The Warm-Up: Newcastle for sale, giant mug included in the deal
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Updated 17/10/2017 at 07:23 GMT
Plus: Leicester hark back to 2015/16 by relying on Mahrez, Kane could be a lifer and Matt Derbyshire is back
Owner of Sports Direct and Newcastle United, Mike Ashley
Image credit: Getty Images
TUESDAY’S BIG STORIES
Club for sale, slightly charred around the edges, seller keen for quick deal
Got a few spare quid? Don’t mind spending an extended period of time in conversation with Mike Ashley? Unlikely ever to sack Kevin Keegan? Well then, why not buy Newcastle United! Ashley has unofficially been looking to get shot of the club for a fair while, but now it’s official: he wants out, and he wants out relatively sharpish too.
"To give the club the best possible opportunity of securing the positioning and investment necessary to take it to the next level,” belched a statement from Ashley, “at what is an important time in its history, its present ownership has determined that it is in the best interests of Newcastle United and its fans for the club to be put up for sale.”
Amanda Staveley, the financier with a big pot of investment cash at her disposal, is thought to be one of the parties keen on finding a buyer for Newcastle, and if it goes anything like her last club purchase then things will have worked out very nicely for Newcastle. She helped sort the sale of Manchester City back in 2008, for £210 million: obviously a huge sum of money, but oddly it seems quite quaint now that PSG have paid north of that for a single player.
So who fancies it? Anyone? Will it sweeten the deal if Mike throws in a big Sports Direct mug…?
Mahrez parties like it’s 2015/16 to save Leicester
Ah, the heady days of a couple of seasons ago, when Claudio Ranieri took his rag-tag bunch of chancers to the most implausible title victory of all time. Seems a long time ago now, doesn’t it? These days Leicester have reverted to the mean rather, and spend their time scrabbling around for points against Tony Pulis teams and finding themselves at the grim end of the table, which is exactly what happened on Monday evening.
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Leicester City's Riyad Mahrez celebrates scoring their first goal with Islam Slimani
Image credit: Reuters
Riyad Mahrez scored an 80th-minute equaliser to salvage a point for Leicester against West Brom, after Nacer Chadli had given the Baggies the lead earlier in the second half. The draw is welcome for Leicester and Craig Shakespeare, for they cannot be too choosey when it comes to collecting points this season, but it wasn’t enough to haul them out of the bottom three. There they sit, one win to their name and six games without a victory. Managers have been sacked for less.
“I left him out against Bournemouth, gave him a kick up the backside and he was excellent in training,” said Shakespeare of Mahrez. “You want the response and the right response.” Tony Pulis, whose side are also on an iffy run having now not won in five, was less satisfied: “It’s happened to us a few times this year, where we’ve been leading and let it slip.”
Kane can be Tottenham’s Totti, says Pochettino
This season has provided some entertainment in watching people trying to think of new ways to praise Harry Kane. Ahead of the Champions League game between Spurs and Real Madrid on Tuesday Zinedine Zidane had a good go by calling him "the complete player" and offering the ultimate compliment by hinting that Real could one day set their expert tapping up wheels in motion and try to sign him.
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Harry Kane, left, and Mauricio Pochettino, right, have been key to Tottenham's resurgence
Image credit: PA Sport
Mauricio Pochettino, meanwhile, has to be more creative whenever he’s prompted to be nice about Kane, and to be fair he managed that on Monday. “Harry was so emotional when he saw the last game of Totti, who had only played at one club,” Pochettino said.
He was very emotional and what I say is that maybe Harry can have the same career as Totti. When he saw Totti’s farewell at Roma, that creates extra motivation. I hope he stays with us for a long time because he has great quality. He enjoys Tottenham and he probably identifies with the club more because he is from the academy.
Could Kane stay at Spurs for the rest of his career? It’s frankly pointless to speculate. But it would be good fun if he did.
IN OTHER NEWS
You remember Matt Derbyshire, don’t you? Yeeeeeeaah, course you do. Well, today he might wish you didn’t, as at the weekend he pulled off a sensational one-two punch of incompetence while playing for Omonia in Cyprus. Come for failing to stick the ball in an open goal, stay for trying to head the ball in from the ground and only succeeding in putting it even further away from the goal.
HEROES AND ZEROS
Hero: A ballsy journalist
Sometimes questions aren’t the clearest, as journalists tip-toe around issues so as to not irk managers too much. And then you have someone prepared to lay their swingers on the line…
Zero: Also that journalist
He has a nice, smiley facade, but you probably wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of Klopp. Rangey. Good reach. And you see what happens to his jaw when he gets all cross on the touchline. Just keep it breezy next time mate.
HAT TIP
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Croatia's Luka Modric attends a training session
Image credit: Reuters
It was late April 2008 and those at the top of Tottenham were getting nervous. They had been chasing Luka Modric, Dinamo Zagreb’s brilliant little midfielder, for almost a year but all of a sudden they had competition. Sven-Goran Eriksson’s Manchester City were interested, Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle United were desperate for him, the Italian giants were on alert and even Barcelona were keen, although they had doubts about the maturity of the 22-year-old to step up and play at the Nou Camp.
Remember when Spurs bought Luka Modric? Well, they nearly didn’t: Jack Pitt-Brooke in the Independent tells the tale of the wee Croat’s move from Dinamo Zagreb with the help of the chaps around at the time.
RETRO CORNER
Happy beachball day everyone! On this day in 2009, a Liverpool fan took an inflatable ball to their game against Sunderland – because what could go wrong there? Just a bit of harmless fun, right? No way that sort of thing could go awry, right, even if you throw said ball onto the pitch? Aaaahhhh, hubris, our faithful old friend…
COMING UP
It’s the Champions League, and it’s a right ripping good lot of action for you to boot. In Manchester, arguably the two form teams in Europa face each other, as Napoli visit to play City, while in Madrid Tottenham travel to hopefully do better than their last rather anaemic trip there in 2011, when a brace from Emmanuel Adebayor (!!!) gave Real a 4-0 win. Should be belting.
Oh, and live on the channel it's the last-16 of the Under-17 World Cup with a magnificent England taking on Japan at 3:30pm.
Tomorrow’s Warm-Up will be brought to you by Alex Chick, who unlike Adebayor doesn’t need a pep talk from Tim Sherwood to perform to his best.
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