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He was undoubtedly one of the Premier League’s best players last campaign with Arsenal, but Samir Nasri is finding that with a big money move to Manchester City, has come big questions over just where he fits within Roberto Mancini’s short and long-term plans. Does he even fit at all?

Nasri has indeed managed 25 starts in all competitions for City this term but has had to be content with six appearances from the bench; a role he didn’t fulfil during his time in North London. Part of one of the Premier League’s largest squads, Nasri was always likely to be competing with fellow star-studded names for a starting berth; understandably so, following Sheikh Mansour’s investment in the club’s revolution.

But three-quarters of the way through his debut season at the Etihad, and arguably the summer signing with the least impact, Samir Nasri is still not at home in his new Manchester surroundings, questioning was it ever the right move?

Let us retrace our steps back to the summer whereby a clutch of clubs were purring at the thought of adding the Frenchman to their ranks following the best season of his career whereby he struck 15 goals in all competitions for the Gunners.

It is not disputable that any club back then would have been criticised in their attempts to land the unsettled Arsenal star, but by employing the wisdom of hindsight, it is clearly evident that Nasri’s talents are being wasted in Mancini’s side.

Nasri spoke this week aiming another shot at his former employers:

“Sometimes it’s good to win ugly. You don’t always have to play good football to win”.

But you gain the overriding notion that Nasri is talking about the team philosophy and not of his own individual preferences. After all, he has had to be content to play second fiddle to the hard working exploits of James Milner in the ‘big’ games this season.

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Nasri was the artistic and creative force in the Gunners ranks last term and someone who they have struggled to replace. Aside from his jibes, how Arsenal would love to employ his attributes alone back into their underachieving side.

The Frenchman often played in a more attacking role at Arsenal as a playmaker if you will. Here, Nasri’s aesthetic qualities were abundant for all to see, but at City, Mancini prides more of his game plan upon solid defensive work and lightning counter attacks. Nasri has never been much of a tracking back player and Mancini’s Italian mentality surrounding being hard to beat is in stark contrast to the attitude employed at the Gunners.

Perhaps, this explains James Milner’s preferred choice in the team given his grit and hard-working qualities up and down the flanks, as opposed to Nasri’s flair and sparkle, deemed much more appropriate from the bench.

Of course, one of Nasri’s reasons to leave North London was his desire to win trophies and the Frenchman may just do that at City this season, but it would all be achieved through a bit-part role, in contrast to the consistent roles Kompany, Yaya Toure and Aguero play at the Etihad.

At any big club, the mark of quality is the strength of the squad, but you learnt during his time at Arsenal that Nasri was on the way to becoming one of the world’s top talents. Playing consecutively and in Arsenal’s style, which was a match made in heaven, truly made the Frenchman stand out. Laurent Blanc was ready to build the France squad around his qualities but his moves to do this may prove a little premature.

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Nasri’s impressive season inevitably saw him headhunted by a new club this summer, but he is finding out quickly just like Torres and Carroll before him that the team philosophy just doesn’t seem to match up with that of his own.

It remains to be seen whether Nasri is to really grasp his chance at City and stamp his own mark on an efficient team this term. The gut feeling is that he was most definitely an ‘Arsenal’ type player. He is still not at home at City.

Is the best yet to come from Nasri or should he have stayed at Arsenal? Join the debate @ http://twitter.com/Taylor_Will1989

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England’s number two goalkeeper Ben Foster has announced he is taking an indefinite break from internationals to focus on his club career.The Birmingham City shot-stopper has represented his nation in goal on just five occasions – debuting in 2007 – and his most recent appearance was in England’s 2-1 friendly loss to France in November.

Foster has been injury-prone in recent times, and the 28-year-old said he will make himself unavailable for national selection to focus on maintaining his spot at Birmingham, who are beginning to prepare for a Europa League campaign next term after their League Cup triumph.

“Performing at the highest level game in, game out and particularly when there’s been as many matches as there have been this season really takes it out of your body,” Foster told Birmingham’s official website.

“It’s no secret that I’ve had a few niggling injuries and that I’ve had to pull out of the past few England squads because of that.”

“I’ve spoken to the management team and coaches here at Blues and told them what I want to do but it’s also very important that I say just how much I have loved playing for England and being part of the set-up.”

Foster did not rule out a return to the international scene, but said he was not leaving the proud football nation in the lurch, stating that Manchester City custodian Joe Hart was more than capable of holding the reins in goal for England.

“I’ve enjoyed my time with England and am certainly not closing a door on the international side of things forever but this is the right thing for me to do right now in terms of club football,” Foster said.

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“Inevitably every time I’ve had the opportunity to give my body a rest there has been an international fixture and the demands that come with that.”

“In Joe, England have a goalkeeper who is extremely talented and a top guy and he is an excellent custodian for the national side to have. I have no doubt he is going to go on to be one of the greatest.”

The captain of your team should be reserved for the most influential player in your side. He should be the one player who can rally the team in times of crisis and show great leadership on the pitch. Usually, these players would be one of the more senior members of the side who had greater experience than that of their peers. However, the recent spate of Premier League captains has put paid this traditionalist notion of what a captain should be and exposed the captain’s armband as little more than a title.

All of the other duties commonly associated with the captain’s role have been perpetuated by the iconic images of captains such as Bobby Moore and Roy Keane who have epitomised the leadership that we so readily associate with the captain position. But these days, the captain is used more as a political tool rather than a position of any real responsibility.

For example, Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini decided to strip Kolo Toure of the captain’s armband at the beginning of the season and hand it to Carlos Tevez. This is in spite of the fact that Tevez had previously been vocal in his criticism of Mancini in relation to his training methods. Mancini’s reasoning behind his decision was a desire to see Tevez interact more with the squad and the captain’s armband would help facilitate this. Mancini’s decision is indicative of a need to pander to and massage the egos of the “top” players to ensure that they perform to the best of their ability by giving them an illusion of responsibility that they haven’t earned.

Captaincy can be also used as a means to instil confidence in a player that has otherwise been lacking. Arsene Wenger did this with Manuel Almunia when he handed the error-prone goalkeeper the armband in Cesc Fabregas’ absence. On paper, Alumunia doesn’t instantly strike me as captain material. He isn’t renowned for his communication skills as evidenced by the amount of goals Arsenal concede through set-pieces and crosses into the box and he hasn’t proved to be an authoritative leader during his time at Arsenal. While he is one of the more senior members in the Arsenal squad, the cynic in me is saying that Wenger’s decision to select Almunia as captain despite his lack of credentials has everything to do with increasing his goalkeeper’s confidence in the light of widespread criticism of Almunia in his time at the Emirates.

Tottenham’s pre-game build up for Saturday’s 1-1 draw against West Brom was dominated by talk about who was going to captain the side in Michael Dawson’s absence. Harry Redknapp caused a bit of a commotion when he suggested that William Gallas was in the frame to claim the captain’s role at the Hawthorns. The possibility of giving William Gallas the captaincy after only a few weeks at the club is somewhat questionable. There has not been sufficient time for Gallas to establish a sufficient rapport and understanding with his new teammates for him to lead the side effectively. Add to that the fact that his last captain’s role ended with Gallas being stripped of the armband by Arsene Wenger due to his emotional, petulant behaviour and you can see why Gallas would not be an ideal choice.

The role of the captain has become somewhat emblematic in this country. However, the image of the captain as team leader has been diluted by the individuality that is becoming increasingly pervasive in the modern game as the captain’s role is becoming a hollow honour.

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It’s not a new debate nor is it one to do strictly with football, or money, but just why is it that English players, in large, refuse to travel abroad and make their home in other countries?

I thought about this whilst reading Ruud van Nistelrooy’s response to David Winner’s fascinating book about Dutch football, Brilliant Orange. Van Nistelrooy said:

“As a Dutchman reading it, it’s a kind of mirror. It shows you things about yourself you’ve never seen before.”

Although van Nistelrooy is one individual and not representative of the whole, the mere fact that a Dutch footballer has read a book outlining theories on why his nation may perform like they do on the pitch is a welcome break from the tabloid pages most invariably find themselves in.

Succumbing to a generalisation I think it is absolutely fair to say English players don’t exhibit the kind of cultural versatility that players from Europe certainly possess. Taking a loosely football related argument as an indicator of the chasm between the breadth of adaptability on show at this World Cup alone we can take Germany’s match against England. When the final whistle blew we can safely assume that it was the German players who approached the English, speaking English. I don’t see John Terry offering a conciliatory ‘guten tag’ to Bastian Schweinsteiger had the roles been reversed. And with some of the Dutch, Spanish, German and French players able to give press conferences in two, sometimes three, languages I’m left wondering why we can’t replicate a similar standard of diversity.

This isn’t to uniformly blame the current English players in our league; they are more products of a longstanding tradition that we don’t travel well. Why is this? The first reason is that English has been the desirable language of business for a long time (although that’s now being gradually challenged). Another reason is that in the past five or six years especially we’ve had a strong showing in Europe, which confirms to many (albeit in this country more than others) that the Premier League is the best league in Europe. These are strong reasons to remain in England but what about the years where English football was by far a distant second to Spain and Italy?

A persistent and undeniable inability to want a move onto new shores, elsewhere in Europe, is very much an English failing. Talented foreign players constantly flood into England and increase their chances of becoming better footballers, often ousting promising homegrown talent in the process, but this is hardly their fault. A distinct complacency (perhaps even a fundamental lack of curiosity or belief) certainly exists amongst our players, both established and promising. It’s always beneficial for a proportion of our players to attempt life outside the Premier League; it gives them a chance to hone their match intelligence and general adaptability (something evidently lacking at this World Cup), on the pitch, culturally and socially. We definitely understate just how difficult it is for young foreign players to make it in this country (there is a dangerous habit of viewing young players as adult footballers, which is completely unfair, in our media). If we take Alex Song’s experiences as an example; he was born in Cameroon, grew up in France and moved to Arsenal in his late teens:

“Coming to Arsenal at the age of 17 was more difficult than going to Corsica at 13. There, I had someone [François Ciccolini, a youth team coach from the Corsican club Bastia]; when I came here I didn’t have anybody, I didn’t understand the language, the food was very different and I had no confidence. I lived in a hotel and when training ended I would go to my room and spend all of my time on the phone. To leave everybody you know in France and come to a new country, that is not easy. But it got better because I realised I had the boss [Wenger]. He would speak to me all the time at training and that gave me motivation.”

Aside from the very personal and individual struggles that Song overcame to make a success of his talents his story is indicative of the kind of hardship foreign players can endure, though far from easy, for the sake of what they love doing; which is playing football. That Song has potentially taken the place of a less able, less willing, less determined homegrown player should not be an issue for us, which is why merely citing foreign influence as the major contributing factor of the English failing is a parochial stance – it does not paint the whole picture.

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I can’t explain what keeps our players caught in their home countries for all their playing careers, even to the detriment of their progression as professionals. Even the successes (Paul Lambert, Chris Waddle, David Beckham, Steve McManaman) are more exceptions that prove the rule. It’s a cultural and educational problem too, not simply footballing; sport merely reflects, not causes, the endemic issues within our culture.

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Relegation-threatened Borussia Moenchengladbach conceded a late goal in their 1-0 loss to Mainz in the Bundesliga on Friday.Lucien Favre’s men are two points from the relegation play-off spot, conceding an 87th minute goal at Mainz to deepen their troubles.

Andre Schuerrle struck from 25 yards past an outstretched Marc Andre ter Stegen to extend Mainz’s lead on fifth spot to five points.

It was the 20-year-old’s 13th goal of the season, equalling the best return for the club, which was set by Mohamed Zidan during the 2006/07 season.

The visitors’ task of getting anything out of the game was made difficult when striker Mike Hanke was sent off after picking up a second yellow card in the 53rd minute.

It was a disappointing result for Moenchengladbach after their 5-1 thrashing of Cologne last weekend.

The win ended a four-game winless run for Mainz and put them within five points of the Champions League qualification spot, although Hannover will have the chance to restore the buffer with a trip to Hamburg on Saturday.

The transfer window always reminds me of Christmas. Full of expectation, excitement and then suddenly it becomes something an anti-climax once it is over. Some are happy with their presents, while others are left seething at the lack of effort that was put in. City fans are undoubtedly happy with their lot this summer, although others are bound to be disappointed.

It has been a relatively quiet transfer window as clubs remain cautious with their transfer spending, given the current climate. Chairman may have had little option but to be prudent, but it doesn’t stop supporters feeling slightly disappointed that a few more gambles haven’t taken place. Surprisingly a lot of managers have actually been sympathetic towards the situation, highlighting the curse of high wages that has made transfer dealings all the more difficult, rather than bemoaning the lack of backing from their club chairman, while others have simply made the best out of the stagnant transfer market, negotiated well and brought in some real bargains.

So how has Everton’s transfer window been and have you been happy, or disappointed, by the progress that has been made? Has David Moyes done enough to ensure that the Toffees will be challenging the top four this season? Do you foresee any last minute deals in the last 24hrs of the transfer window?

Leroy Sane was one of Pep Guardiola’s star performers in the Manchester City team last season.

The attacker, who scored 14 goals and registered 17 assists in all competitions, was thought to be a shoe-in for the World Cup, but it was not meant to be.

Joachim Low opted against including Sane in the 23-man squad that will travel to Russia for the tournament, which gets underway on June 14.

At the age of just 22, the attacker has become regular feature in City’s team, but he is yet to earn the same status on the international stage.

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In fact, Sane, who joined the Cityzens from Schalke in 2016, has earned 11 senior caps for his country.

Given the talent that runs through the reigning world champions, it was always going to be a difficult job for Low to whittle down his squad.

Understandably, plenty of City fans have been left disappointed by the snub, while others are thankful that Sane will get a much-deserved rest to be fit and firing for the new season in August.

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Former England midfielder Jamie Redknapp has claimed that Marcus Rashford might be forced to leave Manchester United for the sake of his career.

Rashford, 20, has already made 36 appearances in all competitions for United this season – scoring an impressive 10 goals in the process.

The attacker is without a goal in his last eight Premier League matches, however, and has struggled to hold down a regular position in the team in recent weeks.

Alexis Sanchez’s arrival is also expected to harm Rashford’s chances of securing a position in Jose Mourinho’s starting team at Old Trafford.

Pundit Redknapp has said that Rashford ‘probably needs to go and play football somewhere’ following Sanchez’s switch from Arsenal.

Redknapp told Sky Sports:

“I just feel for people like Marcus Rashford. They go down the pecking order and he’s probably thinking where do I fit in now.

“He might have to go in the end. It doesn’t help your confidence. Every time you are training you think ‘I’m not going to play on Saturday’.

“He probably needs to go and play football somewhere. It is a shame but that’s modern day football and that’s why it’s so hard for young British players to get opportunities.”

United will look to continue their impressive run of form when they travel to Tottenham Hotspur in the Premier League on Wednesday night.

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Rashford was on the scoresheet in United’s 4-0 win over Yeovil Town in the fourth round of the FA Cup last week.

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It  amazes me just how often Premier League chairmen opt for hiring a manager that directly contrasts in every manner to the one they’ve just swiftly relinquished from their respective dugouts.

Back in 2007, Roman Abramovich replaced anti-football extraordinare Jose Mourinho with Brazil boss Philippe Scolari. Just this summer, Roberto Mancini’s mafioso style and Italian tactics were swapped for La Liga’s coy in public yet adventurous in philosophy Manuel Pellegrini at Manchester City, and Everton chose free-footballing Roberto Martinez to carry the Goodison mantle from the Manchester United-bound David Moyes, a manager who has always favoured winning the ball high up the pitch rather than messing around with it in your own six yard box.

Some transitions are successful, others not, and now it’s time to examine Tottenham’s sudden overhaul, and whether new boss Tim Sherwood is taking the club in the right direction or pushing them towards tactical naivety.

The former Spurs midfielder, now in the dugout, a member of the old Villas-Boas regime but clearly one with some different ideas. A man who, unlike his predecessor, appears to actually enjoy communication and interaction with other human beings.

More than anything else, regardless of drubbings to Manchester City away and Liverpool at home, it was the Lilywhites’ inability to score goals under the Portuguese that proved to be his undoing.

Enter Sherwood’s philosophical backlash; since the ex-England man took  the managerial helm, mercurial striker Emmanuel Adebayor has been reinstated for first team duties after his half-season in the development squad, 4-4-2 has been decisively favoured over a five-man midfield, and the North Londoners have netted nine times in four Premier League outings – that’s only six less than AVB managed in 16 games before being given the boot by Daniel Levy.

It’s traditional, it’s simple, it’s English, it’s direct, it’s ambitious, it’s attacking, it’s 4-4-2. It’s everything Sherwood’s predecessor would quietly shudder at whilst moving magnets around his vertical tactics board and trying to explain the importance of a double-pivot in deep midfield during a half-time team talk.

But it didn’t take long for Sherwood’s new bold and basic 4-4-2 philosophy to reveal its flaws.

Taking on a Manchester United side with one of the weakest midfields in the Premier League’s top half, and the Lilywhites ran riot on the break, able to bypass the middle of the park all together and make progress down the flanks.

Against Arsenal in the FA Cup however, a match which was never in Tottenham’s favour, and it took less than half hour for Spurs’ two flat banks of four to be decisively undone, leaving striking duo Emmanuel Adebayor and Roberto Soldado to stroll around aimlessly on the half-way line waiting for nothing to happen.

What was the issue? Not only are the Gunners the most in-form team in the country right now, topping the Premier League table and playing some very snazzy football to boot, but they’re also incredibly midfield-centric.

So much so that striker Olivier Giroud has almost as many assists as goals this season, with his job of laying off the ball to one of Arsenal’s venturing midfielders made incredibly easy by the lethality of Aaron Ramsey, Mesut Ozil, Santi Cazola and Theo Walcott.

And during Sunday’s ad hoc North London derby, it was even more imperative that Tottenham flooded the middle of the park rather than concern themselves with fluency and link-up play in the final third. With Giroud hit by the winter flu, Nicklas Bendtner out with an ankle knock and Lucas Podolski fit enough for the bench but not to start, the Gunners essentially opted for a false nine formation, with Theo Walcott heading the attack but by no means shackled to his front-man role.

Rather, transition was the name of the game. Gnarby popping up here, Rosicky breaking through there, and Santi Cazorla netting a sensational strike from a difficult angle after half an hour, with the full-backs doing all the work down the flanks.

If there’s ever an occasion to bore your opponents to death and utilise two holding midfielders, two of AVB’s many crimes as Spurs boss, it’s an FA Cup visit to the Emirates.

Sherwood has denied claims that it was his utilisation of 4-4-2 that eventually cost his side a place in the fourth round, responding to journalists after being quizzed on the issue post-match; “No. They outnumbered us in the middle of the park but we outnumbered them out wide. They can’t have it all ways. I think we were fine. We didn’t lose the game because we were outnumbered in the middle of the pitch.

“A lot is made of systems – 4-4-2, 4-3-3 or whatever you want to call it… It’s about passing the ball to your own team and keeping hold of it because when you lose the ball you are always going to be out of shape – otherwise you are going to be a rigid, boring team.”

You can certainly see his point – failing to take attacking risks was Tottenham’s biggest flaw under AVB – and there were lots of other elements at work on Sunday evening. Namely a string of injuries leading to a debut for the unblooded Nabil Bentaleb, caused by a hectic schedule of six games in 17 days, the fact Arsenal are at the top of the Premier League table for legitimate footballing reasons, and defensive muck-ups from the nowhere-to-be-found Kyle Walker and the caught-in-possession Danny Rose.

But amid all the recent praise of how Sherwood has spawned a goal frenzy at a club that had averaged less than one per game prior to him taking the Spurs hotseat, you have to wonder whether his tactical naivety will cost Tottenham on more occasions this season than a solitary FA Cup master-class from their local rivals.

Some would label it brave to field a 4-4-2 against a club of Arsenal’s technical prowess and midfield dominance. Others would call it stupid.

So the question remains whether Sherwood’s feel-good 4-4-2 is here for the long-haul or simply a flash in the pan; a shock doctrine that prevails in the short-term but leaves intrinsic flaws  and poor results as its legacy – especially if the Spurs boss is allowed to bring in a new choice of striker in January, who will quickly become redundant if the Lilywhites revert back to a one-up-front policy.

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The Arsenal performance certainly counts as a forebearer but it’s by no means the ultimate test. That will come against the likes of Everton, Swansea, Manchester City and Liverpool; teams designed to hold onto the ball and pull apart flat midfields. They’re also the calibre of opposition Spurs were expected to be effectively competing with at the start of the season.

With a few more games under his belt and a better understanding of the role at hand, Sherwood needs to demonstrate that the tactical vulnerability he showed against Arsenal won’t become a repeat occurrence, even if it does mean reverting back to the pragmatic, boring football of the old regime. Otherwise, his bold 4-4-2 will quickly be judged as decisively daft.

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Gareth Bale has rejected claims that he dived to win a penalty for Wales against Scotland on Friday night.

The Tottenham winger scored two late goals to earn the hosts a 2-1 victory over Craig Levein’s men at the Liberty Stadium, with Shaun Maloney adjudged to have tripped Bale for a penalty in the deciding goal.

Despite the anger of the Tartan Army and criticism in the media, Bale has insisted that the award of a spot-kick was just.

“Somebody clipped me and I went over. He (Maloney) clipped my leg and I couldn’t stay on my feet,” Bale told Sky Sports.

“It was a simple penalty and it was nice to get up and slot it away.

“I’ve missed a few when I’ve taken them in the past, but I fancied it. I was confident and thankfully I did step up,” he commented.

Meanwhile, national boss Chris Coleman has praised Bale, and stated that the attacker will go down as one of the nation’s best-ever players if he continues on his current path.

“Gareth wouldn’t be fazed by moving to Real Madrid, Barcelona or any other top club in the world.

“It’s not easy moving to another country and culture, but he has the character to handle that. He’s young and has it all in front of him.

“In this country we talk about the great John Charles, Ryan Giggs, Ian Rush. Southall was the best goalkeeper in the world,” added Coleman.

“There’s no doubt in my mind Gareth will be up there with those guys.

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“He’s only 23. It’s not a case of ‘can he up there with those guys?’ He will be,” Coleman testified.