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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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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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

Wigan Athletic manager Roberto Martinez is confident that midfielder James McCarthy will make a full recovery from surgery on a serious ankle injury.

The 19-year-old damaged ankle ligaments during last month's 1-1 home draw with Bolton Wanderers and will be out of action for several months.

However, Martinez expects the former Hamilton Academical starlet to come back stronger after his operation and rehabilitation.

He told the Evening Post:"It was done to make sure the joint remains stable, which will allow his ankle to heal properly .

"The main thing was to make sure it didn't become a chronic problem for him in the future.

"Ankles are joints that it's easy to not look after properly as you can get through matches.

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"But he's such a young man that, whatever happens in the next two or three months, we need to ensure he comes back stronger and better for the good of the rest of his career."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email

On the 23rd of August, Harry Redknapp confirmed the signing of William Gallas. ‘Former Arsenal player William Gallas’, as he was rechristened in the press, was signed as a centre-back with vital Champions League experience to boost Harry’s Euro dream, but there can be few who could have predicted the impact he would have had on the early part of Tottenham’s season.

Gallas has started Spurs’ last eight matches in all competitions, which is quite an achievement for a player who’s fitness was in question prior to his signing and declared that he was ‘burnt out’ only a month ago.

The rise to first team prominence of Gallas has been as much about necessity as choice. Signed to a one year deal, Gallas would be a short-term solution to Jonathon Woodgate’s injury woes and could provide cover when Ledley King was unfit to play. But Tottenham’s defensive injury crisis is very well documented and with Ledley King, Michael Dawson and Jonathon Woodgate all out for the upcoming games, Gallas is set to feature for the foreseeable future.

The stats would tell you that Gallas’ run in the team hasn’t been a particular success. Prior to Saturday’s victory against Blackburn, Spurs didn’t have a league win in four and got into a habit of conceding silly goals. But while prone to the odd mistake, Spurs fans need to ask themselves where they would be in the league without Gallas.

Sebastian Bassong has had more than one wobbly performance this season and has fallen out of favour with Harry Redknapp, so to have a player of Gallas’ stature, ability and experience, albeit short of full-fitness, to step in has proved to be invaluable. Despite the chopping and changing that has occurred within the Tottenham defence this season Younes Kaboul and Gallas have played together in the last six games, and the spotlight will be on them more than ever at the weekend when Spurs go to Arsenal. The partnership needs time to develop and with Dawson out until Christmas time it may well have time to improve, but as ever Spurs will be judged on how they perform at The Emirates and Kaboul and Gallas will need to be on top form if Spurs are going to get anything from the game.

Tottenham’s win against Inter Milan will rightly go down in the history books as a momentous occasion. Gareth Bale was brilliant that day, but no one should forget the performance of the back four from that Wednesday evening which was led by Gallas.

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The fitter Gallas gets the better he will become, and even though he has had some worrying moments in games he has done a crucial job for Spurs this year and so should be exempt from too much criticism. However I don’t see Gallas having much long-term value for Spurs past this season. He’s come in and done a shift, but I think that next year Spurs will get far more value by replacing Gallas and having a shake-up of their defence by bringing through youngsters such as Steven Caulker, the gifted centre-half currently on loan at Bristol City.

Chelsea winger Florent Malouda deliberately goes out of his way to be unsocial. The Frenchman is keen to actively separate himself from any people who could become hangers-on and sees teammate Didier Drogba as his only friend within the game. Bucking the traditional football trend of having many people, agents and an entourage surrounding footballers, Malouda is keen to go it solo.

It marks a stark contrast with the approach of former Blues manager Luiz Felipe Scolari, who bemoaned the lack of camaraderie and togetherness at the Stamford Bridge outfit. Big Phil was keen to set up relationships than transcended the football pitch, a coach-player relationship that is common throughout South American football culture. Both he and Robinho seem most at home when there is more of a family and close knitted feel to the football team, with the coach providing more of a father or mentor role to his players. Both these two have commented on how there was a lack of this kind of relationship off the pitch in the Premier League and were more comfortable with the game in Brazil. Yet it is not just South American culture that encourages this kind of relationship amongst those involved with football.

To a lesser extent a similar process has developed at Old Trafford with Alex Ferguson and what is now the Manchester United Old Guard, with Ferguson being very involved in the early development of Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Gary Neville, but always secondary to their family.

In light of what these players have been able to achieve and how tough it could be on your own in football if things start to turn against you, it is perhaps strange to see that Malouda is so forthright in distancing himself from a close bond with anyone at the club or involved in football. Yet away from these relationships at clubs between manager and player comes a new generation of over-involved agents and companies. Kia Joorabchian is someone who has come to epitomise an external actor who is too involved with players and exerts too much influence on them and their careers, whilst making huge personal profits. Paul Stretford is another name that springs to mind, these two may be the most infamous, given the recent events in Manchester, but their positions and influence over players are far from unique.

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It would appear that the days that a player just wishes to play for a club with perhaps his dad, as is the case with Ryan Giggs, offering him some advice and handling the necessities of paper work are long gone. Nowadays agents engineer moves in order to secure signing on bonuses and the like. Modern day footballers have no shortage of people wanting to hang on to their coat tails, in an attempt to get a piece of the pie and lots of their influence can be damaging to the players development not only as a player but as a person and ultimately to the game as well. Perhaps Malouda’s stance of not wishing to get too involved with others in a bid to not be adversely is a wise one. By excluding the entourages associated with players, maybe a sense of normality can return to football which would surely be beneficial. So far from being an aggressive and lonely outlook on football, this attitude is in fact a fine example being set by Malouda.

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Ipswich Town manager Roy Keane was pleased with the composure his side showed as they moved into the semi-finals of the Carling Cup with an impressive 1-0 victory against West Brom.

The former Manchester United star has been coming under pressure in recent weeks after a dire run of form that culminated in a 4-1 derby defeat to Norwich City at the weekend.

But after setting up a last-four clash with Arsenal thanks to a second-half penalty from Grant Leadbitter, Keane said:"It isn't about my feelings because a manager's career will be up or down. We've let the supporters down in the past but now we've given them something to shout about.

"It was important we put on a performance. We know the quality West Brom have got and we wanted to make it a high-tempo game. I was pleased with the work-rate, the character and the composure of some of the younger boys.

"To get out of the hole we're in at the moment is about characters, about digging deep and we saw that.

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"But we need to get back up the Championship table because that's our bread and butter. Getting to semi-final is a bonus, but that's all it is, a bonus – we have to win league matches."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email

Wolves boss Mick McCarthy is planning to bolster his leaky defence by making bids for Aston Villa’s Curtis Davies and Middlesbrough’s David Wheater.

Wolves have the league’s joint worst defence and their back four frailties were hopelessly exposed by Wigan on Boxing Day.

McCarthy knows that he is under mounting pressure at Molineux and his job could be on the line unless results start to improve.

Curtis Davies, who made his name at Wolves’ midlands rivals West Bromwich Albion, has been on loan at Leicester City this season after falling out of favour at Aston Villa. He has been earning praise for his strong performances with the Foxes and it is thought that McCarthy is preparing a loan move of his own for the player.

Wheater is also believed to be on Wolves’ radar and with his contract expiring in the summer, could be available for a cut-price £2 million.

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Any hope that Wolves had of signing Manchester City defender Joleon Lescott are thought to have disappeared. Lescott is on £90,000 a-week at Eastlands and Wolves would be unable to meet the players’ wage demands.

A mixed week at Anfield has seen six points achieved, the Reds agreeing a fee for Luis Suarez, while at the same time being rocked by the news that Fernando Torres has handed in a transfer request. Just when it seemed that Kenny Dalglish was turning things around at the football club, he has to deal with yet more upheaval.

At FFC this week we have seen a mixed bag of Liverpool blogs that include frustration growing over Liverpool transfer; Reds hold all the transfer cards, while 51 reasons why Liverpool need to change their focus.

We also look at the best Liverpool articles around the web this week.

*

TEN things we can guarantee on Transfer deadline day

*

Liverpool’s pressing transfer dilemma

There was something in the air that night, the stars were bright, Fernando

Frustration grows over Liverpool transfer

Goal of the Week – Raul Meireles

Are Liverpool playing a clever transfer game?

Last minute transfer dealings at Liverpool?

Why Liverpool hold all the transfer cards here

Promised Liverpool so much, but ultimately delivered so little?

Inflated deals causing Liverpool to up their bid

Was Roy the cause of the problem at Liverpool or merely the victim?

Guilty by association, but deserving of a 2nd chance at Liverpool?

51 reasons why Liverpool should switch their transfer focus

Would Liverpool really be wise to splash the cash?

Great signing, but where does he fit in at Liverpool?

*Best of Web*

It’s time to look to the stars – This Is Anfield

Dalglish – Master of the Game – Kopblog

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Roy Hodgson and The Great Brainwashed – Kop Source

THREE Scenarios Surrounding the Torres Controversy- Live4Liverpool

Suárez & Torres: Dream Team? – Tomkins Times

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Wigan manager Roberto Martinez will be hoping to turn around his side’s poor home form this season when they welcome Blackburn on Saturday.

The Latics have won just two of 13 games at the DW Stadium this league campaign, while Blackburn have won three in 12 away affairs.

Martinez said, however, that keeping his side together during the January transfer window was his main aim, as he hopes to lead Wigan out of the relegation zone.

“Our intention this window was to finish with a stronger squad. We had two major objectives, getting all the players back from injury, and we didn’t want to lose any of the prize assets,” Martinez said, alluding to influential winger Charles N’Zogbia, who was thought to be leaving the club.

“We managed to do that. In the past, the fans have been a bit disappointed at losing players at the wrong time. Everyone is proud that Wigan showed a bit of a statement by keeping the players for the important challenges we have at the moment.”

New Blackburn signing Mauro Formica could make his debut for the club, with Steve Kean likening the signing to legendary Argentine footballer Gabriel Batistuta upon his arrival at Ewood Park.

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Roque Santa Cruz continues to miss for Kean’s side, while Wigan have only Tom Cleverley on the sidelines.