France are set to renew their international rivalry with Argentina in the quarter-finals of the Paris Olympics, while the Premier League transfer signings are heating up.
CITY KEEP PUSHING HALF-TIME LIMITS
You can imagine Man City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak saying, “pass me the petty cash tin, we’ve got £2-million to pay in fines”. City have paid fines relating to 22 separate incidents, with punishments from £10,000 to £200,000.
All of them relate to misdeeds in the last two EPL seasons. Examples: Staying in the dressing room against West Ham for an extra 2min 46sec at half-time. In fact, that has become a City trend – 18 of the 22 fines were dished out for extending the half-time break far beyond the rules.
… BUT THEY’RE BANGING HOME PRE-SEASON GOALS
Pre-season friendlies are coming thick and thin, but as I mentioned last week, some feel the results are of no significance. My personal stance is that I like to look at the teams scoring goals ahead of the EPL season, no matter how many they leak, or the match result. Defences can be fixed, scoring is tougher.
The club who has scored the most times in every friendly played is Arsenal (4 matches). The clubs who haven’t scored in each friendly are Aston Villa, Everton, Leicester, Man United and Newcastle. Man City have netted seven times against Celtic, AC Milan and Barcelona.
NO QUARTER GIVEN AS FRANCE MEET ARGENTINA
Saturday sees the quarter-finals of the men’s Olympics football which means we’re down to eight teams. The glaring omissions from the “senior order” are England – who form part of Great Britain at the Games, so they miss out – and Brazil.
The last eight are Argentina, Egypt, France, Japan, Morocco, Paraguay, Spain and the United States. Given the support for these Olympics, and for their home participants, France will be hard to knock over. Their match against Argentina at 9pm on Saturday is a blockbuster. To remember, the Olympics are for players under-23, with three older players allowed in the squad.
GALLAGHER OFF TO ATLETICO WITH NEW SOCKS
We have touched on players who cut holes in their socks to allow their big calves to “breathe – or so the official line goes – but those who follow players around from club to club had better put their hands in their pockets again.
Chelsea’s Conor Gallagher was on the brink of joining Atletico Madrid for over £20-million and not only will his fans want to get their hands on an Atletico replica shirt, but they might want the socks too. Just a warning, keep the scissors out of reach if your child idolises the player and copies their every action. Otherwise you’ll be digging deep to buy new pairs of socks regularly.
TRANSFER SIGNINGS GAINING MOMENTUM
We’re hurtling towards the end of “silly season” and the transfers are starting to come thick and fast. In terms of the English Premier League, the biggest money signing so far ahead of the 2024-25 season has been Leny Yoro from Lille to Man United for 52 million.
Amadou has joined Aston Villa from Everton for £50 million, Villa using the money (£50m) they got from Al-Ittihad fo Mousaa Diaby. Also going out was Michael Olise from Crystal Palace to Bayern Munich for £45 million, while Fulham got £43 million from Bayern for Joao Palhina. Hmmm, I wonder if they’ll come to regret that move?
