Mourinho keen to reward Son with new Spurs contract

Tottenham boss Jose Mourinho expects Son Heung-min to be handed a new long-term contract “sooner or later”.

The South Korean, whose current deal is due to expire in 2023, is reportedly in discussions over a bumper new contract at the club following a devastating start to the season.

Son has scored nine goals in eight games and also chimed in with four assists, having been central to Tottenham’s goal glut.


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Mourinho believes that form is likely to see him be rewarded with a hefty new deal that would make him one of the top earners at the club.

“I would love that,” he said. “Son has three years of contract so it’s not like we’re in an extreme situation of everybody being worried.

“It’s more that Son loves it here. I believe that he would like to commit his future to the club for a long time.

“Everybody at the club is totally in love with this player and this boy and is trying also to make him feel part of the furniture.

“It’s normal the club tries to go from three years to four or five or six, I don’t know. It’s normal.

“But it’s a very calm situation because Sonny has three more years of contract.

“But I wish [for him to get a new contract]. He deserves one. The club knows that and sooner or later, without any pressure, they will arrive into a decision.”

Son has often gone under the radar at Spurs as Harry Kane and Dele Alli have taken the limelight in recent years, but it is hard to ignore his level of performance in recent weeks.

The 27-year-old, who is an icon in South Korea, has never been in the headlines off the pitch and says that changing will be the only thing which can derail him.

“He cannot do more than what he does,” Mourinho added. “Season after season after season, Sonny is showing how good he is.

“Of course, the better the team is, the easier it is for the players to emerge.

 

“But Sonny is Sonny and everyone knows what he needs to do now to go to the next step: nothing.

“Or he starts doing s*** socially and becomes famous and becomes in the big headlines because of some weird, silly or naive social behaviour.

“Because he’s such an incredible kid, also at that level. It’s up to you to tell how good he is.”

Son, who came off the bench in Thursday’s Europa League win over LASK, will return to the starting line-up in Monday’s trip to Burnley.

The Clarets are enduring a tough start to the season, having taken one point from their opening four games, but Mourinho is not being lulled into a false sense of security.

He believes Sean Dyche’s side will be well clear of any danger come the business end of the season.

“You will feel how strong they are by March, April when lots of teams will be fighting for relegation, and they will be already safe,” he said.

“They will be already 8th, 9th, 10th, comfortable in the table. This is Burnley, so the fact they only have one point in this moment – they have played one match less and the fact they have one point doesn’t tell me much.

“Burnley is Burnley. The way they play, the players they have, their style of play, the manager, nothing’s changed there. It’s always difficult and it’s going to be difficult.”

 

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Neville picks Veron, Fernandes in all-time overseas Man Utd XI

Gary Neville has picked Juan Sebastián Verón and Bruno Fernandes as his midfield pair in his all-time overseas Manchester United XI.

On Friday morning, the Man Utd legend was asked on Twitter to name his best ever Red Devils team, that did not include players from the United Kingdom or Ireland.

Neville went with a 4-2-4 formation, and he picked Peter Schmeichel as his keeper. In front of him was Rafael, Jaap Stam, Nemanja Vidić and Patrice Evra in defence.


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Verón and Fernandes were selected as his two central midfielders. He then went for a mouth-watering front four of Cristiano Ronaldo, Carlos Tevez, Eric Cantona and Ruud van Nistelrooy.

It is hard to argue against most of these selections from the Sky Sports pundit. Perhaps you could make a case for Antonio Valencia to take the place of Rafael.

Valencia converted from a right-winger to a right-back for the Red Devils. He won two Premier League titles during his ten years at the club.

But the Brazilian made 170 appearances for United between 2008 and 2015, winning three league titles in the process.

The other contentious picks are Verón and Fernandes. Other leading candidates to go there include Ji-Sung Park and Paul Pogba.

This is big praise for Fernandes from Neville. The Portugal international has only been at the club since January 2019.

Yet he has made a huge difference for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side since then. Fernandes has made 28 appearances for the club, notching 16 goals and 11 assists.

Verón signed for United from Lazio in 2001 for a fee of around £28m. His time at Old Trafford was a bit underwhelming. He spent two years at Manchester, before signing for Chelsea.

But in his time there, he made 82 appearances in all competitions. He scored 11 goals and got 11 assists as he helped United win the Premier League title in 2002/03.

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Solskjaer expects three key Man Utd players to be ready for Chelsea

Man Utd boss Ole Gunnar Solskjaer expects three key players to be “available for selection” when Chelsea come to town on Saturday.

The Red Devils will look to build on their 4-1 victory away at Newcastle United at the weekend and an impressive 2-1 win against Paris Saint-Germain in midweek, when they face Frank Lampard’s side at Old Trafford.

At this early stage of the season, Man Utd occupy 15th position in the table, while Chelsea sit eighth, having played one more game than the Red Devils.


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And Solskjaer has revealed that Mason Greenwood is set to return to action against Chelsea on Saturday, when captain Harry Maguire and new signing Edinson Cavani are also pushing to be involved.

“I hope and expect all three of them to be available for selection,” Solskjaer said.

“Of course we’ve got a training session this morning but, yeah, they’ve all got a chance, all of them.

“There’s two different reasons, so Edinson wants to tick all the boxes that he’s gone through in his programme and feel ready to make an impact.

“I think his last preparation was going to be today and then I’ll have a discussion with him, and it seemed positive yesterday with both Mason and Harry so hopefully.”

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Jesse Lingard and Eric Bailly will be absent against Chelsea and for the next few weeks through injury, while new boy Facundo Pellistri will join Brandon Williams and Marcos Rojo in featuring for the Under-23s against Everton on Friday.

Anthony Martial remains suspended when Frank Lampard’s side visit Old Trafford, where you would not bet against Marcus Rashford shining once again.

The 22-year-old struck late to see off PSG in the Champions League once again, before continuing his fine work off the pitch aimed at preventing vulnerable children going hungry.

Asked if there’s anything left to say about Rashford, who was recently awarded an MBE, and the work he does, Solskjaer said with a laugh: “Probably not!

“But he’s now at a stage, we all speak about Marcus as this experienced boy and he’s 23 soon. He’s just between being a talent and being experienced, and you can see more and more of that experience coming out.

“We hope and we trust that Marcus’ background here, background with his family will keep him just developing and kick him on in his career.

“Now is around about the time that you’ll see him hopefully dividing himself from being a good player to being a very, very good player.”

 

Will Chelsea fall into Manchester United’s trap again at Old Trafford? And is Virgil van Dijk really so big a loss for Liverpool as has been made out? Winty and Mark dissect what is sure to be a Big Weekend.

Ex-Scotland boss claims Spurs man ‘looks finished’ at the club

Former Scotland and Aston Villa boss Alex McLeish claims that Danny Rose “looks finished” at Spurs.

Rose missed out Jose Mourinho’s 25-man squad for the Premier League, while he was also axed from Tottenham’s Europa League squad.

He spent the second half of last term on loan at Newcastle, making 13 appearances, and has not played for Spurs since their 1-0 defeat at home to Liverpool in January.


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And now McLeish reckons that his time at Tottenham is finally over with Ben Davies and Sergio Reguilon taking up the current left-back spots, while Ryan Sessegnon is still seen as one for the future.

“It looks it, he looks finished, yeah, there’s no doubt about that,” McLeish told Football Insider.

“Danny was having issues over the last year, easily the last 12 months, that he’s been a bit rattled about his future with Tottenham. Back then it was is he going to go for a fee, will he wait and go free?

“I think Spurs were getting a bit miffed they weren’t going to be able to get any money for him. The way that it’s landed now it looks as though he’ll be leaving without Spurs getting a big fee.

“There’s been issues there for about a year and a half, Danny and Spurs just haven’t been seeing eye to eye.”

On Rose’s omission from his Premier League squad, Mourinho recently said: “Danny is not part of our squad. Danny wanted very, very much to leave in the January window last season. Why? Because he wanted to play and play and play.

“Then he went to Newcastle and I immediately had the feeling of being a player of his dimension that, thinking about Euros, I thought our future would be Davies and Sessegnon.

“Then we had the possibility to get Reguilon and I thought that would be a good opportunity for Ryan to get game time and develop.

“With Danny, the players and agents make the market. If the agent didn’t find a solution for Danny to move then it’s a question you have to ask him.”

 

Will Chelsea fall into Manchester United’s trap again at Old Trafford? And is Virgil van Dijk really so big a loss for Liverpool as has been made out? Winty and Mark dissect what is sure to be a Big Weekend.

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Snowden 'Called to Serve the Cause of Our Free Press'

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is joining the board of directors of the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), an organization founded just over a year ago with a mission to fund and support transparency journalism.

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Other members of the board Snowden will join in February include founding members Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, two of the key journalists who have brought Snowden’s leaks to the public, as well as Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg.

“It is tremendously humbling to be called to serve the cause of our free press, and it is the honor of a lifetime to do so alongside extraordinary Americans like Daniel Ellsberg on FPF’s Board of Directors,” Snowden said in a release from the organization.  “The unconstitutional gathering of the communications records of everyone in America threatens our most basic rights, and the public should have a say in whether or not that continues.  Thanks to the work of our free press, today we do, and if the NSA won’t answer to Congress, they’ll have to answer to the newspapers, and ultimately, the people.”

Speaking to CNN‘s Jake Tapper on Tuesday about Snowden’s joining FPF, Ellsberg said that Snowden “represents the values” of the organization, “which are that investigative journalism is essential to the First Amendment, freedom of the press and of speech.”

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