Virgil van Dijk revealed he played through illness to help Liverpool beat Wolves 2-0 in Friday s Premier League clash at Molineux.
The Dutch centre-back capped a brilliant display with his first Premier League goal for the club, adding to Mohamed Salah s first-half opener, as the Reds moved four points clear at the top.
Despite feeling under the weather, Van Dijk made himself available for the match to ease Jurgen Klopp s defensive crisis, with Joe Gomez, Joel Matip and Trent Alexander-Arnold all out injured for the start of the busy festive period.
Van Dijk was happy to play his part in another important victory for Liverpool their seventh in a row in the league which ensured they will be top at Christmas, regardless of Manchester City s result against Crys…
Gael Clichy has told Manchester City fans he will leave the club after six seasons at the Etihad Stadium when his contract expires next month.
Clichy joined City from Arsenal in 2011 and made 203 appearances, winning two Premier Leagues and EFL Cups.
The 31-year-old is one of five remaining senior players out of contract at the end of Pep Guardiola s first season in charge along with Willy Caballero, Bacary Sagna, Yaya Toure and Jesus Navas.
City announced long-serving right-back Pablo Zabaleta would leave ahead of a farewell appearance against West Brom last week.
Speaking to supporters at an exclusive screening of the club s 93:20 film, which documents the events surrounding Sergio Aguero s dramatic title-sealing goal against QPR in 2012, Clichy was ask…
Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho is embarrassing the Premier League giants, according to Paul Scholes, who is surprised the club are standing by the former Chelsea boss.
Mourinho s position at United is coming under increasing scrutiny following the Red Devils worst start to a league season in 29 years and apparent tensions between the Portuguese and Paul Pogba.
United face Valencia in the Champions League on Tuesday and, speaking prior to the clash at Old Trafford, Scholes slammed Mourinho s behaviour.
I think it s a bad situation. I m surprised he survived after Saturday [when United lost 3-1 to West Ham], it was that bad, the attitude, the performance, Scholes told BT Sport.
2 Manchester United have not lost back-to-back home Champions League…
Jan Vertonghen is confident that Tottenham Hotspur will offer him a new deal, according to ESPN.
The thirty-one-year old’s current deal is set to expire at the end of this season, though he fully expects to still be at the club beyond the summer.
He has played every minute of Spurs’ four league games so far this season and scored in the 2-1 win over Newcastle United on the opening weekend of the campaign.
Since signing from Ajax in the summer of 2012, the Belgium international has racked up almost two hundred and fifty appearances in all competitions, scoring nine goals.
The defender has been capped one hundred and eight times for his country with the last six of those outings coming at this summer’s World Cup finals in Russia while he scored…
Gianluigi Buffon remains confident Italy will qualify for the 2018 World Cup despite their disappointing 3-0 defeat to Spain in Madrid on Saturday.
The top two sides in Group G went head-to-head at the Santiago Bernabeu in the seventh round of qualification fixtures and it was the 2010 champions who prevailed thanks to Isco and Alvaro Morata.
Defeat leaves Italy three points behind their illustrious rivals with three games remaining the Azzurri facing Israel, Macedonia and Albania.
And Buffon insists they could still secure a place in Russia next year, even if they might have to go through the play-offs.
We believe and hope to go to the World Cup, Buffon told TMW Radio.
There is a year ahead of us, there will be training camps to refine certain …
Tottenham have not contacted Harry Winks since his loan move to Serie A side Sampdoria.
Winks spell in Italy has been marred by an ankle injury, seeing him make only nine appearances since his August arrival.
Sampdoria have won just twice all season, putting them bottom of the table and 12 points from safety.
The England international s parent club have also had a disappointing season at times, including bowing out of the Champions League to Milan in the last 16, though they are challenging for the top four in the Premier League.
Winks, though, has not had any contact with Spurs, or their coach Antonio Conte.
The midfielder told Gazzetta dello Sport: Nobody from Tottenham has contacted me, not even the coach. I was and am fully focusing on Samp.
Chelsea have submitted an appeal to FIFA over the club s two-window transfer ban, world football s governing body has confirmed.
FIFA s Disciplinary Committee sanctioned Chelsea last month over 29 cases in which the club were found to have breached regulations relating to the international transfer and registration of players under the age of 18.
Responding to the ban, which prevents Chelsea from registering any new signings before the end of the 2019-20 season, a club statement said they categorically refute FIFA s claims and would be appealing.
The club wishes to emphasise that it respects the important work undertaken by FIFA in relation to the protection of minors and has fully cooperated with FIFA throughout its investigation, Chelsea said.
A F…
Tottenham might have had Ross Barkley in their side for Saturday s Premier League clash against Chelsea, but he is instead in contention to feature for the Blues at Wembley.
Barkley was strongly linked with a Spurs switch in 2017 but the club appeared to baulk at Everton s asking price, with Chelsea swooping in for a cut-price £15million deal in January.
Although the midfielder initially struggled to make an impact under Antonio Conte, the Italian s successor and compatriot Maurizio Sarri has helped Barkley take his game to the next level.
Sarri has dubbed Barkley a complete player and his development has been so rapid he was preferred to regular starters Dele Alli and Jesse Lingard for England s Nations League decider against Croatia last weekend.
Here…
Ernesto Marcucci brushed off Sevilla s underwhelming performance in Wednesday s 1-1 draw at Maribor, content with the fact they did exactly what they needed to in securing Champions League progression.
The Spanish side needed a point to guarantee a spot in the last 16, but they found themselves trailing after just 10 minutes, as Marcos Tavares gave the home side an unlikely lead.
It ultimately turned out that Sevilla could have lost and still made it through, as Spartak Moscow were trounced 7-0 by Liverpool.
But a goalkeeping howler allowed Ganso to equalise in the second half and Marcucci – in charge as Eduardo Berizzo continues his cancer recovery – was not too concerned about the failure to win.
Full-time. We re through to the last-16 of the ! 1-1…
According to Sky Sports, Chelsea aren’t interested in letting Andres Christensen go after recently rejecting an approach from Spanish giants Barcelona. The Blues have invested an awful lot of time into Christensen and they view him as an important part of the squad, despite the fact that he’s only made a little over two dozen appearances since turning professional back in 2013.
His father and agent noted in October that he wants to see Andreas being given an extended run in the first team, or else they’d be looking towards a transfer away. The Dane is clearly a high level talent given how well he’s done on the international stage, but sometimes, that doesn’t always translate well into domestic football.
Many fans have long since been critical of Chelsea’s yo…