James Pearce has spoken of Yasser Larouci’s transition from winger to full-back since he joined Liverpool from Le Havre in 2017.

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Liverpool’s thriving academy has been one of the major sub-plots emerging from the club’s outstanding 2019/20 season.

Amid football’s current hiatus, the academy was the talking point for discussion in the latest episode of the Red Agenda podcast (31st Match, episode 20).

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Indeed, The Athletic journalists Pearce and Simon Hughes joined host Steve Hothersall for an hour long special on Liverpool’s youth development system, and the former delivered an intriguing verdict about a player in Larouci who made his senior debut this season (40:32).

“Larouci has made big strides forward. He’s an interesting one in itself because he’s a player who came in as an attacker, as a real pacey, strong winger with an eye for goal.

“The staff felt that actually he would be better suited to the left-back role, especially in the Klopp mould where so much of it is providing that attacking outlet. They felt they could work with him and work on his defensive game and he’s another one that’s come on a lot.”

In-house backup for Andrew Robertson?

Larouci played two FA Cup matches against Everton and Shrewsbury Town this season.

In both games he was deployed as a left-back, and Pearce’s revelation suggests that the staff at Melwood have been fine-tuning his game to prepare him for that role.

As is so often the case with modern day full-backs, and particularly at Liverpool, Larouci appears to be blessed with plenty of attacking instinct. That he started his career as a wide player appears to have provided him with the core qualities he’ll need to play his way into Klopp’s plans.

Liverpool are currently lacking the presence of a senior left-back to deputise in Robertson’s absence, but Larouci could well fulfil that role in the coming years.

According to a report from the Athletic, Marcelo Bielsa and his staff are a substantial reason why the club’s annual wage bill has risen to around £40 million – with the club’s annual turnover sitting just above that figure at £45 million. 

Bielsa, who has been a huge influence in guiding Leeds back to the summit of the Championship, narrowly missing out on a much-desired promotion to the Premier League last season, is currently sitting on the sidelines along with the rest of his squad as they await updates on the current EFL suspension. The temporary postponement of football action debatably couldn’t have come at a worse time for Leeds, with the Elland Road side having gathered momentum by winning five games on the bounce and climbing to first.

However, keeping in mind the EFL’s halt, Leeds now have to consider their annual revenue incomes and losses – with Bielsa and his staff becoming a substantial portion of the club’s £40 million wage bill. On Tuesday, speaking to Sky Italia via the Daily Mail, owner Andrea Radrizzani explained how the lack of action has taken a toll on the club’s finances – going on to say that the club miss out on £2.5 million worth of profit just through not playing five home matches. Indeed, baring that in mind, this report from the Athletic indicates that Bielsa and co are likely to take a wage cut along with players and staff in a bid to prevent a large loss of income.

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Ianis Hagi’s impressive form on loan at Rangers has reportedly attracted interest from Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City.

What’s the word?

It appears that Jose Mourinho is already thinking ahead to the next transfer window.

The Portuguese boss is enduring a challenging time at Spurs, and it seems he believes Hagi can turn the tide in his favour.

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Indeed, according to a recent report from the Daily Mail, Mourinho and Manchester City director of football Txiki Begiristain have personally asked the 21-year-old’s agent, Giovani Becali, about how he is getting on.

And Becali goes on to laud the promising attacking midfielder in a comparison with his legendary father, Gheorghe, who was named Romanian footballer of the year on seven different occasions during an esteemed career.

“He has many other qualities and is actually more graceful than his father ever was. He runs like a gazelle compared to him! I think he is improving all the time at Rangers.”

Tottenham’s own Santi Cazorla

Hagi has shown fleeting glimpses of immense promise during his time at Ibrox.

His finest moment in the famous blue shirt arrived in a Europa League clash against Braga in February in a game that saw his reputation and popularity skyrocket in the space of just 15 exhilarating minutes.

Firstly, with the Gers 2-0 down at home to Braga and already staring European exit in the face in the first leg, he got the hosts back into the game with a fine left-footed strike which tickled the inside of the post on its way into the net.

And shortly after Joe Aribo had levelled things up at 2-2, he showcased his ambidextrous ability by scoring a right-footed free kick to give Steven Gerrard’s side a narrow 3-2 victory on the night.

The pair of strikes underlined his ability to strike the ball with equal vigour with both feet, and that is a quality he inherited by virtue of his father’s advice, per Sky Sports.

“Since I was a kid, he always told me that it’s really important to have both [feet] in football. At two or three years old I have videos at home in which I kick only with my left foot, but since then he taught me to play also with my right foot. Now I have both feet. I feel better shooting with the right, but my control of the ball is with my left.”

Players who are equally adept on both sides are a seldom seen footballing niche, but Kevin De Bruyne is a high-profile Premier League talent who currently boasts that quality.

Before him the former Arsenal star Santi Cazorla was a player capable of spraying a 50-yard diagonal, or even a free-kick, with both feet.

During his esteemed career, the Spanish magician scored 39 goals with his right-foot and 17 with his left, a return which underlines his ambidextrous ability.

Hagi, unlike Cazorla, plays on the wing or in a number ten role, but he could become the next big star in north London to earn praise and popularity for his rarely-seen quality.

Unpredictable, captivating, promising and coming from a rich footballing heritage, Mourinho could well be looking at the next both-footed star to rise to prominence in north London.

The future of English football is very much up in the air at the moment, and with the ongoing pandemic putting a halt to the beautiful game for the foreseeable future there are plenty of questions still to be answered.

Promotion and relegation seem to be a hot topic at the moment, but even if everything goes ahead as normal, there is one club that have a big decision to make on a couple of big name players.

Indeed, upon Fulham’s relegation from the Premier League they had to balance their books and that meant selling players and loaning out big names to cut down their wage budget.

The Whites received £25m for Ryan Sessegnon in the summer, while Jean Micheal Seri and Andre-Frank Zambo Anguissa were sent out on loan.

Now, if the London club return to the Premier League they will have a decision to make on the aforementioned players, but what should they do?

It’s no secret that the two former Ligue 1 stars flopped during their first season at Craven Cottage, they were both named in FourFourTwo’s worst signings of the season list, but they did enough during their respective time at Nice and Marseille to warrant fees of over £20m being spent on them.

This season has been a chance for the pair to prove themselves once again as they were shipped out on loan, and they have made strides towards doing just that.

Anguissa has proven himself to be one of Europe’s best dribblers, making the fifth-most dribbles per game of any player in La Liga and even catching the eye of Real Madrid during his time at Villarreal.

Seri, on the other hand, is a player that seemed too good for Fulham when he first arrived.

The Ivorian had been heavily linked to Barcelona the prior summer, but upon his arrival at Craven Cottage, he looked more suited to League One than the Champions League.

Seri has stepped up this season with a pass accuracy of almost 90 percent and 1.5 key passes per game for Galatasaray, but then again, the Turkish League isn’t the best standard in the world.

If Fulham do go up, they will have a decision to make on these two.

Anguissa has more than earnt a chance to be handed another shot by Scott Parker, but Seri has a lot still to prove, and his future in England could well be decided by how he gets on in pre-season.

As Darren Sammy’s pre-final press conference ended, a few journalists and camerapersons standing at the back of the Premadasa media room actually clapped. If you were looking for evidence of just what West Indies, even a decade-and-a-half after their decline, mean to cricket and its fans, here it was. No one clapped after Mahela Jayawardene had finished speaking to the media; not even the local media men. While there is no doubt Jayawardene and his men will have a packed Premadasa cheering for them tomorrow, there is also no doubting who most neutral fans want to win.West Indies are the game’s original, and only, gladiators. In their prime, their bowlers put the fear of death in opposition batsmen’s minds, their batsmen fearlessly slaughtered opposition bowlers, and their team ruled the cricket world with sheer force. Everywhere, fans loved the raw skill and passion which West Indies brought to cricket. The skill and passion have dimmed over the years, but fans still keep waiting for some performances, or a performance, that will remind them that once, this was a side which forced you to sit down and watch it do its stuff.In these difficult times, West Indies have invested their faith in a man who has divided opinion in a way a modern captain scarcely has. Whether he should be there in the side or not is a debate which will probably continue as long as he is captain, but Sammy is the man who will go down in history as the one who led West Indies to their first World Cup final – albeit in the Twenty20 form – since 1983. Yes, it has taken just two outright wins, over Australia and England in the Super Eights, to make the final, but West Indies won’t mind that.Sammy has been nearly invisible with bat and ball through the tournament while Chris Gayle has soaked in most of the attention. He has had to face difficult questions over Gayle’s absence from the squad and his subsequent return. It was heartwarming to see Sammy jump around in the dugout with delight after every Gayle six in the semi-final. The captain has no pretensions to being a world-class player but has always maintained he’s there to bring the squad together, to involve everyone, and make it easy for his players to perform without inhibition. Even when he was asked about what the final meant for him as a leader, as someone who had worked for a united squad, he only spoke about the Caribbean people.”For me, it is going to be a memorable occasion,” Sammy said. “I am more focussed on the team and the Caribbean people. I have just been playing cricket for a few years but the fans have been supporting for a number of years. To me it is all about them. They are who come and watch us play, wake early in the morning and stay up late at night.”What if West Indies went a step further, what if they beat Sri Lanka tomorrow? “It would be massive,” Sammy said. “It’s been over a decade and the fans are craving for bigger success. That is the goal we left the Caribbean with. We have been saying it in the dressing room, it is one team, one people, one mission. We are just one step away from the World Twenty20. When we do well people in the Caribbean are very happy, work stops for a few hours back home. It would mean everything to us as players, as coaching staff. It would give us a big boost.”Sammy said the last man who won a World Cup for West Indies, Clive Lloyd, had a message for the side ahead of the final. “I got an email from Mr. Lloyd saying we are very proud in the Caribbean of what the team is doing, people are very happy and just go out and win it. ‘Success comes before work only in the dictionary. Continue to work hard so that you can reap success tomorrow,’ he said. It means a lot to everybody. That in itself will be the biggest motivation for us.”Lloyd and the people of the Caribbean won’t be the only ones rooting for West Indies tomorrow. There is a world title to be won, and probably the entire cricketing world, barring the Sri Lankans, will be behind Sammy and his men.

Tamim Iqbal will play for Wellington Firebirds in this season’s HRV Cup. Tamim will join the New Zealand domestic side after Bangladesh’s series against West Indies, and is expected to play seven games in the Twenty20 competition.Jamie Siddons, the Wellington coach who was in charge of the Bangladesh team between 2007 and 2011, was the key element in the deal as he broached the idea to Tamim a few months ago.”We are excited to have signed Tamim to play in our T20 competition,” Siddons told ESPNcricinfo. “He will be a great addition for the Firebirds. I chose him over the many other overseas candidates because I think he possesses the explosiveness that we need at the top of our batting order. Tamim is yet to take off as a T20 player but I have seen him enough to know that it is going to be very good when he gets it all together in this format. I want my team to benefit from this in our competition this year.”Siddons, however, would have liked to keep the batsman a little while longer, but the start of the Bangladesh Premier League would shorten Tamim’s stay by a few matches. “He will only be available for a possible seven games and the final but the BPL will possibly reduce that to six and no final as the dates suggest he would have to leave early which is disappointing.”Siddons said he would have liked if Shakib Al Hasan also joined Tamim at the Wellington side. “We were interested in Shakib but he declined due to injury at the time,” Siddons said.Tamim said that the BCB has given him the No Objection Certificate, though he is likely to miss some form of domestic cricket in Bangladesh after the West Indies series. He could play first-class cricket in New Zealand though Wellington will be playing only two Plunket Shield matches.”Jamie asked me a few months ago whether I would like to join them,” Tamim said. “At the time I was playing the Sri Lanka Premier League and the World Twenty20 was coming up so I didn’t proceed with the formalities. The board too has given me the NOC so I will be joining Wellington after the West Indies series.”Tamim’s average in Twenty20s is 24.76 and he has played in domestic competitions in Sri Lanka (for Wayamba) and England (Nottinghamshire) with mixed results. Among the other Bangladesh players who have played in domestic first-class tournaments abroad are Shakib (for Worcestershire) and Enamul Haque jnr for Maharashtra.

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Lewis Morgan has revealed that he turned down offers to play in the English Championship to be reunited with former manager Jack Ross.

The on-loan winger made his debut for Sunderland in the weekend win over Wimbledon and made a favourable impression on the Stadium of Light faithful.

That victory ended a run of three consecutive draws that had frustrated Sunderland’s promotion hopes but after the weekend’s results they are only three points behind second-placed Barnsley with two games in hand on them.

Morgan was expected to start the match on the bench but ended up being called into the starting XI.

And the former Celtic youngster has since revealed he jumped at the chance to join the League One side, snubbing interest from clubs from the division above in the process.

“As soon as the chance came up to come here my mind was made up,” he said, as quoted by The Chronicle.

“I’m working with a coaching staff I’ve got massive respect for, a massive club, it’s something I’m excited about. I never thought about it in terms of the league I’m coming to. It was about the club – great facilities, massive club, that would interest everyone.

“I think it’s well documented that there was interest from the Championship down here and the Premiership up north, but it’s a massive club with great people. I’m very happy to be part of it. It’s an exciting time for the club, challenging at the top end of the table. I’m here to help us push up the table.”

Speaking about being reunited with his old St Mirren boss he added: “Jack and his staff improve every player. The training sessions are great and they give you that licence to express yourself in the final third. As an attacking player that’s what you want.

“Aiden [McGeady] and I are both very direct, we like to take our man on. Hopefully we can both dovetail and keep building on that performance on Saturday.”

On Saturday, Sunderland travel to face relegation threatened Oxford United, before hosting Blackpool in midweek, as they continue their quest to return to the Championship at the first time of asking.

Gylfi Sigurdsson has found a new gear under Marco Silva this season but Nikola Vlasic’s form at CSKA Moscow suggests that he could be the man to eventually step into the Iceland international’s shoes.

Sigurdsson has been released of the manacles which restricted him under Sam Allardyce last season and Everton are reaping the rewards. A return of nine goals and three assists from 24 Premier League appearances is just reward for his fine performances, while his link-up play has been at the heart of Everton’s best performances under the Portuguese manager.

However, if Everton want to improve then no player should be considered untouchable. The very best sides are those which demand constant improvement throughout the squad, with competition for places often serving as the best way to guarantee that desired progression.

With that said, Sigurdsson may well be looking over his shoulder now that Vlasic is beginning to thrive with CSKA Moscow. The creative midfielder is showing signs that he can dethrone the Iceland international and become the next coveted playmaker to operate in the hole.

Indeed, Vlasic has already scored seven goals and provided four assists this season, including a memorable winner against Real Madrid in the Champions League.

At just 21-year-old Vlasic is showing the level of promise which Silva will naturally want to see from the player he offloaded temporarily in the summer, and his return in 2019 could signal the beginning of a glowing career on Merseyside.

Boasting a similar level of creative instinct, technical prowess and ability to influence the game in the final-third, the Croatia international could yet blossom into the next Sigurdsson-esque figure at Goodison Park despite his slow start in English football after completing his transfer from Hajduk Split in 2017.

Vlasic’s return in the summer will effectively represent a new signing for Silva.

Everton fans – thoughts? Let us know below!

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Crystal Palace fans have taken to Twitter to react after they found out that Frank de Boer had lost his first game in charge of Atlanta United.

The former Palace boss was appointed as the MLS Cup winners’ manager just before Christmas, but got off to a disappointing start with his new charges as they lost 3-1 to Herediano – in fairness, that’s better than his start with the Eagles, in which he oversaw a 3-0 loss to Huddersfield.

De Boer lasted just 77 days at Selhurst Park during his short tenure in south London, managing just four league games and failing to see his side score a single goal on their way to successive defeats – his only win came in the Carabao Cup against Ipswich.

The main issue with the 48-year-old Dutchman’s time at Palace was his tendency to deploy some players out of position, with Joel Ward stuck out in a right wing-back role whilst Luka Milivojevic was put at centre-back.

By the sounds of things, those issues are still going on at Atlanta, and Palace fans have taken to Twitter to react…

أعلن تيتي، المدير الفني للمنتخب البرازيلي، قائمة السيليساو لمواجهتي بوليفيا وبيرو، الشهر المقبل ضمن تصفيات كأس العالم 2022.

وشهدت القائمة تواجد نيمار دا سيلفا (باريس سان جيرمان) وفيليب كوتينيو (برشلونة) وتياجو سيلفا (تشيلسي)، وكاسميرو (ريال مدريد)، وروبرتو فيرمينو وأليسون بيكر وفابينيو (ليفربول). قائمة البرازيل لمباراتي بوليفيا وبيرو في تصفيات كأس العالم