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Charlie Adam insists that Stoke City are in no danger of letting complacency set in simply because a run of easier fixtures are around the corner.

Stoke have had a very hard run of games in the opening eight games of the Premier League season where they have already played last season’s top four.

Their next eight games will see them play against the likes of Sunderland, QPR, Fulham and Newcastle at the Britannia and will now travel to Norwich, West Brom, West Ham and Aston Villa.

The Scotsman has acknowledged the hard start to the Potters’ campaign and insists that the next run of fixtures are even more important and could have a significant impact come the end of the season.

“There’s no reason why we should be complacent,” Adam told the Stoke Sentinel.

“And certainly not if we want to build on what we have done so far this season and what the club did last year.

“It’s great to play at places like Manchester United, but they are not the games that decide your season.

“It’s games against the likes of Sunderland that are going to influence where we finish.”

Stoke are recently coming off a 4-2 defeat at Old Trafford, despite taking the lead due to a Wayne Rooney own goal, the midfielder insists that it was simply not good enough conceding four goals from crosses.

“The goals we scored gave us an opportunity to do something in the game, but overall we are disappointed by the goals we conceded.

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“In that second half they had the quality to kill us off.

“To lose a goal a minute before half-time was crucial and then we lose a goal a few seconds after half time.”

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With just one year left on his contract, Southampton goalkeeper Alex McCarthy is demanding a bumper pay rise in order to commit his future to the club, according to the Southern Daily Echo.

What’s the story, then?

The report claims that 28-year-old McCarthy wants to become one of the best-paid players at St Mary’s on the back of a season that saw him take the number one jersey away from Fraser Forster.

The report states that moving past Forster in the pecking order has emboldened McCarthy to demand that his new deal sees him earn the same as the former Celtic goalkeeper, who signed a £15m five-year deal last summer.

That reportedly poses a dilemma for new Saints manager Mark Hughes, who knows that if he doesn’t satisfy McCarthy’s demands, he faces the prospect of losing one of last season’s top performers for a small fee this summer or for free next.

McCarthy has earned the pay rise

Southampton backed themselves into a corner by committing to a long-term bumper deal for Forster, whose form has been declining steadily in recent seasons and is easily upgradable.

McCarthy has shown that the now the Saints have nowhere to go because they have shown that they are willing to reward an English, first-choice goalkeeper so handsomely.

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The stopper is also, at 28, coming to the stage of his career where this is likely to be his last big contract – although goalkeepers can go on longer – and he is within his rights to demand that is a huge one, especially off the back of last season’s impressive displays.

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As reported by The Mirror, Manchester United are ready to rival Chelsea for the signature of Juventus star Alex Sandro.

What’s the story?

Jose Mourinho has struggled to find a consistent and natural performer at left-back all season, a situation that’s fast becoming a major problem for the Portuguese.

In order to solve that, it appears he’s ready to go to battle with his former side Chelsea in the transfer market once again, after winning the race to sign Romelu Lukaku last summer.

The Mirror say that the Mourinho has identified Brazilian international Alex Sandro as the man to revitalise their left flank and is urging the club’s hierarchy to shell out and meet Juventus’ £53m valuation of the player.

The paper reckon that interest is unlikely to materialise in a formal offer until the summer, but any move by Chelsea could prompt a bid as early as this month’s transfer window.

The right man?

There’s no doubt that Alex Sandro is one of the leading left-backs in Europe right now, helping Juventus reach the final of the UEFA Champions League last season, playing in 11 matches along the way.

With a natural tendency to attack and carry the ball forward, he would fit in excellently to United’s system and give them new width on the left hand side that can help exploit determined defences.

He’s a born winner too, having won nine major honours in his career in three countries. If Mourinho is to bring United back to the glory days of yesteryear then he needs personalities like that in the dressing room.

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At the reported £53m he’s costly, but you have to pay that kind of money for quality in today’s transfer market and ensuring he doesn’t move to Chelsea should be a big priority for the Old Trafford side.

Every week Diego Simeone was asked the same question, each week and after every game from the start of the season up until the winter break in Spain the Atletico Madrid manager was asked if his team were title contenders. Every week he batted the question away. Simeone dismissed such talk; La Liga is a boring league, he continued to say. And yet after every dismissal of their title credentials, Atletico continued to win, keeping pace with league-leaders Barcelona and keeping an up until now decent distance from Real Madrid.

The Atletico manager’s response changed slightly, but only for a moment. He was looking now at how far his side had come in the season and he was now talking about the title, though not as much as many would have hoped.

It’s the underdog mentality that Simeone wanted. He didn’t want his players, perfectly capable, to get carried away by expectation and pressure. Whether they could do it is one thing; Simeone, however, didn’t want to entertain the idea. At least not before the time was right.

Despite being top of the table, Arsenal remain underdogs to win the Premier League title this season, behind favourites Manchester City and Chelsea. And much like the case with Atletico, this should suit Arsenal until the end of the season.

You have to stop for a moment and question how much you can compare the current Arsenal to that of the past few years. The old Arsenal would have buckled under pressure, going into a must-win game, even against lowly opposition, and failing to perform. When the pressure was off, as we’ve seen in matches against better teams in the past, Arsenal normally came away with a surprise win and at times a performance that contradicted their underachieving place in the league.

But a lack of pressure from outside can be a good thing. It won’t be lost on the Arsenal squad what’s required of them to end the trophy drought this season. Very few outside of Arsenal are tipping them to land the Premier League title. If they don’t, there shouldn’t be any accusations of poor mental strength, a lack of ability or whatever else may be thrown the club’s way. They would have finished where most expected them to. Without the pressure from outside, the fall, if silverware isn’t attained, is shorter.

Arsene Wenger, however, will keep the team going until the end. It would be remiss of him as manager to sit back on what he and the team have and call it a job well done. It’s also not in his nature to give up, even if some of the events of the past suggest so.

Even with the signing of Mesut Ozil in the summer and the dramatic improvements in some of the other members of the squad, this Arsenal team isn’t complete. It’s lacking depth in one or two areas, and of course there have critics citing the lack of mental toughness in big games.

But it suits Arsenal. The focus is currently on what Manchester City and Chelsea can do. Talk of City winning the quadruple is a good thing. It means Arsenal can get on, relatively quietly, with what they’ve been doing.

Click below to see Arsenal, Fulham and Everton in action this weekend!

Well Wednesdayites, we’re now in the midst of a glorious one-game unbeaten run, having clawed back Burnley three times in our last game, and hopefully it’s the start of a resurgence of sorts.

After a run of six straight defeats, in which we conceded 13 goals and scored only three, we’ve picked up a valuable point and can now try and kick on from that.

Yes, we scored as many goals against The Clarets than we have in the last six, but we also conceded more than two goals in a game for the eighth time this season, and lets face it, we really need to get our backline sorted. No team who wants to stay in a division can concede that amount of goals on a regular basis, it’s just not going to work.

However, on the plus side, every cloud has a silver lining and all that, we managed to come from behind on three occasions and battle our way to a point against a side that not so long ago were in the Premier League. It showed bottle, it showed a bit of fight, and to be honest, I’m not surprised that Chris O’Grady was at the heart of it.

O’Grady, who has established himself as a fan favourite at Hillsborough, made sure that Dave Jones didn’t regret his decision to start the former Rochdale man as he bagged a brace that was followed by an absolute beauty from Michail Antonio as our boys recovered from a Charlie Austin hat-trick.

As I say, we shouldn’t really celebrate a draw, we want to be winning games, but, as O’Grady has said post-match, it’s about setting positive foundations.

He said, “Getting back to where you want to go is not always about picking up a big win; it’s about setting the foundation and starting things off. That’s what we’ve done. We played well on Saturday (at Wolves) but didn’t quite get the result. Now we’ve played well and got a result. This Saturday, we’ll be wanting to build again and go again.”

We’re just above the relegation zone, have dropped dramatically off the pace which we set in the early part of the season and are now nine games in with only eight points. However, look at Charlton, the team that won our division last year, and are just one place and one point above us, they were technically better than us last season, and they’re struggling just like we are, we should have expected it.

Anyway, like I say, lets enjoy our current unbeaten run, take in the positives from the draw at Burnley and try and work against the negatives. We scored three, lets keep that up, and I think that O’Grady deserves his place in the starting line-up. He helped take us up last season and obviously cares very much about pulling on the famous blue and white stripes. As long as he’s playing out of his socks, and scoring goals, then he deserves to be there.

I’ve got faith in Wednesday, I’ve got faith in Jones, I’ve got faith in Wednesdayites everywhere to continue to back the team that we’ve so avidly supported over the years, now lets use these foundations, and build a fortress.

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Come on Wednesday!

Can We Kick It? @YesWeCrann

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As reported by The Scottish Sun, Rangers are on the verge of bringing defender Martin Skrtel to Ibrox this summer.

What’s the story?

Rangers have already made significant moves in the transfer market after completing the signings of Allan McGregor, Jamie Murphy and Scott Arfield.

While new boss Steven Gerrard was confirmed to have signed off on all three, they are deals that were likely led by Director of Football Mark Allen, so fans are eager to see what kind of players the Liverpool legend wants at the club and they could soon get their wish.

One name that could be arriving at Ibrox soon is Fenerbahce defender Martin Skrtel, with The Scottish Sun reporting that Rangers are on the verge of sealing a £2.7m transfer for the 33-year-old.

Skrtel of course played for years at Liverpool with the new Rangers manager and the paper report he is set to sign a three-year deal to link-up with his former teammate.

Is this a good signing?

There are certainly risks attached to handing a three-year deal to a 33-year-old.

Investing a big chunk of their transfer resources in a player with no resale value or future potential could be argued to be short-sighted, but Rangers are in need of short-term solutions and Skrtel is most definitely that.

He’s a player who will immediate improve upon the current central defensive options at the club.

Although it’s tempting to compare this deal with previous moves for the likes of Philippe Senderos and Bruno Alves, neither comparison has merit.

Skrtel is a far more talented player than the journeyman Senderos, making hundreds of appearances for Liverpool and spending good chunks of time at both FC Zenit and Fenerbahce.

Coming off the back of a 31 appearance season at the Turkish giants, he is also playing better, in a more talented side than Bruno Alves was before he arrived at the club.

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His clearance and aerial duel averages this season, collated by WhoScored.com, demonstrate a player who is still putting himself about in a physical manner and he will be a tough opponent for most Scottish Premiership forwards.

Rangers fans are right to be excited about his potential arrival, even if in the long-term it doesn’t make much sense.

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With Virgil van Dijk’s arrival and Philippe Coutinho’s potential departure dominating the headlines, some of the smaller transfer stories involving Liverpool this month have inevitably slipped under the radar – such as Jurgen Klopp’s apparent interest in Stoke City winger Ramadan Sobhi.

According to Sky Sports’ Peter O’Rourke, the Liverpool gaffer has asked for a character reference from Egypt team-mate Mohamed Salah, suggesting the Potters prospect has taken his fancy. So we asked Reds supporters earlier this week whether they’d back a transfer swoop for the 19-cap attacker and according to our poll, 60% would be in favour of a deal.

The 6 foot winger is starting to make his mark in the Premier League after scoring twice in December, highlighting the progress the 20-year-old has made since arriving from Al-Ahly in summer 2016.

Transfermarkt currently value him at just £5.4million and highly-rated as a young attacker with big potential, Liverpool would be wise to move before another upturn in form sees that sum drastically increases.

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Once every four years the worlds best convene for a festival of footballing excellence as they do battle for the most coveted trophy in world sport; the Jules Rimet trophy. The opportunity to represent your country is an honour in itself, but to do so at a World Cup is for a footballer incomparable.

The race to book a place on the plane to Brazil is fierce and those involved will do anything in their power to be fit and firing going into the final days of selection. A heavy onus on playing week in week out for their respective clubs is of paramount importance for those in the shakeup.

Tottenham’s Jermain Defoe is precisely one of those stars whose place in Brazil is under threat, an England regular in seasons past, will his limited role in the Premier League prove a stumbling block?

The acquisition of then record signing Roberto Soldado has seen Defoe fall down the pecking order at White Hart Lane. Having to make do with the Europa League and Capital One Cup as a source of first team football, the Englishman has failed as yet to be involved that readily in the league. His form in the cup competitions has been as potent as ever, breaking Martin Chivers’ long-standing European goal scoring record in the process. Yet as ever it is difficult to guarantee a place within Hodgson’s squad without making an impact in the Premier League, at the moment that just doesn’t look like happening for Defoe. More concerning still is the clutch of Englishman competing for Defoe’s place that are getting consistent league action, the likes of Lambert, Sturridge and Welbeck are placing themselves well ahead of the diminutive Defoe in the pecking order.

So what can Defoe do to reverse this worrying trend?

Five goals in four Europa appearances and you imagine there is a school of thought that suggests getting him into the ailing Premier League forward line. Personally I just don’t see this ever happening.

AVB is a stubborn manager; he wants to play certain variant of a 4-2-3-1 and will ensure that he finds the solution to making it work. Scoring against second-rate European teams will not do anything more than to remind AVB what Defoe is capable of, few contest that the Englishman is a fine finisher and goal poacher. The reality at Spurs is that they want a little more than that from their Premier League frontman, whether they are getting that from Soldado is another question.

That aside, even from Defoe’s short Premier League cameos you can already tell that the guy just isn’t cut out for the way AVB wants to play. This isn’t a question of form, but more of an incompatibility between the way AVB wants to set up and the way Defoe plays.

Defoe’s love for the club and fans is admirable, and it is clear that he has a special relationship with the White Hart Lane faithful. He spoke just this week about his clear ambitions to make it work at Spurs:

“Of course it is frustrating that for all the goals, I have not had much of a chance in the Premier League,” the 31-year-old told the Daily Express.

“Fans ask me all the time, but I don’t need to tell anybody I am frustrated. That is just normal. People know I love my football, and I love scoring goals. When I am not getting the opportunity to do that, it is frustrating.”

“But I have never once said I wanted to leave this football club.”

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I think many have a lot of time for Englishman’s attitude, but for me it is a matter of time before the need to play comes ahead of his loyalty to Spurs. Defoe’s hunger to play at the World Cup, potentially his last opportunity to play at major tournament for his country, will in my view push hi towards the exit door come January.

Again I re-iterate the fact this isn’t a question of regaining his form, Defoe just won’t be a first team regular under AVB. Too small and perhaps a too one-dimensional, AVB wants to get closer to the complete forward that can of course be clinical in the final third but at the same time bring the rest of his team into play.

The sooner Defoe realises the harsh reality probably the better. Come January expect to see the Englishman to bid his final White Hart Lane farewell.

Ryan Nelsen has not made retirement plans; the 34 year old has stated he wants to play football for as long possible.

The New Zealand international signed for Queens Park Rangers on a free transfer in the summer and was integral in helping the London club secure their first clean sheet of the season against Chelsea.

Nelsen told the Fulham Chronicle: “I don’t know [how long I’ll play for]. I’ll just keep on going because I feel pretty good.

“I feel better than I did a few years ago because I’ve worked really hard on my fitness. I’m so lucky to at my age, be playing at the highest level. I don’t take anything for granted and everything is a bonus.

“I always have done extra bits [of work]. I love keeping fit and working. I enjoy it so I just go at it and hopefully it helps me in the long run.”

Queens Park Rangers will be eager to pick up their first win of the season when they travel to Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.

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Justin Kluivert has become one of the young players to keep an eye on in the summer transfer window due to his performances for Ajax this season.

The 19-year-old, who is the son of Dutch legend Patrick Kluivert, is believed to have attracted interest from numerous clubs, and now Tottenham Hotspur have entered the mix.

The winger himself has claimed in an interview with De Volkstrant that the Eredivisie outfit tried to sell him to Spurs without his knowledge.

Kluivert hit out at Ajax chief executive Edwin van der Sar and director Marc Overmars for informing him of Tottenham’s interest after the fact.

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The report claims that the Premier League outfit asked about a potential deal for the youngster while negotiating the transfer of Davinson Sanchez last summer.

Kluivert, who is a client of high-profile agent Mino Raiola, has insisted that he will not sign fresh terms with the Dutch club.

Tottenham fans have been giving their thoughts on the situation via Reddit.

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