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Leicester City are demanding a fee of £90million to sell Manchester United target Harry Maguire, according to the Daily Star.

The report claims that United remain interested in the England international, who enjoyed a stunning World Cup in Russia in 2018.

What’s the word?

The Star claim that United attempted to sign Maguire last summer, making a bid worth £75m to acquire him from the Foxes.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has the centre-back at the top of his list of targets for the summer, with the report claiming that United have already entered into negotiations with Leicester.

A bid of £75m was instantly rejected, with the Foxes telling United that it will cost a minimum of £80m, a world-record for a defender, to secure Maguire’s signature, and they may even be forced to go as high as £90m.

Indeed, he signed a new contract in September, which ties him to the King Power Stadium until 2023.

The 26-year-old has been in excellent form for Leicester in 2018-19, making 27 appearances in all competitions and scoring three goals.

He has won a total of 17 caps for England, scoring in the World Cup quarter-final win over Sweden.

Another overpriced English star

Maguire is, of course, an exceptional talent.

His work at the World Cup was sensational but there is absolutely no way that he is worth a world-record fee for a defender.

He is valuable to Leicester, of course, but the idea of United paying £90m for him is faintly ridiculous.

The fact that he is English, and it is United who are interested, allows Leicester to inflate his price tag.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer should scout other targets; there simply must be better value for money out there somewhere.

Keeping together a core group of players is a formula that great teams are built on.

The Class of ’92 infamously lead Manchester United to the most successful period in the club’s history, Arsene Wenger matured and crafted a team that went on to become Invincibles, and Barcelona’s La Masia academy has kept the Catalonian club in the top three best teams in the world for the past few decades.

For Steven Gerrard, the Gers manager has a crop of players that could go on to lead Rangers to domestic glory, but it is important the Liverpool legend keeps this core at the club.

Alfredo Morelos, Nikola Katic, Ross McCrorie and Glenn Middleton are a group of players who can remain Rangers for the coming years, and if the club is to compete with Celtic in the league it is vital Gerrard keeps hold of these four figures who can one day become heroes for the club.

McCrorie and Middleton are two players who have made the step up to the first-team football well this season, and although consecutive starts in Gerrard’s team has been patchy of late, there’s still no doubt these are two players who want to play for the badge and will likely be vital first-team players next season.

Current youngsters in the team aside, Rangers fans have plenty to be excited about in terms of prospects in the youth academy. The Scottish side last month became the first British team ever to win the Alkass International Cup in Qatar, an annual U-17 youth tournament that sees some of the best youth teams from around the world compete in.

Kai Kennedy, who has featured briefly for Rangers this season, was named Player of the Tournament and scored the winning penalty in the 9-8 penalty shootout against AS Roma.

As well as promoting from within and ensuring youngsters get regular time in the first-team, Gerrard has to make sure Morelos and Katic remain Rangers players for the next few seasons.

The Croatian centre-back has the potential to be one of the best defenders in the league, whereas we all know about the interest in Morelos from teams around the continent. These two central players have what it takes to push Rangers to that next level and become the most dominant team in Scotland.

It might take a season or two, but Gerrard has a golden generation of Rangers talent at his disposal for him to turn into a deadly force in the SPL, and finally get that sought after league title the fans are craving to have again.

Rangers fans, do the club have the current core of players to win the SPL?

After another disappointing Championship campaign, Nottingham Forest find themselves chasing the leading pack for a play-off spot. But can they somehow find a way to grab one? 

Martin O’Neill will certainly feel that a string of good results can help push his Forest side right into the mix for a chance to get back into the promise land of English football. With the Championship being the rollercoaster it is, there is just simply no telling where this side could end up in the table.

Only joining in January, O’Neill and Reds fans alike will certainly feel that he needs a lot more time to really get the squad to play his way. If it were to be, and the 67-year-old can manage to get Forest into a play-off spot, it will surely be considered as one of the greatest appointments made in the club’s modern history.

With the summer fast approaching, we are going to look at a couple of requests the Northern Irishman can make to the board in order to improve his squad.

Increase the transfer budget

A 20-year wait for Premier League football has become too much to handle for some Forest fans. Constantly playing in the Championship is not what they want and O’Neill must ensure that he can get an increase in his transfer budget throughout the summer in order to recruit the necessary players.

Yes, there was fairly big money spent in the summer just gone but that simply can’t be a one off.

Being an experienced manager in the Premier League and Scottish Premiership, O’Neill will know what sort of players he needs to recruit in order to become difficult to beat over the course of a Championship season.

It would be nice to see a resilient Forest side once again.

Sign key loan players on permanent deals 

Since joining on loan, players like Jack Colback and Leo Bonatini have become integral parts of the Forest line-up. Coming from clubs like Newcastle and Wolves, these are the types of players that O’Neill will look to capture on permanent deals during the summer and really begin to build a foundation of real stability in the side.

This summer may prove to be one of the most crucial for the Tricky Trees. They have the manager that can bring them up. Is next season finally going to be the season everyone at the City Ground is waiting for?

[ad_pod ]QPR’s patience with Steve McClaren finally ran out on Monday, with the former England manager given the boot after nearly a year in charge and having been on the wrong end of another disappointing result at home to Bolton on Saturday.The R’s are now eight points above the drop but, especially if their recent run of form continues, they could quite easily slide further down the table and into the bottom three. While many surely celebrated McClaren’s departure, with the results getting worse and worse, some will still have been sad to see the veteran go – Angel Rangel included.Rangel joined the Hoops in the summer but hasn’t featured as much as he would have surely liked due to a tendon injury, although still more frequently than he would have been likely to at Swansea – the 5 ft 10 defender says he owes McClaren big time for giving him that chance to continue playing regularly in the Championship, even at 36 years of age.Pl>ymaker FC’s Theo Ogden found two rebelious Leeds fans in the home end at Loftus Road in QPR’s 2-1 FA Cup win. Find out what happened next in the video below…The Spaniard’s experience will be crucial going into the final stretch of the season but, off the pitch, he has also shown a classy side with his message. You can see the best of the reaction from the Loftus Road faithful on Twitter below…

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Arsenal’s miserable away record continued on Sunday as they were beaten 1-0 by Everton at Goodison Park, and they will drop out of the Champions League qualification spots on Monday night if Chelsea avoid defeat against West Ham United.

The Gunners have taken 44 points from a possible 51 at the Emirates Stadium in the Premier League this season, but they have only picked up 19 points on the road – the loss against the Toffees was their sixth in 15 attempts on their travels during the current campaign.

In another disappointing performance, the following two players will surely have gone down in manager Unai Emery’s estimations following below-par showings.

Sead Kolasinac

Whether he has been featuring as a left-back or a left wing-back – the latter more in recent weeks – the Bosnia and Herzegovina international looked to finally be showing that he could be relied upon to be a regular starter for Arsenal.

Emery may well have been thinking that buying a left-sided defender during the summer wasn’t of paramount importance, but his mind may have been changed after the 25-year-old’s latest outing.

After being dispossessed on two occasions and failing to make an impact at either end of the pitch for his team, he was hooked by his manager at half-time – his pass percentage being below 54% before he went off probably tells you all you need to know.

Matteo Guendouzi

Having been a starting XI regular earlier in the season, the young Frenchman has found that he has been in and out of the side in more recent times.

With Lucas Torreira, Granit Xhaka, Aaron Ramsey and Mohamed Elneny to compete alongside, the 19-year-old should know that he needs to take his opportunities when they come his way if he wants to be a consistent pick for Emery.

He hardly did himself any favours at Goodison Park though in what was always going to be an interesting midfield battle, picking up a silly yellow card in the sixth minute following a foul on Lucas Digne.

Pl>ymaker FC’s Bhav runs down his Arsenal transfer wish list in the video below…

When a mature performance was needed, Guendouzi instead produced an immature one that left him walking a tightrope for the remaining 84 minutes on Merseyside.

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Leeds fans on Twitter have voiced their opinions on who should claim the club’s Young Player of the Year award and there is a clear winner in the minds of the fanbase.

Tyler Roberts has excelled in recent weeks when playing in a deeper role and his performances have seen the fans campaign for him to win the yearly accolade.

The Welshman faces tough competition from Jack Clarke and Jamie Shackleton but Leeds fans believe that Roberts has to be the winner.

Roberts has scored three goals and assisted four so far this season but his impact since dropping into the midfield has seen him become one of the first names on the teamsheet for Marcelo Bielsa’s side.

The 20-year-old has been instrumental whilst playing as an attacking midfielder, a role which he has recently taken up after Samu Saiz’s departure from Elland Road.

Clarke and Shackleton, of course, are worthy nominees but if the twitter replies are any indication of the fans’ voting intention then Roberts should win with a landslide.

Here’s what Leeds fans have been saying on Twitter…

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It’s not often you’ll hear Sheffield Wednesday and £105m valued player uttered in the same sentence, but after the club emerged on a list of names that had sent scouts to watch Benfica take on Frankfurt in the Europa League, fans on Twitter amusingly speculated they were about to sign Joao Felix.

The Portuguese wonderkid scored a hat-trick on the night and is one of the most sought after players in Europe, but he has a huge release clause in his contract.

Of course, Wednesday could have been there to watch any one of the 22 players on show, but Felix is the main name to catch the eye over the course of the night.

After seeing the news, one fan simply wished them good luck, whilst another said they’d have to sell the club to have any remote chance of bringing the hot talent to Hillsborough.

Who would make a combined Sheffield XI? Ingood Nick makes his picks in the video below…

The reaction from football fans just about summed up how ridiculous individuals can be on Twitter but would have provided amusement for Wednesday fans nonetheless.

They currently sit tenth in the Championship but are six points behind Bristol City in the race for a play-off place.

Here’s the best of the reaction.

When Jack Wilshere signed for West Ham summer, injuries were expected to plague his season, and yet here we are in that exact situation and we’re all surprised as normal.

If there ever was a player whose career has been hampered at every possible turn for injuries, it’s Wilshere. The once golden boy of English football has gone from a potential world-class playmaker to just another Premier League midfielder, and after leaving his boyhood club Arsenal for free last year, things haven’t got better for the midfielder.

After just four appearances for the Hammers, an ankle injury kept the 27-year-old out of first-team football up until December, and after a five-minute cameo against Newcastle, Wilshere yet again suffered a set-back with injury, this time to his other ankle, and has been out of first-team football ever since.

Wilshere is reportedly back in training now, though, and is set to feature for the U-23 side in the not too distant future, and for the talented midfielder, he has to make the most out of the remaining few weeks of the season if he is to earn a spot back in the Hammers starting XI.

There’s no question that when he is fit Wilshere is a player who can easily slot into Manuel Pellegrini’s first-team, but with West Ham braced for a massive summer dipping into the transfer market, the midfielder has to be given that reassurance that his position is not in jeopardy and that he is in the Chilean’s plans for next season.

It’s been another season of injury problems for Wilshere, but with the former Arsenal man returning for the final few games, it is up to him to push himself back into the first-team and assert himself as a vital member of the starting XI.

West Ham fans, does Jack Wilshere have a future at the club? Let us know!

‘You know as an Arsenal fan, it’s the hope that kills you.’

Those were the words of one Gunners supporter in a promo video for the 2018/19 Premier League season, and since that video, the message rings truer than ever for Arsenal fans.

After losing 3-2 at home to Crystal Palace on Easter Sunday, Arsenal had to travel to Wolves three days later and get a win that would quickly revive their chances for Champions League football, but as we all know, things went horribly wrong.

A classic Arsenal capitulation saw Unai Emery’s side go 3-0 down heading into half-time in a pinnacle Gunners bottle job of a performance. The players yet again looked disinterested and hopeless, the motivation to go out there and get anything was absent, and the worst part is fans couldn’t even blame Shkodran Mustafi for the defeat, as the error-prone defender sat on the bench for the entire 90 minutes.

Had Manchester United not keeled over and lost to Manchester City, the situation would be a lot worse for the Gunners, who still after two back-to-back defeats and some of their worst performances of the season are only a point off the top-four.

But it’s hard to imagine how Arsenal even make it to a Champions League qualification place in the league if they can’t return to the form that gave fans so much hope not too long ago.

Seven days ago Emery masterminded a famous 1-0 win against Napoli in Italy, a performance that many thought was the turning point in Arsenal’s season that will lead them to a guaranteed Champions League spot, a week later, and it’s a far different story.

There is a chance Arsenal can get a top-four finish, but as the saying goes, it’s the hope that kills you.

Arsenal fans, can the Gunners still finish in the top-four? Let us know!

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Crystal Palace fans on Twitter have been discussing a bittersweet consequence of their 3-2 win over Cardiff on Saturday.

The Eagles were impressive in victory against the Bluebirds, with well-taken goals from Wilfried Zaha, Michy Batshuayi and Andros Townsend helping them onto 46 points for the season.

Which player with “no potential” has just been named Crystal Palace’s worst ever January signing? Find out in the video below…

However, as a result of the win over former Palace boss Neil Warnock’s men, the south Londoners’ arch-rivals Brighton secured their Premier League survival after Cardiff were officially relegated.

If Palace didn’t lose both of their games against Chris Hughton’s side, then the Seagulls probably would’ve gone down having endured a dismal second half of the campaign.

Palace fans will be happy with yet another away victory, but likely aren’t too pleased that the result, along with their own incompetence in the games against Brighton, has gone a long way in helping their rivals survive.

Let’s see what the Eagles supporters are saying on Twitter…