Zlatan Ibrahimovic chats to Jose Mourinho during a Manchester United pre-season training session
Zlatan Ibrahimovic thinks Manchester United are set for a “special season” after watching them train in the USA.
And the LA Galaxy forward hinted that United boss Jose Mourinho has “something going on” in the transfer market.
Thirty-six-year-old Ibrahimovic had a hugely successful first season with United in 2016-17, before moving on to LA Galaxy after his second campaign at Old Trafford was marred by injury.
Ibrahimovic thinks Jose Mourinho has more moves to make in the transfer window
United are currently in the USA on a pre-season tour and, having watched his old teammates train at UCLA in Los Angeles, Ibrahimovic had a positive message for United fans on Instagram.
“Hi everybody,” said a smiling Ibrahimovic.
Man Utd fans, watch every pre-season game live on MUTV. Only £7 a month with no contract
“Guess who is back watching United train? I see a lot of quality, but not quality like me!
“It is great to see the guys, to see them happy and to see them training good. Be ready for this season, because something special will happen.”
Utd’s defence: An unpopular priority?
Diogo Dalot has arrived – but do United need to make more moves in order to improve their defence?
United have not made any blockbuster moves in the transfer market yet this summer, with Fred, Lee Grant and Diogo Dalot the only new arrivals so far.
But Ibrahimovic added: “I think the boss has something going on.
“We will keep that a secret!
“Enjoy the season, I wish you all the best and happiness.”
Chelsea could make a move for Jack Butland if Thibaut Courtois leaves the club this summer
Stoke’s Jack Butland is among Chelsea’s list of potential new goalkeepers should Thibaut Courtois leave the club this summer, according to Sky sources.
The England goalkeeper, who played backup to Jordan Pickford at the World Cup, is believed to be available at the right price this summer – but Stoke believe he is worth the same money that Pickford joined Everton for, around £30m.
Leicester, whose own No 1 Kasper Schmeichel is understood to be another Chelsea target, are also thought to be keen on Butland along with Crystal Palace, but Butland is keen to join a top-six Premier League club.
Real Madrid have been linked with Courtois
The 25-year-old is currently on holiday following the World Cup and is due back at the end of the week. As things stand, Butland will begin pre-season training with the Potters next Monday.
Butland was part of England’s World Cup squad
New Chelsea boss Maurizio Sarri has said he will seek talks with Chelsea’s wantaway players, which also include Eden Hazard and Willian.
But Sky Sports Spanish football expert Guillem Balague said last week that Real Madrid want to sign Courtois and Chelsea are prepared to let him go.
De Laurentiis dismissed Sarri’s claims that they both made mistakes that resulted in the latter’s departure, and was critical of the 57-year-old’s behaviour in training.
“I didn’t like it when he said that we both made mistakes,” De Laurentiis told Sky Sports Italia. “I don’t think I made any.
“I wasn’t wrong not to challenge him even if it would have been most obvious thing.
Sarri says his priority is getting to know the Chelsea squad ahead of his first pre-season match in charge
“He had a contract so I could have said something because he was acting in an unacceptable manner, going against players he didn’t think were very good.
“These players gave him a lot. He massacred them in his fantastic training sessions but they always responded well.
“After that, he wanted to take my whole team to England and dismantle it. I had to lay down the law to Marina [Granovskaia, Chelsea director].
“He wanted Jorginho and I gave him away after I talked to Ancelotti, who told me he was banking a lot on [Amadou] Diawara and that he wanted to play [Marek] Hamsik deeper.”
Renato Sanches will be the first to admit that football isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. The Portugal whizz-kid’s accelerated career trajectory has hit the skids since he joined Bayern Munich on the back of winning UEFA Euro 2016, but with the new season comes another chance to restore his prodigious reputation.
Sanches caught Bayern’s eye in his breakthrough 2015/16 season at Benfica, where a series of muscular displays (24 in total) helped them to the Portuguese league title. That same year, he won Euro 2016, picking up the Young Player of the Tournament prize and later collecting the Golden Boy award as the best young player in Europe. Since then, however, the hulking box-to-box midfielder has made just 34 appearances for club and country: 26 for Bayern, 15 during a loan spell in the English Premier League with Swansea City and three for Portugal.
A box-to-box midfielder with the strength of a WWE heavyweight and the nimble feet of a ballet dancer, Sanches is very much in the Clarence Seedorf – the retired Netherlands legend and only player to have won the UEFA Champions League with three different teams (Ajax, Real Madrid and AC Milan). He also comes complete with an impressive range of passing, an absolute rocket of a shot and loves nothing more than to drive at opposition defenders. If he had wheels, he’d probably be a bulldozer with a V8 engine.
Did you know?
Sanches had played just four times for Portugal when he was called up by head coach Fernando Santos for Euro 2016. The Benfica academy product featured in all but one of The Navigators‘ games at the finals, scoring on his full debut in the quarter-final win against Poland. And how about this for a stat? He is the youngest player in history to play in a European Championship final.
Niko Kovac (Bayern head coach): “There is no question that he has qualities, he showed that before and that’s why Bayern signed him. I’m excited to work with him, because he has qualities you don’t see very often in the Bundesliga.”
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (Bayern CEO): “He’s had a couple of tough years, but we were absolutely convinced of his qualities two years ago and we’re not going to give up on him now.”
The youngster’s recent performances have caught the eye of scouts of top clubs across Europe
Several European clubs including Juventus, Barcelona and a host of English Premier League sides are eyeing Senegal star Ismaila Sarr, according to his agent Thierno Seydi.
The Rennes forward was part of Aliou Cisse’s squad to the 2018 Fifa World Cup in Russia where he gave impressive performances.
The 20-year-old played in every of the Teranga Lions’ matches and chalked 270 minutes of action before their group stage exit.
In his debut season at Rennes, Sarr who boasts of incredible pace bagged five goals in 22 French Ligue 1 games in the 2018-19 campaign.
“He is very fast with an excellent technique. He has the same qualities as Dembele of Barcelona. They are similar players,” Seydi told SunSport.
“I have received many calls from English and German clubs and maybe even one from Italy. Many agents from the UK have called me proposing to work with them and Ismaïla to get him to the Premier League.
“One Italian agent asked to speak with Juventus. The price will be around 50-60m Euros. We are talking about a great football player, who will play at the highest levels for the next ten years.
“I am open to discussions with all top European clubs. The important thing is that he goes in a team that makes him play. He cannot stay on the bench. Last year Barcelona wanted him. Let’s see what happens now.”
Sarr has been likened to Liverpool’s Sadio Mane as they both attended Generation Foot academy in Senegal before joining Metz.
Chelsea defender Marcos Alonso has admitted that he is still confident that his teammates Willian, Eden Hazard and Thibaut Courtois will remain at Stamford Bridge this summer.
Chelsea have had a stormy summer after dismissing manager Antonio Conte a number of players have claimed the willing to leave the club this summer transfer window.Belgium internationals Hazard and Courtois have both been linked with a move to Real Madrid, while Willian has been strongly linked with Manchester United and Barcelona this summer.
Hazard has recently revealed that he is considering his future and has clarified that he would prefer Real Madrid move; while following the World Cup, Courtois claimed that wherever he will play next season, he will be along with Hazard.
However, Alonso believes the trio will return to Stamford Bridge from their post-World Cup breaks.
“I am not even thinking about that. They are Chelsea players and I am looking forward to seeing them after their holidays,” Alonso told Sky Sports News.
“They are top players and very important for us.”
“Every season with Chelsea, we have to fight for every competition and every game and we will go for it.”Chelsea, who recently employed Maurizio Sarri as the new manager, will start their International Champions Cup against Inter Milan on Saturday at Allianz Riviera Stadium, in Nice.
Julian Alaphilippe also won stage 10 of this year’s Tour de France
Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe won an eventful stage 16 of the Tour de France after Britain’s Adam Yates crashed late on while leading.
Yates crested the final climb alone but fell on the descent 7km before the finish in Bagneres-de-Luchon.
Alaphilippe was applying the pressure behind and swung past to claim his second victory of this year’s Tour.
Geraint Thomas kept the yellow jersey and leads fellow Briton and team-mate Chris Froome by one minute 39 seconds.
The race was delayed 29km into the 218km stage from Carcassonne after a protest by French farmers.
Hay bales were thrown across the road before police appeared to use a spray on protesters, which then blew into the peloton.
Some riders, including Team Sky’s Thomas and Froome, stopped and doused their eyes with water.
The race was delayed for 15 minutes while riders received medical attention, before a large group broke clear after the resumption, from which Alaphilippe attacked throughout, also extending his lead in the polka dot jersey mountains classification.
Even before Yates’ crash, Quick-Step Floors rider Alaphilippe looked on course to catch the 25-year-old, whose front wheel slipped from under him as he hit a wet patch in the road. Yates finished third, with Gorka Izagirre second.
“I’ve taken more risks on more technical descents before and never had any problems, but you never know what is coming round these corners,” Mitchelton-Scott rider Yates told ITV 4.
“I’ve no bad injuries, just bad morale – it’s pretty devastating to come that close to winning a stage of the Tour and not win.”
Alaphilippe wins thrilling chase
Yates, 25, rode a faultless race until his crash, powerfully bridging across to leading duo Robert Gesink and Domenico Pozzovivo on the final climb, the Col du Portillon, before kicking clear as soon as Alaphilippe also made the catch.
Keeping his pedal stroke smooth and only getting out of the saddle on the steepest sections, Yates built up a 22-second lead by the summit, with only Alaphilippe able to respond.
That set up a dramatic downhill chase in the final 10km, during which Alaphilippe used his tremendous descending skills to cut the gap by eight seconds in 3km by the time Yates fell.
Although Yates was back riding quickly, he knew his chance was gone, shaking his head as he was caught by Bahrain-Merida’s Izagirre, who sprinted to second, with Yates holding off the other pursuers.
“We didn’t think it was in the bag,” said Mitchelton-Scott sporting director Matt White. “Alaphilippe is one of the world’s fastest descenders and it put Adam under a lot of pressure to take some risks.
“We were right behind Alaphilippe in the team car and some of the positions he got in down that descent, I’ve never seen before in my life.”
As with his stage 10 win, victory here was reward for Alaphilippe’s attacking instincts, the 26-year-old ensuring he contested every climb to pick up 30 points and extend his lead over Warren Barguil in the king of the mountains competition to 49 points.
Alaphilippe’s team-mate Philippe Gilbert is out of the Tour after a heavy fall on the descent of the Col de Porte-d’Aspet, where Italian Fabio Casartelli crashed and died during the 1995 Tour.
Belgian Gilbert locked up on a left-hand bend and flipped over a low stone wall into a ravine, but climbed out to complete the stage. However, a scan later revealed the 36-year-old had sustained a fractured kneecap in the crash.
Thomas eases through GC stalemate
After a 47-man group containing no threats to the main contenders finally established themselves up the road, this was a largely sedate day in terms of the general classification.
Astana and Katusha-Alpecin tried to set something up for their respective leaders, Jakob Fuglsang and Ilnur Zakarin, while Movistar’s Mikel Landa, sixth overall, attacked over the final climb and on to the descent.
Each dig was easily reeled in by Team Sky, who calmly led the peloton home 8:52 down on Alaphilippe, but their rivals should have more scope to attack on Wednesday’s tough 65km stage.
“We were expecting fireworks and a lot of attacks but luckily they didn’t materialise – they did a bit on the last climb and descent but the boys shut it down,” said Thomas.
“We’re definitely expecting attacks on stage 17 – maybe from the gun. It’s a really demanding day and the last climb is maybe the hardest of the Tour so it will take a gutsy ride to go from the start, but we’re expecting the worst.”
Meanwhile, Peter Sagan secured an unassailable lead in the green jersey points classification as neither he nor second-placed Alexander Kristoff picked up any points.
The world champion is 282 points ahead with a maximum of 240 remaining in the final five stages and only needs to complete the race to win a record-equalling sixth green jersey.
Short but sharp stage 17
Wednesday’s stage 17 is one of the shortest mass start routes in Tour de France history at 65km, but features three punishing climbs.
The riders will be placed in grids at the start, according to their rankings on the general classification.
In his stage-by-stage guide for BBC Sport, Mark Cavendish said: “This stage is something that is unheard of – I don’t think the gridding of the riders will have any affect on the race but we start with the Peyresourde and it’s a gruelling climb.
“It will be full gas from start to finish, no matter who you are.”
sports and entertainment connect 
You must be logged in to post a comment.