Plenty of Premier League clubs are currently jetting off on pre-season tours. After fights, fatherhood and fannying about, this lot were flying back earlier than anyone expected…
Mamadou Sakho
Liverpool’s pre-season tour of USA ought to have been when Sakho got back on track after sitting out the back end of the 2015-16 season due to doping violation, which was eventually overturned. Instead, it accelerated the demise of the defender’s Liverpool career.
Jurgen Klopp told Sakho to pack his bags and p*ss off home because of the centre-back’s repeated tardiness. Sakho almost missed the flight out to the West Coast; then he missed a rehabilitation session; and was then late for a team meal.
Acting the clown at Alcatraz didn’t help. Sakho, armed with a GoPro camera, interrupted Klopp when he was giving an interview to Liverpool’s media team. Eventually, the manager snapped, dismissing Sakho from the tour for failing to ‘respect the rules’.
To the Under-23s he went, and Sakho never played for the Klopp’s first-team again before he eventually joined Crystal Palace the following January.
Every Premier League club’s 2022-23 pre-season friendly fixtures and results…
Dennis Wise
“Dennis has been sent home following an apparent breach of club discipline,” said Leicester manager Micky Adams, somewhat understating Wise’s transgression.
It quickly transpired that Wise had broken Callum Davidson’s cheekbone in what Leicester later described as a ‘serious and unprovoked assault’.
So serious was it that Leicester sacked Wise and terminated the remaining two years of his contract. Which the former Chelsea defender wasn’t going to take lying down, even if that’s what he expected of Davidson.
Facing the loss of £3million in wages, Wise appealed the decision and, to Leicester’s horror, he won. The Foxes were initially forced to reinstate Wise and instead fine him a fortnight’s wages. But Leicester launched an appeal of their own, which they won. A week later, Wise rocked up at Millwall.
Anthony Martial
The relationship between Martial and Jose Mourinho was already strained by summer 2018 when the Frenchman told his manager that he was flying to Paris from Los Angeles to witness the birth of his second child.
Mourinho wasn’t best pleased but even he knew he couldn’t stand in Martial’s way. But when the forward failed to return, Mourinho and United were furious.
“He has the baby and after the baby is born –…
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