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Tottenham Hotspur will provide stiff reading for Arsenal when they release their financial figures for last season, The Sun reports.

Spurs are set to reveal a wage budget of £91.1m ‘or below,’ leaving the White Hart Lane outfit to financially mirror their payroll of 2010/11.

Over the last five years the Gunners have posted wages of £89.7m (2007), £101.3m (2008), £104m (2009), £110.7m (2010), £124.4m (2011), and £143.4 (2012). The most recent differential between last year and the 2011/12 season has seen an exponential increase of 15%.

Compared to the balance sheet on the other side of the Seven Sisters Road, this substantial rise in payroll might be cause for concern for Arsenal fans. For £1m extra a week in wages – £52m a year – a mere one league position above your local rivals can be achieved.

Contrary to growing angst at Arsenal leading chief executive Ivan Gazidis to counter any suggestion that he was ‘ruining the club’ by keeping the purse strings tight during October’s AGM, these figures seem to suggest that the red side of North London are beginning to punch their weight.

In today’s global economic climate – and amidst a milieu of rival Premier League teams spending each other out of silverware – the wage rise at the Emirates might not be such a cause for concern, as Arsenal step up to the financial environment set by the Premier League’s big spenders.

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Everton boss Sam Allardyce is hopeful that James McCarthy will be able to join the squad for pre-season training ahead of the 2018-19 campaign.

McCarthy suffered a double leg break during Everton’s 1-1 draw with West Bromwich Albion on January 20.

It was a bitter blow for a player that had only just returned to action following a spell on the sidelines with a troublesome hamstring issue.

Various reports claimed that McCarthy would struggle to be fit for the start of the new season, but Allardyce is confident that the 27-year-old will be able to return to the field in July as the Toffees build towards the 2017-18 campaign.

Allardyce told Everton’s official website:

“It is down to the specialist and them saying if and when James can start moving forward.

“The specialist will guide us on how far we can go and with a bit of luck we can look forward to James starting the next pre-season with us.”

McCarthy, who is believed to collect £60,000 a week in wages at Goodison Park, has only made 19 appearances for Everton since the end of the 2015-16 season.

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The Republic of Ireland international joined the Merseyside club from Wigan Athletic in the summer of 2013.

Liverpool put their loss to Man City behind them with an impressive 3-0 victory over Tottenham at White Hart Lane this afternoon.

Goals from Raheem Sterling, Steven Gerrard and Alberto Moreno secured an emphatic victory over Pochettino’s side, bringing back memories of last season’s 9-0 aggregate victories over the north London outfit.

Mario Balotelli enjoyed a good start to life at Liverpool with an impressive debut, which included enough chances to bag a hat-trick.

Spurs just couldn’t cope with Liverpool’s ruthless attacking threat, and inevitably paid the price for some sloppy defending at times to hand their visitors all three points.

Here are all the best bits from White Hart Lane this afternoon…

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Liverpool’s perfect start

Liverpool got off to brilliant start at White Hart Lane, with Balotelli going close with a header at the back post before Raheem Sterling gave the Reds the lead with a tap in past Lloris.

It was a goal reminiscent of Liverpool’s lethal attacking play last season. Sturridge played in Henderson to the Spurs box and the England midfielder played a perfect cross goal pass for Sterling to tap home…

Mario Balotelli’s woeful miss

It’s fair to say Mario Balotelli could have had a hat-trick within half-an-hour of his Liverpool debut, but a mixture of bad luck, good goalkeeping and terrible shooting put paid to that. But he biggest, and easiest, chance can on the half hour mark when Hugo Lloris made a hash of his clearance and Balotelli had an open goal to aim at from 30 yards out. But his effort was pretty much miss-kicked and it flew about 30 yards wide instead. He’ll get stick for that, but you can’t help but feel he’ll make up for it elsewhere…

Gerrard’s sloppy first half

Steven Gerrard looked a shadow of his former self in the first half, with a number of his trade mark ball spraying going all over the place.

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He’s a Liverpool legend, no doubt about that, but he isn’t immune to criticism from Reds fans who clearly admitted he was one of the weak links in Liverpool’s first half at White Hart Lane.

Alberto Moreno’s first Liverpool goal

Alberto Moreno may have been partly to blame for Man City’s first goal last Monday, but he certainly made up for it with wonderful solo goal at White Hart Lane. He dispossesed Andros Townsend on the half way line and then galloped all the way in to the Spurs box before smashing low and hard with his left foot past Hugo Lloris. A superb way to open your account for your new club…

Liverpool’s all round performance

Liverpool developed a reputation of being an attractive attacking side last season, and they backed that up superbly at White Hart Lane with a ruthless performance to see off Tottenham. They’ve now scored 12 goals without reply in their last thee meetings with Spurs, and their performance this afternoon was thoroughly deserving of three points…

Aston Villa boss Paul Lambert has hit back at speculation that Christian Benteke wants to sign for Arsenal, claiming the Belgian international was misquoted and misreported.

Benteke signed for the Villans in the summer, moving from Genk for £7million, and has impressed with four goals in ten appearances for the Birmingham-based relegation candidates.

But reports released this morning suggested the Belgium striker, capped nine times for his country, had a pragmatic view of his career at Villa Park, not hiding his intentions to move to Arsenal. Many people believe that the reports also made Benteke appear disrespectful and ignorant towards his new club’s fans and heritage.

“I am not afraid of making enemies at Aston Villa by saying I love Arsenal. There are worse things one can say,” Benteke told the Daily Express.

“I am a Villa player for now. They are the right club at the right time for me. I have fulfilled a dream by playing in the Premier League.

“Villa are the beginning of my career in England. Although I didn’t know their full history, I knew they’d played in the Champions League and won plenty of titles and cups.

“At the time I signed I didn’t know where they played. I thought they were a London club.

“Arsenal are the club I love. I like their philosophy of selecting young players and, besides, they had Thierry Henry in their team.”

In his Friday press conference, that was later replayed on Sky Sports News, Lambert told reporters that his striker had fallen victim to the press and his comments had been taken out of context.

“The big guy doesn’t say two words let alone give a full story,” said the Scottish boss.

“I think that’s naughty journalism what they’ve tried to do.

“Every young footballer has a team or player they follow, if Christian has a team thats no great danger to anybody.

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“I think what it says about Benteke doesn’t really care if upsets Aston Villa fans, I think that’s really naughty, I don’t think he said that in any stretch of the imagination whatsoever,” he added.

Benteke is expected to take part in Aston Villa’s Premier League clash away to Manchester City on Saturday.

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Leeds United attacker Kemar Roofe has been tipped for a move away from Elland Road over the last few days.

Roofe, who started his career at West Bromwich Albion, scored three times in 49 appearances during his first season at Leeds.

The attacker netted an impressive 14 goals in 39 appearances last term, however, and it would hardly be surprising if rival Championship clubs were interested in his services.

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There is no getting away from the fact that last season was extremely disappointing for Leeds, but the excitement has returned with the recent appointment of Marcelo Bielsa as head coach.

Bielsa is said to have big plans this summer – including a loan move for Tottenham Hotspur centre-back Juan Foyth – and the Leeds fans feel that Roofe would thrive under the club’s new manager during the 2017-18 campaign if given the chance.

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A selection of the Twitter reaction from the club’s supporters can be seen below:

While Manchester City look to claim their second League Cup triumph in three years on Sunday, Arsene Wenger will be looking to prove he still has what it takes to bring trophies to North London.

Henrikh Mkhitaryan is cup-tied for the match, meaning Wenger will likely have to choose from either Iwobi or Danny Welbeck to complete the front three. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has played on the wing in France and Germany, but it seems unlikely Wenger would shift his new front man out wide after his big money move.

Choosing between the promising 21-year-old and the 36-cap Englishman isn’t exactly the embarrassment of riches on hand to Pep Guardiola; the Arsenal pair have managed just eight goals between them in all competitions this season.

But both players would offer more defensive support than either Aubameyang or Alexandre Lacazette, which could make them so important in Sunday’s final. Iwobi has the skill and directness to beat players one-on-one, while Welbeck certainly has more of an eye for goal.

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So, Arsenal fans, who would you start on the left wing on Sunday? Let us know by voting below…

Wayne Rooney was up to his old tricks again last weekend, violently hacking at Stewart Downing during Manchester United’s win over West Ham on Saturday and being shown a straight red.

The Man United and England captain is no stranger to controversy, with a string of violent outbursts during football matches and a behavioural issue that has seen many try and fail to tame his temper. When he is on top of his game there is no doubting that Rooney is a great player and at times severely underrated, but he tends to be remembered and spoken about more for his bad temper and aggression than for his great ability as a player.

He has been up and down since he burst onto the scene as a teenage sensation at home club Everton, where he got himself a name for being a very promising and talented centre forward. But he has earned himself a bad name for his poor discipline record which has seen him accumulate six red cards and 109 yellow cards in 622 outings. 

For all the criticism hurled at the player, a lot of support has been offered as well. A big part of the online community say that his bad tempered days are over and that the occasional act of heated passion on the pitch only strengthens the argument for him being a good captain, as it is important to show grit and determination and that can sometimes boil over to anger. The kick out at Downing which saw him sent off has been described by some as merely a last resort used in fear that the defenders would not have been able to deal with the impending threat of a West Ham counter attack, and the captain was doing all he could in his power to ensure the three points stayed safe for his team.

When you look at making comparisons with past players, a captain that springs to mind is Julian Dicks, who was a fan favourite at West Ham and arguably one of their best ever left backs. He is remembered only for the good that he did despite being aggressive and having a bad temper. He would often clash with other players and his tackles were of  the eye watering variety. Yet nobody threw as much criticism towards Dicks when he played, despite him being so hard, angry and aggressive.

Is Wayne Rooney really that different to some of the old school players like Julian Dicks? Do we not find ourselves moaning when the likes of Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo or Luis Suarez fall down like a sack of potatoes at the slightest of touches? So why are we all making such a big fuss over the Wayne Rooney tackle on Downing?

Yes, it was out of place, aggressive and shouldn’t have happened. A red card was definitely the right sanction but, to read some of the things that are being said about Rooney just because of his previous reputation is astonishing. I miss the football of yesteryear when a crunching challenge was acceptable. When the men playing football were real men who would bandage their wounds and continue playing. I despise some of the money grabbing stars who call themselves football players these days who would be better suited to a role in TOWIE than a career kicking a football.

Rooney’s critics are merely encouraging the soft approach to the game and are making it worse. At least he is a proper player and a good captain.

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PFA chief executive Gordon Taylor wants the FA to prove it can deal with racism following following the incident involving referee Mark Clattenburg and Chelsea players on Sunday.

Both the FA and the Metropolitan Police are investigating allegations that Clattenburg racially abused Chelsea midfielder John Obi Mikel in the Premier League clash between the Blues and Manchester United on Sunday.

And Taylor wants this case to be treated more efficiently than the one involving John Terry and Anton Ferdinand, but feels the involvement of the police won’t help.

Taylor told Sky Sports: “This time I want football to learn and deal with this issue as quickly, efficiently and as transparently as possible. Football has got to show it can deal with it.

“It’s a reflection of what happens in a higher court and we need to deal with it quickly and efficiently, and then we can move on.

“Involving the police, or being asked to wait for the police, causes a massive festering of the issue within football that has continued to cause problems. That’s not good for the image of our game because we all have to deal with this together and move forward together.”

Taylor went on to explain that the FA has to set a good example when it comes to racism issues so that they can warrant any future complaints made about incidents towards English players, like the recent events in Serbia.

“This is a football issue. We need to set a good example in this country so that we’ve got justifiable complaints about what happened in Serbia or in Spain for example,” he continued.

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“We need to show we are more than capable with dealing with it and I believe that was the mistake in delaying matters with the John Terry and Anton Ferdinand case.”

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Crystal Palace are set to offer talisman Wilfried Zaha his second new contract in just thirteen months, as they look to deter interest from Tottenham Hostpur, according to the Daily Mirror.

What’s the Story?

The contract is reportedly worth in excess of £120,000-a-week, as Palace do not want to risk losing their star player to a Premier League rival in Tottenham Hotspur.

This contract comes just one year Zaha signed a five-year £100,000-a-week deal to keep him at the club until 2022.

The new deal is likely to be more than Tottenham would be willing to pay for Zaha’s signature, dampening their chances of securing the Ivorian.

Just how important is Wilfried Zaha to the Eagles?

In a word: invaluable. The decision to stump up an extra £20,000-a-week to secure the services of the Ivorian is likely an easy call for Chairman Steve Parrish and his consortium.

There is no doubt Zaha would improve a Tottenham team who are looking to really push on under the leadership of Mauricio Pochettino. However, it is by no means a guarantee that he would be an automatic starter in a Spurs team dripping with talent. Without his goals and assists, Palace fell to nine defeats in the nine matches Zaha missed, highlighting his importance to the team.

Trickery, pace, ability to take on players and a new found knack for goal scoring, he is the man who makes the Eagles tick, and the team often look lost and one-paced without Zaha pulling the strings.

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Zaha’s Perfect Club 

A South London boy, Zaha’s ill fated move to Manchester United, in which he found himself frozen out by then United boss David Moyes, led to speculation he needs to be in an environment where he is the main man and has a relationship with the fans.

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Crystal Palace find themselves in a position where, if they can build a team around Zaha, they would be an attacking threat to any Premier League defence.

This contract being accepted would be a major step forward for Crystal Palace,  securing their key man before adding some much needed reinforcements to the squad before the end of the summer transfer window.

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Former Tottenham Hotspur manager Andre Villas-Boas has suggested that star striker Harry Kane may have to leave the club to boost his chances of winning trophies, and Spurs fans have been quick to respond to the 40-year-old’s comments.

The Portuguese boss left the north London outfit by mutual consent in December 2013 following a poor run of results in the Premier League, and in an interview via Hotspur TV he has suggested that the England international needs to move on to win some silverware.

Kane made his breakthrough for the club at the end of the 2013/14 campaign with three goals in 10 top flight appearances, and he has never looked back with a current tally of 134 goals in 201 games for Spurs.

Tottenham supporters took to social media to give their thoughts on the quotes from Villas-Boas, and while one said “I liked the man before this comments”, another said “what a muppet”.

Here is just a selection of the Twitter reaction…

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