Ex-PSG and Chelsea striker Nicolas Anelka has warned his former club that it will be “very difficult to recover” from substituting Lionel Messi on his home debut, accusing the French giants of “playing with his head a lot.”
PSG manager Mauricio Pochettino hooked Messi on his home debut for the club against Lyon, appearing to receive an upset response from the Argentina captain on the touchline after replacing him after 76 minutes.
The Ligue 1 leaders scored the winner in a 2-1 victory after Messi made way, and the former Arsenal and France forward, who was once dubbed ‘Le Sulk’, claims the most high-profile signing in their history will not forget the incident.
“You don’t take off a six-time Ballon d’Or winner at the 65th minute [sic], when he hasn’t scored for his team. That plays with his head a lot,” said Anelka, who won the Premier League with the Blues and Arsenal and the Champions League with Real Madrid.
“A forward needs his coach to show him confidence, and that right there won’t do it.
“I’m getting ahead of myself but Messi will not forget what Pochettino has done. It will stay with him.
“He’s the star of the team and it was his first game at the Parc des Princes. It’s going to be very difficult to recover from that as a situation.
Some speculation Messi was injured on international duty and he’s been playing through it since
Consequently, hard to put a timeline. I want to say it should be quick but if he still has pain + repeat scan in 48hrs shows bone edema still present then he won’t play this weekend https://t.co/1m9zlku7qE
“Messi didn’t play [in PSG’s subsequent away game] against Metz and, for me, that’s already a response.
“You can’t manage Messi like that. The coach wanted to send out a strong message, which is good – but this is Messi.”
Pochettino denied there had been a dispute with Messi despite cameras appearing to catch the former Barcelona talisman looking mystified by the move as he came off.
Many have pointed to Messi’s subsequent absence from PSG’s last two matchday squads – beating Metz and Montpellier without his influence – as proof that he was carrying a knock which could have occurred while he was on international duty with Argentina.
Vigilant Pochettino may have been acting as a precaution to prevent further damage to arguably the most important player in his star-studded squad, with Mauro Icardi’s 93rd-minute winner meaning no harm was done on the night.
Anelka wasn’t done there with his hot takes. While France wonderkid Kylian Mbappe is clearly on edge after being caught on camera at the weekend appearing to call Neymar a “vagabond” and accusing the Brazilian of not passing enough, Anelka insists that Messi, who is being tipped for a return to action when PSG host Manchester City in the Champions League on Tuesday, must supply the World Cup winner in their vaunted strikeforce.
“Mbappe has to lead the attack because he’s No.1,” Anelka said. “Messi was at Barcelona but now he has to serve Mbappe. He’s been at the club for five years and Messi has to respect him.”
Now working as a pundit in his homeland, Anelka revealed that he plans to move into coaching and would prefer to live in Asia or the Gulf.
“I’ll take after my former coaches,” he ambitiously predicted. “Carlo Ancelotti for his man-management, Antonio Conte for his tactics and repeating moves, Arsene Wenger for his counter-attacking and, most of all, Sam Allardyce for his ability to get the best out of each player.”
Bolstered by the two most expensive players in the world in Neymar and Kylian Mbappe, Tuesday’s tantalising showdown between Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City is set to star the most expensive lineups of all time.
Not many clubs can boast greater spending power than reigning Premier League champions City, who were able to splurge $139 million on Aston Villa playmaker Jack Grealish in the summer after the midfielder caught the eye for England at Euro 2020.
Over the summer, the Abu Dhabi-backed City Football Group which owns the club was said to have raised a whopping $650 million in a loan underwritten by banks Barclays, HSBC, and KKR Capital, the Financial Times said – although that did not result in boss Pep Guardiola signing England captain Harry Kane after City were widely reported to have fallen short of Tottenham’s $203 million asking price.
PSG, meanwhile, are in a different league. Qatar Sports Investments were clearly likely to give the club colossal bargaining power when they took over the French giants in 2011, and perhaps the only real surprise of their most luxurious signing so far was that it took until 2017.
That was when Brazil enigma Neymar moved to the Parc des Princes from Barcelona for $259 million, with some accounts putting the total cost of the temperamental striker, who recently signed an extension until 2025, at closer to $571 million overall.
A year later, France prodigy Kylian Mbappe became the second-most expensive player of all time, joining for $210 million from Monaco in a move that would ultimately combine him with a figure few would ever have expected to see in Ligue 1.
Lionel Messi’s enforced move from Barca, leaving because of financial rules around spending in La Liga, was a symbol of quite how badly his boyhood club has been mismanaged in recent years.
Despite that astonishing windfall from the sale of Neymar, the five-time Champions League winners could not afford to keep Messi this summer, leading to a tearful farewell for the icon who once had a contract buyout clause worth $818 million.
Messi’s pay packet in Paris will provide some consolation to the figure many consider the best player of all time. The Argentina captain’s contract reportedly earns him around $121,500 every day, leading to inevitable conjecture – also regularly leveled at City – about Financial Fair Play rules.
Elsewhere among the handsomely-paid players, Belgium maestro Kevin de Bruyne cost City around $93 million when he joined from Wolfsburg, which some fans would consider fair value for the Premier League Player of the Season in 2020, when he also won the first of his two PFA Players’ Player of the Year awards.
According to Transfermarkt, there are five other City players – Riyad Mahrez, Joao Cancelo, Aymeric Laporte and last season’s Premier League Player of the Season, Ruben Dias – who each cost more than the next-most expensive Paris signing remaining at the club, $60 million Angel Di Maria.
The site estimates the value of the squads combined at around $2.04 billion, rating De Bruyne ($122 million), England striker Sterling ($110 million) and academy sensation Phil Foden ($97.5 million) as City’s most valuable assets.
For Paris, the three top trumps are as predictable as they are potent: Mbappe is valued at $195 million – a figure that persistent suitors Real Madrid will be keenly aware of – with Neymar priced around $100 million less than the transfer fee he originally commanded, and 34-year-old Messi worth $97.5 million.
Ex-Newcastle star Steven Taylor has retired from football and says he wants to return to the UK to see his family after missing out on “any type of normal life” because of rigid Covid restrictions in Australia.
Taylor captained top side Wellington Phoenix in New Zealand, where UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya took drastic action on Monday by vowing that he would never fight there again and promising to relocate to the US, with his City Kickboxing academy considering following him.
Phoenix general manager David Dome estimated that former England international Taylor has spent “three months alone in a hotel room” because of the restrictions put in place by Prime Minister Jacinda Arden and in neighboring Australia.
“The thought of having to relocate and hub again… I got caught in a lockdown at the end of last season and then again one day after I got out of managed isolation,” explained the 35-year-old, adding that “family is more important than football.”
Steven Taylor has called time on his playing career.
After he left Newcastle, the defender spent time in the US, India and New Zealand, ending his career with Wellington Phoenix.
“It feels like it’s followed me everywhere. I haven’t had any type of a normal life for some time.
“I’m excited for the next chapter and to see my family back home in the UK.”
Phoenix have been based north in Australia over the majority of the past two A-League seasons and Dome stressed how difficult their relocation has been.
“Covid has been tough on this club, its players and staff over the past two years and especially for Steven,” said Dome.
“[He’s had] six stints in quarantine – that’s three months alone in a hotel room – over the past two-odd years. That kind of thing takes a toll on a person.”
Taylor and Adesanya could soon be joined by the England cricket team, who are said to be considering pulling out of the sport’s biggest test competition, The Ashes, due to host team Australia’s covid regulations.
Nigerian-born brawler Adesanya, whose adopted homeland has seen just 27 deaths from covid but has constantly imposed strict protocol, blasted: “I’m done. All that money, they can get it from somewhere else. The rugby, the cricketers and all the others they’re f*cking giving exemptions to.
“But for me, you will never ever see me fight on these shores [again]. That was one of my dreams.”
A 15-year-old has revealed that a wonder goal he scored in the Ghanaian second division was inspired by PSG superstar Kylian Mbappe, with Manchester’s heavyweights already said to have made inquiries about the prodigy.
Mizak Asante scored a sensational effort at the Accra Sports Stadium while starring for Golden Kicks against Mobile Phone People FC in a vital Division Two Middle League play-off match.
Picking the ball up on the edge of the 18-yard box, he twisted and turned around three men before forcing a helpless fourth to sit on his back.
With the goalkeeper fast approaching to protect his near post, Asante then dribbled past him before blasting into the roof of the net at a difficult angle.
His 83rd-minute screamer was enough to force penalties in a shootout that Golden Kicks won, and the youngster has since given his thoughts on his phenomenal goal.
“If you watch the goal closely, you’ll realize that when the ball first came to my left, the player I dribbled first pulled himself away from the challenge because he wanted to avoid the penalty. We already had one penalty we missed and they didn’t want to concede another,” he explained to local media.
“When I watch the video, I [can see that I] realized that the guy on my left pulled himself away. But the guy who came in for the second tackle guessed that I’ll be taking the ball back to my right, and since I had the idea he’ll take that guess, I didn’t.
“I will thank Allotei, my team mate who was on my right because after I had meandered my way through and was one-on-one with the keeper. He shouted out to me.
“Because of that, the keeper thought I was in a very tight angle, so he [the keeper] decided to cover the passing angle to Allotei so I decided to hold on to the ball and keep moving towards goal. That was why the keeper fell.”
Asked to name his inspiration and favorite player, Asante listed a fellow wonderkid in World Cup winner Mbappe.
“Oh, I watch a lot of players but the one I like very much is Kylian Mbappe,” he admitted. “I like how direct he is with the ball and his pace, as well. It’s Kylian Mbappe I really want to play like.”
Now said to be on the verge of a call up to the Ghana national team’s U-17s – one of his “biggest targets” and a “dream” he says he is praying for – Asante’s chairman has also reported attention from a number of European clubs including Manchester United and Manchester City.
The name on the lips of every Ghanaian football fan after his heroics over the weekend is Mizak Asante. In one moment, the 15-year-old prodigy announced himself on the national football scene.
“Before Mizak scored this goal we had already shown his highlights – and those of other players – to clubs abroad,” said Joseph Epton to an Accra radio station.
“But he was the only player we had feedback about.
“It has come from Manchester United, Manchester City, Juventus and Genk.”
That space was too small to dribble the goalkeeper ♂️
The fiancée of UFC icon Jon Jones was found with blood on her clothing and face before the star was arrested in Las Vegas last week, according to disturbing new details of a police report of the incident.
Former light-heavyweight champion Jones was arrested for misdemeanor domestic battery and felony tampering with a vehicle last Friday, just hours after being inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame.
A police report seen by MMA Fighting states that officers had responded to a report of a domestic disturbance at Caesar’s Palace, after which they were told that Jones was no longer at the scene.
The MMA icon was soon located walking nearby and during his arrest “smashed his head into the front hood of the [Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department] patrol vehicle, leaving a medium size dent as well as chipping of some of the paint on the vehicle,” according to the report.
Jones, 34, is said to have been an “emotional rollercoaster” while in police custody, accusing law enforcement of “ruining the biggest night of his life” and at one point feigning that he would run off while joking that he would “like to take us [officers] all on and see what we could do.”
Jones’ fiancée Jessie Moses – who is the mother of his three children – is said to have told police that the MMA star had returned to their hotel room after earlier heading out for the night.
Moses was observed with blood on her clothing and lower lip, and when asked if Jones had been physical with her, Moses is quoted as replying “a little bit, yeah.”
“He touch[ed] the back of my head and pulled my hair a little bit but he did not hit me or anything,” Moses is said to have clarified when asked what she meant.
Moses reportedly declined to allow pictures to be taken of her injuries or to take a domestic violence card with information about a restraining order.
Moses was said to be reluctant to talk about Jones and “seemed very scared as to [his] release from jail.”
According to the report, the initial call to police came when a bloodied and tearful Moses approached the security desk at Caesar’s Palace asking for a key to her room, while one of her children asked: “Can you call the cops?”
Jones denied to police that he had pulled Moses’ hair or hit her, but admitted that the pair had been going through difficulties.
According to MMA Junkie, when Jones told Moses he was taking $10,000 to go to a strip club it started an argument in which he told her to “f*ck off.”
Jones was released from custody on Friday after posting bail and is due to appear in court next month.
The former longtime UFC light-heavyweight has thus far not commented publicly on the arrest, which came shortly after he had appeared at a glitzy ceremony to be inducted into the UFC Hall of Fame for his classic 2013 fight with Alexander Gustafsson.
