Cardiff assess Daland fitness ahead of Portmouth trip
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BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Dobson keen to learn from 'top quality' O'Brien
George Dobson is bidding to learn from midfield partner Lewis O'Brien following the summer signing's impressive start to life at and O'Brien have started alongside Matty James in a midfield three in both of Wrexham's opening two matches of the Championship season.O'Brien - who joined on a permanent deal from Nottingham Forest - was among the star performers in the 2-1 defeat by Southampton on the opening day while he netted his first goal for the club in the 3-2 loss to West Bromwich Dobson admits he has been impressed with O'Brien since the 26-year-old made the switch to the Stok Cae Ras."He's a top quality player," Dobson said of O'Brien."You can tell why he's played at a high level and the way he manoeuvres the ball in tight positions."His athleticism of being able to cover such high distances - it's something for me to look at and help improve my game."I'm really enjoying playing alongside him and long may it continue."Phil Parkinson has regularly recruited experienced players from higher levels since becoming Wrexham boss in the summer of Kieffer Moore, Nathan Broadhead, Danny Ward, Liberato Cacace and Conor Coady are among those to make the switch to north Wales during the course of the Dobson feels O'Brien typifies the type of qualities Wrexham wish to have in their ranks."The dressing room has still got the same real strong core of brilliant characters," added Dobson."The gaffer has always recruited not just good players but really good people and that hasn't changed."It's like anything, when there's a lot of change, it's always going to take a little bit of time. but we can't make any excuses with that, we've got to deliver now."
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Snoop Dogg and Modric bring 'most buzz' to Swansea
Swansea City captain Ben Cabango says the investment of Luka Modric and Snoop Dogg into the club has generated the "most buzz for a long time".Former Ballon d'Or winner Modric became an investor and co-owner at Championship club Swansea in April, with rapper Snoop Dogg following suit last 25, who has been at the club 11 years, says the increased media attention has brought welcome higher expectations."This is the most buzz we've had around Swansea for a long time," said Cabango."There's a bit of expectation on us now, which is really good. "Hopefully we can make good things out of this season. Everyone's positive around this place." After losing to Middlesbrough on the opening day of the season, the Swans have bounced back with home wins in the Carabao Cup and midweek cup success over League Two Crawley Town was followed up by an even more impressive 1-0 victory against Sheffield wins continue head coach Alan Sheehan's impressive run of form at the Stadium."Our home games we've had since he has been in charge... six wins and one draw in the eight games," added Cabango."It's been solid defensively and we're always looking like we're going to score."It's obviously a good balance and we're always on the front foot, aggressive and I bet we're a hard team to play against." Burgess partnership 'improving' After the departure of Harry Darling, Cabango is in the early stages of forming a new centre-back partnership with summer signing Cameron 29-year-old Australia international agreed a three-year contract with Sheehan's side back in June after seeing out his contract with Ipswich win over Sheffield United brought with it a first clean sheet of the season, and Cabango says the relationship between the two is "really improving"."It takes quite a while to get connections," said Cabango."Every day we're just learning about each other and it's really improving."Saturday was our second game together and already we're starting to learn about each other, how he plays, how I play."Obviously the longer we start playing together the more we're going to learn about each other and the better it's going to be."
The Guardian
6 hours ago
- The Guardian
Grealish never conformed as Guardiola's ‘obedient little schoolboy' but glorious third act beckons
A figure toils alone at Bodymoor Heath. The light fades, but against the setting sun his silhouette is distinctive: the floppy hair, the hunched gait, the vast calves. Jack Grealish is working, honing and polishing, inventing, striving at the limits of technical excellence. He has inspired Aston Villa to achieve promotion. He has helped them to avoid relegation, establish themselves as a Premier League side. He is enormously popular. Even opposing fans admire his ability, warm to the sense he is still in some way the impish kid in the playground, revelling in his ability, having fun. That summer at the European Championship he had become a cause célèbre, the figure behind whom the clamour for Gareth Southgate to release the handbrake rallied, the poster boy for the sort of pundit who wished England would just believe in talent. Grealish wanted more. He was a Villa fan, loved the club, but he wanted to test himself at the very highest level, to compete for the league title, to play in the later stages of the Champions League. He did not want to be just the cheeky kid with the jinking feet; he had professional ambition. At which there came a flash of light, a puff of smoke, and there appeared on the heath a cadaverous, dark-haired figure – Mephistopheles, or perhaps an agent. Grealish could have all these things, the figure said, he could lift trophies, even win a treble, if only he signed a six-year contract with Manchester City. As Grealish reached for the pen, the figure murmured, almost under his breath, that there would be a cost. But by then the deal was done. Which is how we have come, four years later, to this week, and Grealish, the first £100m signing by a British club, being loaned to Everton. He has won three league titles, a Champions League and an FA Cup; the cadaverous figure has fulfilled his part of the bargain. Yet there lurks a sense that Grealish's move four summers ago has not quite worked out, that though much has been won, much too was lost. Perhaps David Moyes, a common line of thought runs, can help the lost boy rediscover his sense of joy. Looked at coldly, Grealish's career has mapped an almost perfect arc. A kid shows talent, joins his local club, prospers, leaves them for a giant, wins trophies, has one outstanding season, and then, as he approaches 30, he drops down again joining another of England's slumbering giants. How else should a career look? You would probably want that third phase to start two or three years later but that aside, this is pretty much the model. Had he stayed at Villa, there would have been corners of the internet mocking him for his lack of ambition and lack of medals, as happened with Harry Kane before he left Tottenham for Bayern. But Grealish has become entwined with a broader discussion, the doubts about the effectiveness of Pep Guardiola's methods – which itself is a broad spectrum, ranging from kneejerk hostility from instinctive nostalgists who believe simple is always good, to considered analysis that wonders whether an obsessive focus on position and possession can make a side predictable now that the world has become familiar with the basic Guardiola methods. Foremost among that second category is Guardiola himself, a manager who has maintained a state of almost perpetual evolution. That is one of the reasons he signed Grealish: to add imagination and improvisation, just as, a year later, he would sign Erling Haaland, another player who did not obviously fit his system, who might generate the friction that would generate the sparks of creativity. Or at least it appears that was the plan. Haaland resisted, refused his manager's demands to drop deep, to convert himself into a gigantic creative midfielder. Grealish did not. Whatever Guardiola originally intended for him, he soon began to craft Grealish to his philosophy. Amid the celebrations at the end of the 2021-22 season, as City came from 2-0 down to beat Aston Villa and win the title, Grealish, whose candid nature is part of his charm, spoke of how inhibited he at times felt by Guardiola's demands; his dribbles per game had dropped by 40%. The system had, perhaps inevitably, changed him more than he had changed the system. The following season was Grealish's best at City. He won the treble. He scored five goals in the league and set up another seven. Guardiola trusted him in the biggest games; he started every knockout game in the Champions League. Teammates nicknamed him the Rest Station because you could give him the ball and take a couple of seconds breather, knowing he was not going to give it away. His dribbles per game rose by 7%. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion Grealish adapted. He became a Guardiola player. But the next season he started only 10 Premier League games. The one after that, last season, he started seven. Dribbles per game dropped by 56%. When City were chasing a goal in the FA Cup final against Crystal Palace, Guardiola preferred to turn to Claudio Echeverri, a 19-year-old Argentinian who had never played for the club. And with that it was over. Injuries have not helped, but neither has his lifestyle – and Guardiola implied a link after Grealish had a recurrence of a groin injury in February last year. Very few modern footballers have been pictured quite so often in the company of alcohol. That is not to say Grealish has led a life of hedonism, or even of a footballer of 30 years ago, but neither is he one of the 'obedient little schoolboys' – to use Zlatan Ibrahimovic's term – favoured by Guardiola. Whether that is how he has always lived or whether he lost some hunger after winning the treble, only Grealish can know. Perhaps he could tolerate the restrictions only so long. But he is still young. If he can remain injury-free, there could be a glorious third act to his career, perhaps even a trophy at a club that would really appreciate it. And if he could rediscover that sense of joy while doing so, if he can make the Faustian deal a temporary contract, what a career that would be, beginning and ending as a popular schoolyard player, with a curious trophy‑winning interlude in the middle.
