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This article is part of Football FanCast’s The Chalkboard series, which provides a tactical insight into teams, players, managers, potential signings and more… 

Aston Villa’s start to the Premier League season has begun with back-to-back defeats.

They opened the campaign with the tough test of the Champions League finalists, Tottenham, where for the best part of an hour they looked a solid side that could have potentially caused the upset of the weekend.

John McGinn’s early first-half strike was cancelled out in the 73rd minute by a Tanguy Ndombele thunderbolt before England’s Harry Kane netted a brace inside the final four minutes to put to bed any chance of a result.

On Saturday, they faced their first home game since returning to the Premier League and that ended in defeat at the hands of Bournemouth after a brace of blunders gave them a world of work to do for the rest of the match.

Find out which 33-year-old could help keep Aston Villa in the Premier League this season in the video below…

On the Chalkboard

It’s something that Dean Smith and Villa are going to have to eradicate as quickly as possible or their Premier League journey will be merely a Championship honeymoon and then they really would be repeating Fulham’s exploits.

In the game against Spurs, Jack Grealish lost possession to hand Kane the goal to take them to 2-1 in the match whilst at the weekend, Douglas Luiz’s poorly thought-out dummy gifted Harry Wilson an attempt at goal which he duly smashed home.

That wasn’t before Tom Heaton’s challenge on Callum Wilson inside the first two minutes handed the visitors a penalty and the opener.

Those are nasty signs to be having but at least they are coming now and not at the back end of the season.

However, when your Premier League experienced goalkeeper is looking uncomfortable on his home debut then you should be worried. Heaton has played 98 times in the Premier League and he needs to be leading from the back, not setting an example through mistakes.

Had there not been these three individual errors then there’s little to suggest Villa wouldn’t have been able to see out the Tottenham game for a draw at 1-1 and that they might not have had a mountain to climb against Bournemouth after being two down after just 12 minutes.

In the Premier League, you just simply cannot afford such individual errors, especially with the quality increasing after coming up from the Championship.

It’s a harsh lesson but one they must learn from. How they do that may well define their season.

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David Luiz’s transfer to Arsenal is still taking some getting used to.

The 32-year-old made the switch from Chelsea to the Gunners on transfer deadline day for a fee of £8m after having declared his intention to depart Stamford Bridge the day before.

As such, he is now an Arsenal player, and brings with him years of experience at the highest level. He has also won a plethora of trophies throughout his illustrious career.

AFTV’s Robbie has his say on Arsenal’s owners in the video below…

Such is his track record, Arsenal great Nigel Winterburn has suggested that Unai Emery should give the centre-back the captaincy this season.

“Emery should make Luiz captain for this season. He has the ability to be that Tony Adams figure in Arsenal’s backline,” he said.

“A captain needs to be someone vocal, someone that’s not scared to make people aware of their responsibilities just because they might upset them for five minutes.”

Whilst some Gunners may be happy that the Brazil international has made the move to north London, a lot disagree with the former left-back, and have rubbished the claim that Luiz should be the new leader of the team. They have taken to Twitter to share their opinions, and you can see some of the best comments below.

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This article is part of Football FanCast’s Opinion series, which provides analysis, insight and opinion on any issue within the beautiful game, from Paul Pogba’s haircuts to League Two relegation battles…

Since Sheikh Mansour’s takeover, Manchester City have been blessed with some truly extraordinary players. The likes of Sergio Aguero, David Silva, Yaya Toure and Vincent Kompany, amongst others, have rightly taken the limelight at the Etihad. But one man who has arguably had just as big of an influence since his arrival, is Fernandinho.

The Brazil international joined City from Ukrainian giants Shakhtar Donetsk and has been a permanent fixture in the side’s midfield since. The 34-year-old has played under numerous different managers at the Etihad, but has been an integral part of every City team. Others have come and gone, but Fernandinho has been an ever-present.

Watch Manchester City Live Streams With StreamFootball.tv Below

But with just nine months left on his contract, The Sun claim the Brazilian is “ready to wait” until later in the campaign to discuss a new deal. Whilst the report suggests both City and Fernandinho have a “strong relationship”, surely the Etihad side must look to get that piece of business done as soon as possible?

The big-money arrival of Rodri, and his impressive start to the campaign so far, has almost shunted Fernandinho to the shadows. But, despite the presence of City’s big-money signing, the 34-year-old still has plenty left to offer.

Indeed, speaking in November 2017, Pep Guardiola remarked: “I think Fernandinho, right now, is one of the three best holding midfielders in the world. He gives us a lot, with the ball and without the ball, in terms of many things we need to compete.

“I know the fans like the guys who score goals, but all managers know the value of this kind of player. Maybe the media don’t talk too much about how important they are.”

How much money could you make busking for a week as a freestyle footballer? Find out in the video below…

And that perhaps is the biggest reason why City should avoid overlooking Fernandinho this season and potentially even after that. He remains one of the side’s best ball-winning midfielders, and averaged 2 tackles and 1.4 interceptions per game in the Premier League last season, so it’s not as if Guardiola’s comments have expired.

As Rodri looks to settle into his first campaign in English footballer, Guardiola could do a lot worse than turning to an old hand to steer the side through a transition year for the Spain star.

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This article is part of Football FanCast’s The Chalkboard series, which provides a tactical insight into teams, players, managers, potential signings and more… 

Wolves have booked their place in the Europa League group stages for the first time in their history as a 5-3 aggregate win over Torino was enough to see them advance.

The qualification stage has been strenuous, having played six matches in the competition already but there have been plenty of highlights.

Raul Jimenez has bagged six goals whilst supporters have already been gifted with trips to Armenia and Italy this season.

One standout has been Adama Traore, who was handed his first start at right wing-back against Crusaders, providing an assist for Diogo Jota’s opener and has since recorded two more in the competition.

The winger-turned-defender has looked reborn in his new role, but it could have been oh so different.

Watch Premier League Live Streams With StreamFootball.tv Below

On the Chalkboard

Back in April, TEAMtalk revealed that the Spaniard wasn’t in Nuno Santo’s long-term plans as he had failed to cement a regular first-team spot amongst the team last season – he made just eight Premier League starts.

Now nearly five months later, Traore has looked like the best choice they have at right wing-back especially with Matt Doherty’s rough start to the season, averaging a rating of 6.31 – though, he has been far from match fit.

Have you heard the strangest chant in the Premier League yet? Hear it in the video below…

But one man’s misfortune is another man’s gain, and that has to be the case for the 5 foot 10 ace.

His performance on Thursday night against Torino showed he could compete on a big stage, against a team of top-draw quality considering they ply their trade in Serie A, unlike their previous opponents that play in the Northern Irish and Armenian leagues.

In the game, Traore recorded one assist, one key pass, won five dribbles, had a 100% success rate for tackling and had 76 touches, per MezzalaScout.

That’s quite an outstanding showing from a right wing-back.

His overall showings in the Europa League have been fabulous and demonstrates why Nuno would have been silly to sell him.

If Traore continues to keep Doherty out, deciding to maintain his services will look like a masterstroke.

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Lots of Liverpool fans have taken to Twitter to react to the news that Virgil van Dijk has committed his future to the club by agreeing a new six-year contract.

The Mirror report that the Netherlands international’s current deal was not meant to expire until 2023 as per the five-year deal he signed upon joining the club in a £75m move from Southampton.

Van Dijk’s new terms will see him net a weekly wage closer to £200k-a-week, having previously earned £125k-a-week at Anfield with bonuses for clean sheets and appearances.

After agreeing the new deal, the former Celtic man will remain at Anfield until 2025 with Liverpool tying the player down for the best years of his career.

Having just won the Champions League and UEFA Super Cup, as well as being named UEFA Men’s Player of the Year ahead of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, this is incredibly exciting news for the Merseysiders.

Let’s see how the Liverpool fans on Twitter reacted…

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This article is part of Football FanCast’s In Numbers series, which takes a statistical look at performances, season-long form and reported transfer targets… 

Wolves were emphatically defeated on their own patch on Saturday afternoon as Frank Lampard’s Chelsea came to town and ran riot at Molineux.

Tammy Abraham’s hat-trick contributed to a 5-2 victory which pushed Wolves closer to the base of the Premier League table.

Nuno Santo and his men have been impressive in the Europa League, winning all six of their matches on their way to qualifying for the group stages but so far they’ve faltered domestically.

Watch Wolverhampton Wanderers Live Streams With StreamFootball.tv Below

Their woes in the league have gone from bad to worse after this latest showing and it was the performance from their captain that emphasised just how poor they really were.

Conor Coady is usually Santo’s reliable ball-playing defender at the heart of defence. He’s the captain, leader and often the root of the attack. He averaged a passing success rate of 84.3% last season, per WhoScored.

But on Saturday he was just not at the races. The 26-year-old failed to register an interception or a block in the match and only managed two tackles as his poor season in the Premier League rumbled on.

Coady is averaging a rating of just 6.17 from their opening five matches, which only goalkeeper Rui Patricio has worse than of all the players to play four or more games.

His numbers are down from last season – when he averaged 0.8 interceptions and 0.7 blocks per game – and the fact he failed to make a single interception or block against Chelsea is particularly poor.

Being the ball-playing defender in the heart of the three-man defence, Coady is usually spot on with his passing, but he managed a dire long ball accuracy rate of 42.8%, meaning it is likely that he consistently invited the pressure back on his side as he was barely able to find another player in a gold and black shirt.

The performance from the captain just wasn’t good enough and certainly not at the level you’d require to succeed in the Premier League.

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With Everton’s first-team struggling to get going, and the U23s team still unbeaten, some fans are calling for academy prospect Anthony Gordon to be given a chance in the senior squad.

The 19-year-old has great talent and has already received many plaudits for a dazzling goal against Mansfield in the EFL Trophy, and his potential hasn’t gone unnoticed, with Borussia Dortmund reportedly interested.

His most recent display, against Blackburn U23s on Monday, has prompted some praise amongst the fanbase, and suggestions that he should be considered for a first-team role.

The midfielder split open the Rovers defence to assist Ellis Simms for the Toffees winner, which was his second assist of the season – adding to the five goals he has scored in just five games.

Everton fans’ excitement is therefore justified, and it is true that the senior squad need a spark to kickfire their season, having mustered only five shots on target against Bournemouth.

Watch Everton Live Streams With StreamFootball.tv Below

Here are some of the reactions from fans to Gordon’s latest display, with many believing that he deserves to be given a chance by Marco Silva.

[ad_pod ]By his own admission, before David Moyes rubber-stamped the signature of Joleon Lescott to Everton from Wolves in 2006 for a perfectly affordable fee of £5m he had previously watched the defender on 25 occasions.This can be construed as a laudable amount of research but it also lends itself to a pertinent query: would the Toffees boss have spent so much time making absolutely certain of Lescott’s quality, if the centre-back was already excelling in the top-flight instead of the Championship?If the lack of Premier League experience was indeed a consideration – and let’s face it, it probably was – then we must wonder why Moyes wasn’t greatly appeased by his signing of Tim Cahill two years earlier.Watch Championship Live Streams With StreamFootball.tv Below

Like Lescott, Cahill was a stand-out star of the second tier and consistently so. In six seasons at Millwall, the midfielder scored 57 goals in 251 appearances and featured in a FA Cup final.

In 2004, Everton swooped. In the same window that saw Helder Postiga join Spurs for £6.2m and Mateja Kezman go to Chelsea for £5m, the Toffees managed toÂCahill for just £2m. Only Crystal Palace appeared to be amongst his suitors.

Last January Championship club Leeds narrowly missed out on signing the league’s most dazzling raw talent in Daniel James. The Welsh wizard had been lighting up the second-tier of English football, scoring six goals and providing ten assists in 39 appearances across all competitions come the end of the campaign.

No other club sought to take advantage of this which meant that in the summer – following a latter half of the campaign that saw James score sensational goals for Swansea and mark his international introduction with an impressive goal too – Manchester United swooped in with a low-ball, successful bid of £15m.

Did the Red Devils celebrate the securing of such a bargain? In the main yes, though certainly not wholly, while rival fans snickered behind their hands, viewing the transfer as a symbol of where United are now. How the mighty have fallen, signing a Championship player. Where once they shopped in Waitrose, now they trawl the shelves of Lidl.

James has so far made five Premier League appearances for United and scored three goals. He has been a breath of fresh air and unquestionably a cause for optimism as the club navigate a tricky period of readjustment. He has out-performed more high-profile team-mates like Jesse Lingard, who has yet to score or assist this season.

There has always been a certain snobbery emanating from the Premier League towards the Championship, their lesser cousin. That was the case at the turn of this century, and it persists to this day. And this is despite example after example showing this belittlement to be a fallacy. The likes of James Maddison, Joe Gomez, Aaron Ramsey, and perhaps the biggest one of all, Gareth Bale, have all shown that the second division can be a happy hunting ground for the top clubs.

Is it possible that in January 2018, Man Utd not only made their worst signing of all time but the Premier League’s? Find out in the video below…

Yet perhaps this is changing. This summer saw a number of players move up a division, including the likes of Che Adams, Oliver McBurnie, and Adam Webster. These are players who – unlike Cahill and Lescott – have not consistently shown their worth in the Championship season after season but rather – like James – enjoyed a relatively brief period of recognition and achievement at the second-highest level.

Both Adams and Webster made their move to the top-flight after just three seasons in the Championship, whilst McBurnie only had two campaigns in English football’s second-tier. Hardly individuals who have been doing the business year-in and year-out.

So are lessons being learned then? Is the Premier League finally waking up to the fact that the Championship is an under-used market, full of bargains and quality to spare? Let’s hope so.

Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola has lauded Dominic Calvert-Lewin as ‘one of the best’ in the air, after being left impressed by the Everton regular’s performance against his title-chasing side on Saturday.

Marco Silva once again trusted Calvert-Lewin to lead his attack at Goodison Park over the weekend, in what was the former England under-21 international’s 15th start in the Premier League from a possible 18 dating back to his outing at Cardiff City on February 26 (TransferMarkt).

Despite being the striker favoured by Silva throughout the closing stages of the Portuguese’s maiden term at Goodison Park, Calvert-Lewin repaid his manager’s faith with just six goals in 35 games in the league.

The Sheffield-born forward has already scored two goals in six league fixtures this season, with the 22-year-old nodding home from the line on Saturday after Seamus Coleman chipped Man City ‘keeper Ederson for what would have been the Republic of Ireland captain’s 27th in blue.

Calvert-Lewin’s prior strike at Bournemouth also came from the air, when he rose highest in the Cherries’ box to strike from close range after Richarlison whipped the ball into the area.

The Sheffield United product has caught the attention of City boss Guardiola, who claimed sides would need the talents of the 22-year-old if they were to cause his squad as many problems in the absence of John Stones and Aymeric Laporte.

“They can do it if they have Calvert-Lewin’s skills,” Guardiola said, as quoted by the Liverpool Echo, when asked if long balls and diagonal passes could be a tactic teams could use to get the better of his Etihad Stadium natives.

“If they have Richarlison skills, they can do it. There are a few teams that are using it and we adapt to it. I think, when you win two Premier Leagues, you face different styles, not just all the same.

“We knew it was tight, this stadium, and the spectators push a lot to [the players]. We knew it. Calvert-Lewin is one of the best headers I have ever seen in jumping and flicking the ball [on]. Richarlison is strong, so we know it [was going to be tough].”

Despite Guardiola’s lavish praise, Calvert-Lewin is not entirely showing himself to be ‘one of the best’ players in the air, as the 22-year-old has actually lost more duels than he has won since the start of the 2017/18 Premier League campaign.

Across his 32 appearances in the 17/18 season, he won 135 of his 305 duels in the air, which was a tally which decreased to 111 from 160 last term, and is so far continuing on the same path with Calvert-Lewin only getting the better of an opponent 31 times in 66 battles, per WhoScored data.

The 1.87m centre-forward may be set for a career-high average 6.9 successful duels per 90 minutes, but is also set to come home close behind his career-high duels lost (7.8 to the 8.2 recorded in 17/18), which he must improve to warrant the praise Guardiola has issued.

Everton fans, what do you see as Calvert-Lewin’s biggest strength? Let us know in the comments below…

We’ve all been in one of those situations where we simply can’t quite get our words out and end up looking like fools.With that being said, there’s a good reason why there were very few volunteers back in the day to help read in class – to avoid embarrassing moments like the one a poor journalist suffered in a recent press conference with Jurgen Klopp.Watch Liverpool Live Streams With StreamFootball.tv Below

Fortunately for the bumbling protagonist, the Liverpool boss was on good form and proved why he’s one of the most likeable characters in the game with a humorous little gesture…

The question he was leading concerned a fairly sensitive topic, as well, the case against Liverpool for allegedly fielding an ineligible player against MK Dons in the Carabao Cup, as reported by The Athletic.

Whether in direct response or not, Klopp would go to say that he expects Liverpool to be punished for their part in the controversy. Not so funny.