Anderson 8

Incoming Manchester United manager Louis van Gaal has a big summer ahead of him as he plots to take the fallen giants back to the top once again.

He is expected to be involved in a number of transfer activities once he takes up the job following the World Cup in Brazil with a number of players expected to come in as he looks to rebuild the side for his own. And with many players likely to leave the club, he has his task cut out, especially with the likes of Anderson and Ashley Young.

The Brazilian spent the second half of last season on loan at Italian club Fiorentina but reports suggest the Italians will not exercise their right to buy the player outright this summer, meaning the former Porto player will return to United.

And his form for the club as well as during the time he spent away from United will be a cause for concern with not many willing clubs eager to take on the underperforming player on board.

Once hailed as the next Ronaldinho, Anderson was signed by United boss Sir Alex Ferguson for a whopping £ 20 million when he was just twenty years old from the Portuguese side but in spite of winning several honors for the club, he has never really settled at the club with injuries and off form hampering his run in the side.

The Brazilian featured just four times for former manager David Moyes and had the Scotsman been around, he would surely have tried to get rid of him. But Louis van Gaal wants to play a waiting game and see what Anderson can do on the pitch before taking a decision on him.

Whatever happens, though, this is one story that will continue till the end of the summer.

Fiorentina had high hopes for Manchester United midfielder Anderson, who came to the club during the January transfer window on a loan deal till the end of the season. However, the midfielder has struggled in the last six months in Italy. This has prompted the club’s former striker Francesco Flachi to say that he is disappointed with the outcome of the Anderson transfer. He says that much was expected of them Brazilian when he made the move to the Italian outfit. However, it seems that Anderson has not fully recovered from the several injuries he suffered in the last two years at United.

He was one of the first-team regulars when he made the move from FC Porto in 2007. Despite being very young, he started in almost every match for the club. However, the last few years have been very tough after suffering several knee injuries. This also resulted in him losing his shape, which consequently reduced his form as well. After featuring rarely for United in the first half of the season, he was sent out on loan to Fiorentina. This move was widely seen as the end to his United career, as Fiorentina were looking for the possibility of making the move permanent.

After just seven appearances and no goals, they are unlikely to renew their interest in the player come the summer. “I’m sorry for Anderson, when he was at Manchester United I really liked him. Injuries have limited him; I would have expected more,” said Flachi. Despite this, Manchester United will have reasons to be positive about Anderson because he is just 26 years old. The club are expected to appoint Dutch boss Louis van Gaal, who is famous for getting players into shape. This may prove to be the decisive aspect for Anderson becoming a top player once again.

It has been rumoured that Fiorentina manager Vincenzo Montella is looking to keep Anderson on a permanent basis. The midfielder arrived from Manchester United on a season-long loan deal. Just a few days after his arrival, the Brazilian saw new signing Juan Mata take up his number eight shirt at United.

This has prompted speculation that the days of Anderson at United are numbered. Since arriving from Sporting Lisbon in a £ 18 million deal, Anderson did extremely well during his first few years for the club. He was instrumental in the team that won the Champions League in 2008.

However, a succession of injuries in the last few years have limited the midfielder to making only a handful of appearances. He was never a first-team player in the eyes of David Moyes, who came to the club in the summer. This increased speculation about a permanent move for the first time, but he ended up leaving United only on a temporary basis. After having won over the fans during the last few weeks at Fiorentina, it has been rumoured that the Italian club are looking to keep the midfielder on a permanent basis.

Brazilians and other the South Americans have done extremely well in the Italian league. Anderson may not be the last to shine in Italy. Despite several years at United, he is just 25 years old. He will provide a wealth of experience coupled with several years of football for Fiorentina, who are looking to reach the top levels of Italian football once again. Montella has managed to transform the fortunes of the club since arriving only recently. Even though they look on course to missing out on Champions League football, it will not be long before Montella takes his team back to the pinnacle of European football.

The Brazilian player Anderson joined Fiorentina on a loan deal for until the end of the season but since he made his arrival to the Serie A club, he admitted that he was there to stay and had no intentions on going back to Manchester United where his time is limited.

Anderson stated on a recent interview that there are a number of other players of the squad that also want to make their way out of the Premier League club.

“I’m sure that lots of players want out, especially people like myself and Nani who have been in Manchester for seven or eight years,” Anderson was quoted as saying by ESPN.

“Manchester United is a huge club, a club that does everything for its players but sometimes a footballer wants to leave just to experience a different way to play football, to learn something as well.”

Patrice Evra and Rio Ferdinand are nearing the end of their respective contracts with Manchester United and Nemanja Vidic has already agreed terms with Inter Milan as the Serbian defender will be joining Inter Milan when the current campaign ends.

There are a number of other players as well that still are uncertain about their future with the Premier League club as David Moyes has a busy summer ahead of him with a clearance of performers that leaving the club, the Scottish coach has to find players that can fill in the spot that will be left.

Moyes has already said that he wants to sign new players in the summer which means that some of the performers which currently are in the squad will be seeing less time on the playing ground or they will simply just leave the club that has recently been suffering a downhill season.

Manchester United is all set to place Anderson on loan to the Italian club Fiorentina. He is expected to make way to Florence tomorrow for the medical tests.

This has proved to be one of the toughest seasons ever at Old Trafford for Anderson. He got very limited chances to play in the first half of the season and he did himself no favour at all by wasting those chances. He was even speculated to be sold during this mid season transfer window, but, it seems the Manchester United management didn’t receive any suitable bid for him and thus, they decided to loan him out so that he gets a bit of playing time.

Anderson himself would be quite pleased to move to Italy on a temporary basis because he was quite clearly frustrated to have been warming the bench at United.

Confirming the news that Anderson has been placed on loan, the Red Devils boss Moyes said, “Unfortunately, we couldn’t give Anderson that many playing opportunities, but, what’s good for him is that he has now been loaned out to a quality club. I hope that he plays up to his abilities there.”

Consistency is something that you can’t associate with Anderson. He puts up some really top performances, but, not regularly and that’s not how you become a great player. Greatness comes when you have good days on the field more often than not.

Now that he is going to Italy, the 25 years old Brazilian international can be rest assured that he wouldn’t have to warm the bench as much as he was doing that at United, but, he would have to ensure that he delivers the goods there and at least attracts interests from some big clubs around the globe.

Anderson might be spending the second half of the ongoing season away from Old Trafford as his former club FC Porto wants to sign him again.

According to the reports, the Portuguese club wants him only on loan at the moment, but, if he shows consistency over there, they might decide to make the deal permanent as well.

Anderson is not being given playing time at Manchester United and he is clearly frustrated because of that. Some of the statements that he has made recently suggest that he wants to play regularly. So, he would not mind being placed on loan to Porto.

The United boss David Moyes is also believed to be quite busy during the mid-season transfer window as he is not happy with the current composition of the Red Devils squad. He wants to bring in some new faces and offload some guys as well. Anderson might be one of those who are in that offload list.

However, Porto is not the only club which has shown interest in Anderson. The Premier League club Fulham has also been reported to be quite interested in him.

David Moyes doesn’t seem to have that much trust in the abilities of Anderson. There hasn’t been a single game in the ongoing season in which he has allowed the Brazilian midfielder to be on the ground for full 90 minutes.

In one of his recent interviews, when Anderson was asked about his tuning with the new boss, he had made it clear that everything was alright between the two of them.

Anderson had said, “I am absolutely fine with David. He is a good coach and we all are just trying to support him as much as we can. As far as my situation is concerned, I haven’t had a chat with him regarding that.”

For the longest of times Brazil was considered to be the absolute best when it comes to football.

With a style of Joga Bonito that has always characterized them and some of the most predominant players being: Ronaldinho, Ronaldo and Rivaldo.

Those 3 players were the driving force behind Brazil’s triumph of the World Cup in 2002.

4 years later and Ronaldinho maintained his spot alongside Ronaldo with the addition of Kaka from Ac.Milan and Adriano although they seemed to struggle and not play in the same outstanding way everyone was used to. They were eventually eliminated from the 2006 World Cup when going head to head against France.

Luis Felipe Scolari is the man in charge of taking Brazil to glory as they have already qualified for the 2014 World Cup and they have been lavishing nothing but success in their latest performances. In spite of the fact that they haven’t played competitively in years, Unibet have made them the slim favourites to win the competition, whilst other sports betting companies put them in the top 3.

In what was a fairly comfortable 3-0 victory against Spain, Brazil claimed the trophy without losing 1 single match in the entirety of the tournament.

They are hoping to continue riding in this wave of momentum and get themselves into the greatest stage of all, the World Cup.
The Spanish striker Fernando Torres was awarded with the Golden Boot after scoring 5 goals. Neymar came close behind with only 1 goal less than the Chelsea player.

Barcelona’s latest signing Neymar is expected to be game-changer not only for his national team but also for the club that signed him up in the last transfer window. With only 21 years of age he is already being compared to legends like Pele and Ronaldo but the question is: Will he live up to the expectations or break down?

Anderson has said that Manchester United should think about just one game at a time.

The Red Devils have had a dreadful time in the ongoing season so far. They have lost 50% of their Premier League games and they are at no. 12 in the points table at the moment.
United’s most recent defeat was against West Bromwich Albion. That was a home game for them and not many people had expected them to end up on the losing side in that game. But, they looked off colour again and got beaten by 1-2.

Now, the Red Devils will travel to Ukraine to face Shakhtar Donetsk in a Champions League game.

Talking to the reporters at the end of the game against West Brom, Anderson said, “It’s definitely tough. No team wants to be beaten at home. But, now, we need to look forward to the next game which is a very important game.”

“We still have chance to win all the titles. It’s not easy, but, we can do that for sure.”

“We don’t lack quality. There are some great players in our squad. All we need to do is to keep training hard and try to do well in the next match.”

“We are in a difficult situation at the moment and we know that. But, we can’t think too far ahead. We should have our concentration on one match at a time.”

Anderson was in the starting line up of United in the match against West Brom, but, he didn’t look in good form at all and he was substituted by Marouane Fellaini in the 67th minute of the match. The 25 years old Brazilian midfielder is not expected to start against Shakhtar.

The match between United and Shakhtar will take place at Donbass Arena on Wednesday.

Brazil has defeated the world champions Spain in the final of the Confederations Cup 2013 at Rio de Janeiro on Monday. Brazil won the match by a profound margin of 3-0.

This is the third consecutive time that Brazil has won this tournament. They were not the favourites coming into this final, but, with a brilliant team effort, they made the world champions look ordinary on the ground.

Fred was the stand out performer for Brazil. He scored the first and the third goal for his team. The second goal was scored by the superstar Neymar who was also given the Golden Ball award in the post match presentation ceremony.

The Brazilian manager Luiz Felipe Scolari changed the fortunes of the team with his arrival. He was appointed as Brazilian manager for the second time in November last year. The Brazilian team was not going through a good phase at that time, but, Scolari brought a lot of freshness with himself. He just changed the attitude of the whole team. Brazil started looking like a different unit altogether on the ground.

Scolari’s first tenure as Brazilian manager was quite successful as well. He had guided the team to the World Cup title in 2002.

Talking to the reporters after Brazil’s victory over Spain, Scolari said, “We played fabulously well as a team. It was important to stick to the plans and we did that wonderfully.”
“This win will give the players belief that they can get better of any team in the world.”

“The fans are the real heroes. They cheered the team all the way through and I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart.”

“We still have to make a lot of improvements before the 2014 World Cup. I don’t think we are a complete side yet.”

Celtic FC amazed everyone last year, not by completing the Scottish Premier League (SPL) and Scottish FA Cup double – but by the unexpected heights they scaled in the Champion League.

However, whilst qualifying from a strong group that contained Spartak Moscow, Benfica and the mighty Barcelona was a marvellous achievement, they were firmly put in their place by Juventus (losing 5-0 on aggregate), a team who themselves were then brushed aside by better opposition. At 500/1, only die-hard dreamers will surely back Celtic to lift the Champions League.

Back on the domestic front, Celtic look certain to add another SPL title to their impressive tally. Unfortunately, the bookies agree and the best price you can get at the time of writing is 1/40 – a price that you can nearly get for leaving your stake in the bank.

The biggest price you can get for Celtic lifting a domestic trophy is the 5/4 for the Scottish League Cup but, whilst Celtic could lift it without breaking sweat, the statistics are against them. Indeed, they have only captured this prize twice in the last ten years and their focus is probably going to be on bigger silverware.

The Scottish FA Cup is a competition that Celtic has had great success in during the last decade, winning it five times, and this statistic is reflected in the bookies quote of even money. However, during that time, Rangers (a better team then) won it twice.

That even money quote looks the value for Celtic Punters this season whilst, those that have Celtic’s name running through them like a stick of Blackpool rock, probably won’t be able to resist backing them to win complete the SPL and Scottish FA Cup double.

Scottish Football Punters have been occupied during the summer months with slots like ‘Shoot’ and ‘Game on’. There have been an abundance of slot games created by online casinos to keep the juices flowing during the dry season, but with the 2013/14 season soon to be upon us, it’s time to check out possible wagers on Scotland’s best team.