All posts by z3u9t.icu

Tottenham Hotspur have seen a shift in their recruitment strategy over the last few years – something which Fabio Paratici no doubt was at the centre of.

The Italian spent two years at the club between 2021 and 2023, subsequently turning the hierarchy’s attention to investing in younger talents for the immediate and long-term future.

In the summer of 2022 alone, the 53-year-old completed deals for full-backs Destiny Udogie and Djed Spence – that’s despite the latter being unwanted by then-boss Antonio Conte.

However, in the present day, both players have become key members of Thomas Frank’s first-team squad, showcasing the impressive work done in the transfer market.

The aforementioned duo will be hoping they achieve more sustained success than one player who demonstrated glimpses of quality during the early days of his career in North London.

The real reason behind Dele’s decline at Spurs

Back in the summer of 2015, Spurs forked out a reported £5m for the signature of attacking midfielder Dele – with many supporters unaware of the youngster.

At just 19, many anticipated the Englishman to join the youth setup in North London, but he would make himself an immediate fan-favourite as a result of his tremendous displays.

For the first three years of his stint at the Lilywhites, he was a regular starter – racking up 146 appearances, scoring on 46 occasions and laying on 35 assists for his teammates.

Such form saw Dele claim the PFA Young Player of the Year two years in a row, becoming just one of five players to achieve such a feat in the history of the Premier League.

However, in a remarkable interview with Gary Neville back in the summer of 2023, the former Lilywhites star opened up on his trauma from his younger years, which no doubt had an effect on his footballing career.

He was often called into question by José Mourinho for his attitude and laziness, also suffering numerous injuries, which plagued his progress in North London.

Dele suffered 11 separate injury setbacks in his seven-year period in North London, with such issues preventing his progress and seeing him miss 44 first-team matches.

His time with the Lilywhites came to a disappointing end back in January 2022, subsequently joining Everton on a free transfer – an unthinkable ending given his previous form.

The Spurs star who’s their best teenage star since Dele

Many supporters questioned Dele’s attitude during his time with Spurs, but after his courage to speak out about his mental health struggles, it’s safe to say many fans empathise with the midfielder.

Such issues have taken a huge toll on his professional career, with the former Lilywhites star now without a club at the age of 29 after leaving Como this summer.

However, there’s no denying he will forever be remembered by the fans for his countless moments of magic that gave everyone involved with the football club memories to last a lifetime.

From Goal of the Season strikes against Crystal Palace, to his memorable double against Chelsea that ended the Blues’ unbeaten 2016/17 record at White Hart Lane.

Such levels are rarely seen from such a young talent, but there’s current generation of supporters has their next remarkable youngster in the form of Lucas Bergvall.

Like Dele, he joined the Lilywhites for less than £10m, arriving as an unknown quantity to the majority of supporters after previously plying his trade for Djurgarden.

However, the Swedish youngster has rapidly developed into one of the club’s best players, a simply remarkable feat given he’s still just 19 years of age.

Despite his tender age, the midfielder has already racked up 56 appearances for the first-team and has subsequently featured in all but one game since Frank took the reins.

Bergvall even netted his first Premier League goal in the win over West Ham United last month, leading to head of scouting Rob Mackenzie labelling him as “a genuine generational talent”.

His underlying stats from 2025/26 highlight that the praise is certainly warranted, with the teenager completing 70% of the dribbles he’s attempted to date, whilst also ranking in the top 12% of all players in the league for assists registered.

However, out of possession, the Swede has been just as impressive, winning 2.6 tackles per 90 and coming out on top in a total of 5.5 duels per 90 – stats which make him the perfect box-to-box option.

Games played

7

Goals & assists

2

Pass accuracy

84%

Dribble success

70%

Tackles won

2.6

Duels won

5.5

Recoveries made

3.8

Shots taken

1.2

Frank and Co will desperately be hoping Bergvall can continue on his current trajectory in North London, with the youngster having all the tools to be a key member of the squad in their hunt for added silverware.

There’s little doubt that he’s the best teenage star they’ve had on their hands since Dele’s emergence, but everyone will be hoping that the end to his story with the Lilywhites is a happier one.

Not Simons: Spurs flop is becoming their biggest waste since Ndombele

One Tottenham Hotspur player is rapidly struggling to match the fee paid for his signature in recent times.

ByEthan Lamb Oct 21, 2025

When Rangers appointed Russell Martin as the new head coach at Ibrox, it looked like a decent appointment on paper for the Light Blues.

However, this has been nothing short of a disaster for Rangers. Martin was in charge of the Gers for 17 short games. During that time frame, he won just five times and saw his side score 21 goals.

They shipped 24 and kept three clean sheets, one of which remarkably came against their Old Firm rivals.

The writing has been on the wall for a while and it all came tumbling down after their 1-1 draw with lowly Falkirk on Sunday afternoon.

Matches

17

Wins

5

Draws

6

Defeats

6

Goals scored

21

Goals conceded

24

Points per game

1.24

Supporters blocked the team bus from leaving and a police escort had to ensure the manager left the ground in his car safely. Truth be told, he was never going to survive that.

Lo and behold, an announcement was made on Sunday night confirming his exit from Glasgow. He will go down as one of the club’s worst-ever managers.

So, what’s next? Well, a series of candidates have reportedly already been lined up.

The candidates to replace Russell Martin as Rangers manager

With Martin gone, Kevin Thelwell and Co will need to move quickly if they want to salvage the club’s season.

According to talkSPORT, one candidate to step into the vacancy is Steven Gerrard. That link is perhaps unsurprising given the volume of links to the Liverpudlian of late but he is currently a free agent and would be a hassle-free appointment.

Another manager out of work is Sean Dyche, and as per TEAMtalk, he is now the favourite to become the new head coach at Ibrox.

They reported this weekend that Thelwell, who worked alongside Dyche at Everton, could look towards the 54-year-old to move to Glasgow.

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The pair are said to still hold a positive relationship, so much so that Dyche is allegedly ‘very open’ to being given the job at Rangers.

The report notes that he ranks ‘very highly’ on the club’s shortlist as they now go about replacing Martin in the coming days.

Why Dyche could inspire Jose Mourinho-like change

You’d be hard-pressed in the current managerial market to find a head coach capable of doing a poorer job than Martin did in Scotland.

Hardly rated too highly after overseeing one of the worst Premier League sides, Southampton, in recent memory, his stock as a manager has only fallen further.

Dyche, however, has plenty of credit in the bank having done a sterling job at keeping Burnley in England’s top-flight for a number of years on a shoestring budget.

Truth be told, the former defender has rarely operated on a huge budget and given the level of finances in the Scottish Premiership, he should be fine in that regard.

While Everton didn’t pull up too many trees under Dyche, he still did an admirable job with the resources at his disposal. Having been appointed midway through 2022/23 when the Toffees were in bother of being relegated, he successfully kept them in the league and then guided them to a 15th-place finish in 2023/24.

It’s hardly awe-inspiring but as a head coach, he’s never been the flashy one. He’s let his results do the talking. After all, he has previously been described as “one of the most underrated managers in the Premier League” by content creator HLTCO.

Perhaps the most glowing review comes courtesy of former Everton man, Michael Ball. Speaking two years ago, he drew comparisons to a certain Jose Mourinho, someone who’s previously been linked with the Gers job.

Ball commented: “I have seen a lot of debate online following Saturday’s game about the way we [Everton] set up, but for me, the most important thing is that we are getting results.”

He continued: “Football is a results-driven business and picking up points is important if we [Everton] are to avoid another relegation battle. Even someone like Jose Mourinho has his own style of play, which is to park the bus, as they say, and he deployed that at Real Madrid, but the big difference is that he had Cristiano Ronaldo up front. What I am saying is that both managers have their own beliefs about how their sides should be set up to play.”

Youssef Chermiti and Bojan Miovski are no Ronaldo, of course they’re not, but for Dyche, the style of play does not matter, just as it doesn’t with Mourinho.

For Martin, that seemed to be all that mattered. Not once but twice not he’s stubbornly tried to imprint his style of play on a club and it’s gone horribly wrong.

When Southampton were promoted to the Premier League in 2024, he continued to play an expansive style of football and they were made to pay. At Ibrox, things didn’t go much better.

Dyche, however, is from a breed of managers who rely on solidity; they rely on organisation, they rely on a lack of chaos. All season long, Rangers fans have had to endure too much chaos. If they want a quick change of fortunes, then Dyche is surely their man.

Like Mourinho, he’ll get the job done and if that means dull football for a little while, then so be it. He’d certainly help make this Rangers squad more unified and more regimented.

Celtic are back in European action again this evening as they prepare to take on Red Star Belgrade away from Parkhead in the Europa League.

The Hoops are not in the European competition that they were aiming to compete in because they were beaten by Kairat on penalties to knock them out of the Champions League.

The drop down to the Europa League does, though, provide the Scottish Premiership champions with a greater chance of progressing to the latter stages and, potentially, winning the entire thing.

Rangers, of course, reached the final of the competition and only lost on penalties to Eintracht Frankfurt in 2022, which shows that it is possible for a Scottish team to make it that far.

The Hoops come into this match off the back of a dominant and convincing 4-0 win over Championship side Partick Thistle in the quarter-finals of the League Cup on Sunday.

Red Star Belgrade are likely to provide a much greater test for the Scottish giants this evening, though, as they have some danger men at the top end of the pitch.

The Red Star Belgrade player that Celtic need to stop

The Serbian outfit have a player who will be familiar to anyone who has followed European or English football over the last decade, Marko Arnautovic.

Red Star Belgrade’s versatile attacker turned 36 earlier this year, but he is still a force to be reckoned with, particularly for Celtic ahead of this evening’s clash.

The Austrian star joined the club on a free transfer from Inter in the summer transfer window. That came after the striker scored 14 goals in 65 matches for the Italian giants, per Transfermarkt.

The goal from Arnautovic for Inter in the clip above from earlier this year shows that the Austria international still has the quality to produce big moments in matches, despite his age.

He has delivered one goal and three assists in three league games for Red Star Belgrade this season, per Transfermarkt, which also shows that the attacker has hit the ground running with his new club.

Premier League

184

43 + 33

Serie A

102

33 + 7

Bundesliga

72

14 + 11

Eredivisie

44

12 + 9

As you can see in the table above, Arnautovic has provided plenty of goals and assists throughout his career in several major leagues across Europe: in England, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands.

The former Stoke City and West Ham star has also scored 41 goals and grabbed 30 assists in 127 caps for Austria to date, showing that he can thrive on the international stage as well as at club level.

All of these statistics suggest that the 36-year-old centre-forward is the big danger man for Red Star Belgrade. He is the player that the Hoops need to silence if they want to come away with any points from their Europa League clash this evening.

With this in mind, Brendan Rodgers must ensure that he picks a team that can handle the Austrian striker and silence him throughout the match tonight.

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The Northern Irish head coach must, now, be incredibly bold and ruthlessly ditch Liam Scales from the starting line-up to bring 22-year-old centre-back Dane Murray into the side to silence Red Star Belgrade’s key player.

Why Dane Murray could silence Marko Arnautovic

Firstly, dropping Scales from the team would be a big decision for the manager because the Ireland international has started all five matches in the Scottish Premiership and started both of the Champions League qualifying games.

However, despite scoring, the left-footed central defender looked shaky defensively against Championship side Patrick Thistle on Sunday, as former Hoops man Tony Watt got the drop on him several times.

Some of his performances in the Champions League last season also left a bit to be desired. He lost three of his four ground duels in a 7-1 defeat to Borussia Dortmund and lost one of his three ground duels in a 4-2 defeat to Aston Villa, per Sofascore.

As you can see in the highlights above, Scales was caught out by the quick feet of Morgan Rogers for the second goal and was out of position and left Auston Trusty with two players to mark for the third goal.

Therefore, there may be a concern that Arnautovic’s quality and experience could cause problems for the Irish defender, who seems to struggle against top-quality opponents who shift the ball quickly and have clever movement.

This is why Dane Murray may be better equipped to silence the Austria international, because he has the physicality and pace to deal with tricky centre-forwards.

Speaking about the 22-year-old star earlier this year, Rodgers said: “A really talented young player, [he] had a challenging time with injury. He’s 6 foot 4, good pace, and can play.”

Minutes

90

45

Goals conceded

0

0

Clearances

7

2

Interceptions

1

0

Tackles

3

1

Dribbled past

0x

0x

Duels won

8/13

2/2

Pass accuracy

89%

98%

As you can see in the table above, Murray impressed in his last two appearances for the first-team in August, dominating opposition forwards in physical duels and helping the Hoops to two clean sheets in the process.

He has the physicality to dominate opposition players in duels and the pace to prevent forwards from dribbling past him, which makes the Scottish ace a difficult centre-back for strikers to play against.

Murray, of course, also scored a goal in the cup win over Falkirk earlier this season. This shows that he can also offer a threat at the other end of the pitch from set-pieces.

Overall, the Scottish defender’s physicality in duels and mobility to prevent players from getting the better of him with their speed could make him the ideal man to step in and silence Arnautovic ahead of Scales, who struggled against the better forwards in Europe last season.

Left for £237k: Celtic were brewing their own Tounekti in "exciting" star

Celtic were brewing their own Sebastian Tounekti before he left for a tiny fee.

ByDan Emery Sep 22, 2025

It is now down to Rodgers to be bold and unleash the rarely-seen central defender alongside Cameron Carter-Vickers for this match this evening.

Leeds United are preparing for life back in the Premier League and are looking to make a mark in the transfer window.

Chairman Paraag Marathe said at the end of the Championship title-winning season that the Whites will spend as much as they are allowed to bolster Daniel Farke’s squad.

As to be expected for a newly promoted side, there have already been a plethora of players linked with moves to Elland Road, with Leeds looking at additions all over the pitch to give them the best possible chance of survival.

Leeds United's most expensive signings of all time

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ByCharlie Smith May 31, 2024

But who do AI think Leeds will sign ahead of the 2025/26 season? Grok, the AI tool on X, gave us five players it thinks will be brought to Yorkshire by the 49ers Enterprises.

AI predicts 5 players Leeds will sign this summer 5 Nick Pope Newcastle (£30m)

Starting in goal, Leeds have been on the search for a new goalkeeper to replace Illan Meslier after he was dropped by Farke for the Championship run-in.

Meslier may well exit Elland Road if a suitable offer arrives, leaving Karl Darlow and Alex Cairns as back up options to a new first choice keeper. AI thinks the new number one will be Nick Pope, with the Newcastle United ace potentially leaving St James’ Park this summer.

The Magpies have been heavily linked with James Trafford of Burnley, and with Leeds keen to sign Pope, AI feels a transfer could be on the cards for up to £30m.

4 Nico Elvedi Borussia Monchengladbach (£20m)

A centre-back who was being linked with a move to Leeds before they won promotion was Borussia Monchengladbach’s Nico Elvedi.

A Switzerland international, Elvedi has now been with the Bundesliga side for 10 years and worked with Farke during his brief stint as Monchengladbach boss.

Games

34

Goals

3

Yellow cards

2

Minutes played

3,007

A central defender to rival Joe Rodon and Pascal Struijk, AI states that a deal for Elvedi could be worth £20m.

3 Christantus Uche Getafe (£15m)

Versatile attacking midfielder Christantus Uche has been catching the eye in La Liga with Getafe and is the next arrival AI think Leeds will make this summer.

The Whites have their eye on the Nigeria international, who can play in a mixture of midfield and attacking roles. AI say that ‘versatility and potential fit Farke’s preference for players who buy into the club’s project, likely costing £10-15m.’

2 Igor Paixao Feyenoord (£25m)

A new winger is also on the cards for Leeds ahead of the 25/26 season, as it remains to be seen whether or not Manor Solomon will return to Yorkshire from Tottenham following a successful loan spell.

Igor Paixao of Feyenoord, a right-footed winger who plays on the left, has also been mooted as a target for the Whites after scoring 18 goals and registering 19 assists in 24/25. Despite reports suggesting a €40m (£34m) asking price, AI thinks a deal may only cost £25m.

1 Davie Selke Hamburg (Free)

Finally, a new striker to rival Joel Piroe and Patrick Bamford is wanted by Leeds, and a host of names have been linked, including some that won’t command a transfer fee.

Davie Selke fits the bill of being mentioned as a target, and he’s set to be available on a free transfer with his Hamburg contract set to expire. The 30-year-old scored 22 goals in 31 appearances last season and stands at 6ft 4.

AI say his ‘physicality and goal-scoring record in the 2. Bundesliga make him a cost-effective option’, with Leeds recently making contact to sign Selke.