All posts by rastrear-estafeta.com

Loads of Arsenal fans want Unai Emery to make a key decision and strip Granit Xhaka of the captaincy, in order to hand the armband to Matteo Guendouzi.

Xhaka became a target for Arsenal fans to vent their frustrations at the weekend when the 27-year-old walked off the field while being substituted against Crystal Palace, rather than running off the pitch so the game could recommence swiftly as the Emirates Stadium natives went in search of a winning goal.

Gunners fans booed Xhaka’s slow walk off, to which the Switzerland international cupped his ear before taking his shirt off and storming down the tunnel toward the dressing room while swearing at supporters in a fiery outburst.

Watch Arsenal Live Streams With StreamFootball.tv Below

Emery had named Xhaka as his captain in September following a secret vote by the Arsenal squad, despite the midfielder being jeered by his own fans the week before when he was replaced against Aston Villa (Telegraph).

Lots of supporters now seemingly hope Sunday’s display was the final act by Xhaka with the captain’s armband – a sentiment shared by club icon Nigel Winterburn who told talkSPORT he was shocked at the actions of the man tasked with leading the North London outfit – as they are making calls for Guendouzi to take it up instead.

The 5 ft 8 Frenchman joined Arsenal last summer from Ligue 2 side FC Lorient and has made 60 appearances for the Gunners across all competitions, and has started all of the North London outfit’s Premier League games this term.

Here are some of the messages shared…

When Tottenham’s new stadium opened it was heralded as one of the best grounds in Europe.

Fans and pundits alike marvelled at the ground, but just six months after the opening some now believe that the Lilywhites’ new home is doing more harm than good.

Watch Tottenham Hotspur Live Streams With StreamFootball.tv Below

Indeed, a couple of ESPN pundits attempted to dissect what all the problems are at Spurs right now, and they said that the stadium is causing an issue.

After a couple of rather cringe-worthy jokes, they pointed towards the fact that there is a two-way mirror in the tunnel, which fans can stand behind before the players walk out, and they claim that having this feature can “breed paranoia” within the squad.

You have to say that there is a point to be made, despite the bizarreness of the ESPN video.

It must be quite a strange feeling in a part of the stadium that is usually completely off limits to fans, especially when the players are performing as badly as they are right now.

This article is part of Football FanCast’s Pundit View series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent quotes from journalists, pundits, players and managers…

BT Sport pundit Robbie Savage believes that Arsenal could become unstuck when they travel to Bramall Lane to face Sheffield United on Monday night.

What’s the word?

The Gunners’ face the 157-mile trip north to face the newly-promoted Blades after gaining automatic promotion with a second-place finish in the Championship last season.

During the current campaign, Chris Wilder’s side almost pulled off a shock upset against Premier League leaders Liverpool. After goalkeeper Dean Henderson fumbled Georginio Wijnaldum’s effort into his own net, Sheffield United lost 1-0 to the Merseyside club after what was a solid defensive display from the Yorkshire based-outfit.

Savage, who played Premier League football for various sides including Leicester City and Blackburn Rovers, has predicted in the Mirror that the Arsenal will not walk away with all three points from the affair but hold out instead for a 1-1 draw.

Two players can make the difference

Savage underestimates what the Gunners can do.

Watch Arsenal Live Streams With StreamFootball.tv Below

Arsenal have taken a step forward this season after finding themselves third in the Premier League after eight games, despite receiving criticism about the lack of imagination in attacking areas. This came to light after Arsenal were held to a 1-1 draw against Manchester United at Old Trafford.

However, two Gunners’ players are capable of turning the tide during the game against Sheffield United on Monday night.

Dani Ceballos, who is on a season-long loan from Real Madrid, is one of them.

In the video below, we look at where it all went wrong for Arsenal’s former ‘saviour’, Mesut Ozil…

The Spaniard has had a bright start to life in north London and has been a valuable asset to boss Unai Emery’s team. During his first eight games, he has conjured up two assists in the Premier League as well as a passing accuracy of 89%.

His technical ability with the ball is matched with his ability to involve attackers ahead of him, enclosed in a typical 4-3-3 formation that Emery likes to play. With an average of 1.1 key passes and 1.4 successful dribbles per game, these traits that Ceballos has will help unlock the Sheffield United defence.

The second player is only on the basis that Alexandre Lacazette is not deemed fit enough to feature, and that is Bukayo Saka.

What an impressive start the 18-year-old has had to his Arsenal career. The youngster excelled during Arsenal’s 1-1 draw against Manchester United and outshone his £72m teammate Nicolas Pepe in the process.

Having scored one goal and provided three assists in all competitions, Saka has a bright future at the Gunners. His ability to run at full-backs and pick out a pass will trouble the Blades’ defensive line. The England U19 international was praised by former Arsenal and Chelsea midfielder Cesc Fabregas, who said that he was a player who is showing great maturity, as per the Metro.

Savage is wrong by saying that the Gunners will struggle, purely on the basis that they have players that can hurt Sheffield United.

Both Ceballos and Saka will have a significant impact on the game if the manager picks them. If Emery utilises them properly, Arsenal will leave Bramall Lane with all three points.

[ad_pod ]

This article is part of Football FanCast’s Transfer Focus series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent transfer news…

According to The Mirror, Arsenal are interested in bring Donyell Malen back to the Emirates Stadium.

What’s the story?

It has been an impressive start to the season for Malen. The 2o-year-old Netherlands international has scored 10 goals in his first 13 matches for PSV Eindhoven as the Dutch team sit third in the Eredivisie with two games in hand on leaders Vitesse Arnhem.

The forward has thus attracted some attention from clubs around Europe, including the Gunners. They are said to be monitoring the youngster, currently valued at £50m.

Watch Arsenal Live Streams With StreamFootball.tv Below

Would represent poor business

The stats show that Malen is going through a purple patch right now. He is the top scorer in the league, and his first two caps for the Oranje are recognition of his recent displays.

However, Arsenal signing the youngster would represent incredibly poor business, and would show that the Emirates outfit’s hierarchy really have learned anything from previous mistakes.

Two years ago, the striker left the Gunners to move back to his homeland for just £500,000, which means that PSV are expecting a fee 100 times higher than that. Yes, he may have enjoyed an impressive couple of months so far this term, but that does not mean his services can demand such a hefty price.

Also, Unai Emery does not need to add another striker to his squad. He already has arguably one of the best in world football, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, at his disposal, whilst Alexandre Lacazette is also a star forward who has two goals in two starts in the Premier League this term.

The problem the former Sevilla boss has is at the other end of the pitch. Some of the defensive performances from his side so far this season have been hard to watch. Against Watford, for example, the north Londoners were outplayed in the second half and conceded a huge 31 shots. David Luiz has done little to shore up the backline since joining from Chelsea, and the whole back four continues to look shaky.

It is a problem they have suffered from for a while. In the last three full campaigns, no side in the top six has shipped more than the Gunners. Quite frankly, that is not good enough, and it needs solving soon. Forget spending a fortune on a player deemed not good enough just 24 months ago. Splash the cash on a top-class defender who can finally end their defensive woes.

The British gambling industry is, financially speaking, a thriving behemoth with annual revenues of £15 billion. Of the £5 billion revenues brought in by online gambling countries in the UK, £3 billion of that comes from sports betting with football betting accounting for just under 60% of those revenues.

As the most popular sport on the face of the earth, it is only natural for football to be a hugely popular betting market. We’re all aware of the traditional forms of football betting, but what about some of the more peculiar strands of football gambling?

What is really powering the football betting industry, and why is the sport so well set up for gambling? Read on to find out the answers to those questions and more.

Did you know? 10 of the current 20 Premier League clubs have betting companies as their main shirt sponsorships. Estimates suggest that Premier League clubs will make a combined revenue of £349 million from shirt sponsorship rights.

What Do People Bet On?

Accumulators: Multi-outcome bets also known as accumulators are the most widely placed football bets in the UK. For many football fans, heading to the bookies and putting a £1 accumulator on before walking to the stadium is a weekly ritual. It is almost as normalized as a pre-match pint or a half-time pie.

As fans, we think we know football pretty well and that having that knowledge gives us an edge when it comes to placing an accumulator. However, the odds for betting on the favorites are so low that many punters put in a few long-shots.

Invariably these fail to come in and we forget about the pound we lost and lament the fact that we could have won hundreds of thousands of pounds if the referee hadn’t robbed MK Dons of a point against Peterborough.

Even when you do place your money on the favorites, there’s no guarantee that Manchester City won’t go to Carrow Road and lose to a Teemu Pukki inspired Norwich City…

Did you know? In November 2017 a frustrated housewife put a £1 accumulator on 12 teams, despite knowing next to nothing about football. Her selections were all random picks, but remarkably they came in and she won £574,278.41.

Outrights: The eve of the football season is a strange time indeed. It’s when fans up and down the country all have hope that it could be their year. Optimism is at an all-time high, and it often leads to fans putting on some pretty daft bets.

Like the man from Warwickshire who days before the start of the 2015-2016 Premier League season bizarrely put £50 on Leicester City to win the league. The fan who wishes to remain anonymous had obviously seen enough in his sides relegation battle from the previous season to be confident of a title win.

With the odds at 5,000-1, the punter probably never expected to see his money back again. However, in March of 2016, he received a call from his bookmaker offering him the chance to cash out for £72,000 on the £250,000 bet.

Like most of us at the time, he probably felt that Leicester would drop off towards the end of the season and that cashing out was the best option. As it turned out, he was made to regret his decision to cash out as the Foxes went on to lift the title and he missed out on £178,000.

Slots: Gambling is one of those industries where traditional rules go out of the window, and there is often no rhyme or reason to why people play certain games. Slots have long been one of the most popular games in both land-based and online casinos.

They are easy to play, can cost very little money to enjoy and can often see players winning huge sums of money. Slot machine games are often themed on famous films, TV shows or more often than not, a pot of cash at the end of the rainbow…

However, an increasing amount of football fanatics are grabbing their slot bonuses and signing up to play football-themed slot games. If you live and breathe football, then slots based on the beautiful game are right up your alley.

Making Money From Football Betting

If you really are a football fanatic and know everything there is to know about the game and the various leagues up and down the country, you can indeed make money from football betting.

There are no guarantees though that your money will be safe and your bet will come in. Unpredictability is just one of the many reasons that we love football, and it’s also the main reason that your bets will fail.

Perhaps the safest way to make a profit on football accumulators or traditional bets is to go to the lower leagues and betting on the favourites. In the lower reaches of football things such as home, advantage has a much bigger impact on results than they do at the top of the pyramid.

Backing top of the table teams at home to the lesser likes is your best bet (pun intended) of winning an accumulator. Although, if your accumulator does come in, your winnings will probably be so small that you’ll wonder why you even bothered.

Perhaps sticking to a crazy outright or a 15 team accumulator is the way to go. It keeps things interesting, and you never know, one day you could get a call from a bookmaker offering you £72,000 to cash out on your bet for Yeovil Town to win the Premier League…

West Ham have had a lot of injury problems this season, especially in the run up to the new year.

Things, however, are looking a bit better with Manuel Lanzini returning to training ahead of the Hammers’ London derby versus Fulham at the London Stadium tomorrow.

“For this game, we have the squad which was playing most of the games and for this week I think we will have the squad list [on Thursday] and maybe Lanzini and Nasri can be included on the squad list,” Manuel Pellegrini told reporters in his pre-match press conference (via West Ham’s official club website).

Lanzini has yet to play a game for the Hammers this season following the knee injury he picked up last summer while on international duty with Argentina meaning some rustiness can be expected.

But the 26-year-old remains a player with a lot of technical ability and the type Pellegrini loves to build his team around.

Lanzini is a small, agile No.10 with great dribbling skill and movement in between the lines.

Under Pellegrini, he could develop into something special as he approaches the peak years of his career.

For now, though, the Argentina international will be focusing on returning to full fitness before trying to play a big role in a season where West Ham could end up finishing as high as seventh place.

In an exclusive interview with Football FanCast, former Celtic striker John Hartson has had his say on Mohamed Elyounoussi, who got his Bhoys career off to the perfect start by picking up a crucial assist on his debut last weekend.

The Norway international joined the Glasgow giants on a season-long loan deal at the end of August following a difficult first season in English football with Southampton – managing only eight starts inthe Premier League – and manager Neil Lennon threw him straight into the starting XI against Hamilton at the weekend.

The 25-year-old played from the left wing and set up the winning goal for James Forrest in a 1-0 victory, and Hartson was clearly impressed with what he saw from the former Basel man.

Speaking exclusively to FFC, he said: “I think he’ll be a great signing for Neil Lennon, he’s got that bit of quality in the final third. He’ll be a valuable asset for Celtic no doubt about that.”

Watch Celtic Live Streams With StreamFootball.tv Below

The former Wales international went on to add that he believes a player clearly low on confidence at St Mary’s is now working under the perfect person in Lennon, because of the attributes he brings as a manager.

“Neil Lennon’s good at that. He’s good at putting players in that maybe lost their way a little bit, showed some promise and then just lost their way, and then Neil’s great at bringing them in for Celtic and giving them confidence.”

Having scored 30 goals and provided a further 23 assists in 84 matches for Basel, that quality is clearly there to be unlocked and utilised.

Hartson is right, and a real man-manager and motivator could be just what Elyounoussi needs to turn his fortunes around having often been left out of the matchday squad completely at St Mary’s last term.

Lennon is more than capable of doing that, and Celtic could quickly reap the rewards as a result.

Craig Hope has revealed some fresh Newcastle United transfer news involving Dean Henderson.

The Lowdown: Burn on his way?

As per Sky Sports journalist Keith Downie, the St. James’ Park faithful have now agreed a £13m fee with Brighton and Hove Albion to sign Dan Burn, adding that he is travelling up to the North East in order to undergo a medical.

He looks set to join Kieran Trippier, Chris Wood and the imminent Bruno Guimaraes on Tyneside, meaning that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) consortium can now focus on other targets before the deadline hits.

It seems as though the priority is still on improving the defensive record even after the move for Burn, judging by the latest news from Hope.

The Latest: Attention on Henderson

According to The Daily Mail journalist, talks have begun this weekend to bring Manchester United’s Henderson to Tyneside on loan:

“Talks have taken place in past 24 hours.”

However, after previously reporting that there was a ‘strong chance’ of a deal, Hope is no longer so positive.

“Never say never, but I’m told Henderson/NUFC now looks unlikely.”

The Verdict: Not a priority

Henderson is undeniably talented – during his incredible spell on loan with Sheffield United, when he kept 35 clean sheets in 86 appearances, his Blades teammate, Sander Berge, hailed him as ‘insane’ and ‘exceptional’.

However, the Toon are already stacked in the goalkeeping department with Martin Dubravka, Karl Darlow and Freddie Woodman, and so they should not be prioritising bringing in a new one – even if Woodman leaves, Eddie Howe will still have two senior shot-stoppers at his disposal.

Furthermore, Henderson currently earns a whopping £120,000-per-week at Old Trafford, and while money is not an object to the new owners, they would probably be expected to pay a large chunk of that on top of a potential loan fee.

Nonetheless, they should focus on other positions, with another striker mooted with Callum Wilson’s injury, and the likes of Alvaro Morata and Dominic Calvert-Lewin still reportedly seen as options.

In other news, find out who NUFC have made enquiries over here!

Wolves’ woes in front of goal have continued on from Nuno Santo’s reign, as just five teams in the Premier League have failed to score more than Bruno Lage’s side, with Leeds as far down as 16th having put the ball in the back of the net more times this campaign.

Strikers Raul Jimenez and Hwang-Hee Chan have netted a disappointing total of 11 goals between them, while £36m signing Fabio Silva has managed just one goal all season – which came for the U23s team in the Premier League 2.

They could have wasted even more money last summer though, as they targeted Sheffield United striker Oliver McBurnie in a potential £15m deal, according to The Sun.

The Telegraph also reported on transfer deadline day back in August that the club attempted to complete a deal near the closure of the window, but they had just run out of time – which perhaps was a blessing in disguise.

Having made just six starts in the Championship and appearing a further 19 times from the bench, he has failed to score all campaign and has set up just two goals, in what has been a very unsuccessful season for the £6.3m-rated Scotland international.

With that in mind, it’s hardly a surprise that pundit Tam McManus described the attacker as “desperate” for his efforts in the final third.

After having a number of run-ins with the law in recent years, he has also become somewhat of a controversial figure in football, and fans and pundits have regularly criticised his attitude on and off the pitch.

Former Blades striker Carl Asaba is just one of the people who have leapt to his defence recently though, saying in an interview with The Star: “I watch McBurnie arrive at the ground, he’s smiling and happy, he warms up not looking like a man who is tense, or desperate to find a goal as I used to.

“He’s happy and jokey when a substitute and wishes his team mates good luck before kick off.

“He gets onto the pitch and he retains possession, ambles into the box when I’m screaming from commentary box that he needs to break his neck to get across the near post or that he should have taken a shot as you don’t shoot you don’t score.”

With that being said, McBurnie clearly wasn’t the answer for Wolves if he is struggling for goals in the Championship – and the West Midlands club don’t need another forward to ‘retain possession’ or be ‘happy and jokey’ with teammates.

Instead, they need a proven goal-getter who can fire them into European qualification, and the 17-time Scotland international, who hasn’t yet scored for his national side either, isn’t that man.

In other news: Insider drops big Wolves claim involving Ruben Neves, it’ll devastate supporters

A number of West Ham fans have taken to Twitter to slam comments made by David Moyes regarding transfers.

Club insider ExWHUemployee took to social media to share a screenshot of a football.london article, which transcribes comments made by David Moyes.

These comments provide insight into the club’s transfer philosophy, which has been a major talking point throughout the January window. Moyes was quoted saying: “Extra bodies don’t count for anything, it is like a sugar rush but eventually, it wears off. You are better off trying to get the right players and if not, sticking with what you have got.”

These West Hams slam Moyes’ comments

Lots of Hammers fans flocked to ExWHUemployee’s post on Twitter, taking to the comments to express their frustration with the club’s lack of activity during the January transfer window.

Many fans were in disbelief, unable to believe that the club are not chasing numerous additions, despite the squad’s lack of depth with multiple competitions still up for grabs.

The biggest priorities lay in the heart of defence, where Angelo Ogbonna is out for the season, and up front, where there has still been no replacement for Sebastien Haller one year on from his departure.

Here’s what some Hammers had to say:

“Lack of vision to progress to the next level is criminal from this man”

Credit: @whumaan

“Moyes basically said we done a brilliant job losing to Leeds”

Credit: @NathWHU_

“This hasn’t become a problem just in January, we started the season short of a striker, that was in Aug, nearly 6 months ago. We’ve had 6 months to sort this and are down to 2 weeks now, ridiculous! Plus spending 30€m on Vlasic, who we didn’t really need”

Credit: @GILLER07

“It seems strange a year on from Haller the club have no solution. We did well on Lingard loan and those goals and assists helped us close the Euro spot but a 3rd window without perm in flow is poor management. Yes the right character only.”

Credit: @frostefroste

“This is a flat out bad opinion. It assumes that everyone in the world is either brilliant or rubbish, real world has shades of grey. Can we not just get a few ‘pretty good’ people for the squad please – just upgrades on Masuaku Yarmolenko & Diop, they DONT have to be A1 starters.”

Credit: @johnnyhammer5

“We are so frustrating sometimes”

Credit: @Luke96475753