Former Liverpool star Gary Gillespie has said that Manchester City are now the benchmark for the Reds to follow, if they are to make progress during the ongoing campaign. For many years, the Reds have found themselves in the shadows of Manchester United but there has been a transition of late with the Citizens now being the dominant side in the Premier League.
German striker Timo Werner believes Leroy Sane can transform into the country’s very own version of Kylian Mbappe. The Manchester City star endured a tough summer where he was excluded from Germany’s squad for the World Cup but he has since been recalled by Joachim Loew for the internationals against England and Peru.
Manchester City right-back Kyle Walker has spoken about the change of role under Pep Guardiola during the ongoing campaign. The England international has been known for making his bombarding runs from the right side of the defence but he has supposedly been more conservative this term after receiving instructions from the manager.
Algeria international Riyad Mahrez has revealed his delight after making his friendly debut for Manchester City during the International Champions Cup clash against Borussia Dortmund. The game was tightly contested between both sides but ultimately, Dortmund ran victors after scoring the only goal of the match via the penalty spot.
The representative of Jorginho has confirmed the Italian is on the cusp of joining Manchester City. The Premier League champions have been negotiating a transfer fee with Napoli since the start of the month and agent Joao Santos has now confirmed that the transfer could come to fruition by next week.
Former Manchester City star Yaya Toure has said that he would like to play with Manchester United midfielder Paul Pogba, though he ruled out any possibility of joining the Red Devils. The 35-year-old was released from the Citizens following their recent Premier League triumph and he has since indicated his desire to remain in England.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has stressed that the current crop of players need to win more titles before they are regarded as one of the best Premier League sides of all time. The Citizens cruised towards the English crown last term with a number of record shattered including becoming the first club to attain the 100-point mark in the league’s history.
In their opening game of Russia 2018, Brazil were collectively poor as they dropped points against Switzerland, a result which left the South Americans under pressure as they prepared to take on Costa Rica in their second match.
While all players involved need to improve as the tournament develops, it seems that Manchester City striker Gabriel Jesus has come in for more than his fair share of criticism and there are even suggestions that the 21 year old should be dropped moving forward with Liverpool’s Roberto Firmino looking to step in.
Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola has insisted that his team are still far off from being compared to Liverpool’s side from the 1980s. The Mancunian giants cruised towards the Premier League title last month and they most-recently broke the Premier League record for the most wins, points and goals in a single campaign.
England are for one of the first times in recent memory heading in to a major football tournament with little expectation of success. This is a stark contrast to previous years where anything but the latter end of the tournament was seen as a failure and thus came to fruition on each occasion including the extremely disappointing display at Euro 2016. A 2-1 loss to minnows Iceland in the round of 16 was a huge call for change if England were to return to challenge in the future.
England are heading in to the tournament following a dominating qualifying campaign in which they remained unbeaten in their 10 starts and in the process winning 8 of them. England look to have been drawn in a favourable group in which expectations will certainly be high of qualifying through to the knock out stages. The group consists of World number 3 ranked Belgium and lowly sides Tunisia and Panama. The fact that Belgium are 1/33 to qualify and England 1/12 rather tells the tale as both sides would hope to dominate over the others. Continue reading
