to the club to end his years in the limelight gracefully.

Or maybe sitting on the bench more like.

There is no doubt that Owen was good, but can Stoke afford to risk high wages on someone who is likely to end up in traction everytime he lifted his leg? I think not, I think there are better players out there that we could get on the cheap.

If we must go down the route of bringing an older, experienced goal scorer, then surely Yakubu from Blackburn would be the better option? He’s getting on a bit fair enough, but it might surprise you to learn he netted 17 times for Rovers last season, and that was in a side that had been heading for the Championship ever since they gave Steve Kean a job.

What a difference to our points tally another 17 goals would have made.

And I believe that the big man has got a clause in his contract that says he could leave if Rovers went down, and it seems that £2million is the asking price.

Now I don’t proclaim to have the best footballing mind ever, but for me Tony Pulis would be much better off leaving Owen and going for Yakubu.

But what would I know?

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Van der Sar: De Gea must play his way

admin — Mon, 21 May 2012 17:00:11 +0000

Published: 21 May 2012 – 12:47:03

Edwin van der Sar hopes the repeated comparisons to his own stellar Manchester United career do not become too much of a burden for David de Gea.

After a difficult start to his time at United, De Gea just about ended on the positive side of the ledger. Sir Alex Ferguson is optimistic the 21-year-old will benefit massively from last term’s experiences and his predecessor has told De Gea to forget about those who came before him.

“Maybe it was hard to follow in my footsteps,” said Van der Sar. “It can happen. People got compared to Peter Schmeichel, now maybe it’s me. De Gea has to ignore that and just play his own game. Eric Steele, the goalkeeping coach, and the manager will both help him and hopefully next season he will be ready from the start.”

Van der Sar does not view the Spaniard’s individual mistakes as being a significant problem. And he assumes United did all the background checks on De Gea before spending Â£18million to sign him from Atletico Madrid last summer, so the physical aspect should not be a problem.

“He did get criticism last season but I made mistakes at Ajax when I was young, and also at Juventus and United,” said Van der Sar.

“The main thing is how you recover in the next game, or the game itself. He did that. He became more important as the season went on and made good saves. I have not seen him in his shorts, so physically, it is difficult to say how big he actually is. But I am sure United knew all that when they signed him, so would have been aware of what to expect.”

Winner of four league titles during his own spell at Old Trafford, Van der Sar watched the final day proceedings unfold with interest at home.

Like most observers of a Red Devils persuasion, he was left shattered by Manchester City’s injury-time triumph.

“Whilst I don’t think they anticipated becoming champions, the disappointment at those final two or three minutes would have been great,” he said. “If you look at it, they did quite well. They got more points than last year and kept a lot of clean sheets, even with Nemanja Vidic out for so long.

“To lose it in the last seconds must have hurt so much. I remember a couple of years ago we seemed to have a run of games where we beat them in the last minute. They just got a very big one back.”

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