The Sun Newspaper

WEST BROM boss Sam Allardyce has got the green light from Crystal Palace to close a deal for Christian Benteke.
Allardyce is keen on the big Belgian striker despite landing Mbaye Diagne from Galatasaray on loan and is looking into a short-term move with Palace.

Benteke has scored 26 goals in 130 appearances for PalaceCredit: Pinnacle Photo Agency

Benteke, 30, is on around £120,000 a week at Selhurst Park, so even paying HALF his wages is expensive for the Baggies.
Benteke has been told his chances of game-time are limited with the Eagles and any new contract would see him earn much less from next season.
So Albion looks a better prospect for Benteke as it puts him in the shop window for the summer.
Agents are also touting him round Italy and Turkey.

Palace would save over £1million in wages which helps them as they prepare for huge changes at the end of the season. 
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Vydra joined Burnley from Derby County in 2018Credit: Getty Images – Getty
BURNLEY’S back-up hitman Matej Vydra is wanted by promotion hopefuls Watford and Bournemouth.
The Czech Republic striker is struggling for a game under Sean Dyche but the Championship Hornets and Cherries have made approaches.

Vydra, 28, fired Watford to promotion in 2015 and they are keen to bring him back on loan with a view to a full-time deal if they go up.
Bournemouth want a similar transfer as they look for more goals to make a quick return to the top level.
In their case they would have to move Josh King first.
Burnley would sell Vydra for the right price and have turned down various swap suggestions from both parties as they plan to sign their own targets.
However, Vydra as a buy and on good wages is a big gamble for Watford and Bournemouth who will have major cutbacks if they stay down.
The Hornets plan to bounce back at the first attempt, while Bournemouth will lose some big earners in the summer when deals expire.
So bringing in another one would wreck their budget if they fail.

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THOMAS TUCHEL transformed himself from “crazy man” to  chess-style tactics grandmaster.
Former team-mate Holger Betz recalls the new Chelsea boss as a commanding centre-half who was not afraid to have a go at anyone who failed to match his standards in training or a game.

Thomas Tuchel is not afraid to have a go at players if he feels they are not pulling their weightCredit: Getty Images – Getty

Betz was an up-and-coming goalkeeper at SSV Ulm in the late 1990s when Tuchel was part of the squad trying to secure promotion from Germany’s third tier to the Bundesliga.
Betz, an Ulm club legend who is now their goalkeeping coach, said: “Thomas was very tall, good at heading and technically very good.
“When he was on the field, he was a crazy man for football. He was like Wayne Rooney in being so demanding of other players.
“He was a leader, he was always talking on the pitch, shouting, organising the team.

“He was a very hard character. He always had problems with other players but I think that’s normal in this business — and he did not have personal problems with the players in the dressing room after games or training.”
Within a year of Betz joining Ulm’s first team, a knee injury forced Tuchel to quit playing at the age of just 24.
In that 1997-98 season, the club finally achieved promotion and Ulm would make it all the way to the top flight.
Tuchel later admitted: “I envied my Ulm team-mates for getting promoted soon after, I couldn’t take it.”

But former Ulm head coach Ralf Rangnick helped Tuchel redirect his frustration and his passion for the game into coaching. And more than a decade later, he and Betz crossed paths again.
Betz said: “I was playing for Ulm in the fourth tier.
“By then Thomas was head coach of Mainz but he had come to watch Mainz’s second team play against us.
“He said to me, ‘It’s good that I see you and that you are playing. It shows me I am not so old yet’.”

Tuchel as a footballer and now as Chelsea’s new manager
By that time, Tuchel was making a name for himself as he surpassed even Jurgen Klopp’s achievements at Mainz.
Ex-Montenegro midfielder Milorad Pekovic played under Klopp at Mainz and then had a season with Tuchel after he was promoted directly from the club’s youth set-up.
Pekovic said: “That happens very rarely. From the first day, it was obvious he was professional, completely dedicated and studious — that he simply knew a lot about football.
“He gained authority with his knowledge from the start. That is the case even now with big players and in big clubs, because he has football in his little finger.”
Pekovic, now head coach of FK Podgorica, spent time observing Klopp at Liverpool and Tuchel at Borussia Dortmund and is well placed to compare them.
And he said: “Klopp is unique. His character and his charisma make him special, and that is something that is not learnt. He is an exceptional motivator. He created a family atmosphere in our team, a strong group.
“He has a way about him that every player feels equally important, no matter if he is a main player in the team or 20th in the team hierarchy.
“Tuchel is not such an open and approachable person. His attitude is professional, he isn’t intimate with the players.”
Their philosophies, although both place an emphasis on pressing, are also different.
Pekovic said: “Klopp gives players more freedom in the game than Tuchel. With Tuchel, football is like a game of chess. He has a plan and asks the players to stick to it, he does not rely on improvisation.
“Players who accept such demands learn a lot about football as a game, about tactics, and I am convinced that they can progress.”
Pekovic believes that if the Chelsea players are ready to listen and learn, Tuchel can do for the Blues what Klopp has done for the Reds.
The 43-year-old said: “Tuchel is great at stabilising the team and then strengthening it.
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“He did that from Mainz onwards, wherever he worked. He can do the same at Chelsea.
“He’s very ambitious, the Premier League is a great challenge for him.
“Klopp has set high standards. Tuchel has both the motivation and the knowledge to do the same things at Chelsea.”
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SEAN DYCHE says James Tarkowski will not be sold on the cheap even though Burnley could lose him for nothing in 18 months.
And the Clarets chief has no fears that the centre-back star will drop his standards if he does remain at Turf Moor for the rest of his contract.

Burnley are determined to hold on to James TarkowskiCredit: Rex Features

West Ham have already been knocked back with a near £30million bid and Leicester are likely to make another effort to sign Tarkowski, 28, before Monday’s deadline.
But Burnley have so far resisted all offers — and Dyche has no plans to lose a man whose partnership with Ben Mee is one of the most solid in the Premier League.
Dyche said: “He’s under contract, there’s no other situation. If the money comes in, fine, but if not, the financial situation has changed radically and we’re in a very strong position.
“You have to balance the worth of the player for what they do for you, not just the worth of the market.

“It’s the job they do — and Tarky does a very good one for us.”
Tarkowski claims the current offer of another contract is “nowhere near good enough to sign”.
Yet Dyche admitted: “He has answered things very honestly and it doesn’t affect his performances.
“I can accept his  opinion so I say to him, ‘Are you ready to play?’.

“He says ‘yes’ and he’s been brilliant.”

Sean Dyche is not prepared to lose the defender on the cheapCredit: PA:Press Association
At Sunday lunchtime the Prem’s longest-serving boss will pit his wits against a Chelsea side with the newest in Thomas Tuchel.
And Dyche, appointed in 2012, insists he is under the same pressure to deliver as anyone at Stamford Bridge — just a different kind.
He added: “You have all the staff in the offices, all the players, you have our side of things.
“We’ve all got contracts that radically change if we are in the Premier League or not.
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“That is an in-house pressure in itself. I have to deliver on behalf of them, not just on behalf of the outside world. I wouldn’t remotely think Chelsea have those kind.
“I don’t think their auxiliary staff, their playing staff, their office staff are radically going to change their contractual situation.
“I always factor the welfare of a lot of people here, not just for me.”

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NEW manager Thomas Tuchel says Chelsea chief Marina Granovskaia has left him under no illusions about how to keep his job.
Frank Lampard is just the latest victim of the hire-and-fire policy that Granovskaia conducts for owner Roman Abramovich.

Tuchel will be looking to lead Chelsea back to the top four in the Premier LeagueCredit: Getty Images – Getty

Title-winning bosses like Jose Mourinho, Carlo Ancelotti and Antonio Conte have all received the same treatment and Tuchel said: “She told me very clearly that if you sign for Chelsea, you need to win trophies, definitely compete for trophies.
“We can just admit it — on this level nobody steps into any competition to be second. Nobody.
“There were even managers who won titles and got sacked. One is sitting right now in front of you. It happened to me around Christmas.
“It’s like this in the end. What everyone is looking for is a nice guy, a hard guy, a trophy-winning guy . . . I don’t know . . . a good looking guy, a funny guy. That does not exist.

“At some point I hope I am the guy who can be the characteristics for an era and for a certain period in this club.”
But Chelsea do not really do eras and it is telling that Tuchel has been given only an 18-month contract.
He admitted: “I want to be very honest with you. At first, it was a concern, a little bit like, ‘Oh, why 18 months?’.
“And after one minute, I thought, ‘What does it change? If they are not happy with me, they will sack me anyway’.

“But it’s also my character to believe more in the chances than in the risks. For me personally, there’s absolutely nothing to be afraid of.”
But what about the notorious Stamford Bridge power games, the kind of competing agendas that Tuchel complained about just before he was sacked by Paris Saint-Germain on Christmas Eve?
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Tuchel watched his Chelsea side draw 0-0 with Wolves in midweekCredit: AFP or Licensors
The German has a reputation for not being good at managing upwards, yet will he have to be more of a politician at Chelsea?
Tuchel said: “I hope not, because I am as far away from being a politician as being a maths teacher — because I was horrible at maths at school.
“I’m a football coach and I have absolutely the feeling, 100 per cent, that they signed me as a football coach, in a football club.”
We will see how long that lasts.
Politically speaking, it would be wise for Tuchel the football coach to find a way to get a tune out of Kai Havertz, the struggling summer arrival who, in a £70million deal, is the second-most expensive signing of the lavish Abramovich reign.
Tuchel said: “His potential is almost endless and it is the challenge for him — and I think he made a very, very brave choice.

Tuchel managed the likes of Neymar to the Champions League final last season where they were beaten by Bayern MunichCredit: AP:Associated Press
“I am a huge fan of Bayer Leverkusen. But you come from Leverkusen to Chelsea, the culture cannot be any more different.
“You come from a club where it is maybe OK to be second best or third best, where you compete to reach the top four. Then you go to a club where they talk about trophies.
“And if a club talks about winning trophies and titles so openly, there is a certain atmosphere. So it means that Kai steps not only to a different country, not only to a different club, not only to different team-mates — which in itself is all complicated and has different challenges.
“But, no, he also steps into a different culture. In a dramatic way.
“And I love it because he is out far, far from his comfort zone.”
And Tuchel has a plan for Havertz, 21. The Blues head coach said: “What I feel and hear from him is that he is a very intelligent guy, very friendly guy, very open guy, with a lot of potential — and we will push him.
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“And he seems to be like the guy who needs to be pushed. We will not stop doing it.
“I think for him this league is perfect because he cannot rest.
“He has so much potential that he needs to be challenged physically also, that it is not enough that he can rely on his endless talent.
“You know in the end, for me the question is — and you see it in me — does he have this?”
At this point, Tuchel snarled and made an aggressive gesture with his hands, before adding: “Can he show his teeth when it gets tough?”
If Havertz cannot do that — and if Chelsea do not improve — then Tuchel will soon become the latest manager to be chewed up and spat out by Abramovich and Granovskaia.

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WORRIED Premier League clubs are still in the dark over whether they will lose some foreign stars to ten days of quarantine.
Fifa have yet to rule on whether England’s top flight can stop their South American and Portuguese players from taking part in March’s scheduled World Cup qualifiers.

Liverpool could be without Brazilian stars Fabinho and Roberto FirminoCredit: AP:Associated Press

While Bruno Fernandes and Edinson Cavani could be missing for UnitedCredit: Getty – Pool

New UK Covid-19 travel regulations mean anyone returning from ‘red list’ countries, including Portugal and those in South America, must spend ten days in isolation at an airport hotel.
World football chiefs are set to hold talks with South American and Portuguese officials before deciding on whether to relax the rule on clubs’ releasing players.
This was allowed last year following the start of the pandemic.
Up to the end of 2020, Fifa amended their regulations to allow clubs to stop stars joining their countries for international games if “there is a mandatory period of quarantine or self-isolation of at least five days upon arrival in the location of the club”.

But the world’s governing body is also worried about protecting the integrity of their showpiece competition, fearing it will be unfair on any nation which is denied their top players. Portugal play Luxembourg on the evening of March 30.
The ten South American countries involved in qualifying also all play on that Tuesday, so some teams would not get their stars back until April 1.
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That means the likes of Liverpool’s Brazil trio Roberto Firmino, Alisson and Fabinho, Manchester City’s Brazilians Ederson and Gabriel Jesus, plus Portuguese Bernardo Silva and his Manchester United countryman Bruno Fernandes, United’s Uruguayan Edinson Cavani and Brazilian Alex Telles, would all be forced to quarantine in hotel rooms.

That would see any Premier League sides left in Europe without players for the first leg of their Champions League and Europa League ties.

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JESSE LINGARD hopes his West Ham switch revives his chances of playing in this summer’s Euros.
The Manchester United midfielder joined the Hammers on loan on Friday after making just three appearances for the Red Devils this season.

Lingard was officially announced as a West Ham player on FridayCredit: Rex Features

Lingard, 28, who won the last of his 24 England caps over 18 months ago, has made the move south in search of regular football.
And he hopes that gives him the chance to catch the eye of Three Lions boss Gareth Southgate and push his claims for an international recall.
Lingard said: “It’s always good to have goals and that’s one of mine, to play in the Euros.
“But for now it’s about West Ham and helping the team.

“For me at my age, it’s all about regular football and getting that rhythm.
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Lingard has not been capped for England since 2019Credit: Reuters
“As you saw a couple of seasons ago, once I get a run of games, the goals start coming — and that’s what I want to bring to the team.”
Lingard has been reunited with former United boss David Moyes but his move was sealed too late for him to play against Liverpool today.

Speaking to West Ham TV, he added: “I’ve always had to prove myself,  so it’s normal.”

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