Hey Arsenal fans. Remember Andrey Arshavin? The boyish Russian whose career imploded and collapsed faster than Howard Dean's presidential campaign? Well, things haven't gone so well for the one time Russian player of the year.
It’s official, Pep Guardiola will join Manchester City next season and many changes are coming ahead for the Premier League Squad thanks to the arrival of the Spanish manager.
The 45-year-old is the most winning figure in modern soccer, winning 74.5 percent of games in his career, while only drawing 15.1 percent and just losing in 10.4 percent of the matches. This means that teams under his coaching get an average of 2.39 points per game. Plain impressive.
It's finally here! The end of the January transfer window is almost upon us. The Bale-to-United articles will finally disappear (for at least a week anyway), the squads will be set and business will resume as normal.
As a rule, the January window is always more rumour than substance, but there have been some interesting transfers this window that may have some bearing on the destiny for a few Premier League clubs (or in Aston Villa's case, a lack thereof). Here are ten January transfers that could make an impact.
Alexandre Pato is coming home. Well, actually he’s leaving home. But he’s making a move back to his home away from home--Europe. The one-time Brazilian prodigy has reached an agreement with Chelsea for a six-month loan deal. At the end of the six months the club will have the option to extend the loan, make it a permanent deal or kick him to the curb.
It’s time to settle down and prepare yourself for some emotion, because you are about to watch a man be reunited with a long lost mentor he met as a boy. The fact that it’s set to the music from The Shawshank Redemption is almost unfair.
Javier Hernandez has been linked with Liverpool lately, and it isn't exactly hard to see why. Chicharito has been in magnificent form this season, scoring 21 goals in 24 games in all competitions for Bayer Leverkusen. A player of his skill set could be exactly what Jurgen Klopp needs. The German's team has played some good football at times, but a lack of clinical finishing (and some suspect defending) has seen them fail to make any headway in the Premier League table.
Chelsea's defensive record is in shambles: they've allowed 34 goals in 23 matches this campaign. Last season's title winning defense allowed only 32 goals throughout the entirety of the season. More worringly for the Chelsea heirarchy is that the situation doesn't have any immediate remedies in the form of contracted players. Their backline is comprised of ageing stalwarts John Terry, 35, Branislav Ivanovic, 31, and Gary Cahill, 30.
The name Matthew Taylor may not resonate with soccer fans as powerfully as Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard or Yaya Toure, but the former Portsmouth, Bolton and West Ham United man scored his fair share of screamers in the Premier League.
The 34-year-old midfielder currently plies his trade with Burnley in the Championship, but Taylor quietly amassed 40 Premier League goals over 12 seasons in the English top flight. That’s currently more than Cesc Fabregas, Roy Keane, Juan Mata, Eden Hazard and David Silva.
Sunday January 17 Wayne Rooney scored a goal in the 78th minute vs. rival Liverpool, helping propel Manchester United to a 1-0 victory. This goal was important for two reasons: it gave Man U a needed win, and three points in the standings of the EPL, where they currently sit fifth overall, and this goal put Rooney atop the record books as the player to score the most goals for one team in Premier League history.
With 176 goals for United, Rooney passed Thierry Henry's Arsenal record.
According to Miguel Delaney of The Independent, Jose Mourinho has supposedly crafted a six-page letter to the Manchester United hierarchy expressing a desire to manage the struggling outfit.