FA Cup third round, transfer window news and more: football countdown – live | Football

And on that same note, today’s Football Daily devotes itself to Vialli.

Antonio Conte has paid touching tribute to his former teammate Gianluca Vialli. The Spurs manager skipped media duties earlier after the news of Vialli’s death broke and has just posted on Instagram a photo of the pair of them having dinner in London a few months ago: “I told you and wrote that you have always been an inspiration to me as my captain and for how you were proving to be strong, proud and brave, fighting like a lion against this disease.”

Thanks Will, enjoy the pub. Hello again all. Fuelled by nothing stronger than hot lime and chocolate biscuits, I’m back for the rest of the afternoon. And here’s a bit of Brentford chat before their tie against West Ham. Refreshingly, Thomas Frank wants his side to properly go for it in the Cup, as all should. “The biggest disappointment this season was losing to Gillingham [in the League Cup]. I wanted to go on that cup run,” the Brentford manager said.

“It is the same with the FA Cup – we want to play a strong team and really like to see how far we can go. When you go on a cup run there is only one aim, and that is to win it. I know we are not the favourites, but if you don’t believe and go for it, you don’t achieve anything.”

Right, that’s me done. I’m off to the pub. Dry January? Never heard of it. I leave you in the capable hands of Tom Davies, who will see you soberly through the rest of the afternoon.

Despite Wolves’s precarious position in the Premier League, Lopetegui insists he has grand ambitions for their FA Cup campaign. “We have a big vision for this cup. In the same way, we are thinking and working in the best way, knowing that we have played a very hard match two days ago.

“For today maybe we can’t work normally because a lot of players have to recuperate, but tomorrow we are going to be ready to try to beat a fantastic team in Liverpool, one of the best teams in the world, who have an incredible squad and a fantastic coach. So it’s going to be a good challenge for us.”

Lopetegui plays down interest in Neves

Asked whether Harry Kane will feature in Tottenham’s FA Cup match against Portsmouth, Stellini has admitted it’s a possibility despite the England forward’s exhausting schedule in recent months. “It could be an opportunity to give him a rest, but we don’t have many players,” he said. “We have to choose the player in the front line and it’s an important Cup and an important match.

“We are working hard to recover players. Maybe some can recover next week, but we have to focus on this next match and we will respect this competition.”

Having taken over Tottenham media duties – with Antonio Conte opting to step back after the death of Vialli, his friend and teammate at Juventus – Cristian Stellini, Conte’s assistant, has commemorated the former Italy striker. “Antonio in this moment is very upset. We are close to Vialli’s family and all of those who loved Vialli. He’s an important person in Italy and also in England, so we are close together to stay with his family and to remember him in the right way.

“He was a great player but first of all a great man. He taught us a lot of things, not only when he played but when he spoke. If you know him … and the people that know him can only speak well about this great guy. A great leader for Italy.”

Over in the WSL, Arsenal have signed the Netherlands midfielder Victoria Pelova from Ajax. According to Jonas Eidevall, the Arsenal manager, she’s “one of the most exciting young players in the game”. She will replace Jordan Nobbs, who departed for Aston Villa on Thursday after 12 years in north London. “I’ve always admired this club and dreamt of following in the footsteps of some of the great Dutch players who have worn the shirt,” said Pelova.

Marsch has suggested that Max Wöber, Leeds’ new arrival from Red Bull Salzburg, could make his debut against Cardiff. “He’s settled in really well,” he said. “He had a good training session today and he understands what I’m looking for out of him. We’ll see how fit and ready he is, he’ll be in the mix.” Patrick Bamford has returned to training but won’t be sharp enough to feature, however. Adam Forshaw and Luis Sinisterra are still unavailable, but Marsch is hopeful they will be back in training next week.

Meanwhile, Jesse Marsch has been waxing lyrical about the Magic of the Cup™. “The FA Cup final has always been a big thing in the US too, so even before I was a professional I watched it, a lot of people get up early to go to pubs to watch it,” he said, with Leeds set for a trip to Cardiff City this weekend.

“It’s a big thing and it’s a big match to compete in. I value cup tournaments to have the opportunity to win a trophy. Obviously it’s a massive challenge but we’re looking forward to it. We want to put a strong team on the pitch. We want to make sure we represent ourselves in a big way. We know 6,000 fans are going down, I know the history at Cardiff. We expect they’ll be very spirited for this match.”

Vieira has also shared some memories of Vialli. “As a person, I think we can all agree what a nice guy he was,” he said. “I had the chance to meet him off the field and he was always kind, always open for a conversation. He was a true gentleman.”

Vieira pleased for Butland after Man Utd loan

Here’s the last word from Klopp, who says Gakpo didn’t need to be convinced of Liverpool’s Champions League prospects before moving to Merseyside. “There were easier moments to join Liverpool,” he admits. “Last year, we were not qualified for the Champions League already but it looked like: ‘OK, that’ll happen.’ This year, we cannot guarantee that. But Cody never asked.

“That happens from time to time, that players will ask ‘Do you think you’ll make the Champions League?’ and stuff like this. He can read the table himself, obviously, so he knew that it will be a tight decision. But what I really like about this is that he’s obviously a guy who doesn’t just want to jump on a running train, he wants to push the train. I like that a lot. It’s good for him as well, because it always helps in life if you are like that.”

Gakpo set for Liverpool debut against Wolves

Klopp has no doubts over Gakpo’s personality, however. “I really think, of all the things you can know about Cody, it’s clear that he’s a very, very good person. He’s born and bred Eindhoven, there for years and years – I don’t exactly know how old he was, eight or nine years old, when he joined the club – and going through all the teams, all the ranks, becoming captain at the age of 22, 23. That all says a lot about him. That’s what I knew before. Then you speak to him, he’s got perfect English – and obviously a lot of Dutch guys speak really incredible English – so it makes conversation really easy in that moment. Then you see his face, his smile has that warmth there … there were not only not a lot of doubts, there were no doubts at all.”

Klopp gives insight into Gakpo signing

Asked how he intends to approach the game against Wolves, Klopp suggested he will go all out to reach the FA Cup fourth round. “We played on Monday, now Saturday. We will line up as strong as we can. We always did, but with Monday-Saturday, there will not be a rotation because of different competitions.”

Klopp gives update on Van Dijk’s injury

Jürgen Klopp has been speaking ahead of Liverpool’s meeting with Wolves in the FA Cup. He started his press conference with some words on Vialli, saying: “I never met him, but everyone knows what a player he was. The reaction from his teammates and colleagues shows you the kind of person he was. It is really sad.”

Thanks, Tom. Let’s start with some more tributes to Vialli, which continue to pour in from former teammates, ex-pros and fans.

Right, lunchtime calls, so I shall hand you over to Will Magee to talk you through the afternoon. Thanks for your comments and Vialli memories. Laters.

Graeme Souness’s tribute to Gianluca Vialli earlier was one of the most emotional we’ve heard. The pair were teammates at Sampdoria, and Vialli spoke fondly of their relationship, which also had its japes. Here is Vialli recalling the time Souness pushed him into a lake:

Leicester could do with an FA Cup pick-me-up, and the 2021 winners go to League Two’s bottom side Gillingham this weekend with Brendan Rodgers warning it will still be a “dangerous” assignment.

“We want to go as far as we can. Like I’ve always said, we want to win every cup competition we’re in,” he said.

“We arrive into the game against a team in Gillingham that hasn’t done as well as they would have liked in the league but certainly in the cup competitions, they have made it very difficult for Premier League teams.

“You go away in this competition, you have to be strong, you have to be aggressive and you have to be professional in your job. These are dangerous games if you’re not at maximum concentration and maximum commitment, you can come unstuck.”

Antonio Conte will miss Tottenham’s press conference this afternoon following the death of Gianluca Vialli, with whom he played, and won the Champions League, in the mid-90s. His assistant Cristian Stellini will now face the media before tomorrow’s FA Cup tie against Portsmouth. “Following the sad passing of Gianluca Vialli, today’s press conference will be taken by Cristian Stellini,” a club statement read.

Transfer news: Middlesbrough have announced the loan signing of the Aston Villa striker Cameron Archer until the end of the season. The 21-year-old is Michael Carrick’s first signing as head coach. Archer impressed on loan with Preston last season, scoring seven times in 20 appearances.

He recently signed a new five-year deal at Villa Park in the summer and received his first call-up to the England Under-21 side for whom he has already scored four times in four games. A resurgent Boro host Brighton in the Cup tomorrow in what could be one of the better ties of the weekend.

There are some lovely Vialli stories in this tribute piece from Nicky Bandini:

Gianluca Vialli did not lose his battle with cancer, because for him it was never a battle to begin. “I don’t want to fight cancer,” he told the Guardian in 2020, “because it would be too big and powerful an enemy. I feel this is a journey. It’s about travelling with an unwanted travel companion until hopefully it gets bored and dies before me.”

A passage that began with the discovery of a pancreatic tumour in 2017 came to an end on Friday, as Vialli died at the age of 58. More than once it had appeared that he would outlast his fellow voyager, with doctors giving an all-clear in 2018 and again in 2020, but on each occasion the cancer returned.

There was a time when the imagery of combat might have appealed to Vialli, who said he could have been a soldier if football had not worked out. His talent took him down a more carefree path. “Don’t believe anyone who says football is a war,” he wrote in La Bella Stagione, the book he co-authored with Roberto Mancini about their Scudetto-winning 1990-91 season at Sampdoria. “It’s a sport, a game. And you play games with your friends.”

Talking of promising managers grappling with challenges higher up the food chain, Nathan Jones is under pressure already at Southampton, and has been talking about his team’s need to improve when they face Crystal Palace in the FA Cup, as PA Media reports. But he acknowledges that supporters will not easily be able to put the dismal midweek defeat by Nottingham Forest to one side.

“What they’ll [the fans] do is need to see a performance, they’ll need to see something they can get behind and that’s what we have to do; that’s building a performance, putting out a team that gets a performance and then we can start to change perception.

“That’s the big improvement, to change the momentum of the football club because with the greatest respect, they’ve been losing games for a long, long time. … I understand the frustrations. We’re defensively better, now we have to make sure that we turn that structure into a little bit more attacking potency.

Armel Bella-Kotchap is a major doubt for the trip to Selhurst Park after suffering a knee injury against Forest. Bella-Kotchap was due to undergo a scan to determine the extent of the damage and if ruled out would join Juan Larios, Alex McCarthy, Tino Livramento and Theo Walcott on the sidelines.

More Vialli love from BTL, and particularly how he was resonant of a vivid period in the game. Here’s FrederickFleet:

For me growing up in Ireland in the late 80s, the first exposure to non English football I got was the weekly Italian football show (with James Richardson?). The Sampdoria team that Vialli was part of still resonates – Pagliuca, GV, Mancini, Lombardo, Viechowod(?) among others. Always had a soft spot for him since then. Apart from Maradona and the worldie Milan team of Baresi, Maldini, etc I can barely remember any other players from the era. Yeah when I see a clip of play from that time my mind will be jogged and some names will be familiar. But that Sampdoria team still resonates for some reason. (From the 1990 WC onward there was a huge increase in football exposure both internationally and foreign club football which kinda diluted the novelty.)

Indeed, and for viewers in the UK, Vialli was intrinsically bound up with memories of Channel 4’s Football Italia Sunday afternoon live games in the early 90s. For those of us who didn’t have satellite dishes at the time and didn’t support a Premier League team, having a weekly footballing diet combining third-tier football on a Saturday followed by the unreachably glamorous Serie A on a Sunday felt like a fine waste of a weekend.

Marco Silva returns to Hull with his in-form Fulham side tomorrow, having spent five months managing the Tigers in the top flight in 2017, when they were eventually relegated. “I arrived during a tough moment but the fans were special for us,” said Silva.

“No one believed in us, but the way we improved the players in that moment was really good and it will be special to go back.”

Silva reported no fresh injury concerns before the FA Cup tie, but Shane Duffy is ruled out through illness. “We are in a really busy period which is tough,” Silva said. “We have to assess players and decide for tomorrow’s match.”

Fulham remain open to adding some fresh faces during the January window, but only if the right calibre of player becomes available.

“All the focus is in our players and our squad, and we know the positions that we should strengthen as well,” Silva said.

Back to Chelsea’s present, and our tactics guru Jonathan Wilson has been mulling over their and Graham Potter’s problems, and why the manager needs to be given time, for the sake of aspiring coaches in general as well as the club in particular:

It may be that the issue is not Potter but Chelsea. And the question lurking always just out of reach is that if Potter isn’t given time to work this out, if he is rejected before he has had a chance to rationalise the squad and learn about this different level, how can any coach ever come through the British game and make it to the top?

Some more Vialli tributes:

Newcastle “are not here to be popular”, Eddie Howe has said, which is probably just as well given their club’s dramatically shifted public image since the Saudi Arabia takeover.

Speaking before the Toon’s trip to Sheffield Wednesday for their third round FA Cup tie and in the wake of their spiky 0-0 draw at Arsenal, Howe said: “We are not here to be popular and to get other teams to like us. We are here to compete and to compete, we have to give everything to try and get a positive result.

“Depending on how the game is going and where the momentum is in the game, you have to be streetwise and smart and find a way to get a positive result for your team, and certainly I think that’s been a really good aspect of our play this year.

“I have to be very strong at certain moments for my team, for the club. I’ve got no problem doing that as long as I don’t lose my discipline and control. But certainly I have to stand up for what I believe in in certain moments.”

Newcastle could have their record signing Alexander Isak available for the tie at Hillsborough, but will again be without Matt Targett, Emil Krafth and Jonjo Shelvey.

Gianluca Vialli will be associated with many things – winning trophies for Juventus, Chelsea’s emergence as a modern force, the new cosmopolitanism of English football in the 1990s, his relatively unusual upper middle-class background – but arguably the most noteworthy of all is his role in Sampdoria’s only Serie A title, as Rob Smyth recalled a few years back.

It was a gloriously improbable triumph dripping with enough charm and romance to melt the hardest heart; as incongruous as a love story in a gangster movie, only in a good way. They were the feelgood hit of the spring.

Darlington have vowed to ban any fan found guilty of misogynist abuse of a female official during Monday’s National League North win at Scarborough, PA Media reports

Referee Dean Watson stopped play briefly during the first half of the Quakers’ 5-2 victory at the Flamingo Land Stadium after assistant Emily Carney was allegedly targeted by visiting fans, and the game was suspended for almost 40 minutes after the break following a further incident involving home supporters.

A club statement said: “Darlington FC strongly condemns any sort of discriminatory behaviour at our matches, both at home and away.

“We will not tolerate or condone racist, misogynist, sexist or any other form of discriminatory behaviour whether physical or verbal. The club will work to ensure that such behaviour is met with appropriate action in whatever context it occurs …

“Incidents like the one on Monday at Scarborough, which detracted from a great win on the field, do not help the great reputation which we have painstakingly built as a fan-owned club over the last 11 years.

“We are carrying out an investigation into the disgraceful abuse that was aimed at the assistant referee at Scarborough last Monday, and if individuals are found to have abused the assistant, then those individuals will be banned from watching Darlington FC matches and may be subject to further external action.”

Juventus have issued a moving statement about the loss of their former star striker, Gianluca Vialli:

Gianluca

Such an intense sense of loss.

We had been watching the news for days, hoping never to read this.

But here we are, staring at the screen, and a flood of emotions crashes inside of us.

We have always been with you, Gianluca. Ever since you arrived in 1992, when it was love at first sight. You were one of the first pieces of a Juve side that would have climbed back to the top of Europe. We loved everything about you, absolutely everything – your smile, your being a star and leader at the same time, on the pitch and in the dressing room, your adorable swashbuckling ways, your culture, your class, which you showed until the last day in the black and white stripes.

While Sampdoria have tweeted their own tribute:

And here’s a pictorial celebration of his life:

Fancy some transfer rumours? You’re gonna get them anyway, what with it being January. Will Magee sifts through the best and most speculative of them in today’s Rumour Mill. Frenkie de Jong, once again, features.

The Wrexham manager, Phil Parkinson, is full of beans ahead of the National League high-fliers’ trip to Coventry, reports PA Media.

“Obviously Coventry offer a very different challenge to what Farnborough [their second-round opponents] did,” he said. “The out of possession stuff is going to be really important because you’ve got to respect Coventry are going to have a lot of the ball, like we did against Farnborough.

“We’ve got to make sure we’ve got nice distance while out of possession, but equally I said to the lads when we win it back we’ve got to look to play ourselves. We’ve got the players capable of passing the ball, getting control of games and that’s what I’m looking forward to seeing us do.

“We’re not just going there to hang in there, we’re going there to play, we’ll work hard to obviously make it difficult and restrict space when Coventry have got the ball.

“The FA Cup is the competition when I was growing up, was probably the biggest weekend in the football calendar at the time and everyone looked forward to the FA Cup.

“That stays with you, I still feel it’s got its magic, I really do, there’s always a different feel to FA Cup games and we go there like I say with nothing to lose at all. We’ll play with a real freedom and enjoy the day.”

And of course there’ll be more Hollywood-owner hoopla should Parkinson’s side cause an upset.

“These lads have played under or lived with quite a lot of expectation for a while,” said Parkinson of the attention afforded the club since Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney took over. “We’ve always got the TV camera at live games, we’ve had loads of them – I’ve lost count the number of times we’ve been on TV this year.”

Some reaction BTL, and I like this from Glozboy:

Just learned about Vialli’s death. I was 12 when he signed for Chelsea and had a season ticket with my Dad so it was a real privilege to see the team develop over the years he was there. What a player, and a very decent manager as well. I remember at an early press conference he was asked how his English was progressing, to which he responded “It’s getting better, but when I talk to Dennis (Wise) I understand nothing”.
Legend. Rest in Peace.

So let’s have a look at some choice Vialli goals. I first remember noticing him at Euro 88, where he was the best player in an Italy side who looked good enough to reach the final but were undone by the USSR in the semis. He was also a mainstay in the similarly classy side that reached the last four and again should have gone further at Italia 90.

Chesterfield v West Brom is another of the weekend’s Cup ties to look out for – two in-form sides off the pitch, in the National League and Championship respectively, in contrasting situations off it: the Spireites revived under community trust ownership, the Baggies mired in financial murk, debt and supporter discontent.

Ben Fisher’s been chatting to Chesterfield’s assistant manager Danny Webb, whose family is well embedded in Cup lore:

Some reaction to Vialli’s death. Chelsea tweeted Chelsea “You’ll be missed by so many. A legend to us and to all of football. Rest in peace, Gianluca Vialli,” while owners Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali added: “This is truly an awful day for Chelsea Football Club. Gianluca’s legend will live on at Stamford Bridge. His impact as a player, a coach and most importantly as a person, will be forever written across our club’s history. We send our heartfelt and deepest condolences to his family and friends.”

Graeme Souness described him as “a gorgeous soul, fabulous to be around, a fun-loving guy, a warm individual and a fabulous player. What a human being.”

And here’s a moving interview with him by Donald McRae in 2020, where he talks about coping with cancer:

Football mourns death of Gianluca Vialli

Preamble