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Udinese will be looking to seal a place in next season’s UEFA Champions League when they host champions AC Milan in the Serie A on Sunday.Francesco Guidolin’s team can guarantee their fourth spot with a point against Milan, who are unbeaten in seven league outings, at the Stadio Friuli on the last day of the season.

Udinese would book their spot in the Champions League for the first time since 2005/06 if they can achieve the result and Guidolin said they would need to be clinical in the attacking third.

“AC Milan are not just any team but the Serie A champion,” Guidolin said.

“We need one more point but it will be very difficult. We need to be focused and ready for the task that awaits us.”

“We have to make the most of our chances in order to obtain the result that would take us to paradise.”

Lazio, who are two points adrift in fifth, will need to collect three points at Lecce if they are to have any chance of stealing Udinese’s spot.

Juventus are also relying on other results if they are to sneak a European spot for next season.

They host third-placed Napoli and need to win, as well as hoping Roma lose at home to the relegated Sampdoria, to clinch sixth spot.

Second-placed Inter Milan head into their meeting with Catania with the runners-up position already confirmed.

Coach Leonardo will want to go into the Coppa Italia final against Palermo on May 29 with a full strength squad, meaning he will not be taking any risks, while Catania can finish no higher than 10th.

Palermo manager Delio Rossi may do likewise when his team welcomes Chievo with a European spot out of their grasp.

Struggling Bologna, who have survived the drop, will be looking for their first win since March 13 when the relegated Bari visit.

Cagliari will be out to break a four-game losing run when they host Parma, who are unbeaten in their last five outings.

Elsewhere, Genoa and Cesena will do battle and the relegated Brescia will host Fiorentina.

Federico Macheda's agent has played down talk linking the Manchester United teenager with a move to Juventus.

The 19-year-old striker joined United from Lazio in 2008 and has gone on to score three times in 20 appearances for Sir Alex Ferguson's side.

Macheda has been linked with a return to his homeland recently, but his representative, Giovanni Bia, was quoted on calciomercato.it as saying:"Interest from Juventus? These rumours are pleasant, but I do not think Macheda is for sale.

"This is not the time to talk about the market. Federico is only thinking about the Under 21s and Manchester United.

"He plays in a great team and he would think two thousand times before leaving, even if the club ever thought about selling him.

"Sir Alex Ferguson always speaks well about him and declares him non-transferable.

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"It is normal that clubs take an interest in him also because he is very young. But he is happy in Manchester."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email

Liverpool will assess the fitness of captain Steven Gerrard ahead of Saturday’s clash with Arsenal, after the midfielder picked up a knock playing for England against Netherlands on Wednesday.

The Anfield talisman was substituted after 32 minutes of the Three Lions’ 3-2 defeat to Bert van Marwijk’s team, and is now a doubt to face the Gunners.

Kenny Dalglish has stated that at present he is unsure of Gerrard’s likelihood of featuring at the weekend, but has refused to blame Stuart Pearce or the England setup for the player’s injury.

“The players will be arriving shortly, so we’ll get an assessment when we speak to the medical people and look at it from there,” the Scottish manager told Sky Sports.

“If I don’t know what it is, I can’t tell you whether there is every chance or no chance (of Gerrard facing Arsenal), so rather than speculate it’s best for us to just wait and see what the medical people have to say once they’ve seen him.

“I have fantastic respect for ‘Pearcey’ – he played for us (under Dalglish at Newcastle). He is a really straight, honest guy so I don’t think he would do anything harmful to the football club,” he stated.

Meanwhile Daniel Agger cracked a rib in the Carling Cup victory over Cardiff last Sunday, and Dalglish feels that the Danish defender’s absence will be felt.

“He’s got a fractured rib, so maybe it will be a few weeks.

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“Anybody that is injured is a miss. Daniel has been playing fantastically well this year, but we’ll miss anybody that is not fit and available,” he concluded.

By Gareth McKnight

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The Premier League is littered with examples of strikers that work hard – but offer little in terms of goals. The classic examples are Emile Heskey, Dirk Kuyt and Kevin Davies, it’s probably fair to say that all of those players have shown glimpses of class and ability at times that has led to the suggestion they are half-decent strikers. But none of them have proved to be able to score more than 14 goals in a single Premier League season. Yet, they have all played in the Premier League for years and are highly respected.

Now call me old fashioned but I believe a striker should hit the back of the net on a regular basis or they are simply not doing their job. Two players that have done that on a regular basis throughout their respected careers are Darren Bent and Dimitar Berbatov, but both these players have their critics and they are often considered lazy. However, surely the goals they score tell their own story and should be more than enough to answer any critics?

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Whenever Heskey, Kuyt or Davies is criticised we hear about the amount of ground they cover or the overall work they do for the team. It was this sort of thinking that resulted in Emile Heskey going to the World Cup with England. Isn’t it time we started to praise the strikers that score the goals and do the job and criticise the ones that don’t?

Managers must see something in training that I don’t – because I would never pick a forward with a high work rate but poor goal return and leave my prolific marksman on the bench. It makes no sense to me when football is all about scoring goals to win games. But maybe I am missing the point and the value of the likes of Kuyt, Heskey and Davies.

Join the conversation on Twitter and tell me the value of Kuyt, Heskey and Davies

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FootballFanCast.com WORLD Exclusive: Robbie Savage’s Face in a Baby Scan…

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Arsenal’s home defeat to West Brom on Saturday only served to highlight the extent of Arsenal’s goalkeeping problems. First-choice goalkeeper Manuel Almunia has come in for some strong criticism following a number of high-profile mistakes and on Saturday it was no different.

Manuel Almunia started the game and was at fault for two of West Brom’s goals. He let Gonzalo Jara’s tame shot past him and was caught in no-man’s land for the Baggies’ third.

With all of Arsenal’s goalkeeping woes, it was a surprise that Arsene Wenger didn’t choose to add a goalkeeper to his squad in this summer’s transfer window. This comes as even more of a surprise when it became clear that Arsenal had posted record pre-tax profits of £56 million for last year but were unwilling to spend money on a new goalkeeper. They failed to match Fulham’s valuation for Mark Schwarzer and declined to make a move for Shay Given who has lost his spot in the Manchester City side to Joe Hart.

The decision to not bring in a new goalkeeper will mean Wenger has to look to his current squad to cure his goalkeeping woes and in Wojciech Szczesny, he has a hugely talented young goalkeeper that could solve all of his problems.

Consistency has been a key problem for Almunia and Fabianski with the pair seemingly unable to string together a sequence of good performances for the Gunners. However, while on loan at Brentford, Szczesny was a model of consistency as he earned rave reviews for his performances in the Griffin Park goal.

The young Pole was a revelation at Brentford, playing 28 times for the Bees and making a host of wonderful saves. Here’s a video of Szczesny in action:

As you can see from the video, Szczesny has lightning-quick reflexes and is an outstanding shot-stopper. His instincts are first-class and he has huge confidence in his own ability.

Szczesny has returned to Arsenal eager to prove himself worthy of starting for the Gunners but has so far cut a frustrated figure at the Emirates. Indeed, Szczesny has expressed his disappointment at being left out of the Carling Cup tie against Tottenham last week and is apparently losing patience with his manager due to a lack of first-team opportunities.

Speaking to Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, Szczesny said that Wenger “seems to forget” him and that the Frenchman is “avoiding me at every occasion”.

And Wenger may have good reason to.

The last young goalkeeper that Wenger attempted to blood was Richard Wright and he proved to be an unmitigated disaster.

Wenger has had a good track record of buying outfield players but his goalkeeping purchases leave much to be desired. During his 14 years at Arsenal, the only real goalkeeper that he has signed which has done well for the Gunners is Jens Lehmann.

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Other than that, Wenger has brought in some less than impressive keepers including Rami Shaaban, Guillaume Warmuz and Mart Poom.

With his track-record of unspectacular goalkeepers, it is no wonder that Wenger is apprehensive when it comes to starting Szczesny.

While Szczesny’s confidence could be construed as arrogance, it is a quality you would like to see in a young goalkeeper. He is hungry and eager to prove himself at the highest level and with Arsenal’s current goalkeeping predicament, he should be given a chance.

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Football fans’ willingness to show their dedication comes in all shapes and sizes. One such way is to splay their dedication over their body in the form of a tattoo. I can understand why somebody might choose to tattoo their footballing allegiance onto their body. Whilst women come and go, a football team is for life. It’s the manly man’s equivalent of getting “I love mom’ yet a tattoo is a big commitment, so it’s important to get it right. As you can imagine, this process isn’t always a success.

Below are the top 10 West Ham tattoo’s to be found on the net – the good, the bad and the plain ugly – click on image below to unveil gallery:

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Have you got a better West Ham tattoo? Football FanCast would like to invite the readers to submit their own entry via our Facebook Page. The winning entries will go forward to our grand competition to find the best tattoo in the Premier League.

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Blackpool manager Ian Holloway has admitted he is powerless to stop star players leaving if the club is relegated this season.A host of Blackpool players have been linked with moves away from Bloomfield Road and Holloway knows he could lose the likes of forwards Charlie Adam and Gary Taylor-Fletcher if the Seasiders fail to stay in the Premier League.

Blackpool have just four games left to drag themselves out of the relegation zone, starting with Saturday’s clash with Stoke City.

Holloway said: “I’ve had a look at who is out of contract, who has an option and who definitely won’t be here. Unless we stay up or improve what we’ve offered them, we may lose some of them.”

“I’m chilled about it but I’ve had a look around and done some research. If we get extra cash for staying up, it may change the dynamics.”

Stoke have been buoyed by reaching their first ever FA Cup Final and all their players will be pushing for a Wembley starting place.

But Holloway pointed to December’s 1-0 win at the Britannia Stadium as just one of many reasons to be optimistic ahead of Saturday’s game.

“We’ve already beaten Stoke away, beaten Tottenham here and drawn with Bolton away and we’ve only lost 3-2 to Manchester United at home,” Holloway said.

“United had to overcome a two-goal deficit here and unfortunately that is something they were able to do.”

“I am not scared of any of them and I am looking forward to them. Do I think we can get enough points to stay up? Of course I do.”

“How lucky am I? I go to work and do something I love to do. I get to play ‘Football Manager’ for real instead of at home on my computer talking to my mates. I do it for real so that is absolutely fantastic.”

Blackpool are definitely without defenders Chris Basham (broken leg) and David Carney (shoulder) for the Stoke clash.

In May UEFA’s Executive Committee approved a set of new regulations embodying their financial fair play initiative. As the brainchild of UEFA President Michel Platini, the concept is designed to bring greater financial stability to European club sides. Essentially clubs will have to break even, not spending beyond their means or face the possibility of sanctions. These rulings are operational as of 2012 but the ‘break even’ concept will be applied stringently as of the 2013/14 season on the basis of a club’s financial performance from the previous two years. The implications of this decision may be widespread given the governing body found that 50% of the clubs they surveyed across Europe were making losses. Will the introduction of a football handicap force Premier League sides to spend big in the next two transfer windows before prudence is mandatory?

The ultimate sanction available to UEFA for those who fail to comply is the threat of exclusion from the Champions League and Europa League. How this will operate in practice is a different matter considering clubs such as, Manchester United, Real Madrid and Chelsea are saddled with debt but are commercially important to the success of the competition. However speaking in Monaco at the Champions League draw, Platini said, “The clubs will comply or they will not play.” This is one aspect of bureaucracy which has found favour with Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger, who described the PL’s 25-man squad ruling as an unnecessary restriction on trade and employment. As one of Europe’s leading exponents of financial frugality, the rules will benefit Arsenal and help to level the playing field.

Wenger said, “I don’t want to go into excuses but you want a business to be run properly and I believe that to lose £150 million a year you don’t deserve a lot of credit to win a competition.” Chelsea and Manchester City are two obvious casualties of this directive with the Eastlands based club reporting an annual loss of £92.6 million for the 2008/09 financial year. The extravagant spending by both sides in recent times may seem sustainable but clubs whose owners have burdened them with high levels of debt will be penalised too. Before clubs focus on other streams of revenue including gate receipts, sponsorship and commercial activities, the next two transfer windows may be distorted. With a two year gap and a phased introduction of the rules do clubs have carte blanche to splurge in the market?

Based on the profitability of European competition, newly rich or ambitious clubs may show their hand in the transfer market. Manchester City and Tottenham have already been huge spenders but will clubs like Birmingham and Sunderland with wealthy backers see this as a golden opportunity to invest before enforced austerity? David Cameron quipped in the week that even the Cuban leader Fidel Castro had woken up to the need for deficit reduction. A more apt and surprising witticism would be that the PL has acquiesced to sensible economics. The PL Chief Executive Richard Scudamore has spearheaded new regulations on club ownership and is canvassing opinion on a possible salary cap. Despite qualifying for Europe’s top club competition, Daniel Levy has said Spurs will not gamble their future on the Champions League. Aston Villa have been on the cusp of qualification but refused to further load their bloated wage bill. Liverpool’s debt restricted their spending until the sale of Javier Mascherano to Barcelona.

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Conversely Manchester City continues to freely spend but even their football administrator Brian Marwood has inferred that following transfer windows will not be as eventful. The potential implications and seriousness of UEFA’s regulations are still massive as clubs across Europe are way off the pragmatism of Arsenal. But Platini’s message has been received and understood.

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Shamrock Rovers away it is then and a small but hardy gang of Lilywhites will be braving airports various and venturing towards a destination the natives call… Tallaghtfornia.

Dublin has considerable charms but these have been tarnished somewhat by the phenomenal financial drain of the city even to a visitor attempting to keep to the most modest of budgets. 

I used to live there and am a frequent visitor to this day, so there’s no malice from me just based upon a long weekend that went wrong. It’s horrifically expensive across the board.

You’re all adults and getting to the stadium is your own business – but on taxis – should you step into one, make sure that you know where you are going. A considerable percentage of city center taxi men are, shall we say, not Irish. So if you know the postcode of your destination, I’d humbly suggest you have it to hand for the old Sat Nav.

Pre and post the game you may wish to seek out something to eat and drink. I would recommend Zaytoon which has branches both in Lr Camden St and Parliament St. Rotten for vegetarians I’m afraid, but super reliable high class Persian kebabs fare. Not cheap, but bloody nice and you can sit down in decent surroundings.

Temple Bar is rubbish. If you haven’t experienced it and wish to enjoy it’s many splendid ‘things’ then I shan’t even attempt to coax you round. Good luck, God bless.

Not too far across town however is Dawson Street where Cafe En Seine and Samsara lay in wait. These two gems are not only nice buildings to be in but actually populated by decent local types. There’s a pair of really good food options in this road too.

For Pizza, Milano is essentially Pizza Express by another moniker and if you want something very very nice indeed, then look no further than Fire at The Mansion House which more or less is opposite the bars previously listed.

If you need use of an Internet cafe, their are a good few as one would expect in a city center, the arguably most central is Global on O’Connell Street. 

Aside from make sure that you wear clean pants in case you get case run over, I think that’s it. Hopefully it’s of some small use. Of course, it would be better if readers were to add their own thoughts.

BIOYSRC!

Courtesy of Harry-Hotspur.com

Relegation-threatened Blackpool need points desperately and there is no better time to get them than in their clash with Stoke City on Saturday.Ian Holloway’s men are hovering above the English Premier League relegation zone in 17th by means of goal difference ahead of Wigan, but finish the season with trips to Manchester United and Tottenham and also host Europe-bound Bolton after their clash at Bloomfield Road on the weekend.

The tough run-in to the end of the season means it is three points on Saturday or bust for Holloway and his plucky Blackpool outfit, which rode their momentum through the English Premier League playoffs last term.

The form guide does not make pleasant reading for Seasiders fans, as their side has secured just eight points from a possible 51 since the New Year.

Stoke, meanwhile, are not short of confidence with an FA Cup final to look forward to and are coming off a 3-0 dismantling of Wolves on Tuesday.

Tony Pulis will almost certainly be missing Matthew Etherington for Saturday’s clash after the winger limped from the field with a hamstring injury in their win over Wolves. He is in doubt for their Wembley date with Manchester City.

Other omissions for Stoke include strike duo Ricardo Fuller and Mamady Sidibe (both Achilles), while Danny Higginbotham is a long-term absentee with an ACL injury.

Australia international David Carney continues his spell on the sidelines for Blackpool with a shoulder injury, while scarcely used defender Chris Basham will miss as he continues his recovery from a broken leg.

Blackpool won the reverse fixture 1-0 at the Britannia Stadium in December, with frontman DJ Campbell scoring the winner shortly after half-time.