Tottenham Hotspur are believed to have spent more than £40m to acquire Colombian centre-back Davinson Sanchez from Ajax in last summer’s transfer window.

The 21-year-old signed a long-term contract upon his arrival, but it was announced on Tuesday that the defender had penned a new and improved deal.

Indeed, Sanchez is now contracted to Tottenham until the end of the 2023-24 campaign, which is an indication of just what the Premier League club think of him.

Toby Alderweireld has not been able to move Sanchez from the position alongside Jan Vertonghen, meanwhile, which is very impressive.

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The Tottenham fans have not always been delighted with Sanchez’s form this season, but the Colombian is still young, and there is no question that he has huge talent.

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Sanchez, who is a seven-time Colombia international, recently took to Twitter to thank the Tottenham fans for their support since his arrival in London, and as expected, the supporters were out in force to hail the defender.

A selection of the Twitter reaction can be seen below:

Leeds fans are mercilessly bashing Pierre-Michel Lasogga, after the striker said he wants to help Hamburg get promoted with his goals.

When Lasogga joined Leeds on loan last summer, fans were elated that they might finally have the goalscorer needed to fire them up into the playoff race.

The big German got off to an electric start, grabbing two goals and two assists in the opening day win against Burton Albion, before netting twice more across the next three games.

The 26 year-old missed part of the winter period with a thigh injury though, and scored just five times in the 21 appearances after the injury.

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Lasogga eventually lost his place to Caleb Ekuban and even young Jay-Roy Grot, both of which have taken plenty of flak from fans for their wasteful finishing.

Hamburg were relegated in Lasogga’s absence, but Bundesliga writer Ronan Murphy reports that the German wants to stay with his parent club.

Fans are absolutely crucifying the towering striker, mainly due to his total lack of effort towards the end of the season.

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You can find some of the best Twitter reactions down below…

When a new player is welcomed into a football club, it would be natural for first-team members to feel slightly nervous about their own positions.

Hector Bellerin was a favourite within the Arsenal fanbase when he penned a long-term contract in 2016, but last season, the right-back struggled to impress.

In total, the Spaniard, who is valued at £36m by Transfermarkt, started 45 games in all competitions, including 34 in the Premier League.

During that time, Bellerin scored three goals and created five assists, but his defensive qualities were lacking numerous times across the campaign.

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Stephan Lichtsteiner arrived at the Emirates on Tuesday, officially becoming Unai Emery’s first signing since taking over from Arsene Wenger.

The Switzerland international predominantly plays as a right-back, but can also push up and play on the right side of midfield.

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Lichtsteiner is an experienced figure at the age of 34 having played for the likes of Lille, Lazio and Juventus.

Most Arsenal fans think that the new signing will provide decent competition for Bellerin, and others think that the Spaniard is at risk of being pushed out.

According to the print version of The Sun on Sunday (June 17, page 59), Aston Villa manager Steve Bruce has identified Wigan Athletic centre-back Dan Burn as the man he wants to replace John Terry next season.

What’s the word, then?

According to The Sun on Sunday, Bruce wants to bring the 6ft 7in tall defender to Villa Park having been unable to extend captain Terry’s one-year deal because of their financial issues having missed out on promotion to the Premier League having been beaten play-off finalists.

The Sun on Sunday says that while Villa will need to sell before they can buy, and a deal for Burn is unlikely to be done until they move players on.

The centre-back only has one year left on his contract, and despite helping the Latics win the League One title last term, they could be tempted to cash in on him this summer if they receive an acceptable offer for him.

How well did Burn do last season?

He was brilliant.

The 26-year-old played the full 90 minutes in 45 of Wigan’s 46 League One fixtures, and as well as his defensive abilities he also helped his team at the other end with five goals and two assists.

The giant centre-half also captained his side to their memorable 1-0 FA Cup win against Manchester City in February a he brilliantly kept Sergio Aguero in his pocket, and according to WhoScored.com his two main strengths are – predictably – his ability to win aerial duels, as well as his tackling.

[brid autoplay=”true” video=”255909″ player=”12034″ title=”Watch Three reasons we love to hate… Germany”]

Would he be a good Villa signing?

He certainly could be.

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It seems clear that Villa, who are also reportedly to be interested in signing a free agent centre-back, won’t be able to spend big this summer and can’t aim really high when it comes to bringing new players to the club.

Burn showed for Wigan last season that he is a great defender and a leader, and as well as his strengths in the air he also isn’t bad with the ball at his feet, either.

If Bruce can bring him to Villa Park for a reasonable fee, then it would be a no-brainer for a player with similar attributes to Terry.

Melbourne City winger Daniel Arzani impressed in a 23-minute cameo role in Australia’s 1-1 draw with Denmark in their second 2018 World Cup fixture on Thursday, and Leeds United fans have urged their club to sign the teenager, who has been dubbed as the ‘next Harry Kewell’.The 19-year-old is one of his nation’s brightest prospects and played the last 11 minutes of the 2-1 defeat to France previously, but he was given more than double that time to make an impression against the Danes, and he did exactly that.The attacker was quick, direct and not afraid to take on his opposition defender to try and get the ball into the penalty area, and his exciting play on the flank could mean that he fits perfectly into the 3-3-1-3 formation Bielsa, who should sign a £7.2m Everton attacker this summer if another £12m deal goes through, could implement at Elland Road.[brid autoplay=”true” video=”257599″ player=”12034″ title=”Watch Leeds’ opening fixtures for the 201819 Championship season”]Leeds supporters were quick to have their say on Arzani’s display via social media, and while one said he is “very direct and something a bit different”, another described him as a “cracking player”.Here is just a selection of the Twitter reaction…

Manchester United fans were impressed by Victor Lindelof’s performance against Germany on Saturday night, despite his Sweden side falling to a late defeat against the reigning World Cup champions.

Germany are almost unstoppable in tournament mode and so it proved on Saturday, coming from behind to win 2-1 after a pulsating and dramatic 90 minutes.

One of the top performers on the pitch was Man United’s powerful defender Lindelof, who generally coped with the German attack well all evening, keeping the likes of Timo Werner quiet.

Lindelof had a difficult debut season at Old Trafford last term, making just 13 Premier League starts, but fans are now calling him to get a regular game next season.

Many would love to see him form a defensive partnership with Eric Bailly, believing that pairing is the future of the Red Devils defence.

Can the Swede cement a spot in Jose Mourinho’s starting eleven?

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Supporters took to Twitter to share their thoughts…

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Like the massive Highveld thunderstorms in this part of the world, the pre-series atmosphere is thick with anticipation at Centurion

Andrew McGlashan at Centurion15-Dec-2009Like the massive Highveld thunderstorms in this part of the world, the pre-series atmosphere is thick with anticipation at Centurion, with Andrew Strauss calling on his team to use controlled aggression against South Africa when the contest finally gets underway on Wednesday morning.The mood from the visiting camp in recent days has been one of quiet intent, fuelled by a determination not to back away from the challenge as the hosts aim to use their home advantage and pace attack to intimidate England. They have been careful not to get drawn into any pre-series battles with South Africa, but when the duel begins on the field, Strauss will make sure his charges stand toe-to-toe with the opposition.”I’m keen for players to stand up and be counted in pressure situations and if you aren’t willing to do that you won’t survive very long in Test cricket,” he told reporters on the eve of the match. “But it has to be done with thoughtfulness and be done smartly, there’s no point in getting carried away. It needs to be calculated and controlled.”There has been a lot of waiting around for the players in the past fortnight, which has added to the eagerness for the action to finally begin. It feels a long time ago that England took a decisive 2-1 lead in the penultimate match of the ODI series in Port Elizabeth, whereupon it rained for a week in Durban before England travelled to East London for a low-key Test build-up.”Leading up to this Test, both sides have had 10 days or so twiddling their thumbs and waiting for tomorrow to come about,” Strauss said. “There will be 22 players pretty keen to make their mark early in the series and as is often the case the first day and first session can have a big bearing on where the series goes. We all know you aren’t going to win a Test in the first session, but you can grab the momentum in the match.”England managed to get three-and-half days’ cricket at East London and had another centre-wicket session at the High Performance centre in Pretoria on Monday. Quite how ready the team is to face a side that, until two weeks ago, were ranked No. 1 in the Test world will only become clear in the next few days, but Strauss is comfortable with the preparations.”I think you are prepared if you are mentally in the right place,” he said. “We learnt that by going back to India after the bombings and I think because we’ve had quite a big gap between the one-dayers and the Tests we’ve had enough time to prepare ourselves mentally.”We haven’t had a four-day game, so in terms of replicating a Test match we haven’t had that, but I’m comfortable with where are at. The mood is pretty boisterous and happy. We are conscious we need to have our game on tomorrow – you can’t afford to ease into any Test series, but certainly if you haven’t played for a while.”This will be England’s first Test since they regained the Ashes at The Oval in August, but unlike 2005 when they lost their focus, Strauss is adamant there won’t be any lingering on past glories.”The post-Ashes glow went in that one-day series against Australia to be honest,” he said. “I think we are all eager to return to Test cricket, it allows us to reconnect with what happened in the Ashes and think about what went well and what didn’t. That’s a healthy thing for us, but it’s a very different set of circumstances. We can’t afford to look back too much.”Both Makhaya Ntini and Graeme Smith have pinpointed the post-Ashes retirement of Andrew Flintoff as a problem for England, but Strauss believes he has the players to cause South Africa plenty of problems and is quite happy if the opposition are lulled into a false sense of security.”We are obviously going to miss a guy of that quality and the balance of the side is affected,” Strauss said. “But as for him being the only player who can intimidate South Africa, if they feel that, then I think that’s a good thing for us because we have some very good cricketers who can surprise them over the coming weeks.”As usual Strauss will wait until the morning of the Test to reveal his line-up – although he is confident over the fitness of both James Anderson and Graeme Swann – and was cautious when assessing a very green surface 24 hours before the game was due to start. If the surface remains heavily grassed in the morning Ian Bell will certainly be in contention, but Strauss is aware conditions can change over five days.”I’m still not 100% sure how the wicket will play,” he said. “We turned up to one of the one-dayers in the Champions Trophy and the wicket didn’t look very good but ended up playing pretty well. Certainly at this stage there looks like there is quite a lot of green grass on it but we’ve still got all three options available to use and I think we’d be quite hesitant to name our side prior to tomorrow morning – even to our players – because these sorts of wickets can change quite a lot overnight.”

Australia’s players have had a long and frank discussion about their on-field behaviour as aftermath of the heated battle with West Indies continues to simmer

Brydon Coverdale23-Dec-2009Australia’s players have had a long and frank discussion about their on-field behaviour as aftermath of the heated battle with West Indies continues to simmer. Australia are trying to focus on Pakistan, whom they face in the Boxing Day Test starting on Saturday, but the Chris Gayle-Shane Watson bickering just won’t go away.A day after Watson said he was baited by Gayle at the WACA, Gayle has responded by calling Watson “soft” and “easy to get wound up over silly things”. Watson’s over-the-top celebrations at dismissing Gayle in Perth led to a fine of 15% of his match fee, making him the third Australian to be docked by the match referee during the Test.Brad Haddin and Mitchell Johnson were also fined for their ugly clash with Sulieman Benn and in the Adelaide Test Doug Bollinger was reprimanded for showing his anger at an umpire’s decision. The incidents have left the Australian team embarrassed and Simon Katich said the squad had addressed player behaviour on Wednesday.”As a group we’ve spoken about that at length this morning at our meeting,” Katich said. “It’s good to get it out in the open. The problem sometimes is that emotions come out on the field and in the heat of the moment you do things that later on you probably hope you’d do things differently. We’ve all been there and done that, from that point of view it’s a matter of learning from your mistakes.”Haddin is certain that he has learnt from his experience in Perth, where he pointed his bat angrily at the bowler Benn after a relatively innocuous clash between Benn and Johnson. Haddin conceded that his own actions were not appropriate but he said that Gayle “needs to get over” his incident with Watson and the Australians were especially keen to move on.”It wasn’t a good look pointing my bat,” Haddin said. “It was probably a bit too animated for what the occasion was. I apologise for that, I shouldn’t have pointed my bat, but apart from that, Test cricket is an emotional rollercoaster sometimes. It’s a pretty tough environment to be in, so there’s going to be occasions when your emotions get the better of you.”It’s just one of those things that happened in the heat of battle and with a bit of luck it won’t happen again. It wasn’t a good look for the fans and it especially wasn’t a good look for the kids. I’ll be working on that to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”The all-too-regular meetings between Australia’s players and the match referee also attracted the attention of the Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland. He agreed with Watson’s own assessment that he had gone over the top with his celebrations at dismissing Gayle, but he was confident Ricky Ponting was doing his best to improve the behaviour of his men.”I was as disappointed as anyone about a couple of incidents in the last two Test matches,” Sutherland said on the radio station SEN. “But at the same time I know there’s an absolute commitment at his end to see these things improve and for the Australian public to be proud of their cricket team and how they perform on and off the field.”

An overwhelming majority of Australian cricketers believe players will turn down central contracts in order to position themselves as Twenty20 “freelancers”

Alex Brown22-Dec-2009An overwhelming majority of Australian cricketers believe players will turn down central contracts in order to position themselves as Twenty20 “freelancers” in the coming seasons, prompting the Australian Cricketers’ Association chief Paul Marsh to describe the issue as “one of the biggest cricket has faced.” The findings, published in the ACA’s annual survey of national and state cricketers, also revealed almost a quarter of Cricket Australia’s 25-man contract list would consider declining future offers from the national board to expand their playing options.Asked whether they envisaged Australian players following the freelance path taken by Andrew Flintoff earlier this year, 67% of surveyed cricketers responded in the affirmative. Of those, 22% of CA contracted players said they would consider making such a move now, with another 39% stating they were unsure. No players had considered the move previously.A reduction in touring commitments, greater earning potential, fewer physical demands and the avoidance of scheduling conflicts with the IPL were among the factors players said would be taken into consideration when deciding whether to pursue freelance careers. Almost half the cricketers surveyed said they were open to the idea of early retirement to pursue careers in the IPL, with another 30% listed as unsure.But not all was doom and gloom for national boards. In a promising development for the game’s traditional employers, the prestige of representing Australia was rated by both state and national players as the factor that would most weigh on their minds when deciding whether to play as a freelancer, indicating that the lure of IPL riches has not entirely replaced that of the baggy green cap in the hearts, minds and pockets of Australia’s cricketers.”The reality is that the boards no longer have a monopoly over the players’ services,” Marsh told Cricinfo. “There are new and lucrative options available to players and not surprisingly many around the world are giving serious consideration to their futures. Our players are well paid, but a competition such as the IPL in many cases provides more money for less work. That’s a proposition most people would accept in a heartbeat.”As such I think the issue of freelancing will be one of the biggest that cricket has faced. I hope, for the game’s sake, we can find a solution that doesn’t see players choosing IPL over international cricket. The survey reinforces that our players still have a desire to play international cricket so in order to retain them, those running the game must firstly ensure that the scheduling of international cricket doesn’t conflict with events such as the IPL. Secondly, a period of player leave must be factored into the schedule so that players can play international cricket and IPL as well as having an annual break to allow their bodies to recover and so they can spend time with their families.”Saturation scheduling was highlighted as the greatest concern held by players in the poll. Only 18 % of CA contracted players said they supported the Future Tours Programme in its current format, with 78% voting for a world championship Test model. Entering the final stages of a 2009 campaign in which Australia were scheduled to play 13 Tests, 39 one-day internationals and nine Twenty20 matches across seven countries, only 29% of CA contracted players felt the current scheduling mix was appropriate – down from 43% last year.Almost 80% of Australia’s elite players felt too many ODIs were being scheduled – more than double the figure from 2008 – and most felt bi-lateral 50-over series should be restricted to five games. The management of players’ workloads by resting them from selected 50- and 20-over matches proved most unpopular – 86 % were against the ploy.To alleviate the issues of over-scheduling and IPL conflicts, Marsh called upon administrators to include nine-week annual windows in the new FTP, which will run from 2012 to 2020. He also implored boards to grant players an additional annual leave period to reduce the risk of player burn-out.”We believe these windows must be provided if the international game is to retain its elite players,” he said. “The ICC and its member boards need to accept that less international cricket will need to be scheduled moving forward. The opportunity for these boards is to make each game of international cricket more valuable and we strongly believe greater context is the answer. In our view international cricket desperately needs context in the form of global Test, ODI and T20 championships so that every game has meaning amongst players and fans.”

Middlesex have confirmed that they are in talks to sign Yuvraj Singh as their second overseas player for this year’s Twenty20 Cup, after their original target, Sachin Tendulkar, turned down an offer in a bid to prolong his international career

Cricinfo staff02-Feb-2010Middlesex have confirmed that they are in talks to sign Yuvraj Singh as their second overseas player for this year’s Twenty20 Cup, after their original target, Sachin Tendulkar, turned down an offer in a bid to prolong his international career.Yuvraj, who famously hit Stuart Broad for six sixes in an over in the inaugural World Twenty20 in September 2007, has been earmarked as an explosive sidekick to the former Australian wicketkeeper, Adam Gilchrist, who confirmed back in November that he would be joining the county.”We have been in talks with Yuvraj about the possibility of him playing Twenty20 cricket this summer,” Angus Fraser, Middlesex’s director of cricket, told Cricinfo. “The contract is not in place at this moment in time, but we’re in communication, and it seems to be going quite positively.”With the deal being part-financed by the MCC, the major stumbling block to negotiations will be India’s as-yet-unconfirmed international schedule. The Twenty20 Cup group stages are scheduled to run from June 1 to July 18, with the finals to follow in August, although India are expected to announce a tri-series involving Sri Lanka, and possibly New Zealand, commencing on July 9.Middlesex were the winners of the 2008 Twenty20 Cup, and took part in the ill-fated Stanford Super Series in October and November that year, but they failed to qualify from the group stage of last year’s competition.