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Steve Bruce has revealed that Miguel Almiron is in contention to appear in Newcastle United’s game against Brighton next weekend.

Bruce makes Almiron reveal

The Paraguay international has missed the last two matches in the Premier League due to a knee injury (Transfermarkt), and Bruce had previously suggested he would be not be available until after the international break.

However, the Toon boss has now revealed that the £14.4m-valued 27-year-old could play against the Seagulls, saying (via Shields Gazette):

“We will see how they progress, of course. It’s going to be a little too early for Callum, we can already dismiss that. Miggy’s a different option. He’s going along very, very nicely so we’ll keep our fingers crossed.”

Big boost

This is a big boost for the Magpies. Almiron is their second-highest scorer this term with five goals, as well as providing three assists (BBC), and he has proven to be one of the few creative options Bruce has at his disposal at St James’ Park.

Newcastle are currently in a difficult position at the wrong end of the table. As it stands, they are just two points clear of Fulham who are currently in the relegation zone, although they do have a game in hand on the Cottagers (Sky Sports). They need points quickly, and having effective players such as Almiron available should only help their cause.

In other news, Newcastle are interested in this Europa League ace.

Jose Mourinho will be looking to see a reaction from his Spurs side this evening as they welcome London rivals Chelsea to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

They have now lost back-to-back matches in the Premier League which has put the chances of making the top four this season in serious jeopardy. It has left the north Londoners some seven points adrift, prior to tonight’s kickoff.

After an embarrassing no-show against defending champions Liverpool and an equally poor display at Brighton, it would be a surprise if the ‘Special One’ didn’t make some serious changes to his struggling squad.

And one player he has often trusted is surely in line to face the wrath of his axe…

On the Chalkboard

Indeed, Moussa Sissoko has been a regular for Mourinho this season having started 13 of his 16 league appearances, and in the early part of the campaign,  he formed a formidable partnership with Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg.

But things have changed in recent weeks.

The Frenchman, who reportedly earns a whopping £90k-per-week in N17, has been holding the side back with underwhelming and disappointing displays.

In some ways, it is not entirely his fault as he’s been deployed at right wing, right wing-back and right-back but that only bolsters the argument to why he should be dropped with the Blues in town.

No more square pegs in round holes.

If there’s no place for him, then he shouldn’t start – not that his form, even in the heart of midfield, has been at all groundbreaking.

Since the start of December, Sissoko has only managed a WhoScored rating above 7.00 once and has dropped disasterclasses against Leicester City (6.11), Liverpool (6.5) and Chelsea (6.28).

In terms of other central options, he ranks behind both Hojbjerg and Tanguy Ndombele for average rating this term, whilst his output both defensively and in attack is rather sub-par.

He ranks as the worst midfielder for creative influence, managing only 0.2 key passes per 90 and 12 other Spurs players manage more than his 1.6 successful tackles per 90, via WhoScored.

At times, the £16.2m-rated ace is a bit of a nothing player – a passenger, as evident above.

Clearly, Mourinho does fancy Sissoko given his unrelenting faith to fit him into the starting XI at all costs, but it’s time to be ruthless tonight. The Spurs boss can do everyone a favour and drop him from the lineup.

AND in other news, Forget Parrott: Spurs could unearth their next Kane in prodigy who has “a big future”…

Leeds United were unable to keep their positive streak alive as they were handed a slim defeat on home soil last night. Aston Villa snatched all three points from their former Championship rivals with an early strike from Anwar El Ghazi. Despite dominating possession, the Whites were unable to get back into the game.

This is their 13th loss of the season and whilst they’re by no means in any trouble, Marcelo Bielsa will be frustrated with the small margins by which his side keeps losing. They’ve also conceded the second highest amount of goals this season (44), with only West Brom shipping more so far (55).

Defence is certainly an issue for Leeds, but not much can be done when the team has been hammered with injuries. Bielsa has been without both Diego Llorente and Robin Koch for a large chunk of the season, with the latter still currently sidelined with a knee injury. However, Koch’s latest Instagram post will come as a very welcome update for his fans and teammates, especially now the end of the season is just months away.

Robin Koch injury update

The centre-back has posted a photo on his Instagram at Elland Road, with the caption “Can’t wait to be back at this place”. Just seeing him walking around the stadium will be a huge boost for anyone disappointed with Leeds’ recent result.

His previous Instagram post was made back in January, so an update has been long overdue and will be extremely welcomed.

According to Transfermarkt, Koch has missed a total of 85 days and 17 fixtures in total due to his current injury. This has been a huge blow for Bielsa, who has been forced to deploy Luke Ayling at centre-back on several occasions in his absence.

Prior to his injury, the £46,000 per week summer signing started every single Premier League match for the Whites. He arrived at Elland Road and made an immediate impact, cementing his place as first choice partner to Liam Cooper.

Getting him back would take a huge weight of Bielsa’s shoulders and it would hopefully be exactly what he needs to help tighten up his defence and stop leaking unnecessary goals.

In other news, Leeds must act fast as Ezgjan Alioski looks for a new club…

Chelsea will look to kickstart 2021 in style when they play host to Manchester City in the Premier League at Stamford Bridge on Sunday afternoon.

After tasting defeat at Arsenal, the Blues bounced back with a hard-fought draw at home to Aston Villa and Frank Lampard’s side will want to get back to winning ways when they take on the Citizens in a crunch clash in the top half of the table.

Lampard has confirmed Reece James has been ruled out due to injury. However, the Blues boss is hopeful Hakim Ziyech will be in contention to start on Sunday after working his way back to fitness.

Here is Football FanCast’s predicted starting line-up for this afternoon’s action, which sees Lampard make four changes to the team that drew with Dean Smith’s side.

Lampard faces some tough decisions as he’ll be desperate to start the year with a bang and will not want to let the disappointment from the defeat to Arsenal fester for any longer.

It’s hard to tell exactly where the changes will be made, but what’s certain is he’ll likely bring first-team regular starters Thiago Silva and Kurt Zouma back into the fold after Andreas Christensen and Antonio Rudiger were noticeably poor at the back.

Despite the fact he has failed to keep a clean sheet in his past two appearances, new summer recruit Edouard Mendy will keep his place in goal at the Bridge behind a back four of Ben Chilwell, Cesar Azpilicueta, Silva and Zouma.

Lampard will probably deploy a midfield three consisting of Mason Mount, Jorginho and N’Golo Kante.

Maybe Ziyech could come back in, but Callum Hudson-Odoi has been in such fine form in recent weeks, we’ve given the Blues academy graduate our backing, with the ever-reliable Christian Pulisic keeping his place on the left wing.

Upfront, things get a little more interesting, as Tammy Abraham is likely to lead the line, which means there is no room for Olivier Giroud despite the Frenchman getting on the scoresheet against Villa. Both Giroud and Timo Werner will have to settle for a spot on the bench, such is the strength in Lampard’s squad.

This time last week it looked as though Wolves were going to fall silent in the transfer window.

Nuno Santo had reportedly been told to forget about splashing a large sum of money and consequently, it appeared they’d be stuck with returning loanees Patrick Cutrone and Morgan Gibbs-White.

Yet, in the last 24 hours that has changed. A deal to sign Willian Jose on loan with an option to buy is being negotiated with just a few finer details left to be ironed out.

This would be the perfect deal for Wolves, mainly because he possesses similar qualities to the injured Raul Jimenez.

Yet, if Jeff Shi completes any further business, another loan move could be on the cards for 31-cap Brazilian Douglas Costa.

Reports in Italy emerged this week that Juventus were unhappy with his lack of game time during a temporary stint with Bayern Munich, and thus, the Premier League had emerged as an option for Costa ahead of the second part of the season.

If they are able to bring the dynamic winger to Molineux then he could be an ideal successor to Adama Traore. It’s unlikely the Spaniard will leave but he has been linked with pastures new heading into January so Wolves can never be too careful.

Irrespective of Traore’s future, Costa would be a superb signing. That’s predominantly because he offers very similar qualities to the Spanish wing wizard.

Like the former Barcelona man, Costa possesses incredible dribbling skills and has frightening speed, traits that can terrify defenders.

When the Juve attacker first signed for Bayern, then-sporting director Matthias Sammer said: “He has great technical ability, a powerful left foot, he is very agile and extremely quick.”

Although they use different feet, the vast majority of what Sammer says can also be applied to Traore.

For further context, you only need to consider their statistics. The Wolves forward is incredible when it comes to beating a man, amassing as many as 4.3 dribbles per game in the Premier League last term.

This season, he’s completed 3.7 dribbles, a tally that usurps Costa’s best season for take-ons by just 0.3. That happened to be during the 2017/18 season.

Of course, that was a while ago but Costa hasn’t relented too much in terms of dribbling. He started just seven times in Serie A last season but still managed 1.9 dribbles a match.

That’s an eye-catching total, one that just goes to show how dangerous he can be. Although this would be a stop-gap loan signing, he has what it takes to succeed Traore if he does indeed depart the Midlands.

AND in other news, Forget MGW: Wolves must unleash rarely-seen “special” talent, he’s shades of Moutinho…

According to freelance Liverpool correspondent David Lynch, via Watch LFC, Thiago Alcantara is facing a lengthy wait on the sidelines and will not be returning to Jurgen Klopp’s starting line up until January – prompting many Reds to discuss the ‘very sad’ update. 

Thiago, who was signed as a high-profile acquisition in the summer from Bayern Munich, has been on the treatment table after suffering a knee injury after a poor challenge from Richarlison in the Merseyside Derby – with Klopp recently stating that the impact sustained on his knee was not good. 

Now, as relayed by Lynch, Thiago faces a recovery on the sidelines and won’t be back until after the New Year – prompting many Reds to flock as their injury list was just starting to ease.

Indeed, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Naby Keita are nearing a return, as confirmed by the Reds boss, but Thiago’s reintroduction looks to be a while off yet.

Find all of these supporters’ verdicts on the update down below.

Liverpool fans react as Thiago news emerges

In other news: Liverpool could lose this ‘very important’ star in January, find out more here. 

Leicester City have established themselves as a force to be reckoned with in the Premier League this season as they currently sit just four points off the top spot. Their latest win over title contenders Spurs really turned a lot of heads and Brendan Rodgers will not want to take his foot off the gas.

The next hurdle will see the Foxes take on Manchester United, who will be buzzing off the back of their 6-2 win over Leeds. The Red Devils have also shown that they are capable of pulling out some big results, so Leicester must be ready for a tough battle on Boxing Day.

However, despite the convincing scoreline, not every part of Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team performance was watertight. Luke Shaw struggled in defence, but this was masked thanks to the smorgasbord of goals scored at Old Trafford.

According to Sofascore, the left-back lost 50% of his duels and was dispossessed 13 times. He also made an error that led to a goalscoring opportunity for Leeds, as well as only conjuring up a measly 13 accurate passes.

With Ayoze Perez known for his pace on the ball, he could cause some serious problems for Shaw on Saturday. If he can exploit this weakness in United’s defence, it would raise his confidence massively.

The £45,000 per week speedster is currently struggling for game time, with Rodgers flitting between Cengiz Under and Harvey Barnes on the right wing.

Perez didn’t make it off the bench against Spurs and he has just the one goal across all competitions this season, as per Transfermarkt. If Rodgers starts him against Man United, he could be handing him a huge opportunity to get back into groove and throw his hat into the ring to start every week.

In other news, James Maddison produced creative masterclass vs Spurs…

Leeds United did a lot right in the summer transfer window, but there is one thing that they got horribly wrong that is impossible to ignore.

The Whites spent almost £100m on new talent, but very few of their current players left the club, and there is one man who certainly should have been on the chopping block.

Of course, we’re talking about Kiko Casilla.

The Spaniard has lost his place in United’s first team to Illan Meslier, and these days he doesn’t even make the bench with Elia Caprile the preferred deputy to the Frenchman, but despite his limited involvement, he remains one of Leeds’ highest-earning players.

A weekly wage of just over £32k-a-week isn’t a drop in the ocean for Leeds, and according to Spotrac he’s earning more than the likes of Luke Ayling, Stuart Dallas and Mateusz Klich, three players who have started every single league game this season.

Casilla quite simply isn’t good enough to play a part at Leeds, he made a string of errors last season and he was branded as ‘an accident waiting to happen’ during a scathing attack from Noel Whelan.

“He’s an accident waiting to happen at the moment,” The pundit told Football Insider. “His body language is terrible and you can see the defence are losing confidence in him, they’re fearful and thinking, ‘can we trust him anymore?’.”

Away from football, there is another reason why Leeds will have wanted to cut all ties with Casilla.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that the Spaniard was found guilty of racially abusing Jonathan Leko last season, yet, there has been radio silence from Leeds on how they’ve dealt with this issue in-house, no word on an internal investigation, no fine handed out and seemingly no intention of cutting ties with him.

Instead, he remains at the club, picking up huge money for doing very little work, and it makes no sense why Leeds didn’t ship him out in the summer, from both a footballing standpoint and an ethical stance.

In other news… £17m man could be benched for Leeds’ game against Wolves!

Plenty of Manchester United fans have been lauding a transfer link to Cristiano Ronaldo as El Grafico have reported that he could return to his former club next year.

As per the football journalist and transfer guru Christian Martin, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team have already pitched a return for the global superstar to his agent Jorge Mendes, which has seemingly sent a lot of tails of the Old Trafford faithful wagging.

Indeed, the Portugal international established himself at the Red Devils before going on to achieve great things in the game with both Real Madrid and now with Juventus.

Ronaldo scored a quite impressive 118 goals and made a further 69 assists in 292 games in all competitions for Man United in six consecutive terms (Transfermarkt).

The £54m-valued talisman won no fewer than three Premier League titles and a UEFA Champions League trophy under Sir Alex Ferguson, as well as several other accolades.

Manchester United fan reaction to Ronaldo link

These Man Utd supporters lauded the link to their former hero on Twitter, as despite him being 35 years of age, they feel as if CR7 still has a lot to offer and that he would also be a sentimental arrival that would please the wider fanbase.

In other news, find out which MUFC star fans want to sell after comments from his international manager here!

In our Transfers that shook the club feature, Football Transfer Tavern takes a look at deals that had many may not have seen coming and the impact that they had during their time by using statistical data and pundit remarks.

Brighton’s clash with Manchester United yesterday could have caused some conflicting emotions in a certain Glenn Murray, who is currently on loan at Watford from the Seagulls but is a boyhood fan of the Red Devils.

Now 36, the striker joined Brighton in 2008 when they were a League One club and spent three-and-a-half years in Sussex, scoring 22 league goals in 2010/11 as he fired them into the Championship. However, after rejecting multiple offers of a new contract from Albion at the end of that season, he was released by the club and left on a free transfer…to A23 rivals Crystal Palace.

Fate would decree that Murray was in the Palace team that met Brighton in the Championship play-off semi-finals two years later and, inevitably, he attracted headlines following the first leg. Sadly for him, it was because he suffered a serious knee injury, much to the mocking derision of some travelling supporters at Selhurst Park that night.

Murray eventually moved on to Bournemouth in 2015 in the early weeks of their first Premier League season but, a year later, he dropped back to the second tier in a move as sensational as his switch to the Eagles in 2011.

On 3 July 2016, Brighton announced that Murray was back at the club on a season-long loan. Naturally there may have been some opposition to his return given how he left for Palace, but just as he scored 30 goals in helping the south Londonders into the Premier League in 2013, he performed a similar feat upon his return to Sussex.

The striker’s 23 league goals in 2016/17 were crucial to Brighton winning promotion to the top flight, with Murray making his loan move permanent midway through the season in a £3.15m deal (as per TransferMarkt). The redemption act had well and truly been completed.

It’s one thing to score a bundle of goals to get a team into the Premier League. It’s another to find the net often enough to then keep the team there, yet that is what he did in the memorable 2017/18 campaign. Murray’s 12-goal haul was crucial to keeping Albion in the top flight at the first time of asking, and his 13 goals the following season perhaps proved even more priceless as the Seagulls very narrowly beat the drop.

Having struggled to hold down a place in Graham Potter’s first XI last season, though, he decided to join Watford on loan over the summer, a move he made with 111 Brighton goals to his name, making him the second-highest scorer in the club’s history behind Tommy Cook.

The We Are Brighton blog recently made cogent arguments for Murray to be considered the greatest striker in Albion history, with the summary that: “Not many players could win over the fans of a club once in 2009, leave for their bitter rivals in 2011, return in 2016 and go onto achieve legendary status by 2020. Murray did though.”

That is a sign of how highly he is regarded at the Amex Stadium despite the circumstances of his move to Crystal Palace, and Brighton can be glad that the 36-year-old gladly took up the role of the prodigal son back in 2016.

Brighton fans, were you shocked when Murray returned to the Seagulls four years ago? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below!