OptiNews - Friday 03 to Thursday 09 November 2017

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Every Premier League club’s best performing loan player in the 2017-18 season so far

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Andreas Christensen has returned to Chelsea and finally looks to have fought his way into Antonio Conte’s first-team.

His performance against Manchester United was praised throughout the world of football, and many claim the centre-back’s success is proof that Chelsea’s loan farm is actually a fine business model.

The Blues have 38 players out on loan for the 2017-18 season, while every other Premier League team have also sent players away on a temporary basis.

But which players are performing well for their loan sides?

Click the right arrow, above, to see every Premier League club’s best performing out-on-loan player for the 2017-18 season so far…

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Sourced from Sky Sports article

‘Davis one of the most underrated in PL’

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Steve Lomas has called Steven Davis one of the most underrated Premier League midfielders and says Northern Ireland must stick to their game plan against Switzerland.

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Sourced from A tweet by SouthamptonFC tweet

@SouthamptonFC - Southampton FC

#SaintsFC beat #FFC 5-1 in a friendly at Staplewood today.

Read our report and view our photos from the game: http://sfcne.ws/FFC091117

Retweets: 1

Favourites: 2

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Sourced from Optimus trousers summary article summary

Summary of non-mainstream articles: 09/11/2017 16:10:28

| | Vital View - Vital Preview - EFL Trophy - 7th-8th Nov 2017VITALFOOTBALL |
| | Virgil van Dijk: I still look out for Celtic’s resultsSCOTS |
| | VAN DIJK’S OLD PAL’S ACTCELTICQUICKNEWS |
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| Southampton: Are the Saints really in a relegation battle?FANSIDEDSAINTSMARCHING |
| | Fraser Forster Blamed For Traffic Jam On Millbrook Road - Southampton NewsTHEUGLYINSIDE |
| | Southampton’s hopes of Paco Alcacer move surely dealt blowHEREISTHECITY |

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Sourced from A tweet by SouthamptonFC tweet

@SouthamptonFC - Southampton FC

:movie_camera:

Watch the goals from #SaintsFC’s 5-1 friendly win over #FFC at Staplewood this afternoon:

Retweets: 3

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Summary of non-mainstream articles: 09/11/2017 17:10:41

| | WORLD CUP: Jonny Evans highlights value of ‘under-rated’ Steven DavisBELFASTTODAY |
| | Celtic memories still fresh with top international defenderVIDEOCELTS |

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Sourced from Daily Echo article

Yoshida prepares to face Neymar

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MAYA Yoshida will face the world’s most expensive player, Neymar, tomorrow when Japan face Brazil in a friendly in France.

The Saints centre-back will turn out for the Blue Samurai against the South Americans and will have unenviable task of marking the £200m PSG striker, who has netted 11 goals in 12 games for his club so far this term.

The 25-year-old superstar has not found the net in four Brazil appearances though - not since a 3-0 win over Paraguay in World Cup qualifying.

Japan and Brazil face each other in Lille at midday tomorrow to give TV audiences in their home nations an opportunity to watch the game.

The 29-year-old St Mary’s man faces Belgium’s fearsome attack on Tuesday night in Bruges, which includes the likes of Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku and Dries Mertens.

Yoshida was unable to stop Lukaku scoring for Manchester United at St Mary’s in a 1-0 defeat in September, but the bullish striker hasn’t scored in seven games now having struck 16 goals in his first 13 appearances this term.

De Bruyne has been without doubt the Premier League’s best player this season, having scored three and tallied an impressive nine assists so far.

Mertens meanwhile has been setting Serie A alight and has netted 12 goals in 20 games for Napoli and the national team this term.

Dusan Tadic has swapped places with Yoshida this international break and has jetted off to the Far East for international friendlies with Serbia.

The Serbs face China in Guangzhou tomorrow morning UK time, before another friendly against South Korea in Ulsan on Tuesday.

Fellow Saints man Manolo Gabbiadini with Italy will be hoping to take one step towards World Cup qualification when they face Sweden in Stockholm in their play-off first leg tomorrow night (7.45pm).

Ryan Bertrand and England face Germany at Wembley (8pm), before playing Brazil on Tuesday evening in a friendly double header.

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Sourced from A tweet by SouthamptonFC tweet

@SouthamptonFC - Southampton FC

:innocent: :vs: :fox_face:

Tickets for #SaintsFC’s home #PL clash with #LCFC are now on general sale:

http://sfcne.ws/TicketLCFCh

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Sourced from talkSPORT article

Every Premier League club ranked by their total wage bill for 2016-17

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Manchester City have released their annual report for the 2016-17 financial year, and announced they have totalled record levels of revenue.

The club posted a total revenue of £473.4m, a 21 per cent increase on the 2015-16 revenue of £392m.

However, profit was down from £20.5m to £1.1m, with City’s wage bill much of the reason for such a reduction.

The total spent on wages rose from £197.6m to £264.1m in the last 13-month period, with the 2016-17 total reduced to £244m when calculated over 12 months.

But where does this rank among every other Premier League club? Click the right arrow, above, to see every current top flight side’s total wage bill for the 2016-17 season…

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Sourced from Daily Echo article

Italy could turn to Gabbiadini

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ITALY could turn to Manolo Gabbiadini to help solve their striker problems in their crunch World Cup play-offs against Sweden.

They are seriously short of options upfront and their dilemma has worsened with the news in-form Valencia striker Simone Zaza, the West Ham flop, is nursing a knee injury.

The 26-year-old will travel to Sweden with the rest of the Azzurri squad, the Italian Football Federation announced on its website, but he exacerbated an existing knee complaint during training.

First-choice forwards Andrea Belotti and Ciro Immobile are not fully fit, leaving Italy boss Giampiero Ventura with only Gabbiadini and Inter Milan’s Eder as his ready options.

The Azzurri face the Swedes in the first leg in Stockholm tonight, before welcoming them to the San Siro in the second leg on Monday night.

Gabbiadini, who has ten caps for his country, has scored three goals in 12 games for Saints this season and last scored for Italy in a World Cup qualifier win over Lichtenstein in June.

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Sourced from A tweet by NorthernIreland tweet

@NorthernIreland - Northern Ireland

:movie_camera: Here’s our starting 11 to face @SFV_ASF in our @FIFAWorldCup play-off. Who will be our stand out performer tonigh… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/928693651923972097

Retweets: 134

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Sourced from A tweet by OnsOranje tweet

@OnsOranje - OnsOranje

:soccer: | Met deze elf gaat Oranje beginnen aan de wedstrijd tegen Schotland. #SCONED

Retweets: 33

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Summary of non-mainstream articles: 09/11/2017 19:11:09

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| Liverpool send physio to monitor Sadio Mane fitness on international breakIBTIMES |
| | Southampton XI 5-1 Fulham XI | Fulham Football ClubFULHAM |

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Sourced from A tweet by SportdecApp tweet

@SportdecApp - Sportdec

Congratulations to @StevenDavis8 who earns his 100th Northern Ireland cap tonight!

#gawa #nirsuit #saintsfc

Retweets: 4

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Sourced from A tweet by OriolRomeu tweet

@OriolRomeu - Oriol Romeu

Nice test against @FulhamFC :muscle:t2: Time to rest and come back full of energy! :battery: #SaintsFC

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Sourced from Southampton FC - Official Site article

Saints cruise to victory in Fulham friendly

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Oriol Romeu opened the scoring in the very first minute, Charlie Austin scored twice and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg was also on target as Saints led 4-0 at half-time.

Austin completed his hat-trick with a second-half header, while Fulham replied late on through Ibrahima Cissé.

Nine of the Saints starting line-up completed the full 80 minutes, which proved a useful workout in the absence of Mauricio Pellegrino’s international players.

It took just 33 seconds for Saints to stamp their authority on the game, as Romeu pounced on a loose touch to win the ball high up the pitch and leave Fulham exposed.

Højbjerg then kept his head to return the ball to Romeu with a square pass for the Spaniard to convert with a ruthless finish high into the net from 15 yards.

Already firmly in control, Saints kept possession with ease and immediately threatened more goals.

The second arrived 20 minutes later, courtesy of a typical poacher’s effort from Austin.

Again Romeu was involved, finding Jérémy Pied in the box with a raking diagonal pass that the Frenchman did well to nod across goal into Austin’s path.

The striker got there first to round goalkeeper Marcus Bettinelli and tuck the ball into the empty net in one swift movement.

Two became three when James Ward-Prowse’s swirling corner was taken off the head of Jack Stephens by a raised Fulham hand, prompting Austin to add his second from the penalty spot, sending Bettinelli the wrong way.

Saints did not have it all their own way, as Stuart Taylor was forced to make sharp saves from Aboubakar Kamara and Rafa Soares, but it was otherwise one-way traffic.

Højbjerg made it four just before half-time, keeping his composure as he stumbled under pressure from Jordan Graham to dispatch a fine cross on the run from Matt Targett.

Austin completed his hat-trick 12 minutes into the second period, as Højbjerg fed Ward-Prowse on the right, who delivered a superb whipped cross to the near post for the striker to score with a perfectly-placed glancing header.

The frontman might even have had a fourth when found by Redmond in the box, but Bettinelli reacted quickly to keep out Austin’s toe-poke down to his left.

Fulham came close to a consolation goal when a low shot from half-time substitute Rui Fonte deflected narrowly wide, before Ibrahima Cissé read the flight of the ensuing corner to get the Londoners on the scoresheet from close range.

Southampton 5-1 Fulham (Romeu 1’, Austin 21’, 24’ pen, 52’, Højbjerg 39’; Cissé 71’)

Southampton XI: Taylor; Pied, Stephens, Gardos (Bakary 69’), Targett; Romeu (Obafemi 69’), McQueen; Ward-Prowse, Højbjerg, Redmond; Austin.

Fulham XI: Bettinelli; S.Sessegnon, Madl (Graham 65’), Djaló, Soares (Odoi 41’); Cissé, McDonald (O’Riley 41’); Mollo (Fredericks 41’), Cairney (Francois 41’), Graham (de la Torre 41’); Kamara (Fonte 41’).

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Sourced from Daily Echo article

AFC Totton primed to make a Saints signing

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AFC TOTTON will have a Saint in their squad for Saturday’s Evo-Stik South West showdown at home to Mangotsfield United.

The Stags are primed to sign midfielder Robin Nicholls, who was appointed academy football operations manager at Southampton FC in September this year.

A one-time trainee with Brentford, Nicholls has played non-League football for the likes of Yate Town, Weymouth, Hanwell Town… and Saturday’s visitors Mangotsfield.

On the back of being Yate’s player-of-the-season in 2011/12, he was invited to join Bristol Rovers for pre-season training but opted to focus on his education.

He has a first-class degree in sports performance from the University of Bath and was a student-athlete/assistant men’s soccer coach at the University of the Incarnate Word in Texas, USA, where he obtained a master’s degree in sports management.

Totton boss Louis Langdown explained: “I’d spoken to Saints quite a bit trying to get experience for some of their under-18 players (with Totton). They approached us and said they’d got a new member of staff who was looking to play football again.

“Robin’s a tigerish, aggressive type of midfielder which is something we haven’t got in our squad at the moment. We’ve got good footballers but we lack a bit of size and a bit of nastiness in there.

“He’s got good pedigree and will boost the squad. We only had three subs at Kidlington last week and we don’t want to be in a position where we can’t fill the bench.”

The return of Charlie Gunson and Callum Chugg from suspension will also boost numbers this weekend, but Langdown was disappointed that Tuesday’s BigFreeBet.com Challenge Cup tie against Weymouth was rained off.

“I wanted to get Dave Allen some minutes (after long-term injury) and also look to try a different formation,” said the boss. “We won’t change anything tomorrow, we’ll stick with what we know.”

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Read Southampton

New content from (- Read Southampton)

| Why Sofiane Boufal is integral for Southampton | Sofiane Boufal signed for Southampton in the summer of 2016 from Lille for an undisclosed fee and was dubbed as the … 09-11-2017 |

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| Is Mauricio Pellegrino the right man for Saints?2 days ago |
| Southampton eye former Manchester City striker2 days ago |
| Southampton’s summer signings - How have they performed so far?2 days ago |
| Liverpool target Van Dijk breaks silence on summer’s events3 days ago |
| Eric Black working as Scotland’s interim assistant manager3 days ago |
| Southampton 0-1 Burnley: Match Report3 days ago |
| Southampton defender suffers injury blow, forced to withdraw from national squad4 days ago |
| Our man of the match: Burnley (H)4 days ago |
| A year on from Inter: Have the Saints gone backwards?4 days ago |

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Sourced from A tweet by JrmyPied tweet

@JrmyPied - Jérémy Pied

Friendly v Fulham today :soccer::+1:t3: #SaintsFC :tophat::tophat::tophat: @chazaustin10

Retweets: 4

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Sourced from Sky Sports article

Northern Ireland captain Steven Davis quizzed about his international career before his 100th cap

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Northern Ireland captain Steven Davis quizzed about his international career before his 100th cap

Northern Ireland captain Steven Davis was given a quiz by Sky Sports about his own career ahead of winning his 100th international cap.

Davis is set to reach the landmark against Switzerland in the World Cup play-off first leg on Thursday, live on Sky Sports Main Event.

Having finished second in their qualifying group behind world champions Germany, Northern Ireland know only Switzerland stand in their way of a first World Cup appearance since 1986.

It is the first time Northern Ireland have been in the play-offs for a major tournament and they face a difficult test against the Swiss, who are the highest ranked team in the play-off round.

Davis made his international debut in a 1-0 defeat against Canada in 2005 and has since become an integral part of the squad - captaining Northern Ireland through to the last 16 at Euro 2016.

Click the video at the top of the story to see how many questions the Southampton player got right.

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