Barcelona are in disarray – out of Champions League and out of money.
Funds are limited at Camp Nou and it is forcing the embattled LaLiga giants to make some tough decisions.
Frenkie de Jong and Marc-Andre ter Stegen could be sold.
TOP STORY – DE JONG AND TER STEGEN TO LEAVE CAMP NOU?
Barcelona are willing to sell Frenkie de Jong and Marc-Andre ter Stegen due to the club's finances, according to Diario AS.
Eliminated from the Champions League at the group stage, Barca are in the midst of a financial crisis, having been forced to part with superstar captain Lionel Messi at the start of the season.
Barca head coach Xavi faces a rebuilding job but needs to raise funds, and star midfielder De Jong and goalkeeper Ter Stegen could be sacrificed.
De Jong has been linked with Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool and Bayern Munich, who have also eyed Ter Stegen.
ROUND-UP
- Football Insider says Real Madrid are weighing up a move for former superstar Cristiano Ronaldo if he does not fit into the system of United interim manager Ralf Rangnick.
- ESPN claims Borussia Dortmund's Jude Bellingham, RB Leipzig midfielder Amadou Haidara and Kalvin Phillips of Leeds United are key targets for Manchester United. Erling Haaland is also a long-term target of United.
- Chelsea are eyeing Leicester City's Wesley Fofana as a replacement for soon-to-be free agent Antonio Rudiger, per Goal. Rudiger has been linked with Real Madrid and Bayern on a free transfer. Preparing for life after Rudiger, Chelsea have also been linked to Sevilla centre-back Jules Kounde.
- Paris Saint-Germain are looking to move on Mauro Icardi, Rafinha and Abdou Diallo, says L'Equipe. Icardi has been linked with Juventus, Milan, Newcastle United and Tottenham.
Erling Haaland justifies price tag: His stunning campaign in detail
Erling Haaland finished his debut Manchester City season with 52 goals to his name.
The Norway international finished on a run of just one goal in eight games but had already more than justified his bargain £51million price tag.
Here, the PA news agency looks at his stunning campaign in detail.
Premier LeagueHaaland’s 36 goals were a Premier League record, even including the early 42-game seasons.
Andy Cole and Alan Shearer shared the previous high of 34, with Mohamed Salah’s 32 topping the charts for a 38-game campaign, before Haaland rewrote the records.
He scored in seven straight league games from August to October – his third to his ninth appearances in the competition – with hat-tricks against Crystal Palace, Nottingham Forest and Manchester United helping him to 13 goals in those games and 18 in a 10-match scoring run in all competitions.
A fourth treble against Wolves in January left him one behind Shearer’s record of five in a season while he also had five doubles – against West Ham, Brighton, Leeds, Southampton and Leicester – and scored in 23 of his 35 appearances.
He scored against 16 different opponents, the exceptions being Chelsea – the only team to stop him in a pair of league appearances – Liverpool and Brentford.
Champions LeagueHaaland arrived in Manchester with 23 Champions League goals to his name in 19 appearances for RB Salzburg and Borussia Dortmund, and has maintained that form.
He netted group-stage doubles against Sevilla and FC Copenhagen, either side of a goal against Dortmund, and Pep Guardiola could afford to largely rest his star man for the return fixtures save for a scoreless first-half run-out on his old stomping ground in Germany.
He was quiet in a drawn first leg against RB Leipzig but more than made up for it in the return fixture, equalling the competition record of five goals in a game as City won 7-0 and 8-1 on aggregate.
Goals in both legs against Bayern Munich took him to a dozen for the European season, though Real Madrid and Inter Milan kept him quiet even as City won their semi-final and final.
Domestic cupsHaaland’s first FA Cup goals came with a hat-trick in the 6-0 quarter-final win over Burnley, having sat out the clash with Chelsea and not scored against Arsenal.
He was not required to produce any heroics in the semi-final or final, won respectively by a Riyad Mahrez hat-trick and an Ilkay Gundogan brace.
Haaland was shut out by Liverpool in the Community Shield but did score against them in the Carabao Cup, giving him four goals in seven cup appearances.
Wales boss Rob Page urges Premier League clubs to snap up Daniel James
Wales manager Rob Page has told top-flight clubs to make a move for “Premier League player” Daniel James.
The Wales winger’s club career remains uncertain following Leeds’ relegation to the Sky Bet Championship.
James spent last season on loan with Fulham but has now returned to managerless Leeds and the second tier, where he shone at Swansea to earn a 2019 move to Manchester United.
Page said: “I do think DJ is a Premier League player and he could easily play there again.
“If I’m a Premier League manager and I find out he’s available, personally I’d take him.
“I’m bound to say that because I’m his Welsh manager, but for me he always poses a threat.
“He still has things to work on but with the pace he’s got it is a brave team that plays a high line against him.”
James cost Leeds £25million in joining from Manchester United in August 2021.
The 25-year-old struggled for game-time at Fulham, making only five Premier League starts among 23 appearances in all competitions and scoring three goals.
James has often reserved his best performances for a Wales shirt and started 34 consecutive competitive games before being benched for the World Cup defeat to Iran in November.
“He has taken one for the team in recent months because I’ve asked him to play a different role,” Page said ahead of forthcoming Euro 2024 qualifiers against Armenia and Turkey.
“He likes playing wide left and the way we play now suits us because he gives us the width on the left.
“He’s that option in behind and when you’ve got a tool like that in your armoury it really is effective.
“In the Premier League, and at international level, he poses a threat. It was a frustrating few months for him when I played him at centre-forward with Gareth (Bale).
“Now we’ve changed and he is back out in his natural position.”
Wales return to action at home to Armenia on Friday and against Turkey in Samsun three days later having taken four points from their opening two games in March.
Page, who has taken his squad to Portugal to prepare for the Euro 2024 double-header, says he has felt the benefits of speaking to Warren Gatland, head coach of the Wales rugby team and former British and Irish Lions boss.
“I had a great chat with him over dinner and wanted to pick his brains,” Page said of his meeting with Gatland at the Football Association of Wales’ National Coaches Conference in Newport.
“It’s not every day you get the chance to share dinner with a man of his stature.
“We talked about how we deal with players, groups of men, and it was really interesting.
“He spoke about how he deals with individuals. It was refreshing to learn it’s how I’ve dealt with individuals in the past.
“We are from a similar era and share similar culture and values. When you are dealing with a player, you do it to their face.”
How do Manchester City’s treble-winners compare to Manchester United in 1998-99?
Manchester City emulated Manchester United’s 1999 trophy treble with victory in the Champions League final against Inter Milan.
Here, the PA news agency looks at how this season’s City side compares to United’s celebrated group.
Team performanceUnited lost only three games in their treble-winning season but a remarkable 21 draws in 57 games across the three competitions in question sees City overshadow them in most other statistical categories.
Excluding the League Cup from both teams’ records, Pep Guardiola’s side have 42 wins (73.7 per cent) to United’s 33 (57.9 per cent), 145 goals to 121 and 26 clean sheets to 20.
They conceded only 39 goals to their predecessors’ 56, scoring an average of 2.54 per game and conceding 0.68 compared to 2.12 against 0.98 for United.
City have also scored four goals or more on 16 occasions, 28.1 per cent of their matches and twice as many as that United side – and they have an unsurprising advantage when the two teams’ top scorers are compared…
Player statsErling Haaland’s extraordinary 51-goal contribution to City’s treble had no equivalent in a United squad that shared the burden much more equally.
Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole formed a potent front two, Yorke edging his strike partner by 18 league goals to 17 and by 29 to 24 in all competitions.
Super-sub Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored 12 league goals despite starting only nine games and 15 in the three competitions with just 14 starts alongside 20 appearances from the bench. Teddy Sheringham was even more sparingly used, but his four goals included the vital equaliser in Barcelona before Solskjaer’s even-later winner.
Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs also hit double figures, with David Beckham on nine.
Haaland won this year’s Golden Boot awards in the Premier League, with a record 36 goals, and the Champions League with 12 – including five in a game against RB Leipzig – as he finished four clear of the pack.
He has been backed up by fellow summer signing Julian Alvarez with 15 goals in the league, FA Cup and Champions League, the same as Phil Foden, plus 13 from Riyad Mahrez and double figures too for cup final hero Ilkay Gundogan and Kevin De Bruyne.
Eight of Sir Alex Ferguson’s squad featured in 50 or more of the 57 games that led to the treble – goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, defenders Gary Neville and Jaap Stam, midfield trio David Beckham, Roy Keane and Paul Scholes, and Cole and Yorke up front.
Just Rodri and Bernardo Silva can boast the same figure in City’s treble as Guardiola’s famed rotation policy and squad depth shows its worth. Haaland, Gundogan and Jack Grealish have hit 50 in all competitions.
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