Football Daily | N’Golo Kanté, Dani Olmo and the post-Euros sweet spot for transfers
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An old friend could be about to return. N’Golo Kanté is a wanted man in east London, desired as part of the Julen Lopetegui revolution at West Ham. Kanté, the boy next door of defensive midfielders, had disappeared from view after leaving Chelsea last year, sucked into that lucrative black hole known as the Saudi Pro League. But a few livewire, cover-every-blade-of-grass performances for France at Euro 2024 have brought the loveable footballing vacuum cleaner back into the mainstream, and a move at the backend of his career would see him join a surprisingly healthy list of Premier League winners who have opted for a sunset runabout with the Hammers. Freddie Ljungberg, Patrice Evra and Samir Nasri – you’ve forgotten about these, haven’t you? – budge up and make some room for N’Golo.
The argument they gave was, briefly: we’ve looked at everything and put it all together, but we think we already have the best manager in-house. Then I did say: ‘Then we need to discuss some things, about how we interact and collaborate.’ We had a good, honest, but also confrontational conversation about that. As it should be” – Erik ten Hag recalls the spiky chats that led to Manchester United keeping the best “in-house” manager in the business and how he got fresh and funky with his overlords about the club’s direction.
Re: yesterday’s Football Daily. I would say we are now in the 2024-25 season. I think clubs immediately move up or down to their new league as the old season finishes. Luton Town are no longer Premier League and, more importantly, Bromley are now Football League. If this is not the case then the quiz question ‘which is the only football team whose ground is in a Tory constituency’ doesn’t work. I fear I may have given the answer away” – Dan Ashley.
Speaking as someone enduring the torment/surfing the joyful waves (delete to taste) of a season that’s now halfway through, may I be the first of what I imagine will be substantially fewer than 1,057 pedants to point out that, for many of us, the debate over whether 2024-25 is still ‘next season’ is moot. With second-leg matches of the first qualifying rounds of European competitions taking place, those newly-expanded Big Cup and Big Vase group stages aren’t going to exclude the smaller leagues by themselves, thank you. In Tin Pot, the second-best team in our league this season were unable to overcome a two-goal first-leg deficit against something called Bruno’s Magpies. Elsewhere, the best team in our league this season managed to preserve a narrow first-leg lead against the team who finished one place above those Magpies last season. As my mate Steve said to me as we sat freezing our backsides off watching an opening-day fixture in February a few years back: ‘Thank goodness for summer soccer …’” – Mike Slattery (and others).
