Catégorie : Sport News

Manchester United star Kobbie Mainoo has an uncertain future at Old Trafford, with the club ready to cash in on him for the right offer.

Ranked at no.6 in FourFourTwo’s list of the most exciting teenagers to watch this season, Mainoo emerged last season as a bright spark in Manchester United’s dismal campaign. The 19-year-old scored in the FA Cup final and was selected for Euro 2024, featuring in the final against Spain for England.

Since his breakthrough, however, United have changed hands with new owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe making sweeping changes across the club.

Manchester United are looking to cut costs, with Kobbie Mainoo a potential victim

Ratcliffe has presided over a period of austerity since purchasing his boyhood club, making redundancies among staff, putting the likes of Marcus Rashford up for sale and most recently, canceling the staff Christmas party.

According to the Mail, this frugalness is to continue, with two more “crown jewels” considered for sale in Mainoo and Alejandro Garnarcho.

The report states that this is “something the club want to avoid” – but should a big offer come in for Mainoo, it would no doubt be considered.

Over a year ago, FourFourTwo reported that Manchester City of all clubs were tracking Mainoo, with the wonderkid yet to have started a game nor signed his most recent contract back then. Whether or not City are still interested remains to be seen – but given recent struggles in their own midfield, they no doubt crave a player of Mainoo’s profile.

FourFourTwo understands that such a move is now all but certain to be off the table, with United not wanting to strengthen a direct rival under almost any circumstance.

There are still other suitors who would sit up at the opportunity to sign the star though, as Real Madrid were said to be interested in April.

In FourFourTwo’s view, it would take a bid of at least £80 million to prise the academy talent away from the club, with another £20m added as a premium – at least – for Premier League sides. As stated by the Mail, though, Mainoo leaving is not at the forefront of the club’s thinking.

The midfielder is valued to be worth €55m by Transfermarkt. United face City this weekend in the Manchester Derby when Premier League action resumes.

It’s been 40 years, but Ally McCoist can still recall the ironic, finer details of the time his manager at Rangers, Jock Wallace, punched him square on the chin.

“The 1984 Olympics were on – it’s scarred me that much, I can remember the boxing was on the telly!” McCoist laughs, chatting to FourFourTwo exactly 40 years later.

The striker had been at the club for just over a year and during his second pre-season with the Ibrox club inexperience got the better of him.

‘He’s absolutely livid’

“He was heavy on curfews”, explains McCoist, referring to then manager Jock Wallace who would go on to eventually win ten trophies at Rangers. “When I was about 21, he caught me coming back from the pub about five or 10 minutes late during a pre-season trip.”

“I went upstairs and was panicking like you have no idea. My room-mate Cammy Fraser was trying to calm me down – I said, ‘He’s absolutely livid’. There was a bang on the door.

“Cammy said, ‘I’ll sort this’, got up and walked towards the door… then turned right, walked into the toilet and locked that door. I thought, ‘Hey, you bastard’.

“I went to open the door to the room – as I did, it got booted off the hinges and I was confronted by this right jab to my jaw, which floored me. When I opened my eyes, Jock was breathing over me, saying, ‘I’ll see you in the morning’. I’m thinking, ‘F**k me, this is the warm-up!’”

“Thankfully he’d calmed down in the morning, but what a guy, I absolutely loved him. When I tell people that Big Jock put one on my chin, none of them ever say, ‘That’s terrible’ but, ‘You must have deserved it’, which to be fair, I did!”

Wallace managed the club across two spells that spanned 308 games and earned a 65.26 per cent win ratio. A classic Scottish manager of the time, he was a notorious disciplinarian.

In between his two spells as Rangers boss he managed a young Gary Lineker who recalls being pinned against the dressing room wall by Wallace at half-time once. “He called me a lazy English this and that. We were 2–0 up and I’d scored both goals. I didn’t score in the second half – I was still shaking!”

Despite the hard-handed approach, many of Wallace’s former players, like McCoist and Lineker still hold him in high regard. He passed away in 1996 aged 60.

Arsenal want another Bologna player, as Mikel Arteta looks to improve his squad.

The Gunners’ headline acquisition over the summer was Euro 2024 star Riccardo Calafiori, who had just helped I Rossoblu into the Champions League for the first time ever. The Italian, ranked at no.10 in FourFourTwo’s list of the best left-backs in the world right now, has had a few injury issues as he recovers from a severe knee injury – but has been a hit.

Bologna sold Takehiro Tomiyasu to Arsenal back in 2021, too – and now the two clubs might be about to do business for a third time.

Arsenal circling for Bologna attacker who could ignite title bid

Mikel Arteta has stated his intention to do business in January if the right player becomes available, amid an injury crisis in which both Tomiyasu and Calafiori are both currently unavailable.

“The window gives us an opportunity to strengthen the team if we feel that is needed and we feel that we have the capacity to do that as well,” Arteta said. “We are on it and just have to assess the situation because it is changing every week.”

According to CaughtOffside, Arsenal are one of a number of clubs interested in bringing Santiago Castro to the Premier League.

The 20-year-old has been a breakout star this season, with seven goals and assists in Serie A. Plenty of interest has developed in him, with Newcastle United and Aston Villa both said to have registered their interest.

“Mikel Arteta is lacking quality and depth in his attack, having become overly reliant on Bukayo Saka in that area of the pitch as the likes of Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli have suffered significant dips in form,” the report states.

In FourFourTwo’s opinion, there’s no doubt that Arsenal are tracking the best that Bologna has to offer after recent business with the Italian club – but there might not be much in these rumours just yet.

The Gunners are lacking game-changers in attack, and bringing in a 20-year-old who has never played in the Premier League would be an uncharacteristic move for a club who have heavily leant on signing Prem-proven players of late – especially for the touted price of €40 million.

Castro is worth €18m, according to Transfermarkt. Arsenal take on Everton this weekend when Premier League action resumes.

It’s all going to plan on the pitch for Arne Slot but big decisions loom for the Premier League leaders.

Liverpool are four points clear with a game in hand on second-placed Chelsea and have only lost one Premier League fixture since Slot succeeded Jurgen Klopp in the summer.

But one of the biggest reasons for Liverpool’s lead at the top is the form of Mohamed Salah, whose contract expires in June. The 32-year-old has consistently been linked with a move to Saudi Arabia and an agreement to keep him at Anfield has not yet been done.

Who will Liverpool sign if Salah leaves?

Two potential replacements have emerged according to Caught Offside’s Daily Briefing. The gap left behind by Salah, a Premier League and Champions League winner with the Reds and ranked first in FourFourTwo’s list of the best Premier League wingers ever, would be impossible to fill.

But fans would have a lot to get excited about if Slot gets a chance to work with either of Liverpool’s top targets from two of the club’s biggest European competitors.

Like Salah, Bayern Munich’s Leroy Sane will be out of contract at the end of the season and would be available on a free transfer. The 28-year-old has played in the Premier League before. He won consecutive league titles with Manchester City in 2017-18 and 2018-19.

Sane scored 25 Premier League goals after joining Man City from Schalke and has won three Bundesliga titles since returning to Germany with Bayern.

Khvicha Kvaratskhelia will still have two years left on his Napoli contract at the end of 2024-25 and the transfer fee required to persuade them to sell him would be significant.

‘Kvaradona’ impressed for Georgia at the European Championship this year but has been outstanding since moving to Serie A in 2022.

At 23, Kvaratskhelia has an exciting future ahead of him as one of Europe’s rising stars. He has all the attributes Liverpool would need to find in a Salah successor and plenty of individual magic to boot.

Salah has scored a massive 227 goals in all competitions since joining Liverpool in 2017.

According to reports, he wants to sign a new deal but the security of a multi-year contract on the sort of salary that would stop Salah being tempted away to Saudi Arabia means it’s not a simple negotiation.

If it comes to it, either Sane or Kvaratskhelia would have a lot to offer in Salah’s place. But the Egyptian should and will be Liverpool’s priority for now.

Watch Rangers vs Spurs for a fiery all-British clash in the 2024/25 Europa League on Thursday December 12, with details here on live streams, TV channels, and how to watch from anywhere with a VPN.

In the pick of this week’s Europa League fixtures, Tottenham Hotspur make the trip from London, England, to Glasgow Scotland. The fact that this is an all-British tie carries its own heft but there’s added spice here in that Spurs manager Ange Postecoglou used to be the boss of Celtic – Rangers’ historic and bitter city rivals.

Besides those appetite-whetting factors, the tie is an important one in the context of the Europa League itself, with both sides locked on 10 points and looking to make a push for automatic qualification for the next round. Rangers in 8th place have the edge on goal difference but a win for either side would boost their hopes of being one of the top eight teams to progress without the need for a play-off.

Rangers sit third in the Scottish Premiership, way off the pace of Celtic, but they’re in decent form, winning their last Europa League tie against Nice 4-1 and then winning their past three Premiership games with 10 goals scored and none conceded.

Spurs, meanwhile, have taken their topsy-turvy reputation to new extremes in recent times. They thumped Premier League champions Man City 4-0 on November 23 but are winless since then, their latest loss being a 4-3 defeat to Chelsea having led by two goals.

Watch Rangers vs Spurs in the UK

In the UK, TNT Sports has the TV rights to Europa League, with a Rangers vs Spurs live stream on Discovery+.

On TV, the channel you need is TNT Sports 1, with coverage starting at 7pm ahead of the 8pm kick-off. If you don’t have it already, you’ll need to add TNT Sports to your existing TV package – prices vary by provider.

If you want to stream the game online, Discovery+ is the online home of TNT Sports, and specifically the Discovery+ Premium plan, which comes at a cost of £30.99.

That’s a hefty investment, but you do get every single Europa League game live, along with all the Champions League live streams and the odd Premier League fixture every week.

Watch Rangers vs Spurs in the US

Paramount+ is the home of Europa League soccer in the US, and that’s where you can find a Rangers vs Spurs live stream.

In a similar set-up to the UK, selected action airs on TV, on CBS, while every single game is available to stream online via Paramount+. Likewise, you get all the Champions League action on top.

Paramount+, however, beats TNT/Discovery on price, coming in at just $7.99 a month for the Essential package – or an even-lower rate of $59.99 for a whole year. You could even remove adverts and add thousands of movies and TV episodes, and still come in under half the price of the UK Discovery+ Premium, by choosing the Showtime package for $12.99 per month or $119.99 per year.

What’s more, both plans currently have a one-week free trial, so you could in theory watch the Rangers vs Spurs live stream for free.

What if you’re away from the US right now? You can still access Paramount+ by using a VPN to unblock your usual streaming services. NordVPN comes highly recommended by our colleagues at TechRadar.

Watch Rangers vs Spurs cheaply on Megogo

There are no dedicated broadcasters offering free-to-air coverage of Rangers vs Spurs but, on top the free Paramount+ trial mentioned above, there is one cheap option, albeit a niche one.

Megogo in Ukraine has a number of sports rights and will have a Rangers vs Spurs live stream. You can get your first seven days with Megogo for just 49 UAH – that’s less than £1.

You don’t need to register but coverage is geo-restricted to Ukraine, meaning those who’d usually watch who are travelling outside the country would need to use a VPN – more on that below.

Where else can I watch Rangers vs Spurs?

Canada: DAZN

Australia: Stan Sport

New Zealand: DAZN

How to watch Rangers vs Spurs from anywhere

What if you’re away from home for the game, and your usual streaming service is geo-restricted? Well, there is a neat solution. A VPN – or Virtual Private Network – is a piece of software that sets your IP address to make your device appear to be in any country in the world.

Provided it complies with your broadcaster’s T&Cs, you can use a VPN to unblock the streaming services you subscribe to, and it also comes with added internet security benefits.

FourFourTwo’s colleagues TechRadar are experts in this field, and they reckon NordVPN is the best VPN provider on the market.

Wide receiver Kameron Johnson is on his way back to the Buccaneers lineup.

Johnson has been out since Week Seven due to an ankle injury, but the team announced on Thursday that he has been designated for return from injured reserve. He will be able to practice for the next three weeks before reaching a deadline to be activated or remain on the injured list.

The Buccaneers signed Johnson as an undrafted free agent this offseason and he made the team out of training camp. He played in four games before landing on injured reserve and did not catch any passes.

Johnson did run once for no gain and he returned one punt for 11 yards.

George Russell has done tremendously well to get the better of Lewis Hamilton for the second time in their three seasons as teammates. In 2024, his qualifying pace in particular has been miles clear of the seven-time world champion, who is himself known for his supreme one-lap pace.

However, the way Russell outperformed Hamilton this season led to several fans and some experts claiming that Mercedes may be deliberately sabotaging the 39-year-old’s season as he will join rivals Ferrari next year. Former Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg, though, disagrees with such claims.

“I am pretty sure they didn’t,” were the words of Rosberg on the Sky Sports F1 podcast when one of his fellow experts claimed that there was a possibility Mercedes were favoring Russell, who is the team’s long-term future leader. Rosberg used an anecdote from the recently concluded Abu Dhabi GP to explain why he disagrees.

The German former driver highlighted the moment in the race when Mercedes boss Toto Wolff came on the radio to motivate Hamilton to chase down Russell. The Austrian gave this encouragement to the seven-time world champion when he was 14 seconds behind Russell and feared that he may not be able to catch his teammate.

Wolff said, “You can do this”, highlighting that the 52-year-old and the rest of his Mercedes team backed Hamilton till the very end. While Rosberg believes that there is ample evidence to suggest that Mercedes did not favor Russell, he believes that there is another reason why the Silver Arrows could not afford to sabotage Hamilton.

Rosberg explains why Mercedes could never sabotage Hamilton

During the same podcast, Rosberg explained how Mercedes would have gained a very bad image had they even tried to favor Russell over Hamilton. The German believes that Hamilton, being a seven-time world champion, has such a huge image today that Mercedes would not want to damage their relationship with him or his fans.

“They were under a lot of pressure, the team, because…a lot of fans, every time Lewis gets beaten by George, a lot of fans are like sabotage, so the pressure was on Mercedes,” Rosberg explained. “And for Toto, it was so important to show the world that there was no preferential treatment towards George”.

After the chequered flag at the Abu Dhabi GP, which was Hamilton’s last race for Mercedes, emotions ran high in the Brackley outfit’s camp. However, none were perhaps more emotional than Hamilton and Wolff, who enjoyed the highest of successes together during the turbo-hybrid era.

So, after Hamilton crossed the finish line, both had nothing but good things to say for each other. “I love you, guys. I really really do,” said Hamilton, to which Wolff replied, “We love you too and you’re always going to be a part of that family. And if we can’t win, you should win”.

Titans quarterback Will Levis was a full practice participant on Wednesday, but that doesn’t mean he’s fully healthy.

Levis missed three games earlier this season with a right shoulder injury and he aggravated the AC joint sprain in the first half of last Sunday’s loss to the Jaguars. Levis took a painkilling shot in order to get through the game and said on Wednesday that he doesn’t know if he’ll do the same before this Sunday’s game against the Bengals, but that he does know it is something he expects to keep dealing with through the end of the season.

“It’s definitely something that I’m using every day so it’s hard to give it proper rest,” Levis said, via Nick Suss of the Tennessean. “I was able to give it that rest when I had those few weeks off, which was nice. But it’s definitely a different scenario now. We’re just going to take it day by day and see how it feels.”

While it doesn’t sound like the shoulder issue will sideline Levis, it could still have an impact on the Titans as they move into 2025. Evaluating Levis and establishing their future plans at quarterback are among the things the Titans will need to do as the season comes to an end, so playing at less than 100 percent is less than ideal for Tennessee.

Back in 2005, Snoop Dogg started a youth football league to develop talented kids of the age group 5 to 13. While CJ Stroud is now known for being a notable alumnus of that league, the chances of this not being a reality were higher due to his mother’s initial skepticism.

CJ’s introduction to Snoop Youth Football League happened when Pomona Steelers coach Priest Brooks wanted a top-ranked QB for his team. The coach found his fit in a 12-year-old CJ, who was all the rage back then. He was, therefore, invited to an unofficial practice along with family members. But at first glance, Kimberly wasn’t a fan of this decision.

Apart from the Stroud family living 40 miles east of where the League was organized, Kimberly wasn’t a fan of the reputation the League had. CJ’s doting mother hesitated too much, leading to her being vehemently against joining the program.

“When we first went there, I was like at first, no offense Snoop but I was super against it but that was only because of the reputation. I just had all these images in my head and I was like no, we’re not doing that,” reminisced Kimberly on ‘The Mom’s POV’ podcast.

While Kimberly didn’t go into detail about what the reputation of the league was back then, it was bad enough for her to dread going to the private practice. But it was the young CJ who pushed for his spot in the league. “He was like ‘Mom, I have to do this. I have to, l want to go, so he tried to get on the team,” she recalled.

Once the decision to go for the practice was confirmed, Kimberly recalled how nervous she was. On one hand, she had the whole reputation angle playing in her mind, and on the other, there was the anxiety of seeing her son perform in a new environment. Luckily, it all went well, and in his first session, the 12-year-old CJ impressed everyone.

“The first practice… man, I don’t even think my nerves were so bad. But then after the first snap, my son got out that pocket so quick and that was all he needed…”

Once the nerves settled in, Kimberly realized how wrong she was to give in to the reputation of the league. She observed that the atmosphere and the personnel at Snoop’s league were super cordial and friendly — 180 degrees from the image outside.

“When we went to the actual practices, we saw how everybody was so professional and great people… so don’t judge a book by its cover.”

All that said, the move turned out to be fruitful for CJ in the bigger scheme of things. While he dazzled the league with his performances, he also picked up skills like communication and collaboration, which have shaped his leadership and composure.