More injury woe for Argyle striker Tijani
Plymouth Argyle forward Muhamed Tijani has suffered another injury setback.
The 24-year-old Nigerian will miss the FA Cup trip to Premier League side Manchester City and is likely to be out for the next few weeks after injuring his hamstring.
It limits the Pilgrims' attacking options even further with Ryan Hardie, who scored the winning goal against Liverpool in the last round of the FA Cup, also out with a back injury.
Tijani, who joined on loan from Slavia Prague last summer, has made just eight appearances in all competitions and has not started a game since the opening day of the season.
He made just one appearance in four months after suffering groin and hamstring injuries before returning a month ago.
Tijani scored his first goal for the club in the 1-1 draw with Cardiff City last weekend.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Upturn
42 minutes ago
- Business Upturn
Manchester City left this key player out of the squad for the Club World Cup
As the club World Cup is approaching, the clubs are busy in making the squads that will help them go as higher as possible in the league. By Ravi Kumar Jha Published on June 12, 2025, 08:35 IST As the club World Cup is approaching, the clubs are busy in making the squads that will help them go as higher as possible in the league. Manchester City also made their squad and left out the star Jack Grealish from it. The midfielder and the club is set to part ways this summer transfer window. Both the parties are convinced that new place will be a better thing to explore himself. As the FIFA Club World Cup draws closer, clubs across the globe are finalizing their squads in hopes of achieving glory on the world stage. Premier League giants Manchester City have submitted their squad for the tournament — but one notable name is missing: Jack Grealish. The English midfielder has been left out of the Club World Cup squad, signaling the growing certainty of his departure from the Etihad this summer. Sources close to the club suggest that both Grealish and Manchester City have mutually agreed that a fresh start could be beneficial for the player. After joining City in 2021 for a British-record fee, Grealish showed flashes of brilliance but struggled to cement a regular starting spot under Pep Guardiola. Injuries and competition for places limited his impact, and now, the 28-year-old appears ready to explore new opportunities. Ravi kumar jha is an undergraduate student in Bachelor of Arts in Multimedia and Mass Communication. A media enthusiast who has a strong hold on communication and he also has a genuine interest in sports. Ravi is currently working as a journalist at
New York Times
44 minutes ago
- New York Times
Pep Guardiola and the Manchester City rebuild that has echoes of summer 2017
It is summer 2017 and, at the end of Pep Guardiola's first season in English football with Manchester City, the club are getting rid of players not suited to his style of football. Wilfried Bony, Kelechi Iheanacho, Samir Nasri, Aleksandar Kolarov and Nolito are sold. Fernando, Gael Clichy, Bacary Sagna, Willy Caballero, Pablo Zabaleta and Jesus Navas are released. Joe Hart is sent out on loan for the final year of his contract. Only Yaya Toure's deal is extended. Advertisement They are the right calls, but leave City with the bulk of an entire squad to rebuild. Fortunately, the engine room at City Football Group had been working on a solution. Firstly, based on more than 100,000 playing careers, they looked at how the maturity and decline manifests itself in each position. As all types of teams can win in a one-off season, they analysed historical data about the age blends of the sides who have won multiple competitions in multiple years. This allowed them to estimate the optimal spread of talent to create a team that could win both now, and in the future. The club were then able to create a visual timeline for each position of the team that placed each squad member at one of the four stages of the career life cycle. The aim is to have two-thirds of the squad in the main two phases, and never to have two players in the same position at the same stage of their career. Mikel Arteta — then Guardiola's assistant, now manager of title rivals Arsenal — learned about the work that had been done in the club's analytics department on the type of age and profile blends which tend to establish periods of sustained dominance. Over the next four years, City's squad gradually morphed into almost the perfect example of balance. Arteta championed this approach and helped convince Guardiola to let it inform City's transfer policy. It was a cornerstone that became a key unifying moment at the club and coincided with an unparalleled era of dominance, including a 100-point season in 2017-18, a historic treble of Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League in 2022-23 and four domestic titles in a row from 2021-22. That same summer saw the arrivals of Ederson, Benjamin Mendy, Kyle Walker, Danilo and Bernardo Silva, adding to John Stones, Ilkay Gundogan, Leroy Sane and Gabriel Jesus, who were signed in Guardiola's first transfer window as City manager. Aymeric Laporte followed in January 2018. Suddenly, City's average age had dropped from 26.5 to 25 and they had a squad stocked with hybrid players who could be deployed in multiple roles. Every position on the pitch had a defined life cycle and the calculation was how to ensure that City had the right proportion of players at each development stage — not too much inexperience, nor too many who were in the twilight of their careers. Advertisement City were able to roll with the core of that squad throughout their remarkable run of six Premier League titles in seven seasons but the plan was that they would continually refresh their personnel from year to year, rather than ever again arrive at another summer 2017-style cliff edge. But this season's collapse in form between November and March, which left City having to scramble in the spring to finish just fourth, with only 71 points, showed they had not acted quickly enough. Chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak conceded as much at the end of the domestic campaign, saying they should have been 'more aggressive' in making the necessary changes last summer. 'Normally, we like to do our business in the summer and only in case of emergency, special need that comes up, do we actually go and do business in January,' he said. 'That's been our modus operandi for the last seven or eight years. But this January, we had to act.' City's winter-window additions of Omar Marmoush (then 25, now 26), Nico Gonzalez (23), Abdukodir Khusanov (then 20, now 21) and Vitor Reis (19) kickstarted the process. If those signings are looked at in conjunction with this week's signings of Rayan Ait-Nouri (24), Tijjani Riejnders (26) and Rayan Cherki (21) — and with City also beating Arsenal and Aston Villa to the signing of Rosenborg's 18-year-old midfielder Sverre Nypan — it is mirroring the rebuild of Guardiola's first incarnation eight years ago. The average age of City's squad has come down considerably and they have added dynamism throughout in light of the team's pressing falling off dramatically this season — part of why Kevin De Bruyne, who turns 34 in a couple of weeks, has been allowed to leave at the end of his contract. After the final day of the domestic season, Guardiola had tempered the prospect of a summer rebuild due to the majority of his squad being under contract. Only Scott Carson, the almost-never-used 39-year-old third goalkeeper, and De Bruyne were on deals that expired this summer so, with almost-never-used 33-year-old reserve keeper Marcus Bettinelli joining from Chelsea to make it four incomings, more players will need to be sold or loaned out if Guardiola is to end up with the smaller squad he is demanding. Advertisement Across the Spaniard's nine-year tenure, City have used the fewest number of players, or been among the bottom five in that regard, in the Premier League in most seasons other than 2024-25, when the increase was mostly owing to a rise in injuries. This has meant they have been able to condense the proportion of their wage budget into a core group of elite players and then use their renowned youth academy to pad out the squad as an effective spread of resources. There may still be a couple more additions before the September 1 transfer deadline because, after only the second trophyless season of his 16-year managerial career, Guardiola is facing a challenge he has never encountered before. He has built dominant teams at Barcelona, Bayern Munich and City, but he has never experienced what it is like to be on top, fall off the pedestal and have to build a side back up again, something Sir Alex Ferguson did several times in his 26 years as manager across town at Manchester United. Having stepped down at Barcelona in summer 2012 after losing the La Liga title Barca had won for the previous three seasons to Jose Mourinho-led Real Madrid, Guardiola has never had the chance to show that he can re-establish absolute superiority like that. Can he recapture the sheen of invincibility City possessed for so long under him? Can he reimagine the way his teams play the game one final time? In a sign of Guardiola's determination to bounce back, he has also shaken up his backroom staff in an attempt to ensure he remains challenged by his colleagues and can continue to innovate. First-team coaches Juanma Lillo and Inigo Dominguez did not have their contracts renewed, and set-piece coach Carlos Vicens has left to take his first managerial job with Portuguese club Braga — although he was offered the chance to stay. Guardiola has also hired Pep Lijnders, who was Jurgen Klopp's right-hand man for his final five years at City's then main rivals Liverpool, and the same club's long-serving analyst James French, who will replace Vicens as set-piece coach. How will all this churn, on and off the field, manifest itself in the next evolution of the team? Lijnders is a strong proponent of the gegenpressing that became synonymous with Klopp, and in a phone conversation before the Dutchman agreed to join his staff, he and Guardiola discussed their footballing principles and how they would collaborate on the training pitch. It is a fusion that could offer up some interesting tactical changes, with City now in possession of small-space, technical players such as Cherki but also having the athleticism and directness of Ait-Nouri and Reijnders to play through the opposition press. Importantly, all the new coaches are on board in time for the looming Club World Cup, as are those new players. It all represents a strong start for City's new director of football Hugo Viana, who has been supported by outgoing predecessor Txiki Begiristain staying on until after this summer's tournament in the United States to try to ensure a smooth transition. Advertisement It has been a summer of change, and things feel fresher at City now. Defender Manuel Akanji has admitted he would rather be on a beach somewhere recharging the batteries rather than playing in another physically demanding competition in the heat of summer, beginning on Wednesday against Moroccan side Wydad in Philadelphia, but for City, this revamped and expanded Club World Cup is of major importance. Internally at the club, there is a major focus on success in it, because the financial rewards are so great — if they win all seven games on the way to lifting the trophy, City would bank around £97million ($131m). But it could also be the perfect springboard, preventing the club's first trophyless season since Guardiola's 2016-17 debut year. For four months in the middle of their domestic campaign, City's football was so different to the machine-like precision we came to expect from them in their years as serial winners under Guardiola. Restoring them to the top of English football is the task that lies ahead for him — in what's shaping up to arguably be the most competitive Premier League of all time. If Guardiola is able to regenerate and reimagine City after enduring the first truly vulnerable period of his coaching career, it would surely be his crowning achievement.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Premier League operating profit hits five-year high as PSR bites
Premier League clubs recorded their highest collective operating profit since 2019 last year as controversial PSR regulations enforced a greater emphasis on balancing the books. Aggregate operating profits among the 20 teams in the top division increased by 36 per cent to £533m in 2023-24, according to Deloitte's latest Annual Review of Football Finance published today. Premier League clubs' revenue grew four per cent to a record £6.3bn which, combined with tougher profitability and sustainability rules (PSR), led to their best operating profit figures since before the Covid-19 pandemic. 'We are starting to see a bit of a ripple when it comes to clubs focusing on compliance within regulations,' Jennifer Haskel, knowledge and insight lead in the Deloitte Sports Business Group, told City AM. 'As we continue within this evolving regulatory landscape, clubs are being run more and more as traditional businesses. While clubs are continuing to grow the top line and diversify their revenue streams, hopefully that will lead to more long term sustainability and profits.' Both Everton and Nottingham Forest received points deductions in the 2023-24 season for breaching PSR, while other teams – including Aston Villa and Chelsea – narrowly avoided sanctions with some late player trading. Premier League clubs made a pre-tax loss of £136m, although that was an improvement of almost £550m on the previous season. The relegation of heavily loss-making teams also contributed to the improvement. The total European football market grew by eight per cent to a record €38bn, with the Big Five leagues – England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France – generating more than €20bn for the first time. That growth may plateau due to a French media rights crisis, however, Deloitte said. Ahead of the imminent introduction of the Independent Football Regulator, meanwhile, the report warns that 'there can be no doubt that the system in English football is under strain'. 'We still await the output of the Independent Football Regulator to fully understand how this may impact the game in England, but it is clear that the way in which the game is governed and the regulation that underpins it needs to seek to drive value, fan engagement (both physical and digital) and competitive balance,' writes Deloitte's lead sports partner Tim Bridge. 'The level of interest and the demand to engage with English football remains high and investors still see the opportunity, particularly when there is a strong community link or adjacent investment opportunities, but the lack of clarity over the future regulatory regime is now unhelpful.' Sign in to access your portfolio
