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As reported by The Sun, Swansea City are digging their heels in to prevent Everton from stealing away one of their key talents this summer.

What’s the story?

The saga of Gylfi Sigurdsson and the Toffees has rumbled on all summer with Ronald Koeman apparently hoping to make him a key part of his much changed Everton side next season.

However, The Sun say the asking price for the attacking midfielder is now an eye-watering £50m, which is £10m more than Everton’s latest bid for the player.

Swansea have also released a stinging statement designed to warn off the Toffees from making any untoward advances for the player.

As quoted by The Sun, owners Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien said:

We’ve not received an offer which represents a fair valuation of Gylfi given his importance to us. We will not be bullied into a decision until a club meets our valuation of the player, no matter whether they believe they have an agreement with the player. Any such agreement would obviously be in contravention of Premier League legislation.

Given his importance to the Swans, it makes sense they would value him so much, but are Everton being priced out of any move for him?

Becoming too much money?

With nine goals and 13 assists in the English Premier League last season, Sigurdsson has been one of the stand-outs across the entire division, despite playing for a club who were mired in a relegation battle for most of the campaign.

He was a one man band at the Swans at times last season and arguably deserves to be surrounded by more talented players. At 27 years old he is entering the prime of his career and has definitely improved as a top-flight star since leaving White Hart Lane.

Koeman needs depth and quality at the club next season if he is to have his side truly compete in the top-flight and Sigurdsson adds both to attacking midfield in support of Romelu Lukaku.

However, the reported £50m is a huge amount of money for Everton. Although they’ve not held back in the transfer market this summer, at some point they’ll be paying way over the odds for the attacking midfielder. Is there better elsewhere in the market for that sort of money?

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According to reports in The Independent, Chelsea will have to pay more than £30m if they want to sign Swansea City striker Fernando Llorente this summer.

What’s the word, then?

Well, despite completing a deal to sign Real Madrid striker Alvaro Morata on Friday, The Independent says that Blues boss Antonio Conte is looking to bring in a back-up centre-forward too and that he has been frustrated in his attempts to sign Llorente and Crystal Palace’s Christian Benteke.

The former is Conte’s first choice after he worked with the Spaniard during his time managing Juventus, however The Independent says the Swans are ready to demand more than £30m for the 32-year-old despite the fact that he has just one year remaining on his contract.

The report adds that the Welsh outfit are asking for that figure as they believe it would be difficult to replace the 6’5” striker, who made a huge impression in his first season in the Premier League.

How good was Llorente last term?

He was excellent.

The tall centre-forward scored 15 goals in 33 Premier League matches and he played a huge part in the Swans narrowly avoiding relegation to the Championship by netting four goals in the club’s final five top flight games.

Would he be a good signing for Chelsea?

As a back-up, he certainly would be.

While Morata will be the main man for the Blues next season, Llorente would certainly offer them something different from the substitutes’ bench because of his strength and aerial ability.

If Conte was looking for a plan B and wanted to go more direct then the Spaniard is the perfect man for the job.

The fact that he has had a year at this level now means he could also be a starter in the Premier League if needed, with the recent addition from Real Madrid unlikely to be starting every game in the league and the Champions League.

However, the minimum price tag of £30m could prove to be a huge problem for a potential deal.

What’s the verdict, then?

Well, while Llorente would be a great back-up addition for Chelsea there is no way that they would be willing to pay more than £30m for a 32-year-old, and unless a compromise can be found then a deal won’t happen.

Leeds United boss Thomas Christiansen has revealed that he is confident of keeping Chris Wood out of the clutches of interested clubs in this summer’s transfer window.

Wood, 25, is believed to have been the subject of a bid from Premier League side Burnley in recent days.

Leeds are said to have rejected the offer from the Clarets, however, as the Championship outfit bid to keep a player that scored 30 goals in all competitions last season.

It is understood that Burnley will return with another bid for the New Zealand international before this transfer window closes for business, but Christiansen believes that his club will reject the interest in their star man.

Christiansen told the Yorkshire Evening Post:

“There’s no doubt that he’s (not) going to leave. “They (other clubs) can come in with many bids – of course he’s a good striker – but I want him to stay and if we want to achieve something this season, you cannot sell your best players.

“Last year he was very important, the top scorer, and this season he will be important. He needs to do it on the pitch with good performances and scoring goals. That’s what we expect but he will, for sure, deliver.”

Wood has already scored once in two Championship appearances for Leeds this season, and is expected to be in the team for Tuesday’s home game against Fulham.

The powerful striker, who moved to Leeds from Leicester City in 2015, has averaged more than one goal every two games for the Whites in all competitions.

When Jurgen Klopp was quizzed about his start as Liverpool manager, after suffering only one defeat in his first nine games, his answer was what we’ve come to expect from the chummy German. It was both engaging and funny, but it also belied the perfectionist within.

Despite overseeing a steadying of the ship after the choppy start to the season which cost Brendan Rodgers his job, Klopp was still apparently still fixated on his only defeat – a 2-1 loss at home to Crystal Palace, where Scott Dann nodded home a late winner after Liverpool failed to defend a corner.

What was to come, though, probably painted Klopp as anything but a perfectionist. Almost two full years later, the Liverpool coach has yet to sort out perhaps the most glaring problem his side have faced in that time: their ability to defend set-plays.

That problem has become a trope of late, and one which has led to a situation where even Jamie Carragher and Jamie Redknapp were moved to leap at each others’ throats over what the answer to the problem actually is.

Will a new, dominating centre back solve the problem by taking charge and heading the ball clear? Or will an expensive new centre back be just as powerless to stop the madness as Dejan Lovren and Joel Matip are currently. The image of a shiny new £50m signing looking bemused as Liverpool’s zonal marking system fails once again is surely the kind of thing that would take some of the shine of Klopp’s aura.

Since even before the first defeat of Klopp’s tenure at Anfield, Palace have seemed like Liverpool’s bogey side. That defeat back in 2015 made it two defeats in their last three games against the south Londoners. Today, that record stands at four defeats in their last eight games. It’s certainly a club Liverpool haven’t enjoyed facing in the last few seasons, and Palace could, this weekend, become the first away team to win four consecutive games at Anfield since Arsenal managed it in 1935.

And yet, this time should be different. The received wisdom suggests that, after replacing Sam Allardyce with Frank de Boer, it will take time for Crystal Palace to make the transition. Sure enough, last weekend’s attempts to change their game dramatically and play out from the back and playing a more sophisticated style of football ended up in a 3-0 defeat at home to a newly promoter Huddersfield Town.

To make matters worse for De Boer, he’ll now have to travel to Anfield and face Jurgen Klopp, just a week after suffering such a heavy defeat to the former Borussia Dortmund coach’s old number two in David Wagner. It was the hard-pressing Huddersfield midfield that did the damage with Palace’s uneasiness on the ball, and a trip to the home of Wagner’s mentor feels like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

On the other hand, it would be wrong to suggest that De Boer’s side were so bad as to merit a 3-0 defeat to Huddersfield. That’s not to say that they didn’t suffer a terribly humiliating defeat, nor is it to say that they’re not going to face the same sort of problems at Anfield that they so clearly couldn’t deal with at Selhurst Park last week.

But it is to say that Palace may not be quite so bad this time. And with the likes of Andros Townsend and Christian Benteke in the side, Liverpool will certainly have to be wary of counter attacks, even if Wilfried Zaha is sidelined for the next few weeks. And, as always it seems, set-pieces are a worry.

This is a game where we’ll see if Klopp is indeed the perfectionist he seemed to be when he first arrived, or whether his answers focusing on the negatives were simply easy to say when his team were winning games. And against an opponent who seem like they are there for the taking, there’s always a possibility of slipping up by taking the victory for granted. But after the last three meetings at Anfield, Liverpool really shouldn’t be making that mistake again.

Tottenham Hotspur star Dele Alli is open to a move abroad as he considers changing agents, according to the Daily Mail.

What’s the word?

The North London outfit’s wage policy has been a big talking point over the last few weeks.

Left-back Danny Rose suggested in an interview with The Sun recently that he and a number of his teammates are not paid what they deserve.

According to the Daily Mail, Alli feels that he is worth triple the £60,000-a-week salary that he currently earns, and that he could earn a hefty amount elsewhere.

The publication claims that the England international is considering parting with long-term agent Rob Segal, which has put rival clubs on alert.

Interestingly, the Daily Mail reports that Alli is open to moving abroad, which is sure to attract the attention of Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid.

How do Tottenham respond?

There is no serious indication that the 21-year-old is considering leaving Tottenham this summer, but if he does change representation then club officials may start to get nervous.

Spurs know that if one of the Premier League or European elites make a move for Alli, under their current wage structure they will be unable to compete.

The Mail states that Harry Kane and Hugo Lloris are Tottenham’s highest earners on £110,000 per week, but given the figures that rival clubs are paying out, some of Spurs’ top stars may look elsewhere.

Now that the issue has been raised in the public domain, chairman Daniel Levy may need to increase salaries in order to keep the club’s best players.

According to reports in The Sun, Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Dele Alli is in talks with the club over a new contract that would be worth more than £100,000-a-week, but Spurs fans want to see more from the 21-year-old on the pitch after a relatively quiet start to the season.

The England international certainly set a high standard for himself last term when he scored 22 goals and provided a further 13 assists in 50 appearances in all competitions for the north London outfit, and he has started the current campaign with two goals in five Premier League outings.

The attacking midfielder struggled to make much of an impact in the 0-0 draw against Swansea City at Wembley on Saturday though, which will have left some of the Spurs faithful wondering if he is being distracted with the discussions over the new deal.

Tottenham supporters were quick to have their say on Alli and the rumour via social media, with some saying he has “gone backwards this season”.

Here is just a selection of the Twitter reaction…

Leeds United discovered on Tuesday that their Championship match against Barnsley will be shown live on Sky Sports.

Thomas Christiansen’s men take on the Tykes on November 25 at Oakwell, and it could be a crucial fixture for the team.

The last time that the pair met at Barnsley’s home ground was in January and the Whites were beaten 3-2 after initially taking the lead through Chris Wood, who joined Burnley in the summer.

With that result seemingly still fresh in some of the fans’ minds, the reaction to Sky’s announcement was not met with much glee.

In fact, some supporters believe that they are destined to lose at Oakwell.

Leeds are going through a disappointing spell after their seven game unbeaten run in the Championship came to an end.

The Whites, who narrowly missed out on a playoff spot last year, have lost three of their last four league outings.

The club have dropped from top spot to fifth, but are only four points adrift of top spot.

Scotland have yet again failed to qualify for a major tournament, a tenth consecutive failure.

A whole generation of people have now never seen the Tartan Army have the opportunity to test themselves on a European or World wide stage. By the time the next tournament rolls around it will have been 22 years since a Scottish side competed at that level.

The most frustrating thing for fans this time around is that they almost made it. When Leigh Griffiths powered home a classy finish against Slovenia on Sunday, a nation believed that they could progress into the play-off round of qualifying. However, the same old failings came to the fore – a slow midfield, a lack of ambition on the flanks and poor defending. It was less glorious failure and more expected outcome.

The future of Gordon Strachan is now in doubt. The SFA are set to meet on Thursday to discuss his future, something that was to happen regardless of progression or not. With players backing him and the fact his Scotland team are in fact undefeated in 2017, there’s every chance he could continue as Scotland boss.

There’s a strong argument though that his time leading the nation should now come to an end. A lack of flexibility, an overrating of England-based players and an unwillingness to give recognition to domestic talent coming through North of the border has resulted in bizarre selection choices, frustrating tactics, plenty of regrets and ultimately failure. It has been an unforgivable oversight and if he is to continue as Scotland boss, it’s something that needs to change.

Learning lessons and repeating mistakes

Four games into the most recent World Cup qualifying campaign, disaster was already looming after a series of dreadful results culminating in a passionless 3-0 defeat to England, but the manager re-assessed his squad and it seemed as if he had learned from his mistakes.

At home to Slovenia, Malta and away to Lithuania he had packed his team with a Celtic core, giving regular starts to the likes of Stuart Armstrong, Leigh Griffiths and Kieran Tierney alongside established stars like Scott Brown, James Forrest and Craig Gordon. The upturn in results from that point has been undeniable, with the national team directly benefiting from the winning mentality that Brendan Rodgers has brought to Glasgow.

As noted, with this new fresh look to the team, Scotland have gone the entirety of 2017 undefeated so far, going from the brink of being knocked out early doors to pushing for a play-off place on the last matchday.

However, in the last two qualifiers, when the pressure was again on, the Scotland manager lost sight of what had given his team that freshness and ability to compete. Injuries to Stuart Armstrong and Scott Brown were unfortunate, but he replaced these players with the likes of James McArthur, Darren Fletcher and Barry Bannan, players who play at a good level but are either past their best or not reaching the form of others.

The weekend before Scotland played, the midfield duo of John McGinn and Callum McGregor wowed a sold-out 60,000 crowd at Celtic Park in the Scottish Premiership with two excellent midfield displays for Hibernian and Celtic, both scoring doubles and demonstrating the kind of vibrant ambition, running and finishing ability that would have re-invigorated the Scottish midfield. While they were both in the squad, they did not see a single minute of action against Slovakia or Slovenia.

In the final match, with the chips down and goals needed, Strachan opted to bring on Ikechi Anya, a player who has just 19 minutes of league football under his belt for Derby County this season. Instead could have turned to James Forrest, a player who has already scored seven goals for Celtic this season, shown excellent form and even contributed well on their way to the UEFA Champions League group stages. Would have it changed the course of history? We’ll never know, but it typified the Scotland manager’s mentality when it comes to selection.

The frustration here is not these decisions in isolation but the fact that mistakes and sins of previous years and previous qualifying campaigns are being repeated.

It’s Callum McGregor today but before it was Leigh Griffiths, who went over three years between competitive starts for his country despite scoring 40 goals in a single season for Celtic in the middle of that period, with Strachan instead relying on the likes of Steven Fletcher and Chris Martin. The manager may cite ‘genetics’, but it’s a flimsy excuse. Since his introduction as a regular, the Celtic forward has scored four goals and created three assists in his last five matches, evidence that when faith is shown to the right players, it will be rewarded.

Moving forward

The truth is while Strachan has many failings as a Scotland boss, he has positives too, and it’d be hard to say goodbye to him when the alternative options seem so flimsy. Unless the SFA are to take a bold new stop and appoint from continental Europe or further afield, which has a certain appeal, Strachan may be the best man to lead the team forward again.

If he’s to do that though, it must be made clear that he cannot show the same stubbornness to rely upon faltering stars or players not getting matches, simply because they play outside of Scotland. It’s a pattern that cannot be repeated if the country is to be successful, he must have the vision to spot in-form players playing with passion, a strong mentality and excellent technical ability.

Whether he can do that remains to be seen, but whether he stays or goes, a change must come.

For Celtic supporters, the day Moussa Dembele truly announced his arrival at the club will be one which is well remembered for the rest of their lives. It came against Rangers little over a year ago, when the then 20-year-old thumped three goals past the Hoops’ arch-rivals in a blistering derby display that would prove to be just the beginning of an extraordinary season for the player and for the club.

The Frenchman would go on to score 32 goals in all competitions, netting in semi-finals, finals and the group stages of the UEFA Champions League. It was a debut season as good as many supporters have ever seen at Celtic Park, a season that saw him arrive as a relatively unknown prospect and head into summer of 2017 as the side’s first-choice striker.

This season though has not quite been the kind of fairy tale story that we’ve come to expect from the striker. Injury problems have littered his 2017 and he finds himself in a testing position, playing second fiddle to Leigh Griffiths and struggling for form and fitness.

The time is right though for him to begin his Celtic resurgence. Brendan Rodgers’ side play a very testing five fixtures before the end of October, in three competitions, with difficult matches expected in each. It’s in this period, with the stakes high and the pressure on, that Dembele can regain his throne at Celtic.

Problems to overcome

The Frenchman set a standard last term and getting him back to those levels quickly won’t be an easy task.

Rodgers has difficult decisions to make, having to balance the knowledge that Dembele has significant ability with the fact he is not just lacking fitness, but has Leigh Griffiths ahead of him in the team, looking as hungry and as impressive as ever. The Hoops cannot afford any passengers in upcoming matches and while Dembele needs the game time to play himself back into form, the truth is Griffiths is perhaps the best option right now.

The 21-year-old has scored just one goal since March. While injury issues are of course to blame, he has made ten appearances in that period, lacking the swagger and confidence that defined his bursts of exceptional form last season.

Griffiths has worked hard over the last 18 months to improve the deficiencies in his all-round game, beyond his natural goalscoring ability, which was always the criticism of the Scotland international when compared with Dembele.

It’s no longer as easy to justify the selection of the youngster when considering matches like the upcoming trip to Bayern Munich, which require forward play beyond simply poaching goals, something he’d have been a shoe-in for this time last year.

The big game player

When it comes to big games though, and there are plenty for the Hoops before the end of the month, there’s few you’d trust more in the Celtic team than Moussa Dembele. He turned up in almost every big test and one-off occasion the side faced last season.

He scored five goals in each of the cup competitions, including in the semi-final and the final of the Scottish League Cup. He scored in three derbies, including an equalising goal at Ibrox and the first Hoops hat-trick in the fixture since 1973. He scored five goals in Europe including a crucial last minute penalty in a qualifier and a double against Manchester City, who at the time were showing as impressive form in the English Premier League as they are right now.

The striker has the mentality to shine on these occasions and at the level Celtic are looking to get to, it’s all about having that belief in yourself and the confidence to be ruthless when the chances present themselves.

With the upcoming schedule as heavy and testing as it has ever been during Rodgers’ reign, he will undoubtedly get game time and starts. Will it come against Bayern Munich this Wednesday? That’s perhaps a bit soon for him. Will it come at Hampden against Hibs? There’s every chance. Even if he has to wait until the top of the table clash away to Aberdeen next Wednesday, his time will surely come.

When it does, you’d be silly not to back him to shine once again and show why he has garnered so much hype since moving to Glasgow, re-establishing himself as the best player in Scotland.

Jose Mourinho rarely ventures far from the formation formula that has defined much of his Premier League career. During his first spell at Chelsea, the Portuguese became synonymous with 4-3-3 and the ‘Makelele role’, while he’s used 4-2-3-1 almost exclusively since returning to the English game after spells with Inter Milan and Real Madrid.

But the sheer variety of formations in the Premier League since Antonio Conte implemented a 3-4-3 setup at Chelsea last season shows how important it’s becoming for the top sides in the division, such as Manchester United who hope to claim this season’s title, to pick the right system for the right opponent rather than sticking with one single game-plan every week.

Tottenham visit Old Trafford in the Premier League on Saturday and inevitably throw up one such conundrum. Pochettino has used 4-2-3-1, 3-4-3, 5-4-1 and 5-3-2 this season, although it seems likely he’ll field his side in the latter formation this weekend after it inspired a 4-1 win over Liverpool last Sunday.

Which begs the question of whether United should stick with what they know best, 4-2-3-1, or look to cancel out the Lilywhites with a similar setup. Mourinho utilised a 3-4-3 against Swansea in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday night, suggesting the idea of trying to match-up with the Lilywhites to some degree has already entered his thoughts.

So, United fans, which formation would you use at Old Trafford this weekend? Let us know by voting below…