Key events
Nottingham Forest boss Nuno Espirito Santo paid tribute to Larry Lloyd in his press conference ahead of Saturday’s home match against Crystal Palace, saying: “He was one of the miracle men. Our feelings are with his family. It’s a sad moment.”
Forest are 18th in the table with nine matches to go after they were deducted four points for breaching the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules. They’re appealing the penalty.
They have the chance to take a big step towards safety over the next four days with back-to-back home games against Palace and Fulham (Tuesday) and Nuno wants the crowd to play their part.
Very important games, definitely. We go game by game, it starts against Palace. Good team, it’s going to be tough, we are at the City Ground, the situation that we have – big game for us. The support of the fans, the noise of the City Ground – we need them and they are going to back us up for sure.
Starting the game well, on the front foot, engaging everybody, engaging the fans, the crowd, this is our mentality. (They are) more than the 12th man – they are very important.
Sad news yesterday about the passing of Larry Lloyd, a key man in Nottingham Forest’s back-to-back European Cup wins.
I like this from Steven Pye’s 1980s sports blog on the 1980 final win over Hamburg.
The goal gave Forest something to hold on to, setting up the game as a backs-against-the-wall assignment. Centre-backs Larry Lloyd and Kenny Burns were superb. Lloyd, who passed a late fitness test on his ankle, had warned his old mate Keegan that his defensive partner Burns was after him. Burns’ tackle on Keegan that earned him a yellow card in the first half certainly confirmed his intentions.
Quiz question: which Premier League team are on the longest winless run going into the weekend games?
The answer is Everton and boss Sean Dyche has addressed that frustrating stretch which, combined with a points deduction, sees the Toffees in 16th place and just four points above the drop zone ahead of Saturday’s visit to Bournemouth.
If we’d won five out of this run, everyone would be saying, ‘Yes, no wonder, because they’re playing well’. But you’re not winning and then they go, ‘They’re not playing that well’. That’s the difference between perception and facts. It’s my job to look at the facts.
We are doing lots of the right things, but all the right things are deemed different if you’re not winning. Whichever way you look at it, the bit that’s missing from a lot of our performances is the final moments. Can we add in the final moments to, not just be consistent in performance, but win games? We’ve got to win games. That’s the job, end of.
He’s not the first Merseyside boss to go off on one about “facts” but Opta back up much of what Dyche is saying.
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Everton have scored just one goal in their last five Premier League away games, despite having 65 shots (14 on target), an xG of 4.8, and seven big chances in this run. In their last away game, they had 23 shots against Man Utd without scoring, their most without a goal in an away league match since August 2010 at Aston Villa (also 23).
Newcastle boss Eddie Howe is about up and early as ever and he’s been responding to yesterday’s news that the FA has charged Sandro Tonali with 50 alleged gambling offences relating to bets the Italy midfielder placed after swapping Milan for Tyneside in a £55m transfer last July. Tonali is partway through a 10-month worldwide suspension imposed by Italy’s football federation and there are fears he could now face further, extended sanction. Newcastle and Howe hope any further punishment from the FA would run concurrently.
The news that there was an FA charge, that illness didn’t stop when he moved from Italy to England, that illness was there and people should look at it that way, not ‘let’s throw the book at him and let’s punish him even further’ because I don’t think that gets to the root of the problem. We need to protect all our players because this is something that’s open to everybody and becoming a bigger problem in society, so this isn’t just a problem for Sandro.
I certainly hope for Sandro that there is no further consequences. He has suffered during this period, he has sought help, he’s been very honest, he has admitted he has an issue, and I think the best thing for Sandro would be to resume his career having taken his punishment and having learned a lot of lessons from this.
Let’s set the scene for the weekend Premier League action with another edition of Ten things...
“The Argentinian will hope that the youngster can maintain his good form when Burnley visit Stamford Bridge.” Who could Jacob Steinberg be talking about? Find out below.
Alonso set to stay with Leverkusen
Let’s open with the news that the vast majority of Liverpool fans didn’t want to hear: Xabi Alonso looks set to stay at Bayer Leverkusen.
Preamble
Perhaps in an ideal world, we’d have two or three head-to-head showdowns between the title-chasing trio of Manchester City, Liverpool and Arsenal over the last 10 games of the season. Instead we have just one. Still, Man City v Arsenal (4.30pm Sunday) offers a fascinating climax to the weekend as the Premier League kicks back in after that pesky international break.
Talking of which, we’ll also bring you news from all today’s prezzers as top-flight managers try mightily to avoid ranting about players picking up knocks while away with their countries.
And talking of managers, unless this is something very clever from the Michael Edwards playbook, it looks as if Xabi Alonso isn’t heading to Liverpool. In a timely twist, another boss tipped to be Jürgen Klopp’s successor is at Anfield on Sunday to advertise his claims. Yes, Roberto De Zerbi’s Brighton are heading north to take on Liverpool and, fun fact, the Italian is unbeaten in four games against the German.
But before all that, we also have hot, massive, full programme action in the EFL. And it starts with a bang as Leicester try to shake of potential Devon Loch claims when they travel to Bristol City for a 12.30pm kick-off. Full updates from there and regular dips into all the other Championship, League One and League Two games. Right, let’s get this thing started.