The word turncoat is described as ‘a person who shifts allegiance from one loyalty or ideal to another’ and in football, there’s plenty of them. They say there’s no such thing as loyalty in the game these days and certainly there’s some players or in fact managers out there who you couldn’t trust as far as you could throw them.
Some switch clubs as if they’re going out of fashion, or some jump ship at the first sign of trouble. There are also the wage mercenaries who would move to any club for the sake of an extra bob or two, and also those who play devil’s advocate with football’s fiercest rivalries. Crossing the divide between local enemies can often single you out as the target for vicious abuse from the opposition supporters, while your new home supporters may not take to you immediately either.
Considering the chaos that some of these moves can cause, there’s a surprisingly large number of footballing turncoats to choose from, highlighting just how money driven the modern game has become. Here’s 15 names who wouldn’t know recognise class or loyalty if it slapped them across the face.
Click on Nick Barmby to unveil the 15 biggest turncoats
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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.
Sunderland defender John O’ Shea believes that a consistent run of games will revitalise the club’s flair players.
The Black Cats rescued a draw in Sunday’s game with Newcastle thanks to Demba Ba’s late own goal, but the centre back is aware that this spells just one win in 15 games for his side.
The Republic of Ireland star feels that with the lengthy international breaks for this calendar year, the club’s attacking personnel will have time to gel, and find their form in front of goal.
O’Shea mentioned that it was important to get the likes of Stephane Sessegnon, James McLean and Adam Johnson to work on supplying quality service to their £14 million summer acquisition Steven Fletcher.
The versatile defender went on to tell Sky Sports “Now over the next few weeks, fingers crossed, with a few bodies coming back as well, we will be able to go on a stronger run than we have been doing.
We have not been losing games. Obviously, we lost against (Manchester) City, but we should have more wins on the board than what we have.”
A worry for Sunderland and Martin O’Neill is that opposing sides have managed to ensure that the club’s danger men are kept quiet in games.
However, the former Manchester United ace, O’Shea was quick to point out that all the players have confidence in the team’s ability.
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Next up is a tricky trip to the Britannia stadium for the Black Cats where they will be trying to secure a 3 points that could provide a real impetus to their campaign.
With the season about to enter its tenth round of fixtures, we are a quarter of the way through the league campaign, which while it may not be enough to judge either fully or accurately how the season will eventually turn out, is enough time to make an opinion on which players have done well since signing for their new clubs.
While Manchester City and Newcastle have predominantly relied on those players who helped them so much last season, most clubs have sought to bring in fresh first-team bodies. They don’t always have to be the most expensive acquisitions, but the way you can tell whether they’ve been a success or not at this stage is if their presence is already missed from the starting eleven.
Click on Arouna Kone to unveil the top 10
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Liverpool have agreed a deal in principle with Anzhi Makhachkala striker Lacina Traore, according to reports from Izvestia.
Scouts from the Premier League club are believed to have been watching the 6ft. 8” forward for some time and were impressed with his match winning display during clubs’ Europa League clash last week.
The Ivorian has been in good form for the Dagestan-based outfit this term and is reportedly open to a move despite only signing for them during the summer from domestic rivals FC Kuban.
His agent Dmitry Selyuk hinted to the the Russian newspaper that his client could be on his way to England with a deal close to being agreed:
“Aside from Liverpool, Udinese are another on the list of clubs to have made contact about the purchase of Traore,
“I’m afraid the Italian side won’t be able to meet the player’s valuation.”
He also stated that his client will not be rushed into a decision:
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“At the moment Lacina is happy with his situation at Anzhi. Not long ago he signed a contract until June 2016. There’s no reason for Traore to rush.”
With his current employers having shelled out just under £15m for his services not long ago it’s likely that they would be looking to make a profit, which would go against Liverpool’s current transfer ethos.
Andre Villas-Boas is ready to bring summer target Joao Moutinho to Tottenham from Porto with a new £24million bid while Zenit tell Hulk he can leave, reports the Mirror.
Portugese international Moutinho has been on Tottenham’s radar since the last transfer window but they failed to complete a club record deal before the deadline.
AVB, formally the Porto boss went to watch his old club and Moutinho in action in their 2-1 Champions League defeat at PSG, and is said to be ready to finally land the player who could be seen as a replacement for the departed Luka Modric, now at Real Madrid.
The Spurs chief also expressed how he still follows Porto’s progress whenever he can saying, “Whenever Porto are close to the place where I am, I go see them.”
Meanwhile, former Spurs and Chelsea target Hulk has been told he can leave Zenit St Petersburg after an incredible fallout on Tuesday.
The £39.5million striker was furious when coach Luciano Spalletti took him off 10 minutes before the end of Zenits Champions League win over AC Milan and refused to shake his hand.
“If the situation with the coach does not resolve itself I may leave the club in the January transfer window.” He said.
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Fifa regulations however prevent a player representing three clubs in one season, meaning Hulk, 26, would have to wait till the summer if he was to move.
If he does become available it will be interesting to see if the likes of Tottenham and Chelsea would still be interested in signing him following his disruptive behaviour.
The pantomime season may have only recently just kicked into gear, but at the BBC’s Match of the Day headquarters, it seems to have been in full swing for what feels like, well, an eternity.
Indeed, while the shirt offerings on MOTD might have always had a touch of the Widow Twankey about them, for many supporters indulging in English football’s flagship highlights show, that mock panto feeling is beginning to apply to the punditry on offer, too.
While no medium of broadcasting is safe from critique – none more so than within the cutthroat opinions cultivated in the beautiful game – the grievances that supporters air in regards to Match of the Day feel a lot more toxic and a lot more frequent than simply a moody old groan.
Archaic, uninformative and out of touch are just three of the politer terms that are regularly wheeled out on Twitter and the like to depict the now 48-year-old highlights show. It’s the BBC’s finest sporting relic – yet it’s the other three relics sitting in the pundit’s chair every Saturday, which appear to be jeopardizing its place in supporters’ affections.
The Premier League has of course changed immeasurably since its formation in 1992 and perhaps none more so than within the last couple of years. The rise of social media has seen the likes of Michael Cox’s superb Zonal Marking site rise in prominence and supporters have access to a whole raft of analysis, dissection and opinion like never before.
Furthermore, Gary Neville’s meteoric ascent from recent retirement to the king of Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football format, has seen the ex-Manchester Untied defender become something of a media darling in punditry terms.
Richard Keys and Andy Gray often resembled a couple of Dads trying to put up flat packed furniture with a claw hammer when it came to using Sky’s cutting edge technology. Neville has utilized it to educate the viewer and the plaudits he’s currently receiving is testament to the respect that supporters place upon that.
So in light of the wealth of articulate opinion that’s currently out there for football supporters to soak up, it’s perhaps no surprise that Match of the Day currently finds itself in the firing line.
After the best part of two decades uttering the word diabolical, it seems that Alan Hansen’s black book of defensive adjectives is running low. Alan Shearer’s credibility as a pundit all but went out the window after claiming that Hatem Ben Arfa, who’d long been regarded as one of European football’s brightest prodigies, was something of an unknown quantity before his move to Newcastle United.
If Mark Lawrenson could stop the perpetual moaning and actually explain what was going on, then maybe he’d be considered the best of a perceived bad bunch. As of yet, that’s not happened for several years now.
Yet while there will be many who have always held a lingering disdain for the aforementioned trio (as presenter, Gary Lineker is being left somewhat exempt from critique, for now) there certainly feels like there’s something of a bandwagon developing in terms of the anti-MOTD sentiment. The show’s never been critique-free, although it’s difficult to remember a time in its history it’s faced such a massive backlash from the general public.
The License Fee-shaped elephant in the room here, is of course the fact that Match of the Day is publicly funded and given the extortionate salaries that messrs Hansen et al are currently receiving, viewers undoubtedly entitled to demand the very pinnacle of punditry. Even after a pay cut this year, Alan Hansen still rakes in an estimated £1million per annum.
And on the balance of opinion we’re currently being offered, especially given the wealth of informative analysis available both online and with rival broadcasters, it’s hard to see how the public are really getting their money’s worth with the current set-up. But where as many are calling for a drastic overhaul, a new lick of paint could be a more fitting solution.
Even if Hansen and Lawrenson were continuing to churn out world class punditry, nothing lasts forever and after being in the job since 1992 and 1997 respectively, the BBC simply need a change of face as much as anything else. Everyone has a shelf life and even though Gary Neville may well be a superior pundit, if he’s still on our screens in 15 years time, it’s a safe bet he might not be quite as popular as he is today.
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The show needs some fresh perspective and something resembling a new outlook, but there has to be more thought put into it than simply cherry picking an ex-player in the assumption he’ll make a good pundit. The programme’s flirtations with Michael Owen in recent weeks would have given the neutrals some real cause for concern.
Ex-Milan coach Arrigo Sacchi famously once said, “I never realized that in order to become a jockey, you have to be a horse first,” and it couldn’t be truer in terms of punditry. The likes of Michael Cox and Guardian contributor Jonathan Wilson have proven you don’t have to have played the game to be able to understand it and explain it with both thought and clarity.
And that’s what the audience are crying out for – they want a pundit to dissect the events and tell them something they didn’t already know. Because more than anything, Match of the Day seems to offer little more to us at the moment than passing observations and tired clichés.
The glitzy iPad chic of Monday Night Football or the tactical theses of Zonal Marking won’t work for Match of the Day. It’s a publicly funded programme that will always have to cater to a far larger spectrum of tastes and overloading it with a 10 minute package on the false nine simply isn’t going to be viable. But all fans are asking for is a little more considered punditry and a bit of knowledgeable information. The current chummy old boys club falls some way short of that.
Manchester United are set rival Arsenal in a move for Raheem Sterling, according to the Daily Mail.
Sterling has been offered a new contract at Anfield but is yet to put pen to paper and with just 18 months left on his youth deal a move may be on the cards.
Sir Alex Ferguson is an admirer of the 18-year-old but it would certainly be a shock if any player moved between the fierce rivals.
Sterling gained his first England cap against Sweden last month in a 4-2 defeat and has become a regular in the Liverpool first team under Brendan Rodgers.
Sterling arrived on Merseyside just two years ago from Queens Park Rangers and is capped at U16, U17, U19 and U21 as well as at senior level for England despite being born in Jamaica.
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A January move to United would be unexpected but with Nani seemingly on his way out of the club and with Ashley Young and Antonio Valencia yet to live up to last season’s form it could be the perfect time for Ferguson to sign a natural winger.
Sunderland have become the latest Premier League club to be linked with a move for Denmark centre-half Jores Okore.
The Black Cats are understood to have watched the 20-year-old in action for Danish outfit Nordsjaelland, who Chelsea condemned to two heavy defeats in the group stages of the Champions League this season.
According to reports from The Shields Gazette, Okore is not expected to leave his native country during the January transfer window, but could be open to a summer move as a host of Premier League clubs begin to clamour for the highly-rated defender’s signature.
Premier League leaders Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea and Newcastle are among the clubs who have also scouted Okore, with Fulham rumoured to have seen a £2.5m bid rejected earlier this month.
Sunderland have already boosted their central defensive ranks this month with the capture of 6ft 5in Senegalese international Kader Mangane, but Martin O’Neill is still pursuing long-term reinforcements at centre-half.
Defenders Titus Bramble and Matt Kilgallon look set to leave Wearside in the summer, while Wes Brown is less than a fortnight away from marking a year on the treatment table.
Nordsjaelland are under little pressure to sell, after their recent windfall of Champions League football, but it is understood they could be tempted by a bid upwards of £4m.
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The club, who currently occupy second spot in the Danish Superliga, are keen to keep Okore until the end of the season as they bid to retain their championship crown, which would see them qualify for the Champions League for the second successive campaign.
Leeds United owners, GHF Capital, have confirmed they have rejected a takeover bid for the Championship club from an undisclosed third party.
Although the bidder remains unknown, it has been reported it is a Yorkshire based consortium that made an offer for a 51% of the shares with aim to secure a phased buy-out, The Guardian reports.
The Dubai-based investment bank confirmed the news via the club’s web page in a statement to the Leeds fans: “We are aware of growing speculation regarding new investment at Leeds United”.
“As can be expected with a club as fantastic as Leeds United, since our acquisition we have received several offers to invest in the club alongside us”, the club’s proprietors assured.
The statement reflects that an offer for a majority stake “has not been accepted”, and clarifies that a takeover bid is not the kind of investment the club is looking for.
“Although we continue to seek strategic investors, we will only bring on board those who we feel can make a positive contribution to the sustainable success of Leeds United”, GHF guaranteed.
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Former Hull City chairman Adam Pearson said this week he would like to return to football, mentioning Leeds United as an example of a club he would be interested in, although it remains uncertain if he could have been involved in the bid.
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