Crystal Palace target £40m-rated star as potential replacement for captain Marc Guehi - and hold talks with Jean-Philippe Mateta amid Man United interest
Crystal Palace have enquired after Sporting Lisbon's £40million-rated defender Ousmane Diomande and have held positive talks over a new contract for striker Jean-Philippe Mateta.
Palace face competition for Diomande, 21, who would be viewed as a replacement for Marc Guehi.
Meanwhile, Mateta, who has attracted attention from Manchester United, Aston Villa and Marseille, has held positive discussions over staying at Selhurst Park.
Palace anticipate offers will come from Newcastle and Chelsea for Guehi.
The Magpies made a plethora of failed bids for the England international last summer, whom Palace demanded £70m for.
Aside from Guehi, Chelsea remain keen on a number of defensive options, including Jorrel Hato of Ajax.
The highly rated centre back made his senior debut at just 16 years old and became an undisputed starter for the Eredivisie side last season.
Now 19, Hato has been appointed as one of Ajax's vice-captains, and was named Eredivisie Talent of the Year in 2024-25.
Meanwhile, Napoli are monitoring Trevoh Chalobah's situation. The centre back has been at Chelsea since the age of eight, but his place at Stamford Bridge has come under heavy speculation over the past year.
Chalobah joined Palace on a season-long loan last August, but was recalled in January due to Enzo Maresca's defensive injury crisis.
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The Guardian
24 minutes ago
- The Guardian
‘I didn't like the attitude': Thomas Tuchel tears into lacklustre England
Thomas Tuchel admitted England had 'played with fire' in their 1-0 win over Andorra, risking the concession of an equaliser and a draw that would have registered as perhaps their greatest humiliation since defeat to the USA in 1950. 'I felt it was like a Cup game where the favourites don't see the danger,' he said. England won thanks to Harry Kane's 50th-minute goal, leaving them top of the group on nine points without having conceded a goal. No previous England manager has ever begun with three successive victories to nil, but Tuchel was clearly very unhappy with the performance. 'I didn't like the attitude how we ended the game,' he said. 'I liked the attitude how we started the game. But I didn't like the last half hour. I think we lacked urgency and seriousness you need in a World Cup qualifier. I didn't like the body language and it was not what the occasion needed.' What made it all the more frustrating was that there had been no indication of that flatness in the days leading up to the game during warm-weather training in Spain. 'They were enthusiastic and they showed that as a group when they were in the camp. When we started the game, the attitude was right. We wanted to play according to our principals and to the plan. 'Matches like this can become awkward when you don't score. It can be stuck. Then it's necessary to not get frustrated, to do the little things right. I had the feeling after 25 minutes we were a bit frustrated with the little things and everybody tried different things. Then it becomes freestyle and it gets slower. Everyone wanted the ball in to feet, and nobody was speeding the game up with runs. You need contra-movements and runs and if you don't invest it becomes a stuck game.' Tuchel acknowledged that fatigue at the end of the season might have been a factor, but was determined not to offer that as an excuse. 'The window is the window so no excuses. I think the clubs don't like the window and for the national team also it's not easy because the players are coming from a long season. We can and have to do better for the 90 minutes. We created an xG of 3 and underperformed with one goal. Normally in games like this you overperform the xG because of greater individual quality. But we didn't. We lacked the energy. It's the most honest thing to admit it and not talk around it.' On a night of very few positives, the brightest element was probably the performance of Noni Madueke, who set up Kane's goal and whose runs behind his full-back did stretch Andorra. 'He was a constant threat today and he got the assist as well,' said Kane. 'We need more of that – we've got amazing players and you need one v one quality in these games.' Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion Tuchel had no problem with the boos at half-time and full-time, saying he understood why fans were unhappy. 'The support was amazing,' he said. 'They created a fantastic atmosphere for a match like this. They were underwhelmed and not happy with our performance. I don't think we can blame them for that.' He said he was unaware of the offensive chanting about Keir Starmer. 'If it happens,' he said, 'it is not acceptable, but I didn't hear it.' Fundamentally, though, this was a night of frustration. 'It's very hot here, dry pitch, probably similar conditions to next year at the World Cup,' said Kane. 'We probably weren't good enough on the ball – we kept giving it away, which gave them confidence and energy. It is what it is.'
BBC News
32 minutes ago
- BBC News
Six games, six wins - but what have England learned?
Charlotte Edwards was tasked with rebuilding England after a brutal Ashes drubbing which resulted in heavy criticism of the team's attitude, culture and on-field performances. The legendary former captain has started her era as head coach with a T20 and one-day international clean sweep over a depleted West Indies, but this was no surprise. Ultimately, Edwards and new captain Nat Sciver-Brunt could not have asked for an easier start to their tenure. Edwards' predecessor Jon Lewis also began his stint as head coach with a clean sweep over the Windies away from home, creating a sense of optimism and excitement before it all came crashing down with two disappointing T20 World Cup campaigns and the ill-fated Ashes to start this this series win comes with a word of caution - we have seen this one before. England have regularly dominated home bilateral series, and then crumbled on the big stage. Prior to this series, they had won 79.3% of their completed white-ball games at home since 2020, and that number rises to 87.8% when you take out Australia and are much tougher tests to come, starting with India's arrival in late June before the very challenging prospect of a 50-over World Cup in India at the end of September. World Cup-winning spinner Alex Hartley says that England are in a "good place" because of the dominant manner in which they have been winning, but has this series provided anything to suggest things will be different and whether the "new" England can finally perform under pressure when it matters? Will the Amy Jones experiment last? When she was appointed, Edwards made it clear that 50-over cricket would be her initial priority, saying that England needed a smarter gameplan and to improve their awareness, particularly with the first move was to promote wicketkeeper Amy Jones back to opener alongside Tammy Beaumont, a role she fulfilled in 22 matches between 2016 and certainly repaid Edwards' faith with a player of the series performance - scoring her first international hundred in her 246th match and then backing it up in the second game to finish with 251 runs at an average of 125.50 and impressive strike-rate of 114.61. But the challenge for Jones mirrors England's generally - can she step up against higher-quality opposition? Her average of 55.45 against West Indies is her highest against any team, but that drops to 16.33 against Australia and 19.66 against India. One aspect to consider is how teams may adapt to her success and how she'll fare in different conditions in India. How would Jones perform if a side was to start with spin against her for example?She averages 36.2 against spin and has a strike-rate of 82, both of which are more than 31-year-old has only faced 35 balls of spin in the 10-over powerplay but is yet to be dismissed. She can be a slow starter against spin though, being dismissed 10 times by a spinner in her first 30 balls and her strike-rate drops to 78. Her record with Beaumont suggests they are a natural fit for the top-order rebuild which was needed after Maia Bouchier's misery in Australia where she averaged six. Jones and Beaumont are England's third-most successful ODI partnership, scoring 1,786 runs together in 30 innings while their average of 63.8 is comfortably the highest in the current team. Heather Knight and Sciver-Brunt are behind them with 42.8. Matthews' class stands apart Though West Indies generally offered England very little challenge, the most effective way of judging where they are at as a team is to see how they fared against one of the world's best players in Hayley Matthews. Without fellow all-rounders Deandra Dottin or Chinelle Henry in the squad, West Indies' hopes relied solely on their captain and more often than not, she keeps them afloat. And it is cause for concern that England have not performed well against the one player who can consistently put their bowlers under the pump and provide a significant contest. Matthews missed the second and third ODIs with a shoulder problem, having made a fluent 48 and taken 2-49 in the first, but was magnificent in the T20s. She scored a sparkling century in a total of 146 in the opener at Canterbury, fell cheaply in the second at Hove before scoring 71 and taking 3-32 in the third at India, there are plenty of players capable of such performances - Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues and Harmanpreet Kaur to name a few. It will not be the same case of taking one wicket to define a game, and Matthews' efforts suggest this is a challenge they are desperately in need of."I think we've probably created it ourselves in many ways," Edwards said when asked about whether her side had been put under any pressure during the series. "Competition for selection in county cricket, going into county cricket and having to perform, and then obviously within this side now, making sure they are taking the opportunities." Smith, Ecclestone or both? The world's number one-ranked bowler Sophie Ecclestone made headlines during the Ashes after her refusal to do a pre-match interview with former team-mate Alex Hartley, who had criticised England's fitness after their T20 World Cup exit. The 26-year-old was left out for the West Indies series as part of her recovery from a knee injury, but has since played two 50-over matches and six T20s for Lancashire, and England insisted her omission was not in relation to the winter's controversy. She has since taken a break from domestic cricket to prioritise her wellbeing and to manage a quad problem, but remains available for selection for the India her absence, however, fellow left-arm spinner Linsey Smith has shone with seven wickets in two matches including a five-wicket haul on her ODI debut which has left Edwards with a pretty significant selection headache, but a luxurious one. There is no reason why England could not play two left-arm spinners, particularly given they offer such different attributes. Ecclestone's height generates a lot more bounce, while Smith is skiddier and her strength comes from her accuracy. In the two ODIs she played, Smith would have hit the stumps with a series-high 45.8% of deliveries and her economy rate of 3.15 runs per over was comfortably the lowest. England's spin trio of Ecclestone, off-spinner Charlie Dean and leg-spinner Sarah Glenn have played together 25 times in T20s but only twice in ODIs. The World Cup in India, though, could provide further opportunity for Smith when she has previously been kept out of the side because of Ecclestone's brilliance standing in her called for greater competition for places, after accusations of complacency followed the Ashes, and this has immediately been delivered and gives even more significance to the upcoming games against India. She hinted post-series that all four of Ecclestone, Smith, Glenn and Dean could go to the World Cup. Has the team perception changed? Fielding has been one of England's biggest areas for improvement, with six drops seeing them prematurely knocked out in T20 World Cup group stage and seven on day one of the Ashes Test alone. They took 38 catches in this series but still dropped 13 chances, giving them a 75% catch efficiency. That is up from the 41% at the T20 World Cup in October and 63% in the Ashes and on par with the 73% in home matches since 2020. Their body language and demeanour was also criticised, with Lewis' carefree approach lending itself to accusations of players not caring enough about the results. Under their new leadership, England do seem re-energised with a buzz in the field and the new or returning faces like Smith and Issy Wong, who played two of the T20s, contributing to that change in energy. Edwards said training "had been great to be at". But considering the difference in circumstances - England were losing heavily in Australia and winning by barely breaking a sweat against West Indies - we are still no clearer on whether that will change under pressure. "We're under no illusions that we're going to have tougher times ahead," Edwards acknowledged. "But equally I think what we're seeing already is that appetite for wanting to keep getting better, because they've got to, they know they can't stand still, there's probably someone in county cricket scoring runs who's winning games of cricket. "It's going to be difficult picking teams going forward, but that's the place we wanted to be, we didn't want to be picking for 15 or 16 players, we wanted to be picking from a pool of 25 players which I genuinely think we are now."Only Matthews has put England's bowlers to the sword, but even on those occasions it never felt like they were in danger of losing. The heat and humidity of India's World Cup is where this will really be put to the test. Every game will matter and England will be well aware of the attention that will be on them to put things right after the Ashes.
Daily Mirror
35 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
Thomas Tuchel agrees with Roy Keane in worrying assessment of England players
Thomas Tuchel openly criticised his players after England laboured to an uninspiring 1-0 win over minnows Andorra in their World Cup qualifier in Barcelona on Saturday Thomas Tuchel called out his England players for their poor attitude after his side produced a dreary showing against Andorra. The Three Lions beat their minnow opponents 1-0 in Barcelona on Saturday to earn three points in World Cup qualifying, but their performance was well below the standards expected by Tuchel. England were booed off at half-time after barely mustering a shot on goal and took the lead when Harry Kane turned in Noni Madueke's cross after the break. That was just about the only moment of quality in the entire match from the away side, who were lethargic and uninspired. Former Manchester United captain Roy Keane accused them of being "bored" in the second half as the game meandered towards its conclusion. And while England's performance left a lot to be desired, supporters can at least take something positive from straight-talking Tuchel's no-nonsense assessment. "We had a good 25 minutes, we played according to the plan, but we couldn't keep the energy up," he told ITV, echoing many of Keane's points. "It's as easy as that. The energy after 25 minutes, the rhythm the energy, the determination was not there any more. It also came with a lack of quality in the little details, passing, finishing, decision making." READ MORE: Thomas Tuchel told exactly what England fans feel after Harry Kane averts total humiliation Asked what the message was to the players, he replied: "That was basically the message, that I was most worried in the last 20 minutes because I did not like the attitude with which we ended this game. It felt almost like we have to play until the 93rd minute. "I didn't like the lack of urgency in the end and I think it did not match the occasion: it's still a World Cup qualifier away from home. I didn't like it at all. The players know all [of this] because I said it in the dressing room." Tuchel has won all three of his first matches in charge of England without conceding, but will hope for a much improved display when they take on Senegal in a friendly in Nottingham next week. He had few positives to take away from the day in Barcelona, with Chelsea winger Madueke the only player to catch the eye. HAVE YOUR SAY! What did you make of England's performance? Comment below. Keane said: "We try to make excuses for England a little bit. Obviously it is the end of the season and it's been tough on the players. I thought, first half, was OK. But I felt when they scored the goal, they felt it was job done. I was really disappointed with England's attitude after the goal went in. "The manager can't be happy with that effort in the last half an hour. I know it's job done, but you still expect more from England. Good goal from Kane - you can always rely on him - a really good ball from [Curtis] Jones - that bit of quality - but overall, and particularly in the second half, the attitude of the players, I didn't think was great." He added: "I worry when I see players getting bored. I felt some of the players got bored in the last half an hour and I don't like to see that. It's when the goal went in, it was job done. It's Andorra - go and get some more goals! These players have to impress this manager, he's still new to the job. "You show that with your attitude. Go and get some more goals! You're attacking players, you can't keep looking at Kane. Kane's been your main man for years, but the other attacking players have to say 'I have to have an impact here'."
