Sergio Reguilon and Gareth Bale celebrate the Welshman’s first goal since he returned to Spurs in the summer | Mike Hewitt/Getty Images
Tottenham left-back Sergio Reguilon has noticed a distinct change in Gareth Bale’s demeanour since he returned to north London in the summer.
The Spaniard joined Spurs almost simultaneously with the Welshman from Real Madrid in September and has enjoyed a flying start to life in the Premier League, emerging as a fan favourite among the Lilywhites faithful.
Bale, though, has enjoyed a fairly mundane understated start to 2020/21 as Jose Mourinho continues to manage his minutes smartly in a bid to get the 31-year-old up to full fitness as swiftly as possible.
The Tottenham hero scored his first Premier League goal since his return in the 2-1 victory over Brighton earlier this month – which was assisted by Reguilon – and was handed his first league start of the campaign by Mourinho in Sunday’s slender 1-0 victory at West Brom.
Despite his relatively quiet on-pitch start to the campaign, Reguilon – who played 22 times for Los Blancos before his summer switch – has described Bale as ‘happier’ following his return to N17, with the Welshman serving as a translator for the 23-year-old.
“The fundamental part has been the language. Gareth talks to all his team-mates here. In Madrid, he was more afraid of failing with the language. The change has been very positive for him,” Reguilon said in an interview with El Chiringuito (via Marca).
“Bale sometimes even acts as a translator for some specific things. He is much more comfortable speaking English with all his colleagues, it shows a lot. I see him happier, comfortable in a team.”
The Welshman had fallen significantly out of favour with Real boss Zinedine Zidane by the time he deaprted the club in the summer and throughout his seven-year stay in the Spanish capital, he was subject to plenty of criticism for supposedly not learning the language following his 2013 move.
Although, several former Real teammates, including Luka Modric, backed Bale, instead suggesting he could speak Spanish but was just shy and perhaps afraid of messing up in front of the cameras. Reguilon’s latest comments suggest that may have been the case.
FBL-ENG-PR-ARSENAL-ASTON VILLA | ANDY RAIN/Getty Images
Mới đây, huyền thoại của Arsenal Ian Wright đã chỉ ra vấn đề của Arsenal sau trận thua muối mặt trước Aston Villa
Rạng sáng nay trong trận đấu muộn nhất tại Premier League, Arsenal đã nhận thất bại 0-3 trước Aston Villa ngay trên sân nhà Emirate. Đây là một trận đấu tồi của Arsenal khi họ đã phải chứng kiến một tình huống phản lưới của Bukayo Saka và hai bàn thắng của Oliver Walkin. Với kết quả này, Arsenal đã tụt xuống vị trí thứ 11 trên bảng xếp hạng với 12 điểm.
Sau trận đấu, cựu cầu thủ Arsenal Ian Wright đã có những nhận định về lối đá HLV Mikel Arteta áp dụng cho các học trò trên BBC: “Mikel muốn cho tất cả các cầu thủ Arsenal thi đấu nhanh hơn, mạnh hơn trong những thời điểm quan trọng của trận đấu. Tuy nhiên, họ đã không thể hiện thực hóa mong muốn đó.
Aston Villa là một đội bóng khó chịu, tiền vệ của họ sẵn sàng áp sát và không cho đối phương có thời gian triển khai bóng. Và Arsenal đã bị bóp nghẹt. Thực sự lúc này, họ đang thiếu một tiền vệ sáng tạo. Ngoài ra, tinh thần chiến đấu cũng là điều mà Pháo Thủ chưa cho thấy được trong trận đấu vừa xong.”
Không biết Arteta có cảm thấy sai lầm khi đã bỏ Mesut Ozil ra ngoài đội hình thi đấu tại Premier League của Arsenal sau trận đấu này không. Nhưng chắc chắn Ozil đã cảm thấy rất thất vọng về những người đồng đội của mình.
Madrid: Juara bertahan Vuelta a Espana dari Slovenia, Primoz Roglic meraih kemenangan sukar ujian masa semalam untuk merampas kedudukan pendahulu dalam klasifikasi keseluruhan dengan berbaki lima peringkat.
Roglic merampas semula jersi merah daripada kapten Ineos dari Ecuador, Richard Carapaz dengan kedua-duanya bersaing hebat sepanjang Jelajah manakala pelumba Britain, Hugh Carthy menduduki tangga ketiga menjelang klimaks perlumbaan pada Ahad ini.
Tidak ramai menjangkakan Roglic menjuarai perlumbaan sengit peringkat ke-13 sejauh 33.7km dan pelumba Jumbo-Visma itu kini muncul pelumba pilihan mengekalkan kejuaraan pada hujung minggu ini di Madrid.
Tetapi dia hanya mempunyai sedikit kelebihan ke atas Carapaz dan Carthy dengan kedua-duanya hanya dipisahkan hampir seminit dengan pendahulu itu.
ROGLIC bergaya di atas podium. FOTO AFP
Carapaz ketinggalan 39 saat di belakang Roglic manakala pelumba EF Pro, Carthy 47 saat.
“Lebih baik 39 saat di hadapan daripada 39 saat di belakang,” kata Roglic. “Kami perlu terus fokus, mereka benar-benar kuat dan kami akan berjuang untuk itu.”
Penamat bertenaga di puncak Mirador de Ezaro mungkin menghampakan pencabarnya yang mengharapkan keletihan menjejaskan pelumba berusia 31 tahun itu minggu ini.
“Ia cantik,” kata Roglic. “Ia sudah sekian lama sejak saya menang ujian masa. Hari sangat indah, saya rasa kuat, memang mengejutkan.”
Roglic mengetuai Tour de France musim ini sehinggalah dia kecewa pada saat akhir selepas dipintas Tadej Pogacar.
“Kita semua tahu, ia tidak menyeronokkan mengharungi ujian masa tetapi hari ini saya berjaya melakukannya.”
MUNICH – David Alaba kini menjadi pemain yang paling diincar banyak klub papan atas Eropa. Hal itu tak terlepas dari kontraknya bersama Bayern Munich yang bakal segera habis di pengujung musim 2020-2021 ini.
Alaba yang yang diketahui takkan memperpanjang kontraknya itu membuat dirinya pada musim panas 2021 nanti bakal berstatus gratis. Hal itu jelas menjadi magnet yang sangat kuat untuk beberapa klub papan atas Eropa, termasuk Liverpool.
Menariknya, menurut mantan penggawa Bayern, Mario Basler, Liverpool takkan menunggu sampai musim panas 2021 untuk memboyong Alaba dari Liga Jerman. Basler melihat ada peluang Liverpool justru akan mencoba merekrut Alaba di musim dingin 2021.i
Alasannya jelas karena Liverpool saat ini sangat membutuhkan jasa pemain bertahan yang berpengalaman usai bek andalan mereka, Virgil van Dijk mengalami cedera panjang. Dengan Fabinho yang dilaporkan cedera juga, maka Liverpool tinggal menyisakan Joe Gomez dan Joel Matip sebagi dua bek senior di skuad tersebut.
Tentunya hal itu tak baik bagi Liverpool yang sedang berusaha untuk mempertahankan gelar juara Liga Inggris mereka di musim lalu. Jadi, Basler merasa Alaba harus bergabung dengan Liverpool agar bisa menjamin tempat di skuad utama.
Basler pun menyarankan Liverpool untuk memboyong Alaba karena pemain tersebut sangat bisa menggantikan posisi Van Dijk. Satu hal yang pasti, Alaba bukanlah bek tengah yang bisa dianggap remeh.
Sebab semenjak dimainkan sebagai bek tengah pada musim 2019-2020 kemarin, pemain asal Austria itu mampu memperlihatkan penampilan yang signifikan. Alaba berhasil membantu menjaga lini pertahanan Bayern hingga akhirnya berhasil meraih quadruple alias empat trofi di musim tersebut.
“Kisah (antara Bayern) dengan Alaba harus benar-benar diakhiri dengan kepergiannya. Mungkin dia akan pergi ke Liverpool. Mereka (Liverpool) punya masalah besar dengan cedera Van Dijk atas cedera ligamen yang patah,” kata Basler, dikutip dari Goal, Selasa (10/11/2020).
“Dia (Van Dijk) sepertinya bisa absen dalam waktu yang lama, dan saya pikir ada kebutuhan besar (untuk memperkuat) di posisi bek tengah,” tambahnya.
Sampai saat ini, Liverpool tampaknya belum memberikan sinyal pergerakan untuk merekrut Alaba. Berbeda dengan Real Madrid, yang dilaporkan Marca telah menjalin pembicaraan dengan agen Alaba, Pini Zahavi.
There may be a pandemic ongoing, the likes of which we have never seen and hopefully will never see again, but the Premier League is only heating up.
To add fuel to the furnace, we’ve taken a look back at all of this weekend’s action to come up with a whole recipe book of spicy takes.
Well, they’re not all spicy. There’s nothing spicy about a 0-0 between Brighton and Burnley, or the mug of lukewarm milk that is West Bromwich Albion, but we’ve done our best.
Brighton’s turgid 0-0 with Burnley didn’t teach us much, but it was the eighth successive Premier League game in which Adam Lallana kicked a ball.
March 2017 was the last time that happened.
James Milner’s little brother is setting the standard down on the south coast, and is once again regularly playing the sort of football that once had him starting for England. Things we love to see.
Yeah yeah, they’ve been really, really rubbish…but they’ve still conceded fewer goals than nine teams in the league.
Even when Burnley are bad, they’re the kind of bad that still looks capable of getting a result when they need it.
You just know Sean Dyche’s big strong boys will s—house their way to just enough points against the teams around them to keep their heads above water – especially when the standard at the back end of the table is so low.
Stuart Armstrong’s development since joining Southampton has been very strange. At Celtic, he was never the hardest worker, utilising his touch and awareness of space to unpick defences more than anything else, but under Ralph Hasenhuttl, he has turned into a winger who just doesn’t stop running, ever. He could have beaten Newcastle himself with the amount of ground he covered.
But because he doesn’t score 35 free kicks a season, and because he has a weird Highland accent (seriously listen to it, it’s bad), he rarely gets the credit.
Remember when Sean Longstaff was going to Man Utd for £50m? Hah.
Now he’s giving the ball away on the edge of his own box and costing his team goals. He will need to get his head together quickly, otherwise we’re looking at a Paul & Mathias Pogba situation at the Longstaff family Christmas dinners.
Remember when Everton were going to finish above Liverpool and win the Premier League and also probably win the FA Cup as well because they were the best team in the world again?
Yeah, what happened? They were pretty rubbish against Manchester United, falling to their third straight defeat, and it now looks as if they can’t buy a point, let alone a win.
Oh, those three defeats? The three games Richarlison’s missed. Maybe start with the Europa League and go from there, eh Carlo?
It’s now 14 goals conceded in seven league appearances this season, but Saturday’s trip to Everton was another game in which the Spaniard didn’t do anything actively wrong.
It seems the Dean Henderson-shaped rocket up his backside has finally got got his head into the game.
It seems to be that when you play Leeds, you’re either scoring four, conceding four, or both. With a devastating display at Selhurst Park this weekend, Palace fell into the former category this weekend.
They dismantled Marcelo Bielsa’s team as if they weren’t even there, taking them up to eighth place on 13 points. That’s 1.6 points per game; marginally better than the tally which got Wolves seventh-place last season.
Just saying.
We’re going to completely pass over the VAR shambles that ruled out Patrick Bamford’s delicious first goal against Palace, and instead focus on how Leeds’ goalscoring talisman is the man to deputise for Harry Kane on the international stage.
Why did Leeds bother with Rodrigo? Bamford now has seven in eight and is not slowing down. He’s constantly involved in everything, just the sort of nuisance England need.
For now, anyway. Frank Lampard’s golden boy has made himself undroppable, and even if he will never top their scoring or assist charts, you could make a case for him as Chelsea’s most important player.
He showed why he is one of the most underrated midfielders around with a busy display against Sheffield United, constantly showing for the ball in possession and harrying out of it, inspiring the unstoppable Blues to another big win.
Havertz has a shift on his hands to get back into this team.
When Rhian Brewster left Liverpool for Sheffield United, he thought he would be playing regularly for a side pushing for Europe.
Well, talk about trial by fire.
Chris Wilder’s team look bound for relegation, and at this rate they are going to do well not to break Derby’s record. Brewster, meanwhile, looks as if he is desperately lacking in confidence – it’s hard to see how this can be good for his career if it keeps up.
Kevin Nolan made 157 appearances for West Ham despite being 29 when they signed him from Newcastle. By that logic, Tomas Soucek is heading for the 500 club.
Whatever did their midfield do without his massive driving presence? He’s the perfect counterweight to Declan Rice, and he loves a goal too – just ask Alphonse Areola, who didn’t even get the chance to wave at his powerful late winner.
What are the odds that the best league in the world being home to the worst penalty kick ever attempted at any level of football; professional, semi-pro, amateur, five-a-side, Under-10s; in the history of the sport?
Pretty slim, right?
Congratulations, Ademola Lookman!
It’s difficult to even come up with a hot take for West Brom, such is the beige, vanilla, forgettableness of their current stint in the Premier League. They’re getting the occasional point, but do not look as if they will ever win a game – even Fulham beat them.
So, yeah. West Brom. Moving on.
Sorry, but they are. Jose Mourinho has rediscovered his mojo; his team have the joint best defensive record in the league, and the best combination of attackers since Randy Orton joined Evolution.
Continuing to write them off is an insult given how they’ve started, especially while neither Liverpool or Man City look up to their previous high standards yet.
It’s kind of obvious Jamie Vardy is going to finish this season as top scorer. Despite being 45 and being wrapped in cotton wool by Brendan Rodgers, he is the only player you can be sure will not stop scoring goals – he’s cleared 20 in three of the past four seasons and is already on nine for the season.
He has also now scored against every one of the 19 other teams in the Premier League – just needs an OG for the set.
Just give him it and come up with some sort of silver medal for everyone else.
There’s no point even trying to predict what will happen when Wolves are playing this season. 3-2 win? 0-0 draw? 4-0 defeat? They’re all as good as each other.
Leeds away should’ve been a thrilling encounter; Wolves s—fested to a 1-0 win. West Ham away should’ve been a straightforward win; they were comprehensively hammered.
Against Leicester this weekend they decided attacking wasn’t for them, but while the Foxes, in rampant form, should have run riot, they won 1-0 – and Wolves could have nicked something at the end.
18 months ago, if anyone went to the Etihad and opened up as much as Liverpool did on Sunday, it would have been a massacre.
Yet despite being presented with all the space in Manchester, this time, they looked clueless, slack and indecisive.
They are nowhere near what they were, and not that much of it can be blamed on pandemic weirdness. They need to forget about a title challenge for the time being and focus on getting into Europe.
After the hammer-and-tongs draw at the Etihad, Jurgen Klopp was praised to the heavens for his bravery in lining up with a gung-ho 4-2-4 formation. But let’s face it: that was the wrong decision.
It caught City out right off the bat, sure, but after the home side got into the rhythm of the game and adjusted their feet, the Reds looked all over the place. There didn’t appear to be a tactical plan for the defending champions, and there was no adjustment even when it became abundantly clear that it wasn’t working in the second half.
Helped by a horrible missed penalty, Klopp’s players dug deep and came away with a valuable point, but regardless of how well Diogo Jota is playing, this cannot be a thing that happens in the big games going forward.
Arsenal were supposed to be really good, weren’t they? What happened?
Their resounding defeat to Aston Vila means they have now lost four of their first eight league matches, and sit 11th in the table – without any games in hand to skew the numbers.
They’ve only scored nine times, and as much as they’re now ‘good against the big teams’, they’ve already been beaten by Liverpool, Man City and Leicester. It would be helpful if Artete remembered who Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is, but regardless, the picture is not as pretty as it seems.
On form, this one shouldn’t even be seen as a ‘hot take.’ Just a take.
Grealish registered his fifth assist of the season against Arsenal, having previously scored or assisted eight in the Premier League already. He’s played seven matches. Stupid, stupid good.
Real Madrid v FC Internazionale: Group B – UEFA Champions League | Quality Sport Images/Getty Images
Mới đây, Real Madrid đã xác nhận bộ đôi Eden Hazzard và Casemiro đã dương tính với COVID-19
Dịch bệnh COVID-19 vẫn đang hoành hành tại châu Âu. Đã có rất nhiều thông tin cho rằng dịch bệnh đang chuẩn bị bùng phát đợt 2 ở đây và nó sẽ gây ảnh hưởng rất nhiều đến bóng đá. Đã có rất nhiều cầu thủ đã dương tính với COVID-19 trong thời gian này điển hình như Zlatan Ibrahimovic hay đặc biệt là Cristano Ronaldo
Đó đều là những cầu thủ quan trọng của câu lạc bộ lẫn đội tuyển quốc gia. Và sự vắng mặt của họ sẽ là một tổn thất rất lớn với bất kỳ câu lạc bộ nào, mà chuẩn bị sắp đến sẽ là Real Madrid.
Cách đây 4 ngày, Los Blancos thông báo hậu vệ đa năng Eder Militao đã dương tính với COVID-19, đồng thời ngay lập tức được đưa đi cách ly. Đến hôm nay, thêm hai cầu thủ quan trọng khác của Kền Kền Trắng là Casemiro cùng Eden Hazard cũng đã dương tính với dịch virus Corona.
“Chúng tôi xin thông báo rằng hai cầu thủ Casemiro và Eden Hazard đã nhiễm virus Corona sau bài kiểm tra mới nhất vào sáng thứ Sáu vừa qua. Tất cả các thành viên khác của đội, thành viên của ban huấn luyện, các nhân viên làm việc trực tiếp với hai người họ đều cho ra kết quả âm tính.
Xin nhắc lại, CLB khẳng định rằng ngoại trừ hai trường hợp của Eden Hazard và Casemiro, tất cả đều cho ra kết quả âm tính”, trang chủ đội bóng Hoàng gia Tây Ban Nha thông báo.
