Thursday News (includes West Ham)
Posted: 05 Dec 2024, 11:28
BBC
Arsenal have held initial talks to understand the situation of Wolves' Brazil forward Matheus Cunha, 25. (Caught Offside), external
Netherlands defender Virgil van Dijk has received a contract offer from Liverpool but it falls short of the 33-year-old's expectations. (Athletic - subscription required), external
Julen Lopetegui's future as West Ham head coach is hanging in the balance. (Sky Sports), external
Edin Terzic, Roger Schmidt, Sergio Conceicao and Massimiliano Allegri - all currently without a club - are among the managers being considered by West Ham. (Telegraph - subscription required), external
Former Brighton and Chelsea manager Graham Potter is also of interest to West Ham. (Times - subscription required)
Ex-Denmark coach Kasper Hjulmand is another the Hammers could turn to if they part ways with Lopetegui. (Sky Sports Germany), external
Spain midfielder Rodri has urged Manchester City to make a move for international team-mate and Athletic Bilbao winger Nico Williams, 22. (Metro), external
England defender Harry Maguire, 31, is attracting attention from several Premier League clubs amid uncertainty over his situation at Manchester United. (Football Insider), external
Getafe are looking to sign Spain and Tottenham left-back Sergio Reguilon, 27, in January. (Super Deporte - in Spanish), external
Paris St-Germain manager Luis Enrique is not keen on the French club bringing in 26-year-old Sporting and Sweden striker Viktor Gyokeres, who has been linked with Manchester City and Manchester United. (Foot Mercato), external
Newcastle United are monitoring Bournemouth and Ghana winger Antoine Semenyo, 24, and Brentford's Cameroon forward Bryan Mbeumo, 25. (i Sport- subscription required) , external
Arsenal and Liverpool are monitoring LA Galaxy's 23-year-old Brazilian winger Gabriel Pec. (Caught Offside), external
Crystal Palace are set to sign 17-year-old Australian striker Rylan Brownlie on a free transfer. (Football Insider), external
Hull City want to appoint Reading boss Ruben Selles as their new manager, with Alex Neil and Slavisa Jokanovic among the other contenders for the role. (Telegraph - subscription required), external
Premier League clubs are monitoring Celtic's 18-year-old Scottish forward Daniel Cummings. (Mail - subscription required), external
Fulham and Stockport are interested in 16-year-old English midfielder Gabriel Schluter, who has impressed for Blackpool's academy sides. (Football Insider)
Sky Paper Talk
DAILY MAIL
West Ham boss Julen Lopetegui was involved in a heated half-time exchange with defender Jean-Clair Todibo on Saturday as the club consider sacking their under-fire head coach.
Premier League lawyers have been spotted arriving for the closing statements for Manchester City's 'trial of the century'.
Real Sociedad midfielder Martin Zubimendi is reportedly ready to leave his boyhood club in 2025.
The Spanish media have begun to heap the responsibility of Real Madrid's terrible run of form at Carlo Ancelotti's door, after Los Blancos lost yet another game in a dreadful season.
THE TIMES
West Ham are considering potential replacements for Julen Lopetegui, with figures high up the club now pushing for a change after their defeat by Leicester.
The global cricket calendar is a mess because of "self-interest", according to Greg Barclay, the outgoing chairman of the ICC - and he has warned of even more challenging times ahead.
DAILY MIRROR
Intense speculation is mounting that former England football captain David Beckham will finally be knighted after growing close to the King in recent months.
Paul Pogba's search for a new club has prompted plenty of speculation around teams in Europe and the USA, but Ligue 1 side Nice won't be one of them.
Spurs defender Sergio Reguilon has been out of the picture under Ange Postecoglou, and Getafe could allow him a route out of North London.
Former Real Madrid defender Rafael Alkorta has urged the club to move for Arsenal's William Saliba.
Paris Saint-Germain won't rival Manchester United for Viktor Gyokeres, according to reports.
THE ATHLETIC
Liverpool have made a new contract offer to defender Virgil van Dijk.
Saudi Arabia is in discussions about competing in next year's men's Gold Cup in the USA and Canada.
THE SUN
Manchester United are working on three stadium expansion options - with a final decision expected next year.
Free agent Dele is said to be unhappy after suffering another injury setback.
DAILY TELEGRAPH
The Football Association of Ireland has been forced to apologise after listing "Londonderry" rather than "Derry" in its match programme for the country's defeat by Wales in the Euro 2025 women's play-off.
Ben Stokes has revealed that Jofra Archer is targeting the one-off Test against Zimbabwe in May as his return to the five-day game.
DAILY RECORD
Andrew McKinlay insists basement side Hearts can achieve the impossible dream of winning the Premiership with the help of Tony Bloom's analytics company.
The Athletic
West Ham board discussing Julen Lopetegui’s future with head coach fighting to save job
By David Ornstein and Roshane Thomas
West Ham United’s board are discussing the future of head coach Julen Lopetegui.
No deadline has been set for making a decision over Lopetegui’s future and the club are considering all options.
Lopetegui is fighting to save his job after a run of poor results, which see West Ham 14th in the Premier League after winning just four times in their opening 14 games.
They have lost two of three matches since the November international break, with Tuesday’s 3-1 loss at newly-promoted Leicester City following Saturday’s 5-2 home defeat by Arsenal, which included conceding four goals in 26 first-half minutes.
West Ham are next in action against 18th-placed Wolverhampton Wanderers, Lopetegui’s former club, on Monday.
Lopetegui was appointed as David Moyes’ successor in May, signing a two-year deal with the option of a further 12 months
West Ham were active in the summer transfer window, bringing in Max Kilman, Crysencio Summerville, Carlos Soler, Niclas Fullkrug, Luis Guilherme, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Jean-Clair Todibo, Guido Rodriguez and Wes Foderingham.
But the new season began slowly for Lopetegui’s side, who won only once in their opening six Premier League games as well as exiting the Carabao Cup with a 5-1 loss against Liverpool.
The early pressure appeared to have eased with a 4-1 win over Ipswich Town before the October international break but heavy defeats at Tottenham Hotspur and Nottingham Forest came either side of a 2-1 home win over Manchester United.
The 2-0 win at St James’ Park was a welcome relief after a goalless draw at Everton but the Arsenal and Leicester losses saw West Ham’s fans chant about Lopetegui getting sacked at the King Power Stadium on Tuesday night.
The Athletic
Explained: Javier Mascherano’s role in the Premier League’s most controversial transfer
By Richard Sutcliffe
As Javier Mascherano renews acquaintances with Lionel Messi following his appointment as Inter Miami’s new head coach, much will no doubt be made of the pair’s winning touch.
Not only did they both grasp Olympic gold with Argentina at the 2008 Beijing Games, but the pair also spent almost a decade together at Barcelona, where one of the game’s all-time great club sides won trophy after trophy with a scintillating brand of attacking football.
Mascherano may be embarking on his first professional managerial position in Florida but more of the same will be expected, such is the 40-year-old’s pedigree on the back of a successful playing career that also included stints in the Premier League with West Ham United and Liverpool.
The first of those amounted to just a few months in London. But the midfielder’s brief stay in the capital remains one of the most controversial episodes in the history of English soccer. Mascherano and fellow Argentine Carlos Tevez became unwittingly embroiled in a saga that eventually took two years of legal wrangling to settle, and even saw a Hollywood A-list actor dragged into the fray.
The Athletic explains just what happened…
August 31, 2006. Tevez and Mascherano, both 22, were fresh from reaching the World Cup quarter-finals with Argentina. After a summer that had seen the pair courted by a host of Europe’s elite clubs, West Ham — who had finished the previous season ninth in the Premier League, and the two seasons before that not even playing in the top division — stunned football by signing the star duo.
Such a bold move was both audacious and ambitious. It was also illegal.
In signing Tevez and Mascherano from Brazilian champions Corinthians, West Ham had breached Premier League rules governing third-party ownership due to the players both being owned by a combination of investors and off-shore companies. This meant it was they who ultimately called the shots on the futures of Tevez and Mascherano, and not the club.
Presumably this meant the transfers were cancelled pretty quickly?
Afraid not. The breach only came to light the following January, when Mascherano moved to Liverpool. Until then, no-one was any the wiser as to the finer details of the double transfer, even though there had been murmurings among West Ham’s rival clubs almost from the moment manager Alan Pardew unveiled his two new signings on transfer deadline day.
Kevin McCabe, then Sheffield United chairman, told The Athletic in 2019: “It was probably known in the autumn that West Ham had signed these two world-class players in Mascherano and Tevez for nothing. There was a smell. How could West Ham, a struggling team, buy two world-class players and not pay anything for them?”
An investigation was immediately launched. In the meantime, Tevez was free to continue playing for West Ham, while Mascherano did the same for new club Liverpool, albeit only after a complicated web of third party ownership had taken three weeks to untangle.
And West Ham badly needed Tevez, having become embroiled in a battle against relegation.
This seems a tad unfair, especially to West Ham’s relegation rivals…
You’d think so, but at the time neither player had done much to further West Ham’s cause.
Mascherano made just three league starts before leaving for Anfield in midseason, and West Ham lost all three. Tevez’s first goal in any competition, meanwhile, didn’t arrive until his 20th appearance on March 4. Even that came in a 4-3 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur, a result that left the club rock bottom of the Premier League with just five wins and 20 points from 29 games.
With just nine games of the season remaining, ten points separated West Ham, by now under new ownership following a takeover led by Icelandic businessman Eggert Magnusson the previous December, from fourth bottom Manchester City.
At this stage it felt like the deal hadn’t massively benefitted the London club.
So, when did the Premier League get round to doing something about it?
Two days before the home loss to Spurs that had seen Tevez break his goalscoring drought, ironically enough. That was when West Ham were charged with breaching Rule B13 and Rule U18 in relation to the signings of Tevez and Mascherano.
A three-man panel was then appointed a little over a month later to investigate. For the record, Rule B13 stated: “In all matters and transactions relating to the league, each club shall behave towards each other club and the league with the utmost good faith.”
Rule U18, meanwhile, read: “No club shall enter into a contract which enables any other party to that contract to acquire the ability materially to influence its policies or the performance of its teams in league matches or in any (other) competitions.”
A hearing date was set for April 26, less than three weeks before the scheduled end of the season. West Ham pleaded guilty and the panel’s 26-page report made for damning reading, as it is revealed Mascherano and Tevez were owned by offshore companies who could influence when either was sold, to whom and at what price.
West Ham were fined £5.5million — £3 million for acting in bad faith, the remainder for entering into the third-party agreements. Crucially, though, considering what happened next on the pitch, West Ham were spared the points deduction that many of their rivals had been calling for. Tevez was also cleared to play in the remaining three fixtures.
And How did West Ham’s rivals take that news…?
There was a sense that maybe the Premier League had taken the easy option. West Ham were still odds-on to be relegated due to being three points adrift of fourth bottom Sheffield United, whose goal difference was vastly superior.
Sheffield United duly won 24 hours later but so did West Ham, 3-0 at fellow relegation battlers Wigan Athletic. Tevez then netted twice the following weekend as a 3-1 win over Bolton Wanderers to set up a dramatic final day that left three clubs in danger of joining already relegated Charlton Athletic and Watford in next season’s Championship.
Wigan started the afternoon in the relegation zone but victory over Sheffield United at Bramall Lane was enough to save them, and meant all eyes switched to Old Trafford, where West Ham, now managed by Alan Curbishley, were taking on recently-crowned champions Manchester United.
Only a win for the Londoners would do, and Tevez duly delivered the only goal. Sheffield United were down and destined not to return to the Premier League for another 12 years.
Was that the end of the matter?
No, far from it. FIFA announced an investigation just 48 hours after the season had ended, while Sheffield United filed arbitration proceedings against the Premier League in an attempt to overturn the decision to only impose a fine on West Ham.
Lord of the Rings, GoldenEye and Game of Thrones star Sean Bean, a lifelong fan of the Yorkshire club, joined a rally outside the Houses of Parliament, but it did little good, as their club were again left frustrated.
McCabe, however, refused to give up and eventually sought recompense via the courts, this time winning a £23 million settlement from West Ham.
Even that, though, was considered small beer compared to the potential benefits that could have accompanied staying up in 2007, as McCabe made clear when speaking to The Athletic about the ‘Tevez saga’ earlier this year: “We got a sum of money that sounds a lot but, the way football went, it proved to be peanuts. That does frustrate me.”
Why the ‘Tevez saga’? Why no mention of Inter Miami’s new head coach?
Simply because Tevez’s late-season goals kept West Ham up against all odds. He scored seven times in the final ten games. This included victories over Blackburn Rovers, Middlesbrough and Bolton, plus, of course, that decisive final day win at Old Trafford.
Mascherano may have been part of the same double transfer deal but his impact on the field was minimal, with West Ham losing all seven games he appeared in before moving to Liverpool. Hence, it’s Tevez whose name remains most synonymous with one of the most infamous episodes in Premier League history.
(Top photo: Shaun Cutty/Getty Images)
Sport Witness
‘Big blow’ for West Ham as player suffers injury setback – Set to spend time on sidelines
West Ham United suffered a 3-1 defeat to Leicester City at King Power Stadium on Tuesday.
Jean-Clair Todibo was not part of Julen Lopetegui’s squad to face the Foxes, and now an update has emerged citing the reason for his absence.
According to L’Equipe, the West Ham player has suffered an injury setback, which forced him to miss the last league clash.
The report states the 24-year-old has sustained an adductor injury and this is a ‘big blow’ for the Hammers.
Todibo played the full 90 minutes in West Ham’s defeat to Arsenal last weekend and it’s not specified when he picked up this injury.
He’s set to spend time away from the pitch, and the duration is still to be determined. The French outlet adds the centre-back will undergo examinations to find out the ‘severity’ of the setback.
West Ham took the France international from OGC Nice on a loan deal with an obligation to buy if certain set conditions are met. Todibo has made 12 appearances for West Ham, which includes seven league starts.
Arsenal have held initial talks to understand the situation of Wolves' Brazil forward Matheus Cunha, 25. (Caught Offside), external
Netherlands defender Virgil van Dijk has received a contract offer from Liverpool but it falls short of the 33-year-old's expectations. (Athletic - subscription required), external
Julen Lopetegui's future as West Ham head coach is hanging in the balance. (Sky Sports), external
Edin Terzic, Roger Schmidt, Sergio Conceicao and Massimiliano Allegri - all currently without a club - are among the managers being considered by West Ham. (Telegraph - subscription required), external
Former Brighton and Chelsea manager Graham Potter is also of interest to West Ham. (Times - subscription required)
Ex-Denmark coach Kasper Hjulmand is another the Hammers could turn to if they part ways with Lopetegui. (Sky Sports Germany), external
Spain midfielder Rodri has urged Manchester City to make a move for international team-mate and Athletic Bilbao winger Nico Williams, 22. (Metro), external
England defender Harry Maguire, 31, is attracting attention from several Premier League clubs amid uncertainty over his situation at Manchester United. (Football Insider), external
Getafe are looking to sign Spain and Tottenham left-back Sergio Reguilon, 27, in January. (Super Deporte - in Spanish), external
Paris St-Germain manager Luis Enrique is not keen on the French club bringing in 26-year-old Sporting and Sweden striker Viktor Gyokeres, who has been linked with Manchester City and Manchester United. (Foot Mercato), external
Newcastle United are monitoring Bournemouth and Ghana winger Antoine Semenyo, 24, and Brentford's Cameroon forward Bryan Mbeumo, 25. (i Sport- subscription required) , external
Arsenal and Liverpool are monitoring LA Galaxy's 23-year-old Brazilian winger Gabriel Pec. (Caught Offside), external
Crystal Palace are set to sign 17-year-old Australian striker Rylan Brownlie on a free transfer. (Football Insider), external
Hull City want to appoint Reading boss Ruben Selles as their new manager, with Alex Neil and Slavisa Jokanovic among the other contenders for the role. (Telegraph - subscription required), external
Premier League clubs are monitoring Celtic's 18-year-old Scottish forward Daniel Cummings. (Mail - subscription required), external
Fulham and Stockport are interested in 16-year-old English midfielder Gabriel Schluter, who has impressed for Blackpool's academy sides. (Football Insider)
Sky Paper Talk
DAILY MAIL
West Ham boss Julen Lopetegui was involved in a heated half-time exchange with defender Jean-Clair Todibo on Saturday as the club consider sacking their under-fire head coach.
Premier League lawyers have been spotted arriving for the closing statements for Manchester City's 'trial of the century'.
Real Sociedad midfielder Martin Zubimendi is reportedly ready to leave his boyhood club in 2025.
The Spanish media have begun to heap the responsibility of Real Madrid's terrible run of form at Carlo Ancelotti's door, after Los Blancos lost yet another game in a dreadful season.
THE TIMES
West Ham are considering potential replacements for Julen Lopetegui, with figures high up the club now pushing for a change after their defeat by Leicester.
The global cricket calendar is a mess because of "self-interest", according to Greg Barclay, the outgoing chairman of the ICC - and he has warned of even more challenging times ahead.
DAILY MIRROR
Intense speculation is mounting that former England football captain David Beckham will finally be knighted after growing close to the King in recent months.
Paul Pogba's search for a new club has prompted plenty of speculation around teams in Europe and the USA, but Ligue 1 side Nice won't be one of them.
Spurs defender Sergio Reguilon has been out of the picture under Ange Postecoglou, and Getafe could allow him a route out of North London.
Former Real Madrid defender Rafael Alkorta has urged the club to move for Arsenal's William Saliba.
Paris Saint-Germain won't rival Manchester United for Viktor Gyokeres, according to reports.
THE ATHLETIC
Liverpool have made a new contract offer to defender Virgil van Dijk.
Saudi Arabia is in discussions about competing in next year's men's Gold Cup in the USA and Canada.
THE SUN
Manchester United are working on three stadium expansion options - with a final decision expected next year.
Free agent Dele is said to be unhappy after suffering another injury setback.
DAILY TELEGRAPH
The Football Association of Ireland has been forced to apologise after listing "Londonderry" rather than "Derry" in its match programme for the country's defeat by Wales in the Euro 2025 women's play-off.
Ben Stokes has revealed that Jofra Archer is targeting the one-off Test against Zimbabwe in May as his return to the five-day game.
DAILY RECORD
Andrew McKinlay insists basement side Hearts can achieve the impossible dream of winning the Premiership with the help of Tony Bloom's analytics company.
The Athletic
West Ham board discussing Julen Lopetegui’s future with head coach fighting to save job
By David Ornstein and Roshane Thomas
West Ham United’s board are discussing the future of head coach Julen Lopetegui.
No deadline has been set for making a decision over Lopetegui’s future and the club are considering all options.
Lopetegui is fighting to save his job after a run of poor results, which see West Ham 14th in the Premier League after winning just four times in their opening 14 games.
They have lost two of three matches since the November international break, with Tuesday’s 3-1 loss at newly-promoted Leicester City following Saturday’s 5-2 home defeat by Arsenal, which included conceding four goals in 26 first-half minutes.
West Ham are next in action against 18th-placed Wolverhampton Wanderers, Lopetegui’s former club, on Monday.
Lopetegui was appointed as David Moyes’ successor in May, signing a two-year deal with the option of a further 12 months
West Ham were active in the summer transfer window, bringing in Max Kilman, Crysencio Summerville, Carlos Soler, Niclas Fullkrug, Luis Guilherme, Aaron Wan-Bissaka, Jean-Clair Todibo, Guido Rodriguez and Wes Foderingham.
But the new season began slowly for Lopetegui’s side, who won only once in their opening six Premier League games as well as exiting the Carabao Cup with a 5-1 loss against Liverpool.
The early pressure appeared to have eased with a 4-1 win over Ipswich Town before the October international break but heavy defeats at Tottenham Hotspur and Nottingham Forest came either side of a 2-1 home win over Manchester United.
The 2-0 win at St James’ Park was a welcome relief after a goalless draw at Everton but the Arsenal and Leicester losses saw West Ham’s fans chant about Lopetegui getting sacked at the King Power Stadium on Tuesday night.
The Athletic
Explained: Javier Mascherano’s role in the Premier League’s most controversial transfer
By Richard Sutcliffe
As Javier Mascherano renews acquaintances with Lionel Messi following his appointment as Inter Miami’s new head coach, much will no doubt be made of the pair’s winning touch.
Not only did they both grasp Olympic gold with Argentina at the 2008 Beijing Games, but the pair also spent almost a decade together at Barcelona, where one of the game’s all-time great club sides won trophy after trophy with a scintillating brand of attacking football.
Mascherano may be embarking on his first professional managerial position in Florida but more of the same will be expected, such is the 40-year-old’s pedigree on the back of a successful playing career that also included stints in the Premier League with West Ham United and Liverpool.
The first of those amounted to just a few months in London. But the midfielder’s brief stay in the capital remains one of the most controversial episodes in the history of English soccer. Mascherano and fellow Argentine Carlos Tevez became unwittingly embroiled in a saga that eventually took two years of legal wrangling to settle, and even saw a Hollywood A-list actor dragged into the fray.
The Athletic explains just what happened…
August 31, 2006. Tevez and Mascherano, both 22, were fresh from reaching the World Cup quarter-finals with Argentina. After a summer that had seen the pair courted by a host of Europe’s elite clubs, West Ham — who had finished the previous season ninth in the Premier League, and the two seasons before that not even playing in the top division — stunned football by signing the star duo.
Such a bold move was both audacious and ambitious. It was also illegal.
In signing Tevez and Mascherano from Brazilian champions Corinthians, West Ham had breached Premier League rules governing third-party ownership due to the players both being owned by a combination of investors and off-shore companies. This meant it was they who ultimately called the shots on the futures of Tevez and Mascherano, and not the club.
Presumably this meant the transfers were cancelled pretty quickly?
Afraid not. The breach only came to light the following January, when Mascherano moved to Liverpool. Until then, no-one was any the wiser as to the finer details of the double transfer, even though there had been murmurings among West Ham’s rival clubs almost from the moment manager Alan Pardew unveiled his two new signings on transfer deadline day.
Kevin McCabe, then Sheffield United chairman, told The Athletic in 2019: “It was probably known in the autumn that West Ham had signed these two world-class players in Mascherano and Tevez for nothing. There was a smell. How could West Ham, a struggling team, buy two world-class players and not pay anything for them?”
An investigation was immediately launched. In the meantime, Tevez was free to continue playing for West Ham, while Mascherano did the same for new club Liverpool, albeit only after a complicated web of third party ownership had taken three weeks to untangle.
And West Ham badly needed Tevez, having become embroiled in a battle against relegation.
This seems a tad unfair, especially to West Ham’s relegation rivals…
You’d think so, but at the time neither player had done much to further West Ham’s cause.
Mascherano made just three league starts before leaving for Anfield in midseason, and West Ham lost all three. Tevez’s first goal in any competition, meanwhile, didn’t arrive until his 20th appearance on March 4. Even that came in a 4-3 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur, a result that left the club rock bottom of the Premier League with just five wins and 20 points from 29 games.
With just nine games of the season remaining, ten points separated West Ham, by now under new ownership following a takeover led by Icelandic businessman Eggert Magnusson the previous December, from fourth bottom Manchester City.
At this stage it felt like the deal hadn’t massively benefitted the London club.
So, when did the Premier League get round to doing something about it?
Two days before the home loss to Spurs that had seen Tevez break his goalscoring drought, ironically enough. That was when West Ham were charged with breaching Rule B13 and Rule U18 in relation to the signings of Tevez and Mascherano.
A three-man panel was then appointed a little over a month later to investigate. For the record, Rule B13 stated: “In all matters and transactions relating to the league, each club shall behave towards each other club and the league with the utmost good faith.”
Rule U18, meanwhile, read: “No club shall enter into a contract which enables any other party to that contract to acquire the ability materially to influence its policies or the performance of its teams in league matches or in any (other) competitions.”
A hearing date was set for April 26, less than three weeks before the scheduled end of the season. West Ham pleaded guilty and the panel’s 26-page report made for damning reading, as it is revealed Mascherano and Tevez were owned by offshore companies who could influence when either was sold, to whom and at what price.
West Ham were fined £5.5million — £3 million for acting in bad faith, the remainder for entering into the third-party agreements. Crucially, though, considering what happened next on the pitch, West Ham were spared the points deduction that many of their rivals had been calling for. Tevez was also cleared to play in the remaining three fixtures.
And How did West Ham’s rivals take that news…?
There was a sense that maybe the Premier League had taken the easy option. West Ham were still odds-on to be relegated due to being three points adrift of fourth bottom Sheffield United, whose goal difference was vastly superior.
Sheffield United duly won 24 hours later but so did West Ham, 3-0 at fellow relegation battlers Wigan Athletic. Tevez then netted twice the following weekend as a 3-1 win over Bolton Wanderers to set up a dramatic final day that left three clubs in danger of joining already relegated Charlton Athletic and Watford in next season’s Championship.
Wigan started the afternoon in the relegation zone but victory over Sheffield United at Bramall Lane was enough to save them, and meant all eyes switched to Old Trafford, where West Ham, now managed by Alan Curbishley, were taking on recently-crowned champions Manchester United.
Only a win for the Londoners would do, and Tevez duly delivered the only goal. Sheffield United were down and destined not to return to the Premier League for another 12 years.
Was that the end of the matter?
No, far from it. FIFA announced an investigation just 48 hours after the season had ended, while Sheffield United filed arbitration proceedings against the Premier League in an attempt to overturn the decision to only impose a fine on West Ham.
Lord of the Rings, GoldenEye and Game of Thrones star Sean Bean, a lifelong fan of the Yorkshire club, joined a rally outside the Houses of Parliament, but it did little good, as their club were again left frustrated.
McCabe, however, refused to give up and eventually sought recompense via the courts, this time winning a £23 million settlement from West Ham.
Even that, though, was considered small beer compared to the potential benefits that could have accompanied staying up in 2007, as McCabe made clear when speaking to The Athletic about the ‘Tevez saga’ earlier this year: “We got a sum of money that sounds a lot but, the way football went, it proved to be peanuts. That does frustrate me.”
Why the ‘Tevez saga’? Why no mention of Inter Miami’s new head coach?
Simply because Tevez’s late-season goals kept West Ham up against all odds. He scored seven times in the final ten games. This included victories over Blackburn Rovers, Middlesbrough and Bolton, plus, of course, that decisive final day win at Old Trafford.
Mascherano may have been part of the same double transfer deal but his impact on the field was minimal, with West Ham losing all seven games he appeared in before moving to Liverpool. Hence, it’s Tevez whose name remains most synonymous with one of the most infamous episodes in Premier League history.
(Top photo: Shaun Cutty/Getty Images)
Sport Witness
‘Big blow’ for West Ham as player suffers injury setback – Set to spend time on sidelines
West Ham United suffered a 3-1 defeat to Leicester City at King Power Stadium on Tuesday.
Jean-Clair Todibo was not part of Julen Lopetegui’s squad to face the Foxes, and now an update has emerged citing the reason for his absence.
According to L’Equipe, the West Ham player has suffered an injury setback, which forced him to miss the last league clash.
The report states the 24-year-old has sustained an adductor injury and this is a ‘big blow’ for the Hammers.
Todibo played the full 90 minutes in West Ham’s defeat to Arsenal last weekend and it’s not specified when he picked up this injury.
He’s set to spend time away from the pitch, and the duration is still to be determined. The French outlet adds the centre-back will undergo examinations to find out the ‘severity’ of the setback.
West Ham took the France international from OGC Nice on a loan deal with an obligation to buy if certain set conditions are met. Todibo has made 12 appearances for West Ham, which includes seven league starts.