Toby Alderweireld is ignoring the rumours about his future, such is the on-loan defender’s determination to complete Southampton’s “special season”.
Alderweireld’s form on the south coast has attracted interest from Manchester City but the Saints have the option to make the deal permanent by paying £6.8m to Atletico Madrid.
The Belgium international has expressed a desire to stay at Southampton, but the waters are muddied by Atletico’s ability to nullify the buy-out clause by paying them £1.5 million.
“I saw something in the Spanish papers,” Alderweireld said.
“I don’t know, I didn’t hear from them. I am just focused on Southampton and we are playing for a European spot, so it is going to be a special season.”
Sour ending
A referee abandoned the Bolivian first division match between Bolivar and Universitario Sucre on Saturday after the away side arrived with only seven players, one of whom got “injured” after 12 minutes.
Sucre, who are in second place in Libertadores Cup Group 3 and could qualify for the knockout stage this week, requested to have the match rescheduled but the local FA ignored the pleas.
So Universitario brought seven youth team players, one of whom was injured early on.
FIFA’s rules state that the minimum number of players a team can have on the field is seven, otherwise the referee can abandon the game.
Kompany hits out at UEFA’s FFP rules
Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany believes UEFA’s Financial Fair Play rules (FFP) are designed to subdue teams with big investment, such as his club.
Last May, City were handed a fine of 60 million euros and had restrictions placed on their squad and transfer dealings.
Kompany said the rules only serve to maintain the status quo.
“That’s how I look at it anyway,” he said.
“If you go into the business world you can’t say to anyone they cannot invest.
“You win things... you get more fans and create more revenue. That’s not a stupid way of thinking of investing in a business.”
Handanovic waiting
Samir Handanovic is being kept in limbo by Inter over a new contract, the keeper said after stopping a Luca Toni penalty in Saturday’s league match at Verona which the visitors won 3-0.
His contract is up in June 2016 and when asked about any deve-lopments he gave reporters a negative response.
“We’ll see. I still don’t know what the club wants to do. So far there have been no steps forward,” he said.
The penalty save was Handanovic’s sixth from the last seven he had faced.
Pardew eyes more goals from Bolasie
Crystal Palace boss Alan Pardew challenged Yannick Bolasie to get himself among the goals more regularly after seeing him score the club’s first ever Premier League hat-trick at Sunderland.
Bolasie beat Black Cats keeper Costel Pantilimon three times inside 11 second-half minutes to add to Glenn Murray’s opener as Palace roared to a 4-1 victory at the Stadium of Light.
Asked if he was surprised the midfielder does not score more often, Pardew said: “A little bit, yes. Someone has just said to me he’s the first Crystal Palace player to get a Premier League hat-trick, and that is a surprise so he has got a nice little tag to his name now.
“Now he needs to build on that. Two of those finishes were top-drawer.”
No further changes at troubled Hamburg
Hamburg coach Peter Knabel has ruled out there being any further changes at the helm of the club this season after falling to a second straight defeat since replacing Josef Zinnbauer.
The northern Germany side slipped into the bottom two on Saturday after falling to a 2-0 defeat at home to Wolfsburg.
Knabel, who became Hamburg’s third coach this season after Mirko Slomka and Zinnbauer, is confident there will not be a fourth man in charge this season.
“It certainly makes sense to continue with things how they currently are,” Knabel said.
Hamburg head into the final six games of the season with a two-point deficit on the relegation play-off and a four-point gap to safety.
Clarke concentrates on league match
Reading manager Steve Clarke is still refusing to discuss the club’s FA Cup semi-final against Arsenal at Wembley next Saturday.
After the scrappy 0-0 draw with Blackburn, Clarke was concentrating on the home match against Championship leaders Bournemouth tomorrow.
He said: “That’s going to be a tough game. We’re now three games unbeaten, with three draws. We’d much rather there was a win in there but we’re proving a little bit more difficult to beat now.
“We certainly want to continue that against Bournemouth.
“There’s a fantastic excitement around the club but, for us, the next game is Tuesday night. We have to focus on that first.”