Review Of The Day 19th February 2023

Review of the Day

Contracts

Former club captain Tyrone Mings has signed a 2-year contract extension with Aston Villa, keeping him with the Premier League side until 2026.

Transfers

Former Wolverhampton Wanderers goalkeeper Andreas Sondergaard has signed for Swansea City for the rest of the season. The 22-year-old was a free agent after being released by Wolves in January.

Mexican international full-back Julian Araujo has signed for Barcelona from LA Galaxy for €4m plus a significant sell-on percentage and will join Barca immediately despite the player’s registration failing to go through on deadline day in January. The teams have appealed to FIFA to allow the transfer to go through but, in the meantime, he will officially join Barca B and train with the first team.

Former Real Madrid left-back Marcelo has terminated his contract with Olympiakos.

Former Chelsea and Sunderland defender Papy Djilobodji has joined Kasimpasa on a free transfer from Gaziantep.

Injury Round Up

AS Monaco full-back Ruben Aguilar has been ruled out for a fortnight. Aguilar’s competition for the right-back berth, Vanderson, has been out since the beginning of the month and has yet to return to training, leaving the French Ligue 1 side without a recognised fit right-back.

Job Changes

Lee Mason has been sacked by, er sorry, left the PGMOL by mutual consent after repeated ineptitude came to a head when he failed to draw the guidelines to check for offside. Mason was so utterly abysmal as a referee that he was made into a full-time VAR-only official, yet even that was too much for him. The scary thing is that, despite being incredibly and embarrassingly bad at refereeing, Mason managed to last 15 years as a Premier League referee!

After almost 30 years with Everton, David Harrison has left to return to Manchester United as Director of Football Operations. Harrison was working in the ticket office at the Red Devils before leaving to become Box Office Manager at Everton in 1995. Harrison rose to become Head of Football Operations and CLub Secretary at the Toffees.

Disciplinary Charges

Arsenal and Manchester City have been charged by the Football Association for failing to control their players after both sets of players surrounded referee Anthony Taylor, of Manchester, (how does a Mancunian consistently get picked to referee Manchester City in big games?) at different points of the game. Arsenal protested against the decision to award Erling Haaland a…