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Everton’s good run of form came to an end last Sunday following their 2-1 defeat to Manchester United at Old Trafford.

The Toffees had enjoyed three straight Premier League wins over Fulham, Leicester City and Crystal Palace but were unable to add to that after coming up against Jose Mourinho’s men, and manager Marco Silva has since come out to say that he could now make some changes to his team selection going forward.

The Breakdown

Speaking ahead of Everton’s Premier League clash versus Brighton at Goodison Park on Saturday, Silva told Press Association (BT Sport): “He [Ademola Lookman] is pushing, pushing not just Theo [Walcott] but Theo and Bernard because of the way he is working now but it is the same thing I want in other positions as well.”

In recent weeks, £18m-rated (via Transfermarkt) Walcott has not been at his sharpest, so bringing Lookman into the side ahead of the former Arsenal man could be a very clever move.

Lookman has impressed in the cameos he has made for Everton so far this season, setting up Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s opener in a 2-0 win over Crystal Palace last month after coming on as a second-half substitute.

The English youngster was unable to make a similar impact in Everton’s recent loss to Manchester United but, with the pace and dribbling ability he possesses, he is definitely a player Silva should be looking towards more often.

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And Brighton’s visit to Goodison Park could provide a great opportunity to get the ball rolling.

Aston Villa are fighting a host of Championship rivals for the signature of Dijon striker Julio Tavares, according to HITC.

What’s the word?

Steve Bruce is seeking further additions to his Aston Villa side before the loan market closes on August 31st as he seeks to bolster his ranks for a gruelling Championship campaign that lies ahead – and a fight could develop on the transfer front.

HITC claim Villa, Wigan Athletic, Blackburn Rovers and Norwich City are all chasing Dijon striker Julio Tavares, with the Canaries currently ranked as the favourites to secure a deal for the 29-year-old Cape Verde international.

Tavares scored 11 times in Ligue 1 last season and has begun the new campaign in blistering form, finding the back of the net three times in two matches – a record that includes the brace he scored in a 2-0 win over Nantes at the weekend.

It’s claimed that Villa had agreed on a fee with the French side on Deadline Day but did not have time to complete a deal, though Bruce hopes to agree to a loan in the next week that includes an option to buy at the end of the current campaign.

Should he be signed?

Villa need attacking reinforcements to bolster their push for a return to the Premier League and the experience of Tavares could prove to be decisive, especially with the superb form he has shown in the past 12 months.

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Established as Dijon’s all-time record goalscorer with 67 goals since joining the club in 2012, Taveres looks ready for the next challenge and a move to England seems to be the logical next step – and Villa cannot afford to miss out to one of their rivals.

With HITC adding that the player is keen on a move across the English channel, Villa should certainly not let this opportunity pass them by.

Winning the North London derby is one of the best feelings there is if you’re a fan of Arsenal or Tottenham.

Forget ‘bragging rights’ and the other cliches that they throw up around football. It’s the raw animalistic emotion that matters when it comes to derby day: an irrational hatred that doesn’t get any duller with the passing years.

Indeed, Arsenal are on a bit of a high at the moment. Beating an abject Everton wasn’t exactly proof of a team who can crack the top four and win two trophies come the end of the season. It’s not evidence of much of a revival. But it did hammer home the excitement felt at signing Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. After all, Arsenal won the transfer window, right?

And just a week later, after a rest week earned by virtue of having been dumped out of the FA Cup at the first possible hurdle, the Gunners come into a derby rested up and ready to continue their current rise, stamping their authority over North London once again. And once they’ve done London, they can take on the world.

The most obvious symptom of Arsenal’s problems over the last few years has been the fact that they seem to be repeating the same season over and over again. More recently, that loop may have shortened to Arsene Wenger’s team doomed to suffer a repeat of the exact same month over again. It’s almost Kafkaesque.

But winning the derby – even chasing down Spurs and a top four spot come the end of the season and reinstating St Totteringham’s day – would do one thing and one thing only: it would give Arsene Wenger a free pass for next season and perhaps even more to come.

Perhaps he would deserve it. After all, from the position Arsenal were in around the New Year, when they were comfortably adrift of the rest of the top six, the Gunners are now a player again. If there’s optimism perhaps that’s just a regression towards the mean – if there was despair just a few weeks ago, since then they are now in a cup final, gaining ground on those ahead of them in the league and even optimistic for European success. If Wenger were to deliver two trophies, Champions League football and a place above Tottenham in the league, that would surely be worthy of praise. It would be a great season, all things considered. And certainly something to build on.

But what are the chances of that? And where’s the evidence for such optimism?

Victory over Tottenham on Saturday would not amount to anything in the short term. Arsenal would stay behind their rivals and would remain in sixth place. But longer term, it would put them within striking distance, give them momentum and crucially rob Spurs of theirs.

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Yet maybe that just shows how far Arsenal have fallen. Maybe that just means the Gunners are simply fighting to get back to the position they held last season or in the years of stagnation and fourth place.

All a reinstatement of St Totteringham’s Day would do this season – barring two trophies to go with it – is reinforce Arsene Wenger’s stubbornness in his ways.

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According to reports in The Mirror, Newcastle United and West Ham United are ready to go head-to-head in the race to sign Brentford winger Jota, who is rated at around £1.1m according to Transfermarkt.

What’s the word, then?

Well, The Mirror says that the impressive Spaniard is attracting interest from the Premier League duo as he has just one year remaining on his contract at Griffin Park, with Magpies manager Rafa Benitez and Irons boss Slaven Bilic having different reasons to pursue the Championship star.

The Mirror says that Benitez feels that his squad is short in attacking areas with their top flight campaign just two days away while his Croatian counterpart sees the 26-year-old as a potential replacement for Manuel Lanzini should Liverpool target the West Ham star.

How did Jota do last season?

The Spaniard’s Brentford career looked to be over after he joined Eibar on an 18-month loan deal in January 2016 because of personal reasons, however they recalled him in January of this year and he went on to make a huge impact in the closing stages of the Championship campaign.

The 26-year-old scored 12 goals and provided a further five assists – mainly from the right wing – to show the ability that he does have in his locker.

Despite the speculation over his future, he also started the Bees’ opening day league defeat to Sheffield United last weekend.

Would he be a good signing for Newcastle?

He certainly would be, and probably more so for the Magpies.

While Newcastle have the likes of Matt Ritchie, Jacob Murphy in wide areas and Ayoze Perez through the middle, they don’t exactly have a plethora of creative options throughout the team.

Jota would certainly improve that when you look at his goals and assists record for Brentford last term, while he also created 29 chances for his teammates in those 21 league appearances.

Considering the Toon do have Ritchie, Murphy and Christian Atsu, Jota would probably be more likely to play through the middle or on the left-hand side if he did make the move to St James’ Park.

What about West Ham?

It’s difficult to say.

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As we mentioned previously, The Mirror says that Jota would likely be seen as a replacement for Lanzini in the event that he leaves before the summer transfer window closes at the end of this month, but that seems unlikely right now.

Irons fans will certainly want to see the impressive Lanzini given a more free role, while Jota would find it difficult to compete with Michail Antonio on the right wing.

Ten points behind Chelsea and unlikely to put too much emphasis on the energy-sapping Europa League, the FA Cup represents Tottenham’s likeliest chance of silverware this season.

They face Championship outfit Fulham at Craven Cottage on Sunday but don’t be fooled by their second-tier status; the west Londoners have a real chance of claiming a shock result over Mauricio Pochettino’s boys.

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After all, they’re one of the top attacking forces in the Championship, scoring more than three goals on eight occasions already this season, netting the third-most times of any club in the division and producing the most efforts at goal.

At the other end of the pitch, too, Fulham are enjoying decent if unspectacular form, claiming nine clean sheets in 31 league games this term whilst conceding only 37 times – the eighth-best return throughout the second tier.

Of course, Fulham will need to be at the top of their game both offensively and defensively if they’re to record an upset on Sunday and crucial to the latter will be on-loan Chelsea youngster Tomas Kalas.

And as our infographic shows, the Czech international is enjoying a fine loan spell, winning 50 aerial duels and making a whopping 112 clearances. A lack of experience could cost the 23-year-old on Sunday, however, having committed two defensive errors already this season.

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A new cult hero appears to be emerging on Merseyside, and it sure isn’t Jurgen Klopp.

Across Stanley Park from the German lies a 21-year old Bosnian midfielder entering his second season as an Everton player.

His name is Muhamed Besic.

Amid the array of exciting names plying their trade at Goodison Park, the former Ferencvárosi  man has largely gone unnoticed since his arrival in 2014.

While the likes of John Stones, Ross Barkley and Romelu Lukaku take many of the plaudits in the national press, diehard fans on social media have not missed the Bosnian international’s recent performances.

A household name he may not be, but Toffees fans on Twitter are sweet on their £4m midfielder, believing him to be one of their most exciting players.

He had an eventual first few minutes, creating the first real opportunity of the game by pressing forward with a direct run before hitting the post.

However,, his game was curtailed by a recurrence of his hamstring issue, much to the dismay of the Everton faithful.

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I’m not convinced by the romantic notion that Ryan Giggs can step in and guide Manchester United out of the nadir. I’m not convinced that a man with no prior experience of managing a major European club can be bettered by a man with no managerial experience at all.

Unfortunately we’re living in a time where Pep Guardiola is the rule rather than the exception. There will be campaigns aplenty to argue Giggs’ case. Part of the composition will be the routine 4-0 win over Norwich on the weekend, while much of the other will be that the 40-year-old and Manchester United can offer a reimagining of what happened at Barcelona.

But there is actually no sense behind Giggs taking over the managerial job, at least nothing that goes beyond the clichés and fairly pointless ties the midfielder has to the club.

In an interim capacity, with nothing to lose let alone anything to gain, it’s a safe bet. Giggs looked the part, both in suit on the touchline and in the pre-match press conference. He said all the right things where the previous manager couldn’t. He was bold in his team selection on the weekend, dropping the invention of Juan Mata for the pace of Danny Welbeck. And what’s interesting is that no one said a thing.

Instead of statements being made of Giggs, which have very little relevancy when it comes to selecting a manager other than for the appeasement of supporters, questions should be asked of his credentials.

What are his ideas for taking United forward and importantly getting them back to where they should be at the top of the Premier League tree? How does he plan to set up his team? It’s facile to say United will play attacking football under Giggs simply because he knows that football of that nature is engrained in the club. What will his methods be for rediscovering that attacking instinct?

As an example, Barcelona have a host of attacking players who are rightly considered the best in the world, yet Tata Martino has either struggled or been unable to bring about their maximum potential on the pitch this season. They’ve struggled for parts of the second half of the season, both domestically and in Europe, and players alone are no guarantee of the successful deployment of attacking football.

Whatever happens in United’s final three games of the season, it would be wrong to use such a small window to measure Giggs’ credentials. If the players go out and win the final games, will it be because of their respect for him, respect that wasn’t present for David Moyes? United are a club with a huge pool of talent with which to choose when shopping in the market, and who’s to say every player will come in and immediately take to Giggs as a manager? Does he have the ability to control a dressing with potentially half a dozen egos and personalities?

We don’t know how Giggs will handle European football, which United won’t have to worry about for some time anyway. The Champions League can show the best in England to be inferior to the best from the continent, and that counts for managers as well as teams. Giggs might look the part, but will he act the part? Is he able to counter the tactics of a top European manager, or will his vast inexperience be found out?

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Giggs’ history with the club does set him up to become manager at United at some point, but not now. The club can’t afford to take another sizeable gamble on the basis of romantic ideals. They need to be pragmatic. If Louis van Gaal is to become the next manager then by all means Giggs should be part of the coaching staff. Get him to learn from a man who tutored both Jose Mourinho and Pep Guardiola. Like the latter, give Giggs an opportunity to coach one of the youth teams and let him work his way up. If there’s success at a lower level then the argument for him to be manager of a senior team will be more convincing that anything we’ve heard thus far.

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Victor Moses’ last gasp header to win the game for Chelsea in their 3-2 win over Shaktar Donetsk last night was another timely reminder of what a good start to his Blues career the Nigerian international has made.

While players such as Shaun Wright-Phillips, Scott Parker and Steve Sidwell have failed to make the transition from lesser to bigger Premier League clubs in the past, Moses is defying the critics who have suggested that the club may be too big for him.

Needless to say, Moses is one of several surprise performers in the Premier League so far this season. So here is the list of the top 15 top flight players who have all starred for their side above all expectations.

Click on Steven Fletcher to see the full list of Premier League surprise packages

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If there’s any players you think I’ve missed, or any that you think should be in the list, don’t forget to tweet me @matt_of_the_day

Wolves have confirmed that midfielder Emmanuel Frimpong will miss the remainder of the season, after suffering a knee injury.

The 20-year-old is on loan at Molineux from Arsenal, but picked up an injury against QPR on Saturday, and had to be replaced in the first half of his side’s 2-1 win.

Mick McCarthy’s men have confirmed that extent of the knock, and wished Frimpong all the best in his recovery.

“Emmanuel Frimpong has ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee in Saturday’s Barclays Premier League game at QPR,” a statement on the club’s official website reads.

“Frimpong, on loan at Molineux until the end of the season, will now see specialists in London over the next few days before having surgery and starting a programme of rehabilitation.

“The midfielder, who suffered the same injury to his left knee in 2010, had made an impressive start to his temporary spell at Wolves, catching the eye during his five appearances in gold and black.

“Frimpong is expected to be out for a number of months and will therefore miss the remainder of this season.

“Everyone at Wolves would like to thank the midfielder for his efforts whilst at the club and join Arsenal in wishing him a swift recovery,” it concluded.

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By Gareth McKnight

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Mikel Arteta is now driving Arsenal’s move to sign Scott McTominay, with the manager of the belief the Scot would be the perfect addition to his midfield, and Napoli’s asking price has been revealed.

Arteta is already blessed with a wide array of options in central midfield, having signed Christian Norgaard and Martin Zubimendi in the summer, while Declan Rice also continues to impress, receiving plaudits from Gary Neville after the recent 4-1 North London derby victory.

Neville said: “The only player you would be worried about losing for a period of time would be Declan Rice because you cannot replace that,”

“That is your Roy Keane, that is your Rodri, the player that holds you together. There is only one of them.”

However, despite strengthening considerably in the summer, the Gunners have struggled injury-wise this season, with Viktor Gyokeres, Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus being ruled out against Tottenham Hotspur, meaning Mikel Merino had to lead the line.

As such, it could be a wise idea to bring in another central midfielder in the transfer window, and Arteta is personally a fan of a Serie A star…

Arteta driving Arsenal move for Scott McTominay

According to a report from Spain, Arteta believes McTominay could be the ideal addition to his midfield, with Arsenal closely monitoring the Napoli star’s performances over the past few months.

The Spanish manager rates the Scotland international highly due to his ability and press forward, and there are signs that a deal could be possible, though Andrea Berta will have to stump up £60m.

The 28-year-old is under contract until 2029, meaning Napoli are in a strong negotiating position at present, but interest from elsewhere is growing, with Manchester United also joining the race to re-sign their former player.

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The Napoli star has certainly taken his career to new heights since leaving Old Trafford, with football writer Mark Carruthers praising him for the part he played in the Serie A side winning the title last season.

The former Man United man displayed his attacking quality as Napoli went on to win the league, picking up 12 goals and six assists in 34 Serie A outings, and he recently scored a remarkable bicycle kick as Scotland beat Denmark 4-2 to qualify for the World Cup.

It may be difficult for McTominay to force his way into the Arsenal starting XI ahead of Rice and Zubimendi, but he would certainly provide Arteta with fantastic depth in the middle of the park.

Scott McTominay has been named as one of the best midfielders in the world Related The Best 15 Midfielders in World Football Ranked (2025)

Some of the best players in the world do their stuff in the middle of the park, but who’s number one?

Posts 5 ByCharlie Smith