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Football.London’s Tom Clark was not impressed with the performance of attacking midfielder Nikola Vlasic as West Ham fell to a 1-0 defeat against Sevilla in the Europa League. 

The lowdown: Tough assignment

Overall this wasn’t a wholly damaging loss for the David Moyes’ side as the Hammers go into the second leg at the London Stadium with it all to play for.

Going up against modern-day European royalty in the shape of four-time tournament winners Sevilla, Moyes’ men more than matched their hosts for the most part.

However, it was another disappointing night for Vlasic, who missed a massive chance to find the back of the net in the first half.

The latest: Clark on Vlasic

During live Twitter updates from the action, Clark lamented Vlasic for that ‘wasted’ chance before later describing the Croatian as the ‘guilty party’ at full-time

Writing the player ratings for Football.London, the journalist remarked that the 24-year-old had ‘failed to capitalise’ having been included from the start ahead of Said Benrahma.

Amidst a flurry of impressive ratings, Vlasic, who was ultimately replaced on 67 minutes, was awarded a meagre 6/10. Only Pablo Fornals’ 5/10 ranked lower out of the Irons players to take to the pitch in Spain.

The verdict: Another chance goes begging

Since arriving from CSKA Moscow for an initial £26.8million (BBC), Vlasic has rather flattered to deceive in a West Ham shirt, providing just two assists and scoring once in 27 outings.

As Clark alluded to, this was yet another occasion whereby the 33-cap ace was given the vote of confidence ahead of Benrahma and failed to repay the faith.

Unfortunately for Vlasic, the statistics don’t make for much better reading as with just six completed passes, 18 touches (even less than his own goalkeeper) and that big missed chance, the ace earned a lowly 6.40 rating (Sofascore).

In other news: Journalist claims West Ham have opened discussions to sign Ligue 1 ace, find out more here.

England captain Andrew Strauss has warned against the danger of complacency with England progressing successfully through the opening stages of their Ashes tour

ESPNcricinfo staff13-Nov-2010England captain Andrew Strauss has warned against the danger of complacency with England progressing successfully through the opening stages of their Ashes tour. England started their trip with a six-wicket win against Western Australia, and had the better of a drawn match against South Australia that ended on Saturday.”The last thing we can do is get complacent and pat ourselves on the back, because we are ramping up our preparations,” said Strauss. “The preparation has gone well so far. We’ve got one more game to up it a level before the Test match.”Strauss scored hundreds in both of England’s warm-up games so far, his unbeaten 120 guiding England’s second-innings chase at Perth. He shared in a 181-run opening stand in England’s second innings against South Australia at the Adelaide Oval, with his partner Alastair Cook making 111 not out. Cook began the tour in unconvincing fashion with two single-figure scores against Western Australia, but the manner in which he bounced back to compile his hundred impressed Strauss.”Everyone wants to get runs early in the tour, to settle down and get used to the conditions,” said Strauss. “He batted exceptionally well. It wasn’t just the fact he got runs, it was the way he did it. His foot movement was very good and his timing was crisp. He’ll be feeling pretty good about himself, and that’s good for the team.”Despite two impressive showings in the warm-ups, Strauss suggested that there were still certain areas – such as first-innings totals – that could be improved upon. “I think our batting could have gone better actually, certainly the first innings in both games. In Australia, you set up the match by how you bat in the first innings. We’ll be looking for big first-innings scores, and we haven’t done that quite as much as we should have done.”England slipped to 4 for 95 on the first day of their match against South Australia before they were steadied by a 131-run partnership between Paul Collingwood and Ian Bell, and Strauss lauded both their performance and that of the bowling attack. “We didn’t have it all our own way, losing four wickets quite early on the first morning – which wasn’t ideal,” he said. “But from that point onwards, we reacted very well. Ian Bell and Paul Collingwood played exceptionally well in the first innings.”Our bowlers did a really top-quality job to bowl them out for 220 on a very flat wicket – and obviously we followed up with some good, positive cricket in the second half of the game.”Each member of England’s four-man frontline bowling attack has contributed at some point during their preparatory matches, but certain players may well be rested for next week’s match against Australia A in Tasmania in order to travel to Brisbane and acclimatise to the humid conditions there before the first Test. Strauss insisted, however, that such plans were yet to be finalised.”The situation at the moment is that everyone is flying down to Hobart. Then we’ve got to decide what is the best preparation for those seam bowlers for Brisbane. We’ll talk to them individually and then decide what the best bowling attack for that Australia A game is. There is definitely that option to send them up there to get acclimatised to the humidity – you can see the merits in that – but we haven’t decided one way or another at this stage.”Australia’s preparations for the first Test have been rather more troublesome than England’s, as they crashed to a one-day series defeat against Sri Lanka and still face questions over the form and fitness of certain players. Strauss suggested that the discord in the hosts’ camp could help England.”We were quite clear about the majority of our Test XI before we got on the plane. But everyone likes stability and security, knowing where they stand. If that’s not the case for Australia, then that could be a good thing for us.”

Wet conditions meant New Zealand got no practice ahead of their five-match ODI series in Bangladesh

ESPNcricinfo staff02-Oct-2010Wet conditions meant New Zealand got no match practice ahead of their five-match ODI series in Bangladesh. Rain had washed out the first warm-up game on Friday and persistent showers prevented any possibility of the second practice match, scheduled for Sunday between a Bangladesh Cricket Board XI and the visitors. The five ODIs, the first of which is scheduled for October 5, will be held at the Shere Bangla National Stadium in Mirpur.

Tottenham Hotspur have been handed a huge injury boost ahead of their Premier League meeting with Newcastle United on Sunday afternoon.

What’s the latest?

Speaking in his pre-match press conference (via the official Tottenham website), Antonio Conte revealed that, despite withdrawing from the Wales squad ahead of their friendly against Czech Republic on Tuesday, Ben Davies will be available for tomorrow’s visit of the Magpies.

Regarding the current condition of the 28-year-old, the Spurs boss said: “Ben is okay. He had a little problem, but he’s available.”

Great news for Tottenham

Considering just how important Davies has been to this Tottenham side since Conte’s arrival in north London last November, the news that the defender has recovered from his knock in time for Sunday is undoubtedly great news for Spurs.

Indeed, following the 52-year-old’s move to the club, the £18m-rated left-back has featured in all but one of the Italian’s 27 games in charge, with 25 of these coming as starts, most often on the left of Tottenham’s three-man defence.

Of Davies’ 23 appearances as one of Spurs’ three central defenders this season, the £60k-per-week Welshman has impressed, averaging a WhoScored match rating of 6.81 – slightly better than his 6.79 rating over nine outings at left-back.

As such, the news that the 28-year-old will be fit to face Newcastle this weekend will certainly come as a huge boost to Conte and Tottenham, especially considering the club’s considerable lack of depth at left centre-back, with the position being one of Fabio Paratici’s priority targets in the summer transfer window.

AND in other news: Paratici plotting £59m bid for 24 y/o “appreciated by Conte”, he’s “perfect” for Spurs

As was widely expected Salman Butt has been appointed Pakistan’s Test captain for the rest of the summer in England, including the second Test against Australia in Headingley. Butt becomes the fifth man to lead the Test side since January 2009 and the 28th man to lead Pakistan, taking over from Shahid Afridi who announced a sudden retirement from Test cricket on Friday. Wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal will be his deputy.The decision came early on Saturday after a meeting between the PCB chairman Ijaz Butt, the team management and a group of senior players including Shoaib Malik, Akmal, Umar Gul and Salman. “We have appointed Salman as the captain for the rest of the Tests and we are confident that he will be able to do a good job with it,” Ijaz told Cricinfo. “Everybody who was involved in the decision gave their approval.”At the time of Afridi’s appointment, in May this year, Salman’s name had come up in discussions though, as the administration was keen to unify the leadership of all formats under one man, they plumped for Afridi. Salman was appointed his deputy and though it seemed that he would take over yesterday, the PCB chairman had said that it wasn’t an “automatic” decision.However, steadily over the last six months, Salman has become one of Pakistan’s most reliable batsmen across all formats; he’s averaging over 40 in his last seven Tests with one hundred and four fifties and reinvented his entire game to shine at the World T20 in the Caribbean, a format in which he had previously struggled. In the Lord’s Test, he was comfortably Pakistan’s best batsman, top-scoring in each innings with 63 and 92.There had been talk in the aftermath of the Lord’s defeat that one of Mohammad Yousuf or Younis Khan – or both – might be called up to bolster an inexperienced middle order but for now the situation remains unchanged and unresolved. Yousuf is officially retired from international cricket and Younis and the PCB chairman are at odds despite the former’s indefinite ban having been lifted.”We did discuss both Yousuf and Younis in the meeting but we decided to defer the matter,” Ijaz said, acknowledging also that the option to call them up at some point during the summer remains open. “I think we should appreciate that both the youngsters Azhar Ali and Umar Amin did very well given it was their debuts and my own feeling is that they should be persisted with,” he added.One person who will not be playing in the second Test is Afridi. Though he cited his temperamental unsuitability to the format, Afridi was also suffering from a side strain he picked up during the Asia Cup. “I worked out in the gym in the morning and I don’t feel comfortable at all still. I will not be playing next week,” Afridi told Cricinfo.

After getting on the score-sheet once again in Rangers’ 2-0 victory over Hibernian in the Scottish Premiership on Wednesday night, Alfredo Morelos moved to the top of the league goal-scoring charts this season.

Signed for a reported £1m from Finnish side HJK Helsinki back in 2017, it’s fair to say the Colombian has been an unqualified success at Ibrox.

Speaking to Football FanCast, former Rangers star Michael Ball said: “I think there’s been talk about Morelos maybe for two or three years now about leaving Rangers for many reasons. His goal-scoring is second to none but he’s got that South American bite to him.

“He reminds me of the Suarez situation where, one day he’s fantastic and the next he can let you down because the passion gets too much for him. Being part of Rangers, he’s got to know the club so well, he understands it and sometimes passion does get over him.”

In the 214 games that he has played for the club in total, the striker has bagged an impressive 110 goals in all competitions, including providing another 48 assists to boot too.

Now valued at £11.7m by Transfermarkt, Morelos’ value has shot up an incredible 1070% since his move to Ibrox – a real statement on just how well has performed for the Gers in his time at the club.

As well as the undoubted ability that he has on the ball, one thing that has marked Morelos out as a fan-favourite has been that “passion” that Ball talked about.

That’s something former Dundee boss Neil McCann has himself raved about, saying: “I would love to have someone like that in my team. Not just the goals, even though 28 is a quite incredible return given he has missed a number of games. It is his all-round play. He is a proper No.9. He can hold it up, run the channel and is very good in the air despite not being that big. He wouldn’t be much bigger than me but he is powerful. And he loves a fight.

“Centre-backs don’t like a fight. They want to be the ones bullying people. Defenders can almost get caught up with Morelos’ power. So they think about the fight first and all of a sudden he is off down the side of them or dipping off – and bang.”

There’s no questioning that Rangers struck gold with the signing of the 25-year-old.

Meanwhile, GVB has revealed a major Rangers blow…

West Ham could sign Flamengo striker Gabigol in an exciting initial loan deal in the January transfer window, according to journalist Pete O’Rourke.

The Lowdown: Gabigol shines in Brazil

The 25-year-old has enjoyed a hugely impressive career in his homeland of Brazil, being lauded by one of his country’s all-time great players, Zico, who claimed the striker has ‘everything to be the greatest striker in Flamengo’s history’.

Gabigol has scored 84 goals in just 124 appearances for Flamengo, not to mention netting five times in 17 caps for Brazil.

West Ham have been linked with an audacious January move for the striker with Sky Sports even claiming talks have started, and a fresh update has now emerged regarding their pursuit of him.

The Latest: Journalist backs move

Speaking to Give Me Sport, O’Rourke hinted at a potential temporary move then becoming permanent in the summer:

“I’m sure they’re talking to Flamengo to see if they could try and work out a deal where it’s an initial loan with an obligation to buy.”

The Verdict: Hugely exciting target

Gabigol could feel like a significant signing for the Hammers, considering his stature in the game and his aforementioned success at Flamengo.

Granted, he has already had two failed spells in Europe – he scored just one goal apiece during short stints at Inter Milan and Benfica – but he has since matured as a player and could be ready for a new challenge.

It is vital that West Ham sign someone to ease the burden on Michail Antonio between now and January, ensuring genuine top-four and Europa League challenges are mounted.

In other news, some West Ham fans are excited about another transfer claim. Read more here.

Ruben Neves ‘ran the show’ in Wolves’ incredible 1-0 victory away to Manchester United on Monday night, according to journalist Tim Spiers.

The Lowdown: Unforgettable Wolves win

Bruno Lages’ side picked up their best win of the Premier League season so far at Old Trafford, as well as their first triumph there in more than 40 years.

Wolves were exceptional throughout the game, outplaying United for the vast chunk of proceedings and eventually taking home all three points after Joao Moutinho’s late winner.

The victory has taken Wanderers back up to eighth in the table, as confidence continues to grow regarding a European finish this season.

The Latest: Neves hailed by Spiers

Taking to Twitter after the game, Spiers paid special attention to the outstanding Neves, delivering a simple seven-word verdict on the midfielder’s display.

The journalist gushed: “Neves ran the show. What a night.”

The Verdict: Magnificent performance

Spiers is quite right to laud a special performance by Neves, with the Portuguese midfielder arguably the best player on the pitch against a team he has been linked with joining.

He completed a team-high 55 passes (with an 81% success rate) and played seven accurate long balls, as per figures from Sofascore, not to mention chipping in defensively by winning two duels and making one interception and one clearance.

The calmness that Neves showed in the middle of the park alongside Moutinho allowed Wolves to dominate the contest. The 24-year-old proved to be the man for the big occasion last night.

In other news, Spiers has also hinted at one player leaving Wolves. Find out who it is here.

وضع كيليان مبابي الأندية الأوروبية الكبرى في حالة تأهب، بعد أن انتشرت تقارير خلال اليومين الماضيين، أنه يريد الرحيل عن باريس سان جيرمان في يناير.

مبابي وقع على عقد جديد مع باريس سان جيرمان في مايو الماضي، ولكنه لم يشعر بالراحة كما كان يتوقع في النادي الفرنسي. 

صحيفة “ذا صن” البريطانية، أكدت بأن باريس سا جيرمان على استعداد للمساح للاعب الفرنسي بالخروج ولكن بشرط واحد وهو عدم الذهاب إلى ريال مدريد. وأشارت “ذا صن” إلى أن ريال مدريد هو الذي يتصدر قائمة الأندية التي ترغب في ضم مبابي، خاصة وأنه كان على اتفاق بشأن الانضمام إليهم في الصيف الماضي، وهناك 4 أندية أخرى تنافس الملكي، جميعها في الدوري الإنجليزي الممتاز.

طالع أيضًا.. جالتييه: مبابي رد بطريقته الخاصة على أنباء رحيله في يناير

ليفربول

تشير وسائل الإعلام إلى أن الطريقة الوحيدة التي يمكن لمبابي أن يغادر بها في يناير هي إذا دخل ليفربول في العرض.

كان النادي الإنجليزي مرتبطًا بالفعل بالمهاجم ولم يخف يورجن كلوب إعجابه بـ كيليان في وقت سابق.

ومع ذلك، للحصول على الفرنسي، سيتعين على ليفربول بالتأكيد دفع مبلغ مرتفع وهذا يقلل من آمال مشجعي الريدز.

تشيلسي

من ناحية أخرى، من يمكنه تولي مثل هذه الصفقة سيكون تشيلسي. لا يزال تود بويلي يبحث عن اسم كبير لمشروع البلوز الجديد، وقد ارتبط من قبل بالتعاقد مع كريستيانو رونالدو.

مبابي لعب بقميص البلوز من قبل، حيث تدرب مع النادي عندما كان طفلاً. حتى أنه لعب مباراة ودية ضد تشارلتون (6-0) واعترف بأنه استمتع حقًا بالتجربة في لندن.

مانشستر يونايتد

سيحاول “الشياطين الحمر” أيضًا التعاقد مع مبابي، على الرغم من أن فرصهم أقل لأنهم لا يستطيعون منحه فرصة للعب في دوري الأبطال. على الأقل هذا العام.

من إنجلترا لوحظ أن يونايتد كان يتابع عن كثب موقف الفرنسي وأنهم كانوا ينتظرون أن يكون متاحًا. ولكن مع دخول ريال مدريد بقوة، انسحب الشياطين الحمر.

مانشستر سيتي

بطل إنجلترا واحد من الأندية التي بإمكانها تحمل رسوم انتقال مبابي وتغطية راتبه أيضًا.

بالإضافة إلى ذلك، إن إمكانية العمل مع بيب جوارديولا أو هالاند أو دي بروين ستجذب الفرنسي بالإضافة إلى حقيقة أن فريق سيتيزين، أحد المرشحين للفوز ببطولة دوري أبطال أوروبا.

Michael Hussey used Shane Warne’s criticism of his batting to drive him to the match-winning century against Pakistan in Sydney. Hussey, who stole the game with his unbeaten hundred in the second innings, had heard the calls for his sacking towards the end of the West Indies series before fighting back with 82, 4, 28 and 134 not out in the past two matches.”It’s hard when someone of the ilk of Shane Warne is criticising you, because he’s obviously played a lot of cricket and he knows his stuff pretty well,” Hussey said in the . “So it was pretty motivating to try to prove him wrong.”Warne has since downgraded his stance and Hussey said it was great to show up the critics. “Just to prove to him and to everyone that I still can play at Test match level, it’s the most satisfying feeling you can get, especially after you copped a lot of criticism over the course of the summer,” he said.Hussey put on 123 with Peter Siddle for the ninth wicket to give Australia a 175-run lead and the 2-0 series success was sealed when Pakistan were dismissed for 139. Despite the century, which was his first at home in two years, Hussey said he would have to continue to perform consistently to stay on track for next summer’s Ashes.”While you’re enjoying the challenge of the battle of Test cricket and while you’re contributing, then I’d love to keep continuing as long as I could,” he said. “Certainly at the moment I still feel like I want that battle.”