With Arkadiusz Milik facing more weeks on the sidelines to recover from knee surgery and Manolo Gabbiadini failing to click into the team system this season, Napoli are now planning to make an approach for striker Simone Zaza in January.
According to Napoli Magazine, coach Maurizio Sarri is now convinced that Zaza could solve his team’s problems in attack, making the West Ham player the Serie A club’s main target in the next transfer window.
Zaza, whose contract is worth €3.5m annually, has failed to leave his mark for the Hammers since joining them on loan from Juventus in the summer.
Ex-Gers defender Provan dies
Former Rangers defender David Provan has died aged 75 following a long illness, the Ibrox club have announced.
Provan was a Light Blue bet-ween 1958 and 1970 and was part of the side which won the domestic treble in 1964. He also won the Scottish Cup in 1963 and 1966, as well as the 1965 League Cup.
A Hall of Fame inductee at the Govan club, he featured in the Cup Winners’ Cup final defeat to Bayern Munich in 1967 and was capped five times for Scotland.
Provan went on to play for Crystal Palace and Plymouth before finishing his career with St Mirren.
Wickham blow
Crystal Palace striker Connor Wickham faces a long spell on the sidelines after suffering a “serious” knee injury in his side’s 5-4 defeat at Swansea City.
The former Sunderland striker, 23, came off on a stretcher after he dug his foot into the turf awkwardly in an attempt to tackle Gylfi Sigurdsson. He left the ground on crutches and with his right knee heavily strapped.
“It’s been a tough day for us because Connor looks like he’s got a serious injury,” Palace boss Alan Pardew told BBC.
Both sets of fans applauded Wickham off the pitch after he sustained the injury early in the second half, forcing a seven-minute stoppage.
FA legal counsel to review child abuse
The English FA has appointed an independent legal counsel, Kate Gallafent, to assist its review into historical child abuse allegations.
Gallafent will oversee the FA’s internal review into claims of sexual abuse made by a growing number of former youth footballers.
The FA suggested a fully-fledged inquiry may follow but the initial review would explore “what information the FA was aware of at the relevant times around the issues that have been raised in the press, what clubs were aware of, and what action was or should have been taken.”
The FA’s move came as Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Players’ Association, revealed the number of players making allegations of abuse is now more than 20.
New Bayern Munich deal for Ribery
Bayern Munich have extended Franck Ribery’s contract by a year until 2018, the Bundesliga champions announced yesterday.
The 33-year-old’s previous deal was due to expire in the summer, but the Frenchman, who arrived from Marseille in 2007, will continue wearing a red shirt through to the following summer.
“I’m delighted to be able to play on another year for Bayern,” Ribery said on Bayern’s website.
“This amazing club and the city have become my home.”
Ribery has 333 appearances for Bayern, scoring 108 goals.
Cautious Conte
Chelsea manager Antonio Conte felt his side had passed a major examination by beating Tottenham on Saturday but the Italian was not about to get carried away with talk of winning the league, even after a seventh straight win.
Yet the way the leaders overcame this first real battle during their two-month resurgence, coming from behind to win 2-1 and end Spurs’ unbeaten record, did suggest his men have the stomach to fight all the way to regain the crown they surrendered last season.
“It’s too early to talk of the title. This league is tough,” said Conte.
“This was a big test because for sure Tottenham is a really good team. Also, they scored a fantastic goal. Then I liked a lot our reaction… it wasn’t easy.”
Maradona mourns ‘second father’
For Diego Maradona, Fidel Castro was more than a friend... he was “a second father.”
Maradona said Castro’s death hit him like a tennis ball to the chest served by Juan Martin del Potro, the Argentine player he cheered on in the Davis Cup final where he received the news.
“I wept uncontrollably,” Mara-dona told reporters.
“After my father, it’s the deepest sorrow I know.”
The two controversial figures first met in 1987, a year after Maradona helped Argentina win the World Cup in Mexico.
An unlikely friendship bet-ween the often outlandish footballer and the well-read revolutionary deepened at the start of the century when Maradona spent four years in Havana to shake an addiction to drugs.