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Levante winger Jorge de Frutos is a very raw player, La Liga expert Euan McTear has warned amid Premier League interest.

The Spaniard has admirers in England, with the Sunday Mirror (via The Boot Room) reporting earlier this year that Southampton have been in touch with his agent over a transfer.

De Frutos had a bright 2020/21 campaign, scoring four goals and providing nine assists for Levante in La Liga.

It makes him an attractive proposition for Southampton or any team looking to bolster their wide options this summer. However, despite being 24, McTear has warned De Frutos is still quite raw due to his football upbringing.

“His story is interesting,” the Spanish football expert told FFC. “He didn’t play organised football until he was 16. He grew up on like a farm.

“He’s a very raw player because he’s not come up with that polished sort of way that so many players do, especially in Spain now. Almost every club has the same kind of youth coaching, philosophy, methodology, whatever you call it.

“He didn’t do that, so he’s very raw. That’s good, sometimes bad.”

Even so, bringing in someone like De Frutos looks like a good idea for Southampton. The Saints’ current crop of wingers, the likes of Nathan Redmond and Moussa Djenepo, have not been the most productive players in attack.

In fact, the latter failed to register a single assist in the Premier League last season, so there is definitely room for improvement in that area of the pitch.

Wolves’ owners Fosun have made an offer to save Ligue 1 side Bordeaux according to Girondinfos. 

Jorge Mendes is said to be leading the project, and if their attempted takeover is successful, Olympiacos’ Portuguese boss Pedro Martins would be appointed manager.

Huge summer ahead for Fosun and Wolves

Wolves themselves are presently without a manager after agreeing to part company with Nuno Espirito Santo.

According to Fabrizio Romano, the club are working to complete a deal for SL Benfica’s Bruno Lage after opening talks last week.

It’s also a key transfer window for the club after they slipped to 13th in the Premier League table, having previously secured back-to-back seventh-place finishes.

The Midlands outfit spent £74.5million on new players last summer, with Fabio Silva and Nelson Semedo the headline recruits.

They banked £71.3million from outgoings as Diogo Jota, Matt Doherty and Helder Costa departed the club.

Fan feed Talking Wolves relayed the Fosun news, and here’s how fans reacted.

Wolves fans weigh in on Fosun’s Bordeaux bid

“They need to sort the mess at molineux 1st. Whoever comes in will need funds so they should forget about investing in others.”

Credit: @robsterj2002

“Why am I not surprised to see Mendes is leading it? The guy makes all the screws turn. Seems Fosun just finance his visions some days, for the better and worst of it”

Credit: @SamclarkUk

“That’s us down, then.”

Credit: @ashleynixon95

“Are we trying to be like city football group”

Credit: @benlin11

“I think they’ll sell Wolves sometimes soon. Maybe Bordeaux will be another project they can do & make money from them also!!”

Credit: @SteveWiles20

“Fosun have more of an interest in football than we first thought huh”

Credit: @FW90

In other news, read Henry Winter’s verdict on three managerial candidates. 

West Brom are edging closer to making their next managerial appointment, according to emerging claims…

What’s the word?

The Mirror’s David Anderson delivered a fresh update on Twitter, in which he suggested that Chris Wilder was the Baggies’ top target and that, barring any late surprises, he will become the next manager of the Midlands club.

He posted: “Barring any late unforeseen hiccups, Chris Wilder will be West Brom’s new manager. Wilder is their No 1 choice and talks are continuing on finalising a deal.”

An encouraging sign

The 53-year-old has been out of work since being sacked by Premier League basement boys Sheffield United back in early March, a decision which was perhaps unfair.

Wilder brought joy to thousands of Blades supporters by delivering their greatest post-war era, which included two promotions in four years, rising from 11th in League One to the Premier League – and very nearly into the Europa League.

In his first season in charge, United won the League One title with a whopping 100 points and did so by playing an attractive, free-flowing and attacking brand of football.

His recent experience and proven track record in the Championship makes him a very appealing candidate, especially as that’s where Albion will be playing next season and he’s available for nothing, so it’s no wonder that he’s the club’s top candidate.

An update like this should leave The Hawthorns faithful absolutely buzzing as it appears as if the Baggies are doing their business early so that Wilder has plenty of time to get in and make the changes required to get the team back into the Premier League.

Having won only five matches all season, the supporters need something to shout about and they might soon have it, with Wilder looking increasingly likely to be announced in due course.

His attacking football will be a vast change from what we’ve witnessed under Sam Allardyce, even if results improved somewhat under the 66-year-old. That should only please fans even more.

The Baggies look set to embark on an exciting new era at the club.

AND in other news, Exclusive: Lawrie Sanchez backs West Brom for promotion next season…

Leeds United need to sign a midfielder who is arguably even ‘better’ than Kalvin Phillips this summer, according to former Whites goalkeeper Paddy Kenny.

The Lowdown: Too much reliance on Phillips

Marcelo Bielsa’s side have excelled in their first season back in the Premier League, with Phillips undoubtedly one of Leeds’ star men.

The 25-year-old has been an influential performer in the middle of the park, starting 25 matches and giving himself an excellent chance of making England’s Euro 2020 squad in the coming weeks.

Phillips is arguably relied upon too much, however, with his absence in last Saturday’s 2-0 defeat away to Brighton proving costly.

The Latest: Kenny calls for top-class midfield signing

Speaking to Football Insider, Kenny believes Bielsa should not only look at bringing in someone who could be an effective backup in midfield, and possibly even a superior player to Phillips:

“He’s now in the England squad and proving what an unbelievable talent he is, and he’s still young. He’s a very important player for Leeds.

“He came through at Leeds when I was there. You could see he had something about him.

“Maybe they need to get someone in who is as good if not better than Phillips to fill in if they do need to cover for him.”

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The Verdict

In truth, Leeds will do well to sign a better player than Phillips this summer, considering what a top-quality performer he has become, whether it be his use of the ball – 1.3 key passes per game in the league this season – energy or leadership.

Acquiring the services of a player who can dovetail with the Englishman is key, however, fitting seamlessly into the team when he’s not there.

Leeds have lost seven of the nine games Phillips hasn’t featured in this season, which says all you need to know about how invaluable he is, and how insufficient the backup quality is.

Competition for places can only be healthy moving forward, ensuring individuals don’t rest on their laurels – even someone of Phillips’ importance.

In other news, one pundit has made a key claim over Marcelo Bielsa’s future at Leeds. Read more here.

Leicester City are set to compete with Arsenal for the signature Ryan Bertrand over the summer after he leaves Southampton on a free transfer.

What’s the story?

According to The Telegraph, Brendan Rodgers is set to offer the 31-year-old left-back a contract over the summer as he searches for Christian Fuchs’ replacement.

Bertrand announced that he is set to end his six-year stay on the south coast over the coming months, and several Premier League clubs are expected to do battle for his services.

One particularly strong performance against Manchester United last summer led to the defender being hailed as “superb” by The Athletic correspondent Dan Sheldon, who was speaking on the Total Saints Podcast [via This Is Futbol]. Meanwhile, his averages of 2.1 tackles, one interception and 1.3 clearances per game hint at a player with an unfailing defensive work rate.

Rodgers masterstroke

With 35-year-old full-back Fuchs expected to leave the King Power Stadium after the conclusion of the current campaign and James Justin facing a lengthy spell on the sidelines through injury, bringing in some experienced competition for Luke Thomas has become a priority for Leicester.

The Foxes are also reportedly interested in signing Lille midfielder Boubakary Soumare and Celtic striker Odsonne Edouard as Rodgers looks to add strength in depth to his relatively thin ranks ahead of the 2021/22 campaign, and those are transfers which could take up a sizeable chunk of the club’s budget.

Therefore, acquiring Bertrand on a free transfer to solve a temporary issue may prove to be a masterstroke from their Northern Irish manager.

Leicester have had incredible success over the last few seasons by being very clever in the transfer market, signing relatively unknown talents such as N’Golo Kante and Riyad Mahrez for low fees before selling them on for a healthy profit.

Their policy has allowed the 2016 Premier League champions to punch well above their weight, and this could prove to be the latest clever acquisition, but for slightly different reasons.

Bringing in Bertrand while the highly-rated Justin recovers will allow Rodgers to focus his side’s modest resources on more important areas of the pitch, meaning that a push for the Champions League qualifications could once again be the cards for next season.

Signing a £9m-rated player (Transfermarkt) with more than 250 Premier League games under the belt for free should be a smart piece of business, and when it means Leicester can strengthen in other positions as well, it can be considered a significant coup if it comes off.

In other news… Leicester could land Rodgers his next Vardy with £40m swoop for “incredible” colossus – opinion

Real Madrid star Lucas Vazquez has been ruled out of his side’s Champions League clash with Liverpool through injury.

The Reds face a huge task on Wednesday night, looking to overturn a 3-1 deficit at home to Zinedine Zidane’s side. There will be no Anfield crowd to roar Liverpool on in Europe this time around, so Jurgen Klopp’s men will need to produce a special performance.

Madrid were comfortably the better team in the first leg, outplaying the Reds all over the pitch, with Vazquez impressive at right-back.

Vasquez out of Liverpool clash

The 29-year-old’s season has been abruptly ended, however, after he suffered a cruciate ligament injury on Saturday’s 2-1 win at home to Barcelona.

That means he is out of the Liverpool game, giving Klopp and his players some additional hope of making it into the Champions League semi-finals.

Transfer Tavern take

Vazquez may not be as lauded as some of his teammates, but his absence is a big blow for Real Madrid, considering the wealth of experience he has. Zidane himself has spoken of how much he wants to keep hold of the Spaniard, too, which speaks volumes of his importance to the squad.

He now has 240 appearances to his name for Los Blancos, with 26 goals scored and 54 assists registered in that time, outlining his pedigree.

Vazquez’s absence means that Zidane will have to tweak his back-line, giving hope to Liverpool’s attack on a night when they have to fire.

In other news, there has been a key update regarding Ozan Kabak’s future at Liverpool. Find out more here.

Sheffield Wednesday’s desperate survival hopes were dealt a severe blow as they were held by the ten men of Bristol City at Hillsborough Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

The Owls are all but relegated as they lie seven points adrift with only four games remaining, it is something that could be confirmed as early as next week depending on results elsewhere.

Darren Moore was absent from the dugout as he recovers from a bout of post-covid pneumonia and he was severely let down by his side, who all wore t-shirts respecting their boss in the pre-game warm-up, as they went down without a whimper in South Yorkshire.

Wednesday led the majority of the match rafter central defender Julian Borner headed home in the fourth minute and their chances of clinching a morale-boosting victory were bolstered when Henri Lansbury was sent off just over 15 minutes later for a handball on the line.

But the Owls couldn’t hold on and were punished three minutes from time when Tyreeq Bakinson slammed the equaliser home from distance.

It could’ve been a very different story had Barry Bannan scored from the spot-kick they were awarded from Lansbury’s red card.

The 31-year-old skipper saw his “weak” penalty saved by Dan Bentley in just one of many squandered chances, so he was certainly one player to massively let Moore down on the day.

Everything the Owls do runs through the Scottish playmaker and evidently, that seemed to be the case once again as he recorded a whopping 109 touches, some 21 more touches than the next best, Adam Reach (88), as per SofaScore.

[snack-amp-story url=https://www.footballfancast.com/web-stories/read-the-latest-sheffield-wednesday-news-transfer-rumours-and-recent-gossip” title=”Read this week’s latest Sheffield Wednesday news, latest transfer rumours and more!]

However, Bannan was simply not his usual self as he made just 79% of his 76 passing attempts, of which just one was a key chance created – he very nearly averages double that, so it shows he was not as creative as usual.

Of the Owls’ 20 shots at goal, the midfielder accounted for four of them, including 25% of their efforts on target and thus, Bannan proved to be equally wasteful in front of goal.

Having missed a crucial chance from the spot, he really needed to make amends with a goal later in the game.

At times, it was bordering on desperate as he lost possession a whopping 32 times in the engine room, comfortably more than any other player on the pitch and way worse than his average of 19 times per league outing this campaign.

This hindered Wednesday dearly in their bid to grab three points.

Bannan’s poorly missed penalty wasn’t the sole reason the Yorkshire strugglers picked up another disappointing result but his ineffectiveness in attack and profligacy on other chances were major factors.

When your key man, captain and leading talisman isn’t performing, the rest of the side falters too.

Bannan was just one of many that let Moore down massively on Saturday but they needed ever so much more from their leader.

The writing is certainly on the wall now.

AND in other news, Owls can finally wave goodbye to “hungry” Luhukay flop, he’s not good enough…

Plenty of Aston Villa fans have hit out at former Arsenal defender Nigel Winterburn after he urged the Gunners to ‘go all in’ for Jack Grealish this summer.

The 25-year-old has been influential at Villa Park this season, scoring six goals and registering 12 assists in the Premier League.

Dean Smith has been without the attacking midfielder since the end of February because of injury, with Villa picking up just five points out of a possible 18 during that time.

Arsenal’s previous Grealish interest

Arsenal registered an interest in the 25-year-old during the summer. However, due to Grealish’s £80m price tag, a move to the Emirates Stadium never materialised.

Gunners legend Winterburn – quoted by Football London, as cited by Birmingham Live – has now urged his former club to move for the England international, saying:

“I’d like to see Arsenal go all in and sign Jack Grealish

“He is a terrific player. His ability speaks for itself and he’s the type of player that if we want to move forward then we should be looking to buy.

“He tends to prefer to play on the left-hand side so we’d need to see how that works with Arsenal’s current set up but I’m sure he could play in that No 10 role as well.”

Villa fans react

Birmingham Live shared the story on Twitter regarding Winterburn’s comments about Grealish, with many Villa supporters understandably not impressed.

“Still laughing. Villa owners worth double Arsenal owners”

Credit: @Chloe19428004

“Arsenal advised to take out mortgage on the Emirates and London Colney to pay for it”

Credit: @JackRJ89229896

“Doesn’t Winterburn realise Arsenal don’t have the money to buy Grealish”

Credit: @BrianGarratt1

“Arsenal advised to jog on”

Credit: @davidallen1975

“Can’t afford to pay the dinosaur.”

Credit: @silkievillain

“Please stop regurgitating this drivel”

Credit: @PaulTomlinsonn

In other news: Many AVFC fans buzz over footage of two Villa youngsters, find out more here. 

Speaking exclusively to Football FanCast, former Sheffield Wednesday midfielder Carlton Palmer has blamed Owls owner Dejphon Chansiri for the managerial merry-go-round at Hillsborough.

In recent seasons, Chansiri has shown that he is not afraid to pull the trigger when things are not looking good for Wednesday.

He dismissed Tony Pulis earlier this season despite the Welshman having only overseen 10 games in charge. As for his predecessor Garry Monk, he was dismissed after 14 month at the helm – longer than Pulis but still a short spell.

Evidently, Chansiri is an owner who has no problem with wielding the axe, something that Palmer is not too pleased about.

Discussing the matter in an exclusive interview with FFC, the ex-Wednesday player said:

“Chansiri is to blame without a shadow of a doubt, because the buck stops with him. Why has there been such a turnaround in managers? And decent managers that they’ve had gone in there, so why has there [been so many changes]? There has to be a reason for that. And I think it’s because of the control he has in terms of players going in and players going out of the club.”

Darren Moore now finds himself in the dugout at Hillsborough, leaving Doncaster Rovers at the start of March to join Wednesday. However, with the Yorkshire club on course to get relegated this season, if history is anything to go by, it would not be a surprise to see the 46-year-old depart before the 2021/22 campaign.

Jurgen Klopp reiterated his commitment to Liverpool after the manager role with the German national team opened up.

The DFB announced on Tuesday morning that Joachim Low will leave his post after this summer’s European Championships.

But Klopp is not entertaining the idea of managing his country for now, with another three years left on his Liverpool contract.

“I will not be available as a potential coach for the German team,” he confirmed in his pre-RB Leipzig press conference.

“I have three years left at Liverpool don’t I? It’s simple. You sign a contract and you stick to that contract.

“I stuck to contracts at Mainz and Dortmund.”

After winning the Champions League in 2019 and finally securing the Premier League title in 2020, Liverpool have endured a wretched season.

A catastrophic run of 2021 form has seen the Reds fall to eighth in table, but based on the response to Klopp’s comments, he retains widespread backing among the fanbase.

Supporters flocked to Twitter after his pre-Leipzig comments, and you can find some of the best fan verdicts down below…

Reds fans express relief as Klopp quashes Germany talk

“Fantastic news”

Credit: @cwoodheadhunter

“Thrilled he’s put these silly rumours to rest. I can’t imagine Liverpool without him.”

Credit: @CraigJCG

“Rightly so, if the results don’t improve change the team not klopp”

Credit: @ryank3arney

“I can’t lie I was fearing that Klopp would leave at the end of the season but hearing him say that has eased my fears”

Credit: @JamieLFC901

“Get in 3 more years minimum hopefully we can get some results to add to the good news”

Credit: @crazyitalian7

“He wouldn’t leave us after this season I don’t think. He’ll want to put this season behind us and show everyone what we’re made of.”

Credit: @dameotemp

“If I couldn’t love him any more”

Credit: @jolly_fun01

“Yes, yes, yes”

Credit: @RobieSlick

In other news, FSG are under fire from some fans after this transfer claim