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Mikel Arteta has warned Aaron Ramsdale not to rush any decision over his future after England manager Gareth Southgate told the goalkeeper he could not promise him a place at Euro 2024 if he remains on the bench at Arsenal. Ramsdale has been called up by Southgate for England’s final two qualifiers against Malta and North Macedonia and will be aiming to add to his four senior caps. However, the 25-year-old has been ousted as Arsenal’s first-choice goalkeeper since the arrival of David Raya from Brentford and has played just twice since the September international break. Speaking after naming his latest squad, Southgate said of Ramsdale’s plight: “I think longer-term, we’re just going to have to see how it is. I had that conversation with him in the last camp. “He’s still battling to be the number one at Arsenal, and his profile and the way he can use the ball with his feet, we like, we think that’s important. “But there is a reality as a keeper, if we get to March and he’s six months without playing regularly, then I’m never going to promise things that I couldn’t guarantee delivering.” Arteta has not spoken to Ramsdale about the issue but warned against a January move in a quest to find first-team football. So making early decisions, in my experience, is not something good at all Mikel Arteta “First of all my door is open to speak about any player,” he said. “We just want the best for our players and we try to do that, and we know the influence that we can have – sometimes positively, sometimes not so positively, towards them. “We will always try to do our best to help them, but this is a team sport that needs 24 players that have to fulfil a role. And the role that you have in August, it might be very different to the one you have in March. “So making early decisions, in my experience, is not something good at all and as well because the team has certain needs that has to be accomplished. And in order to do that you cannot do it with six, 10 or 14 players. It is impossible. So you need everyone and Aaron has a really important role in the team. “I have no messages for any clubs (who may look to sign Ramsdale). I can talk a little bit about my players, how much I like my players, how much I like Aaron and that we want Aaron with us, that’s for sure.” Ramsdale is likely to once again be among the substitutes as Arsenal host Burnley on Saturday night looking to get back to winning ways in the Premier League. Arteta, though, could be without as many as eight first-team players for the visit of the Clarets as captain Martin Odegaard is “still racing” to be fit, while Bukayo Saka and Takehiro Tomiyasu both came off injured in Wednesday’s Champions League win over Sevilla. Forwards Gabriel Jesus and Eddie Nketiah could miss out with hamstring and ankle injuries respectively, while Thomas Partey, Emile Smith Rowe and Jurrien Timber are definite absentees. “Some of the injuries that we had, they are some bad luck, some of them have been long-term injuries with some special players and when we didn’t have a lot of depth,” he added. “We can talk about the depth, but after you have to talk about the specific positions or certain units where we are a little bit shorter. “But it is the challenge of the season and other people have to step up, and that as well is a good test for the team – how we take those moments and how we actually respond to that. So far, the team is doing well.” Read More Erik ten Hag ‘not happy’ with Marcus Rashford’s form at Manchester United Dawid Malan: I want to play on but I don’t know what my England future holds Evan Ferguson signs new Brighton contract until 2029 Football rumours: Tottenham identify Lloyd Kelly as January transfer target On this day in 2014: David Moyes appointed Real Sociedad head coach Chicago Bears edge out Carolina Panthers in three-point win

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Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag has admitted he is “not happy” with Marcus Rashford’s form but he remains convinced the England forward will get back to his best this season. Rashford’s disputed red card in Copenhagen on Wednesday night contributed to a dramatic United collapse as they blew a 2-0 lead and conceded two goals in the final 10 minutes to lose 4-3, dropping to the bottom of Group A in the Champions League with two games left. Gareth Southgate kept faith with Rashford by naming him in his England squad on Thursday, but a player who scored 30 goals for United in all competitions last season has only one from 15 appearances this term. “I think he’s not happy, we are not happy,” Ten Hag said of Rashford’s performances. “We have an expectation. He has high expectations from himself. In this moment he is not in the best form but I know he will be back. “I know when the team is playing better he will play better. He will go and score goals. I am confident of that. This season he will improve and score goals. He is totally in the team, he is aware of everything so I think he will be back on track. “It can happen very quickly and sometimes you only need one game. I’m sure he will get there.” The defeat in Copenhagen was United’s ninth from 17 games in all competitions so far, and they go into Saturday’s match at home to Luton eighth in the Premier League. Asked if results had been acceptable this term, Ten Hag said: “It is about the end result and we have to win every game, so we are very disappointed to lose any game but finally it is about the end result. “It is always about being in a process, thinking about a process and then it’s about managing the process. That’s the only thing I focus on. “I think we have often proved we can, like at Fulham, like Brentford, that we can overcome big setbacks.” United’s midweek defeat came at a cost too as Jonny Evans limped off early after pulling up off the ball. The 35-year-old, who has been a regular starter in recent weeks, has been ruled out of the Luton match and may now also miss next week’s Euro 2024 qualifiers for Northern Ireland in what would be another blow for Michael O’Neill’s injury-hit squad. “So we don’t have in this moment the full assessment and all the details but tomorrow he is out,” Ten Hag said. “I can’t say (if he can go away with Northern Ireland) as we don’t have the finished assessment.” Mason Mount has been another player in the spotlight, with the 24-year-old struggling to make an impression since his £55million summer switch from Chelsea. Mount made his first start since early October in the 3-0 Carabao Cup defeat to Newcastle on November 1 but was back on the bench against Fulham and Copenhagen, with questions being asked about his role in the side. However, Ten Hag said there had been no change in his expectations of the player. “It hasn’t changed at all,” Ten Hag said. “He started the season and then he got injured. It’s the worst moment for a new player to get injured because it stops the integration process. That was definitely a setback for us all and for him now he has to fight to get his place back.” Read More Dawid Malan: I want to play on but I don’t know what my England future holds Evan Ferguson signs new Brighton contract until 2029 Football rumours: Tottenham identify Lloyd Kelly as January transfer target On this day in 2014: David Moyes appointed Real Sociedad head coach Chicago Bears edge out Carolina Panthers in three-point win Unai Emery acknowledges good fortune opened the door for Villa’s victory

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In one of Europe’s biggest three-horse races, an unexpected fourth leads the way. Where usually Barcelona, Real Madrid and, on sporadic occasions, Atletico Madrid reside, there’s an altogether less-expected club sitting top of LaLiga after a third of the campaign – a free-scoring, attack-minded team who spent a net of barely £4m in the summer, have a stadium capacity of under 15,000 and whose best-ever season in LaLiga to date saw them finish 10th. Welcome to Girona FC. The story of their rise is a tale in itself, but their opening 12 games of this campaign might yet make for the stuff of local legend. As recently as 1999 the club was playing in the Catalan regional leagues, the fifth tier of Spanish football, but after achieving their first-ever top-flight campaign in 2017-18 and surviving for a second, they returned to LaLiga for 2022-23 and ended 10th last year – just as they did five years earlier, in fact. There appears to be no danger of season four emulating season two, though. Where then they were relegated, this term they top the table, two points ahead of Real Madrid, four clear of champions Barcelona and a full six ahead of Atletico. Between Girona and fifth is a massive 10 points, after just a dozen matches. Masterminding this unexpected rise is head coach Michel Sanchez Munoz, better known just as Michel, a former Rayo Vallecano and Real Murcia player who has been in the dugout at Estadi Montilivi since 2021. Michel has the team playing offensive football – they’ve not only won more games than anyone this term, they’ve also outscored everyone in LaLiga– and the manner of it is even more impressive given the turnover of the squad: 10 in, three out, another half a dozen loaned away. That new group has been quickly moulded into a cohesive unit with a very identifiable approach to matches, as one of those new arrivals, former Manchester United and Ajax defender Daley Blind, told The Independent. “It’s always difficult to compare managers, each one has his own ID and way of playing. But what stands out is the manager is really clear in how he wants to play football, he has a really clear idea about every game we play and having a real tactical plan,” Blind says on a call. “He tries to give that to the team and make sure we understand the gameplan. “The story he told me before I came to Girona was really intriguing and I can’t say anything other than he did not lie – I got excited and wanted to play here after speaking to him. “You can’t know it for sure beforehand but we’re really happy with how it’s going and it’s always important for a coach to be clear about that.” Blind is happily effusive about Michel’s man management as well as his tactical acumen. Having spent most of his career under the likes of Louis van Gaal, Jose Mourinho, father Danny Blind and others, he’s well placed to talk about who is impressive or otherwise on the coaching ground. And while he won’t directly look at matching up Michel’s attributes to anyone else’s, he makes the point that there’s a real connection between coach and squad. “I don’t want to compare [to others] but, for me, he’s a manager who is human, who connects on a personal level as well. He joins in the rondo [training game of keep-ball] and is part of the guys; at the moment training really starts he’s then really on top of it and not holding back,” the centre-back explains. “He expects every training [session] to be the best but there’s always time for a joke here and there. He has a good connection with every player – that’s very special.” Blind freely admits that his spell in Spain came at the second time of asking. He got the call from Girona last year after leaving Ajax; while considering his next move, Bayern Munich swooped in and he felt he needed to go. This summer, though, he was confident Girona was the right move. While the Dutchman has been a mainstay at the back this term, central midfielder Aleix Garcia has caught the eye, while in attack young winger Savio has been impressive and new centre-forward Artem Dovbyk has not so much hit the ground running as thundering through defences, scoring six in eight starts or one every 109 minutes. Among LaLiga’s best goal-getters, only Gerard Moreno (105), Alvaro Morata (105) and top scorer Jude Bellingham (95) can beat the Ukrainian’s strike rate. So has the fast start by Girona altered their season aims, made them aim higher than might have been the objective at the start of the campaign? Not for Blind, who maintains the “one game at a time” mantra. “For me, it hasn’t changed, you want to finish as high as possible in the league and that’s what we aim for. We’ll see where that is at the end of the season,” he says. “You always be ambitious and have an aim but in the end, you look game by game because the next one is most important and you want the three points. But you see which games are in the next couple of weeks and be ambitious about it. It’s not for me to reveal what we say about [those runs] but it always comes back to the next game.” For Girona, the next game is away on Saturday to Rayo Vallecano, Michel’s oldest and most closely linked club. Beat them and the Catalan club will remain top across the international break, the envy of not just smaller clubs around Europe hoping to improve their own fortunes and challenge higher in the league but of every club in Spain – including the very biggest and the supposed best. Perhaps, just perhaps, they won’t be this year. Watch LaLiga on Viaplay, available in the UK on Sky, Virgin TV, Amazon Prime Video and via streaming Read More Jeremy Doku’s brilliance shows Man City’s edge and Chelsea’s key problem Ange Postecoglu gives injury update for Tottenham star James Maddison Football stadium plunged into darkness after rivals turn off lights during title win Jeremy Doku’s brilliance shows Man City’s edge and Chelsea’s key problem Ange Postecoglu gives injury update for Tottenham star James Maddison Football stadium plunged into darkness after rivals turn off lights during title win

Over the past few months, as Chelsea’s hierarchy started to settle into the club, they became fixated on a specific idea relevant to this weekend’s game. They began to study what makes 100-point seasons and record-breaking sides. That might seem some way off, to an almost comic degree, but you’ve got to have goals. Manchester City are the obvious case study, since they are the only club to manage a centurion season and they still break records. As regards what made that possible, the usual explanation might be “one of the most lavishly expensive football projects in history” but Chelsea’s owners also have huge resources and are clearly willing to spend them. Their outlay on transfer fees so far, if not quite wages, has recalled the dizzy days of Roman Abramovich between 2003 and 2006 and the first few years of the Abu Dhabi ownership at City. And Chelsea might have a more specific reason to look at the European champions for inspiration. Chelsea’s own grand project, which is an unprecedented football experiment, is based on bringing in young players of a similar talent profile to Jeremy Doku. That raises the obvious question of whether Doku would have the same impact if he was at Chelsea? Or, would he be just another young signing showing potential but requiring shape and direction? Recent form suggests the latter. There are caveats, of course. It is early days and, as good as Doku has been, the real tests will come later. Clubs like Manchester United and Newcastle had also looked at him, but felt he wasn’t yet developed enough. There was a sense he was too erratic as a player. However, his impact under Pep Guardiola, especially when contrasted with Raheem Sterling’s influence on Chelsea, speaks volumes about the two clubs. One significant difference between Doku and so many similar young players at Chelsea is the roles they’ve been signed for. The London club have attempted to overhaul their entire squad, and players of talent have just been thrust into the fray. It has been up to Mauricio Pochettino to make sense of it. City, from the benefit of over a decade’s planning, can be much more forensic. Their succession plans are so well defined and far-thinking, with most signings settled on at least 18 months in advance - barring any unseen changes like the sudden impact of Saudi Pro League money, which delayed this summer’s business. Doku was supposed to be next in line in City’s attack but, as occasionally happens in teams that are so high-functioning, a player of his talent has been able to slot right in. It has even gone a little bit in the other direction, in how Doku’s livewire play actually gives City’s smoothness something different. It’s hard not to have some sympathy with Jack Grealish. When he was signed, Guardiola worked on him for weeks, seeking to change his thinking on the game and add much more control to it. Grealish was still talking about how he needed to evolve by the end of a season where he’d won his first title. Doku, by contrast, has just been put in the team and let loose to also leave Grealish on the bench. This isn’t to say the English playmaker should be overly worried about his medium-to-long-term role. As Sterling knows better than anybody, Guardiola goes on and off players all the time. It is partly his way of keeping them on their toes, partly tactical experimentation, partly man-management and partly what fits at any given time. Sterling ultimately felt he didn’t have that time, and sought to be a more influential player at another major club. There is something of an irony there, though. While Sterling is Chelsea’s senior attacker, who has a huge burden in leading the play, his best role is probably as someone who works off other stars and does real damage there. That is when his running on the ball and off it can be devastating. The farcical match against Tottenham Hotspur on Monday showed how much focus there can be on Sterling in this Chelsea team, although it had the effect of releasing Nicolas Jackson for so many chances that he eventually got a hat-trick by sheer force of numbers. While there will be an obvious comparison between that and Doku’s impact against Bournemouth, they were very different types of performances. They are very different types of roles. At Chelsea, attackers like Jackson and Cole Palmer already have a huge responsibility, which increases the burden on Sterling. At City, Doku is able to play off a series of stars who know precisely what their job is. It means he can figure out his own game, as defences try to figure him out. Read More The future of football: Why the U-17 World Cup highlights an evolving game One point: Is this the worst score of the Fantasy Premier League season? Are England’s Harry Kane and Jude Bellingham the best strike force in world football? Rumours: Man United could sell duo in January and Newcastle target midfield pair How can Man United qualify in Champions League? Champions League: What do Man United, Newcastle and Arsenal need to reach last 16?

Harvard University President Claudine Gay responded to criticism by students and alumni including Bill Ackman that the school