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Man City set price for McAtee - Monday's gossip
Man City set price for McAtee - Monday's gossip

BBC News

time20-07-2025

  • Sport
  • BBC News

Man City set price for McAtee - Monday's gossip

Manchester City set price for James McAtee, Leeds United want to raise funds for Fulham's Rodrigo Muniz and Manchester United want two more City have set their price at £35m for midfielder James McAtee, 22, with interest from clubs such as West Ham and Eintracht Frankfurt. (The Telegraph - subscription), externalReal Madrid are happy to wait it out to sign France and Liverpool defender Ibrahima Konate, 26, on a free next summer but may offer a low bid in this transfer window. (Football Insider), externalA nine-figure Saudi contract for Brazil and Real Madrid forward Vinicius Jr, 25, has been taken off the of the table for now but could be available again in 2026. (AS - in Spanish), externalReal Madrid are keeping an eye on Arsenal defender William Saliba, 24. (L'Equipe - in French), externalLeeds United want a bidding war to ensue for Spanish forward Mateo Joseph, 21, in the hope they can raise funds for a move to sign Brazil and Fulham forward Rodrigo Muniz, 24. (The Sun), externalManchester United boss Ruben Amorim wants to bring in two more signings this transfer window. (The Mirror), externalUnited have also put in a bid for Sporting striker Viktor Gyokeres, 27, and hope they can persuade him to join them rather than Arsenal. (A Bola - in Portuguese), externalAnd they have had their interest in Italian forward Francesco Pio Esposito turned down by Inter Milan back in January. (Football Italia - in Italian), externalCameroon forward Bryan Mbeumo has completed his medical for Manchester United, bringing his move from Brentford closer. (Fabrizio Romano), externalTottenham are willing to pay the asking price for Ukraine and Bournemouth defender Illia Zabarnyi, 22. (Caught Offside), externalNottingham Forest are the front runners to sign midfielder Jacob Ramsey, 24, from Aston Villa. (Football Insider), externalSunderland have pulled out of a £17.5m deal to bring in 26-year-old French forward Armand Lauriente from Italian club Sassuolo. (Northern Echo), external

Leeds are signing a team of giants. Can it work?
Leeds are signing a team of giants. Can it work?

New York Times

time13-07-2025

  • Sport
  • New York Times

Leeds are signing a team of giants. Can it work?

Six feet one inch. Six feet three inches. Six feet three again. Three of Leeds United's four summer signings so far are a statement of vertical intent. Anton Stach and Rodrigo Muniz, two other players being targeted by the promoted club, are 6ft 4in (193cm) and 6ft 1in (185cm) respectively. You get the picture. Advertisement Even Gabriel Gudmundsson, the fourth confirmed summer arrival after Lukas Nmecha, Jaka Bijol and Sebastiaan Bornauw, the trio referred to above, is 5ft 11in (180cm) — far from short for his position of left-back. Is this all a, wait for it, big coincidence or a premeditated transfer strategy ahead of Leeds' Premier League return from two years back in the Championship? Since it became clear last season they would be promoted, sources at the Elland Road club, speaking to The Athletic anonymously to protect relationships, have revealed aspects of the research that's been done concerning ways to avoid another relegation from the top flight. Based on the numbers the data department had crunched, taller and stronger players would give Leeds the best chance of staying up at the end of the coming campaign. The signings, and targets, who have since emerged would seem to underline that this is the approach Leeds are taking. Is it going to work, though? What is this West Yorkshire reboot of Land of the Giants going to deliver when the games begin again in just over a month? 'You have to cut your cloth accordingly,' Danny Higginbotham tells The Athletic. 'When you get promoted to the Premier League, you've got to find something that is, not necessarily unique, but something you know is going to give you an advantage against other teams.' Higginbotham made 210 Premier League appearances over 12 seasons between 1998 and 2011 for clubs including Derby County, Southampton, Sunderland and Stoke City, with those teams usually finishing in the bottom half of the table, and on two occasions, the relegation places. He is now a television pundit working in the United States across the English top flight and Major League Soccer. The retired defender is arguably best known for his 112 outings with Stoke under the management of Tony Pulis. Higginbotham (6ft 1in) was at the heart of a team built on physicality and a steely backbone. Peter Crouch (6ft 7in), Mamady Sidibe (6ft 4in), Ryan Shawcross, Robert Huth, Ricardo Fuller (all 6ft 3in), Marc Wilson, Abdoulaye Faye, Kenwyne Jones (all 6ft 2in) and Cameron Jerome (6ft 1in) were all staples of that Pulis era. Advertisement After guiding the Midlands club back to the top flight in 2008 after they had spent more than two decades in the second and third divisions, Pulis oversaw five Premier League campaigns, achieving 12th, 11th, 13th, 14th and 13th-placed finishes and getting to the FA Cup final in 2011. Higginbotham admits they were a team who knew their strengths and weaknesses and exploited the former to great effect. 'The simple way to look at it is if your defence is strong, it means you don't have to score three or four goals a game,' he says. 'If you can have a strong defence, but also be strong from set pieces, or whatever it may be, then you're going to give yourself an opportunity. 'It's very, very difficult in the Premier League, unless you're one of the elite teams, to score two, three, four goals in a game. Therefore, defensively, if you can have that structure which is strong, (and) you've got that backbone and you can defend, you know one or two goals will be enough to win a game.' Having tall players is no guarantee of efficient defending, of course, but if that is what Leeds are banking on to keep them up, Higginbotham sees value in it. If height, physicality and sticking a foot in is going to be their niche, it's something with a longer shelf life than promoted Southampton's doomed philosophy of playing out from the back was last season, he feels. 'You still get zero points whether you lose 4-0 or 1-0, but there's the manner in which you do it,' he says. 'If you can be defensively strong and give a good account of yourselves against some of these bigger teams, that gives you confidence.' The past six clubs to win promotion to the Premier League have all been relegated back to the Championship at the first time of asking. The gap the top flight's new sides are having to bridge each season is becoming a chasm. Advertisement The mounting pressure of satisfying profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) means promoted clubs can struggle to compete in the transfer market for the same technically-gifted players their more-established Premier League rivals are also chasing. Can Leeds, then, legitimately level the playing field a bit with additional physicality? Higginbotham reaches for an unlikely comparison among the teams he has watched at the Club World Cup in the U.S. recently. 'This is not a direct comparison, but one of the greatest teams in the world are Paris Saint-Germain,' he says. 'They are unbelievable. You just don't see weakness in that team. 'Bayern Munich have got some wonderful players, world-class players, but the reason they gave PSG a game (before losing 2-0 in the quarter-finals to two late goals) was because they were physical. And that's Bayern, one of the greatest teams in Europe. 'They understood that if they were going to go toe-to-toe with PSG and try to play the way PSG played, it wasn't going to work. You saw Real Madrid the other day. They got blown away in 20 minutes (PSG were three goals up after 24 minutes of their semi-final against the Spanish side and went on to win 4-0). 'If a team like Bayern can show they've got to be physical in this aspect to be successful, then that's what you have to do.' How Leeds choose to use their newly-acquired physical presence remains to be seen. Research from StatsBomb finds that buying big guys does not assure teams of success when the ball is in the air. The football data company created a 'HOPS' (header-oriented performance system) metric for quantifying aerial performance, relative to height. It found how tall a player is only accounted for 22 per cent of variation in 'HOPS' scores and each extra centimetre of height improved aerial ability by only 0.7 per cent. Advertisement Solidity in defence, keeping their heads above water when they are under the pump and then maximising that advantage in each box at their attacking set-pieces could be one avenue to points for Leeds next season. Pulis himself set out his own guidance for Daniel Farke and company when The Athletic spoke to him. 'I don't think you have to follow the guidelines of other teams, just be smart,' Pulis said. 'We (Stoke) were criticised for our set plays, yet now we have set-play experts (on clubs' coaching staffs). 'We were criticised for playing a back four with centre-backs as full-backs, yet now Arsenal have been lauded for doing it. 'My point is: be smart and don't follow the leaders, just find a way to win. Winning is everything for me. If you have the best players, you can do it with style. If you haven't, just be smart. Then, sometimes, the leaders actually follow you.' (Top photos of Bijol, left, and Bornauw: Getty Images)

Leeds confirm Gudmundsson deal
Leeds confirm Gudmundsson deal

BBC News

time08-07-2025

  • Sport
  • BBC News

Leeds confirm Gudmundsson deal

Leeds have announced the signing of Sweden international left-back Gabriel Gudmundsson from Lille for an undisclosed 26-year-old made 45 appearances in all competitions for Lille last season as the French side finished fifth in Ligue 1 and reached the last 16 of the Champions becomes Leeds' fourth permanent signing so far this summer after central defenders Jaka Bijol and Sebastiaan Bornauw and striker Lukas fans, what do you make of the signing? And what should the Whites do next in the transfer window amid links to Rodrigo Muniz, Sean Longstaff and Anton Stach among us know here

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