Birmingham City striker Nikola Zigic has laughed off speculation linking him with a January exit.
The giant Serbia striker joined the Blues from Valencia in a £6million deal two months ago.
Zigic has started just two Premier League games after been used mainly off the bench by manager Alex McLeish.
However, he has dismissed reports claiming he could be on his way to Sporting Lisbon when the transfer window reopens in January.
"I was aware of the speculation about Sporting Lisbon and I found it quite amusing," said Zigic.
"But really I am a Birmingham player. I enjoy being here. I am certainly going to try my best for the club and something I want to do is progress my career here.
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"You always get some speculation from other clubs and what have you.
"But I am a Birmingham player, I signed a contract in the summer, I enjoy playing with the boys, we are a good squad and I'm more than happy being here."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
QPR owner Tony Fernandes has admitted that he is loving his role at the London club, but is not enjoying the pressure of a relegation battle.
The Loftus Road club lost 3-2 to fellow strugglers Blackburn at the weekend and now find themselves in 16th place in the Premier League standings.
QPR have invested heavily to bring new players to the club, and Fernandes wants them to show their ability on the pitch.
“I always said from day one we would be in a relegation battle and our aim was to avoid relegation,” the entrepreneur told Mirror Football.
“Am I coping with the pressure? I’m not loving the pressure, but I’m loving the whole experience.
“I’m doing the best I can, and it’s now up to the boys on the pitch and the manager to do what they can.
“We certainly have the players and ability to avoid relegation, but the Premier League is very tough, and only time will tell,” he reflected.
Fernandes recently replaced Neil Warnock with Mark Hughes as manager, and the owner admitted that it was difficult to sack the man that earned them promotion to the top flight.
“That was the most difficult time I’ve encountered as a boss of any of my businesses.
“I liked Neil, and I thought like with any of my employees it would be a long, long, long relationship. Sadly I ended up doing the one thing I said I wouldn’t do, which is why it was tough.
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“I’d rather not go into the reasons why I got rid of him. It was a decision that was made, and we’ve moved on from it,” he concluded.
Alan Pardew admits he is targeting a top 10 finish after Newcastle’s 2-1 win over Birmingham lifted them into the top half of the table.Newcastle have two matches in which to stay there this season following a victory over a lacklustre Birmingham side.
Shola Ameobi’s penalty after Liam Ridgewell was sent off for handling on the line and Steven Taylor’s goals were enough to win it for Newcastle, although Birmingham did pull one back through Lee Bowyer.
And Pardew said: “I am very pleased because it has been a very difficult week at the training ground, especially after Liverpool beat us last week.”
“We lost our focus. We had our own little rally and we focused for this game. Losing would have made things a bit jittery and spoilt our good work.”
“But we were focused today and although Birmingham tried to nullify us, we were patient and I knew our time would come. It came with a flurry too – it was a definite penalty but maybe the red was debatable.”
“We could have had four goals. One little lapse from one of our players of the season in Fabricio Coloccini gave them a lift, but we were professional in the second half. We created enough chances for the next goal but it is not too disappointing.”
And Pardew now wants to end the season on a high by remaining in the top half.
“I am delighted with 44 points and we can dream for a top 10 finish now. We have worked really hard,” Pardew said.
Alec McLeish admitted he had no complaints with Newcastle’s penalty but thought Taylor was lucky not to get a red card of his own.
“It hit (Ridgewell’s) arm and he was on the line. The referee has seen the arm go towards the ball and that is a penalty, as that’s the rule,” he said.
“I am disappointed but we were soft at corners. They had too many free headers. Ben Foster worked wonders to keep the header out for the first goal but then we conceded a penalty from it.”
“It was a penalty and that’s the rules. It was going across the face of goal and he handled it.”
But Birmingham manager McLeish was disappointed not to see Taylor sent off for an alleged elbow on Cameron Jerome.
He added: “Steven Taylor should have been sent off for an elbow but the ref didn’t see it, unfortunately. That type of challenge is outlawed.”
Roberto Di Matteo hailed the progress West Bromwich Albion have made in a short space of time following Saturday's 3-2 victory over Arsenal.
The Baggies were given a footballing lesson in a 6-0 mailing by Chelsea on their return to the Premier League last month.
However, they have improved since their opening day horror show and Di Matteo claimed they fully deserved their surprise victory at the Emirates Stadium.
Peter Odemwingie, Gonzalo Jara and Jerome Thomas fired the visitors into a three-goal lead before the Gunners reduced the deficit in stoppage time.
"We got a hammering at Chelsea and it wasn't a pretty week after that, but we've learned," said Di Matteo.
"We've cut out those mistakes and that gives us a chance to stay in a game and win things.
"We go into games believing we can win. It was the way we won, we were not lucky. We played some tremendous football and defended well too.
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"I would say we deserved it, the way we played, the way we created chances, scored goals and played very well.
"We pressed them very high, we pressed them all over the pitch. We managed not to let them play their usual way and, when we had the ball, we passed it very well and created chances ourselves."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
According to the Sun, Harry Redknapp flew to France yesterday to watch Marseille forward Loic Remy with a view to bringing the Frenchman to White Hart Lane.
Redknapp is reported to be an admirer of Remy and has been keeping tabs on the striker for a number of months.
The Tottenham boss will be keen to add to his striking options with uncertainty over Emmanuel Adebayor’s future beyond this season, and will have been impressed with what he saw yesterday as Remy netted two goals in Marseille’s 2-0 win over Lille.
The French international has been described by Arsene Wenger as very similar to a young Thierry Henry. With pace, strength and an eye for goal, Remy has the attributes to be a success in the Premier League.
The Marseille forward has stated that an exit from Marseille this January would be “out of the question” and “disrespectful to the fans.”
However, conflicting reports say the French club will be willing to sell, with Redknapp adding: “I don’t know whether we can sign him but we need to keep trying.”
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Remy has scored 12 goals in all competitions this season and will be a keen to add to his reputation during the knock-out phase of the Champions League.
Manchester City got one over their neighbours last weekend as they beat United 1-0 at Wembley to set up an FA Cup final with Stoke next month. A Yaya Toure winner was enough for Roberto Mancini’s men to prevail, as they weathered early Manchester United pressure to dominate for large periods. As you would expect there was plenty of needle between the teams, with Paul Scholes getting sent off for sinking his studs into Pablo Zabaleta. The biggest moment of controversy came after the final whistle, though, as City striker Mario Balotelli angered Rio Ferdinand and the Man United fans with his celebrations. Here’s Mario winking at Ferdinand, but what’s Rio saying in response?
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Theo Walcott insists Arsenal are remaining grounded despite hitting Blackpool for six at the weekend.
Walcott helped himself to a hat-trick in Saturday's 6-0 rout of the newly-promoted side at Emirates Stadium.
But despite an unbeaten start to the new Premier League season, the England winger claims nobody at the north London club is getting ahead of themselves.
The third-placed Gunners finished 11 points adrift of champions Chelsea in last season's final Premier League table.
"We won't get ahead of ourselves with this result," explained Walcott.
"Everyone expected us to beat Blackpool, and fair play to them they came and played a bit of football at times and their fans were loud throughout the whole game, just like ours, so I think they'll do okay this season.
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"We want to be winning these games and the most important thing is how we react to Blackburn next week in an early kick-off.
"They are the games we need to be winning, the games that might have let us down last season so that's where we will show our character."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email
Harry Redknapp is a manager often accused of not doing very much, of leaving the coaching to the coaches, the running of the club to the chairman and of leaving his tactics to chance. All a little unfair perhaps but criticisms he faces nonetheless. However his arguably minimalist approach to management highlights an issue in modern management that, although not a fact across all clubs, is widespread in most leagues. When Harry first started management, he told BBC News, the managers would:
“Do the transfers, you would do the contracts with the players, you would negotiate the contracts with the players, you would negotiate the transfer fees with the different managers at the different clubs…nowadays we’ve all got chief executives, you’ve got chairmen who are all hands on and really the business side of the club is completely run by them.”
Now you might think that this can only be beneficial to managers who, after all, have enough to deal with as it is. This would be true if the managers still had a say in the financial aspects of the club, to take away their involvement in that however would be to decrease the power of their position as a whole.
Wages
In his interview with Robert Peston Redknapp yearns for a time when wages were not only reasonable (he quotes £10 per week) but when the wages were decided by the manager and were dependent on a player’s form and loyalty. Basically he covets a time when the manager had complete control over his players and the club. He cites the reasoning for this being a necessity not only because it made the manager’s job easier in terms of controlling his players but there was also a clear system of motivation for the players. If they impressed the manager they would be paid more. Unfortunately the system is not as sustainable as it once was. Where players used to be given £10 per week increases now they want an extra £10,000 per week.
Clearly with the Bosman ruling in today’s game the control could never be the same as it was, the players could still demand more than they used to be able to because of the threat of leaving the clubs for free at the end of their contract. However Redknapp highlights the problems faced in today’s clubs of players’ agents going above the managers and straight to the chief executives. Now this isn’t necessarily a problem in clubs where there are long standing managers such as Arsene Wenger or Alex Ferguson. At those clubs there would be no point in going above the manager when the managers have established situations whereby they are effectively in control due to the length of their tenure. However this is not the case at most clubs and whilst the role of the chief executives might be important for the commercial running of the club, when it comes to contract negotiations it tends to undermine the authority of the manager with the players.
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Player control
This is the case because with the exception of a minority of players the only control managers ever really had was the money the players received. Yes there are other factors, such as a manager refusing to pick a player. Yet players such as Wayne Bridge or Carlos Tevez or Paulo Ferreira have shown that there are footballers out there that care little about being played as long as they collect their pay cheques. Without the ability to influence the money that these players receive the position of the manager is weakened. This might seem unimportant but in a season when we have already seen players such as Suarez, Rooney, Terry and others in the media spotlight for the wrong reasons it is clear a manager can never have too much control. We only need to look at the last week to see an example of this with Wayne Rooney, Jonny Evans and Darren Gibson all breaking curfew to go out for dinner, and that was under the management of the infamously discipline inclined Alex Ferguson. Yes he exercised his power by dropping them for the next game yet he was the one who suffered as they lost 2-3 to relegation threatened Blackburn. If even he doesn’t have the ability to totally control his players then who does? Yes, he can fine them, but the damage is already done by their excessive contracts that you can be sure he did not negotiate. As Redknapp said in his interview:
“(The chairman) would discuss the terms with the selling club or whatever…and he would do all the deals with them. I wouldn’t be involved in it. I couldn’t even tell you the wages of a player at this club. You now the wages are something that he negotiates.”
Redknapp argues that the control is totally undermined by level of wages these days but admits that his inability to renegotiate the players’ contracts at the end of the year makes his job even more difficult:
“You don’t have that control that my manager would’ve had when I was a young player, when at the end of the year, you’d sign a new one year contract. Whether it was Bobby Moore, whether it was Geoff Hurst, Martin Peters –who played in the World Cup final – they’d go see the manager. You didn’t have an agent. You’d sit in the manager’s office and he’d give you maybe a five or ten pound a week rise.”
When you look at all of these factors together: the role of agents, the hands on approach of chairman, chief executives and directors of football, the increase in wages and the Bosman ruling you are left wondering whether managers really have enough control of their clubs or players. Whilst essentially their role is that of a head coach is that role not inextricably linked to the financial management of the players? Players, who, Redknapp says, are now “fragile characters” due to the amount of money they earn and agents who pander to their every demand. Clearly at some clubs the situation is worse than others, at Chelsea for example it is obvious who is in control, and also clearly some managers are not up to the task of negotiating yet how can we truly judge the performances of those in charge of our clubs if they are not fully in control?
For more news and views follow me on Twitter @H_Mackay
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Stoke City boss Tony Pulis believes the Football Association needs to crack down on players trying to get their opponents sent off.After a difficult week for the image of discipline in the English game, it was a less-publicised incident during Tottenham’s thrashing at the hands of Real Madrid which caused Pulis to grimace.
It was the sight of the Madrid players surrounding the referee in a bid to get Peter Crouch sent off following the reckless lunge on Marcelo which earned him a second yellow card and an early shower.
“I’ve watched the game and I have to say that they were two silly lunges from an experienced player, but I always get desperately disappointed today when players roll around,” Pulis said ahead of Saturday’s away clash with Spurs.
“They’ve done their best to make sure the referee is under enough pressure. I’m not condoning what Crouch did but players can help (other) players today.”
The FA have been keen to enforce their Respect campaign this season, culminating in a two-match ban for Wayne Rooney for cursing at a TV camera, but Pulis believes the powers that be have lost grip of the real problems in football.
“We talk about respect for referees, players should respect players as well and it’s something that’s crept into our game and something that’s been accepted because certain people at the top of the game almost cover themselves from incidents that occur when challenges take place,” Pulis said.
“I do think it’s almost a disease that’s gripped English football. I think Gordon Taylor has a responsibility to talk about it and I think the FA and the referees’ association have a responsibility to look at it.”
“You see people feigning injury and you see people diving and I think those players should be reprimanded.”
“We talk about bad challenges and we talk about certain incidents in the game and we got to the top with them, well that’s the worst type for me because it’s cheating.”
Stoke could climb into the top half of the Premier League and put a huge dent in Spurs’ Champions League qualification ambitions with a win at White Hart Lane, but will have to do so without Danny Higginbotham, who has been ruled out of action for up to six months due to a cruciate knee ligament injury.
‘New season. Same Goal.’ That’s the slogan of the Independent Manchester United Supporters Trust (MUST) who have been actively campaigning against the Glazer family regime and their running of the club since 2005. The group set up the popular ‘Green & Gold Campaign’ in February in a bid to unite supporters against the Glazers through mass demonstrations and protests, boycotting season ticket sales and backing the Red Knights takeover bid. The overall goal is to remove the Glazers from power and replace them with owners who have the same vision for the club as the fans. While that goal may be achieved one day, the protest could cause more damage than good if the club’s performances on the pitch start to suffer.
Revolutions are very rarely quiet, peaceful affairs and MUST continued to voice their concerns over the club’s current owners throughout last season’s campaign. However the discontent remains a dark cloud hanging over Old Trafford as United attempt to win back the Premier League trophy from Chelsea. It is certainly not the intention of fans that support the Green & Gold campaign to cause unrest at the club. United supporters simply want to voice their disapproval of how the club is being run under the Americans. Yet when MUST decided on a prolonged, organised and structured campaign against the Glazers they would have been aware of the negative publicity it would create for the club. MUST however believe the end justifies the means and are prepared to publicly boycott the club until the Glazers relinquish their power. Many supporters have swapped their season tickets for semi-professional club FC United and the protest shows no sign of slowing down just yet.
Fans didn’t want the Glazers at the club from the start. The Americans angered fans after they bought the club using high-interest loans secured against the club’s assets. Since the 2005 takeover the club’s debt has increased to over £700m while ticket prices have soared from £487 to £722. United’s fans have every right to be angry and to take a stand against the club’s owners. The green and white scarves and banners, representing the club’s Newton Heath origins, were a visible presence at Old Trafford last season and will again be an embarrassing reminder for the club’s owners of their deep unpopularity amongst United fans this season. Sir Alex Ferguson has publicly backed the Glazers claiming they are doing a brilliant job running the club and have backed him unconditionally in the transfer market.
Manchester United boss Ferguson remains stuck in the middle of the two warring parties and has attempted to act as the peacemaker between the fans and owners. Ferguson understands United supporters’ concerns about the level of debt piled onto the club and a part of him deep down probably agrees with their rebellion against the Glazers. Yet Ferguson has to remain diplomatic when dealing with the issues surrounding the club’s ownership and cannot appear to be backing the fans’ anti-Glazer stance. They do employ him after all. The Scotsman is however worried about the ongoing dispute and has called for fans, players and owners to unite ahead of the new season and back his side.
Ferguson wrote in his programme notes ahead of Newcastle’s Monday night visit to Old Trafford:
“There is one situation that clouds the new season and that is the continued opposition to the Glazer family, our owners.
“I have no problem with the green and gold campaign. Fans are entitled to protest but not, I suggest, to the detriment of the team.
“The fact is that the Glazer family own the club and until such time as they decide they want to sell they will stay regardless of the protest.
“I don’t want United mired in so much controversy that it deflects from winning matches.”
The Scotsman knows the problems off field troubles can bring and has moved to unify supporters ahead of the new campaign. They only have to look at old enemies Liverpool’s dire campaign last season, mired by fall-outs between supporters and the club’s owners. Ferguson remains a step ahead however and his voice of reason will help ease the increasingly tense stand-off at the club. Ferguson is genuinely concerned about the protest and with the owners refusing to enter into discussions over the sale of the club, the saga looks set to roll on for a while yet.
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Ferguson knows his squad must be focused on their goal this season however and that is to win titles.