Arsenal make approach for Griezmann

The Gunners have begun exploring the availability of the €30 million-rated Real Sociedad forward as they whittle down their list of summer transfer targets

EXCLUSIVEBy Wayne Veysey | UK Correspondent

Arsenal have made an initial move for Real Sociedad forward Antoine Griezmann, Goal understands.

Gunners' representatives have been in contact with Griezmann's camp after making the 23-year-old one of their top summer targets.

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Arsenal have extensively scouted the Frenchman, who can play in any of the three forward positions and has a burgeoning reputation in La Liga.

Griezmann’s stock has risen with 16 league goals in 31 games this season, and 19 in 45 in all competitions.

His pace, dribbling and technique have also caught the eye of Europe’s top clubs, who are aware that his contract expires in 2016 and Sociedad face a fight to hold on to their €30 million-rated asset this summer.

Arsenal know they face competition from the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool and several continental heavyweights to land the attacker.

The north Londoners are whittling down their priority transfer target list, finalising scouting reports and holding meetings with agents despite the uncertainty over the future of manager Arsene Wenger, who has yet to sign the two-year contract extension he agreed last October.

Griezmann is a star graduate of Sociedad’s youth system after joining the Basque club from his native France as a 14-year-old.

He is having his finest season since breaking into the first team aged 18, with his performances in a free role from a starting point on the left flank attracting rave notices across Europe.

Griezmann did not win his first international cap for France until last month, with his promotion to the senior team delayed following a disciplinary breach in November 2012.

The Sociedad star was one of five young French players suspended by the national federation from all France selections for a full year in the wake of an Under-21s European Championship play-off in which they celebrated a first-leg victory by making a three-hour drive to Paris just days before the second leg.

Van Gaal should be 'first pick' for Man Utd, says Kluivert

The former Barcelona striker, who is the coach's assistant with Netherlands, says the Dutchman should be a primary managerial target for all top clubs

Patrick Kluivert believes Louis van Gaal “would be the first pick of any club” as the 62-year-old closes in on becoming Manchester United's next permanent manager.

The Dutchman has agreed a deal with United and is expected to take charge at Old Trafford after his World Cup campaign with Netherlands ends this summer.

"He would be absolutely the first pick of any club, especially top teams everywhere in the world,” Kluivert told talkSPORT.

"He likes to let young players make their debut if they are ready for it. 

“The most important thing at the moment is I'm personally enjoying working with him and with the Dutch national team. We're going to the World Cup and hope to do well. After that we’ll see what happens.”

Kluivert, who is Van Gaal’s assistant with Netherlands’ national team, admits he would welcome the chance to follow the Dutchman to Old Trafford.

"Sure, I would be pleasantly surprised if Louis van Gaal asked me. I would [do the job] wherever in the world because I love working with him,” said the 37-year-old.

“It doesn't matter what club it will be if he asks me to join him, I would be absolutely honoured to be on his side."

Hummels: I'd love Kagawa to return to BVB

The German defender would love to play alongside his former team-mate once against but says their attacking line is strong anyway

Borussia Dortmund defender Mats Hummels has admitted that he would love to see Shinji Kagawa return to the club from Manchester United.

The Japan international left Singal Iduna Park in 2012 for Old Trafford, but has failed to stamp his mark on the English champions' first team in his two years in the Premier League.

He has said in the past that he is frustrated by his situation at United and Hummels says the would be happy to line up alongside his former team-mate again.

"We would take him with open arms, of course," he told Kicker.

"Having an offensive line with [Marco] Reus, [Henrikh] Mkhitaryan and Kagawa would certainly be stylish.

"But I would not say anything about the other great players we have playing for us. The attacking midfield is probably the best part of our team without Shinji."

BVB have pledged to spend big this summer and Hummels took time to deny that his team-mates would get jealous of a marquee signing who would draw a bigger salary.

"I cannot imagine that it would be a big issue with us. In our team we are not only out for success," he continued.

"At the end of the day, everyone is repsonsible for their own contracts. Nobody forced us to sign them. We want to play good football.

"If we had a star attacker who earned more money than us, no one would feel bad about it."

No one will replace Ranieri!' - Monaco boss laughs off Zidane rumours

Les Rouges-et-Blancs coach dismisses suggestions that he may be set to lose his job, insisting that his only concern is ensuring his side continue to pick up points

Claudio Ranieri has brushed off stories that Zinedine Zidane may replace him at Monaco, claiming he will stay at the Ligue 1 outfit.

The principality club earned a 4-1 win over Ajaccio on Saturday with a Dimitar Berbatov double and strikes from Geoffrey Kondogbia and Lucas Ocampos, while the hosts had only Gadji Tallo's solitary effort in response.

Paris Saint-Germain will only have to overcome Sochaux on Sunday to secure the title but, despite not achieving Ligue 1 sucess, Ranieri remains confident that he will stay at Stade Louis II.

"You journalists love your many rumours!" he joked at a press conference after being asked about Zidane.

"This is a good position to take because Monaco is a great club. But no one will replace Ranieri! Ranieri will continue.

"For us, the goal was not to delay the coronation of PSG. We play every game to win. We've got 75 points, which is fine in my opinion, but I still want more. This is important for our pride. Especially as we've played without [Radamel] Falcao since November."

Monaco are seven points behind les Parisiens with three games remaining, meaning a second successive league title is all but assured for Laurent Blanc's men, but the Italian was encouraged by what he saw from his side.

"We were level after the first period because Ajaccio posed problems for us and played to win," the former Chelsea and Inter coach added.

"The state of the pitch hardly helped matters. We were trying to adapt to the opponent. It was a good second half and we scored four goals. Berbatov was decisive - he is a great player."

Monaco currently have 75 points from 35 league games, seven behind PSG who have also played a game 

Chelsea parked two buses, not one' - Mourinho leads defensive rebirth

Three of the UCL semi-finalists turned in defensive showings last week, while Chelsea repeated the trick in their win versus Liverpool. Does this signal a new dawn of pragmatism?

COMMENT


By Kris Voakes | International Football Correspondent

When Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona clinched a second Champions League win in three seasons with an exhibition of passing football against Manchester United in 2011, fans and pundits far and wide took the opportunity to speculate whether the Blaugrana were the greatest club team of all time.

Wind forward three years and Chelsea are aiming to emulate the feat. Except, the Blues are hoping to do so with a brand of functional, pragmatic football that relies heavily on defence. It is not the type of play that will have people rushing to proclaim Jose Mourinho’s side to be the best team ever.

In truth, they are not the only club to be relying on such a style right now. Chelsea’s semi-final first leg fixture against Atletico Madrid was notable for both sides’ ambivalence to possession. Two teams intent on winning with counter-attacking football ended up cancelling each other out completely.

We should all have expected as much, though. Atletico have reached the top of La Liga at this late stage of the season thanks largely to an excellent counter-attacking game. Captain Gabi even joked to reporters before the first leg that “If Chelsea give us the ball, we’ll instantly give it back to them.”

When Real Madrid beat Bayern Munich 24 hours later, they did so despite having ‘enjoyed’ only 28 per cent of possession. Guardiola’s attempts to turn Bayern into his old Barca, with sparkling football their modus operandi, had met a defensive obstacle they just could not negotiate.

If Chelsea give us the ball, we'll instantly give it back to them   - Atletico Madrid captain Gabi

Bayern’s players later spoke as though they had won 5-0. Philipp Lahm proclaimed: “I don’t remember a Bayern side coming here and dominating like that.” Arjen Robben added: “I have to give a big compliment to the team. We played at the Bernabeu and we were so in control.”

Yet it was Madrid who had the three best chances of the game, and took one of them. It is Madrid who are within 90 goalless minutes of the Champions League final. And it is Madrid who proved to be excellent proponents of the new fine art.

Chelsea drew great consternation once more on Sunday. Their 2-0 victory at Liverpool moved them right back into the Premier League title race, but the way in which it was achieved was again used as a stick with which to beat them.

	TALE OF THE TAPE Liverpool v Chelsea
73.04%	Possession	26.96%
624	Total passes	226
536	Successful passes	153
430	Passes in opposition half	153
353	Successful passes in opposition half	98
*stats from Opta

While Mourinho revelled in what he called a “beautiful victory”, opposite number Brendan Rodgers made the assessment that Chelsea had “parked two buses, rather than one.” He added: “From the first minute they had 10 men behind the ball. We were the team trying to win but we just couldn’t make the breakthrough.”

It seemed an unusual reaction to claim that Liverpool were the only team trying to win a game when Chelsea had picked up the three points. The Blues had had their smallest share of possession in any Premier League game all season, but with that 27% they carried out their game plan to perfection.

Liverpool had executed 353 successful passes in Chelsea’s half, whereas their visitors had only attempted 226 in total during the whole game. But what did that matter? Mourinho’s plan had not been to win more of the ball, rather to win the game.

He knew that the league leaders had scored a large number of goals through transition plays this term, and sought to narrow their opportunities to do so again. He realised that Liverpool’s aerial presence in open play is negligible and forced them into delivering from wider positions. What coach wouldn’t want to neuter an opponent’s threat?

And with three-quarters of the Champions League semi-finalists set to back themselves to deliver further such structured and opportunistic tactics this week, football across Europe is currently going through one of its most pragmatic phases in decades.

In 2011, attacking football was king. But it 2014, defences are on top.

China frees Japan ship after $28m paid in 1930s row

SHANGHAI  - China on Thursday released a seized Japanese ship after its owner paid $28 million in compensation, a court said, in a business dispute dating to the 1930s which underlines tensions between the countries.
The Shanghai Maritime Court announced Saturday it had impounded a large freighter owned by Mitsui O.S.K. Lines in accordance with the law, as the Japanese company had failed to compensate a Chinese firm for two ships chartered in 1936.
But the case had political overtones given uneasy ties between the two Asian giants, strained by a territorial dispute over islands in the East China Sea and China’s perception that Japan has failed to make amends for atrocities committed during World War II.
“The court has delivered a ruling at 8:30 am on April 24, 2014, to lift the detention of the Baosteel Emotion ship,” the court said in a statement.
Mitsui had “fulfilled its obligations” by paying the compensation and additional court costs of around $390,000, the court said. It did not name the Chinese party awarded the compensation.
The Japanese company said the released ship departed a Chinese port on Thursday afternoon, but warned the incident could have a “negative impact” on its business activities in China.
The ship Baosteel Emotion, designed to carry iron ore, was docked at Majishan island off Shanghai, according to Chinese media reports.
Japan had lodged a formal diplomatic protest over the seizure and warned it could “intimidate Japanese companies doing business in China”.
Tokyo believes that the seizure undermined a 1972 joint communique that normalised ties between Japan and China, in which Beijing agreed to renounce any demands for war reparations.
China has insisted that the case was purely a commercial matter, and a government spokesman said Thursday that the dispute was handled under the law.
“A Chinese court has given a ruling in accordance with law and Mitsui O.S.K. has also paid compensation in accordance with the ruling of the Chinese court,” foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a regular briefing. “Therefore, the case has been handled.”
Japanese media suggested the seizure of the ship underlined China’s growing assertiveness before US President Barack Obama’s arrival in Tokyo on Wednesday on the first leg of an Asian tour.
In a separate case, Japanese trading house Marubeni said Thursday that three employees - Chinese nationals working for subsidiary Columbia Grain - might have been detained by Chinese authorities.
Qin, the foreign ministry spokesman, said he was unaware of the case.
Mitsui’s predecessor chartered two ships from a company called Chung Wei Steamship Co., now referred to as Zhongwei by mainland China, in 1936.
The ships were reportedly commandeered by the Imperial Japanese Navy and were sunk during World War II, media reports said.
A compensation suit was later brought against Mitsui by the descendants of the founder of the Chinese company, and in 2007 a Shanghai court ordered Mitsui to pay compensation.
Mitsui said in a statement on Monday that it had been seeking an out-of-court settlement after China’s supreme court rejected its appeal against the judgement in 2011, but the vessel was “suddenly” impounded.
A Chinese academic defended the court’s move, saying the seizure was legal despite the time elapsed since the original suit was filed in 1988.
“The ruling made by Shanghai Maritime Court is indisputable,” said Lu Ming, a professor at the Shanghai University of International Business and Economics who specialises in maritime law.
“After being accepted in 1988, this case was always being handled by the court,” she said.
The ship seizure came as a set of lawsuits related to wartime forced labour have also been filed in China against Japanese companies. But the favourable ruling might not necessarily open the floodgate for compensation, Lu said.
“This is a typical business dispute case, which differs in nature from the labour compensation cases, so it’s hard to tell whether it will have any positive effect,” she said.
Last month, a Beijing court for the first time agreed to hear a lawsuit by Chinese citizens demanding compensation from Japanese firms for World War II forced labour, according to their lawyer.

Pope in hot water over ‘personal’ phone calls

VATICAN CITY : Pope Francis’s habit of picking up the phone and cold calling people who write to him is landing the Vatican in hot water and spokesman Federico Lombardi has had enough.
Lombardi said on Thursday the calls were part of the pope’s “personal pastoral relationships” and “do not in any way form a part of the pope’s public activities”.
The spokesman said media reports about the phone calls have been “a source of misunderstanding and confusion”. “Consequences relating to the teaching of the Church are not to be inferred from these occurrences,” he said.
The statement follows reports about a phone call that Francis apparently made to a woman in Argentina who had complained her parish priest would not grant her Holy Communion because she had divorced and remarried.
Francis was quoted by the woman’s husband as saying that the issue was being “looked at” in the Vatican and that divorcees who take Holy Communion “are doing nothing bad”.
Catholic rules currently ban divorcees from taking Holy Communion, the spiritual high point of the mass, although the doctrine is in practice widely flouted by parishes.
The pope has previously been reported making calls from the practical to the intense, including calling his newsagent in Buenos Aires to cancel a subscription and comforting a mother grieving over her murdered daughter.
The Vatican rarely makes official comment on reports of the calls, which often rely solely on the person in question saying that they have been called by the pope - who has been dubbed “the cold call pope” by the tabloids.