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Newcastle United grabbed another vital point towards their hopes of survival with a 1-1 draw away at West Ham United in the Premier League on Saturday.

Former Arsenal midfield player Joe Willock came up with the crucial equaliser after Craig Dawson had given the hosts the lead.

It was a stellar performance from the Magpies, who recorded more possession and shots on goal than the Hammers, but some may not have been pleased with their own individual displays, as The Transfer Tavern use statistical experts SofaScore to analyse who the three worst performers (to have played at least 45 minutes) were for the visitors on the day:

Ryan Fraser – 6.7

Admittedly joint with second in terms of rating (6.7), Fraser ranks in third here having not played the full 90 minutes.

The Scotland international lost out on three of his duels, and also failed to record a single shot on target, dribble, key pass or accurate long ball, losing possession 10 times.

Joelinton – 6.7

Playing in his now familiar central midfield role, Joelinton was also given a 6.7 overall rating.

The Brazilian lost nine duels in total, and failed with both of his attempts on goal, while he also lost the ball seven times.

Emil Krafth – 6.4

With a 6.4 rating, Krafth was ranked as the St. James’ Park faithful’s worst performer.

The right-back found himself booked just after the half hour mark, which set the tone for the rest of his game.

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He was unsuccessful in three of his duels, and recorded no dribbles, interceptions, tackles, key passes or accurate long balls, while he also gave the ball away on 18 occasions in total, the third-most out of his teammates.

In other news, find out who PIF are watching over a potential summer move here!

With the arrival of David Villa at the Camp Nou many have speculated that Ibrahimovic’s days in Spain are over. Couple this with the unexpected attack the player’s agent launched on Pep Guardiola this weekend and the speculation may be true. Though the Swede hasn’t blistered through his debut season in the fashion of Cristiano Ronaldo, his output and performances have actually been far from the disappointment that many – especially in England for example – believe them to be.

“If you don’t play a footballer after spending €65m then you should be sent to a mental hospital”.

These were the words of Mino Raiola, Ibrahimovic’s agent, on Sunday. To an extent he has a point but he is also skewing the truth somewhat; breaking the bank for a star signing and then not affording that player with first team football is one thing but Ibra was only consistently dropped when he lost form in the final three months of the league season. So how has his first year at Barcelona been? Not as bad as a large portion of the media make out.

In 23 starts (and 6 substitute appearances) the Swede netted 16 goals in the league and overall, scored 23 goals in 42 starts for Barcelona. Slightly better than a one-in-two record is hardly terrible but, given the stellar standards and goals return of Ronaldo and Messi in recent seasons, it is far from blistering. If we consider the motive behind Guardiola purchasing the Swede we can see that he has undoubtedly provided Barcelona with a more direct method of attack – his crucial goal against Stuttgart in the Champions League highlights this. His relationship with Messi has also been encouraging with the latter assisting many of the big man’s goals in the first half of the season.

In terms of important goals Ibrahimovic has delivered, as mentioned, in Stuttgart, two at the Emirates where his record against English clubs was under scrutiny, and also in the first el clasico of the year. The variety of his goals (headed, lobbed, chipped, poached, powered, deftly finished and from set piece) is more than encouraging and the quality of his assists (a fine layoff for Messi against Getafe, and a lovely dragged back heel for Pedro against Mallorca) highlight his vision and technique. The problem with Ibrahimovic however is a desire for the spectacular that can frustrate and in the latter part of the season we saw his confidence low and his output suffering. The very best in the world never allow a dip in form to affect their self belief yet this appears to be the case with Ibrahimovic.

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Despite important goals and variety to his play the world was most interested when Barcelona and Inter clashed in the semi-finals and Ibra was ineffective. I have spoken in a previous article (see here) that the choice to deploy Ibrahimovic was a tactical mistake by Guardiola considering Samuel and Lucio’s strength and aerial ability; they marked Drogba splendidly and subdued Ibra to anonymity in both legs – but instead of questioning Guardiola’s tactics it was Ibrahimovic who shouldered much of the blame.

Another difficulty which makes the Swede a victim of circumstance more than an inability to adapt is the impossible expectation placed on Barcelona on the back of the previous year’s treble. Anything less than that success is a mini failure and everyone has been fast to blame the difference Ibrahimovic induces in the team’s style of play. But this isn’t completely fair: the swift decline of Thierry Henry and the poor form mixed with repeated injuries of Andres Iniesta (just one goal and five assists since scoring his thrilling last minute strike against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in 2009) has all hampered the team’s style and consistency making Guardiola move toward a more functional and less spectacular team.

Whilst purchasing David Villa adds another world class striker to the mix the inevitable loss of Thierry Henry means, in terms of forwards, Barcelona would be wise to hold on to Ibrahimovic for one more season. Given his astronomical transfer fee it would make sense to stick with him and in a tweaked line up his penchant for the audacious may yield more fruit – also, the idea of an attacking trio of Villa-Ibra-Messi is not inconceivable. Though Pedro has been brilliant and Bojan has shown his quality, keeping Ibrahimovic affords them an alternative with definite value. Despite the polarised opinions of the Swede, his success cannot be argued: seven league titles in the past seven years with four different clubs (calciopoli notwithstanding) mean he is accustomed to winning, and I maintain his impact on Barcelona can still be special.

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A plethora of column inches have been consumed by journalists offering their post mortems of England’s World Cup exit. Each one dressed as the prophet of doom, pointing the finger of blame at everything from the ball, to the timing of the announcement of the starting XI. But is this really a time of mourning? Well, yes, according to the press. But let’s take a deep breath, have a sit down, and look for reasons to be cheerful about the England football team.

One thing that has been a sticking point for many is our apparent decline in World Cup performance, from two consecutive quarter finals to being eliminated one round earlier has the nation up in arms. What could have happened?! I would like to propose that during this World Cup we’ve only been short of two things: Luck and a penalty shootout. We didn’t play well at this World Cup – I won’t try and sugar-coat that. But have we played well in the previous two (now deemed successful) World Cups? Not really, no. Cast your mind back to 2006. In the opening minutes against Paraguay, Beckham floats in a free-kick from the left, it comes off Paraguayan defender Carlos Gamarra and we’re one up. The remaining 87 minutes were drab and uninspiring, but we won, so who remembers? The next game we take 83 minutes to break down Trinidad and Tobago, then lose a lead against Sweden, then sneak past Ecuador 1-0. Finally, we lose to Portugal after another bore 120 minutes, but everything that has gone before is forgotten – the reason being that we went out on penalties. A penalty-shoot out elimination is an elimination that distributes rose-tinted glasses to everyone in England. If we’ve gone out on penalties, regardless of how we’ve played, we must have been robbed, it’s unjust, it’s a crime – a hangover from Italia 90. The reason why so much has been made of this tournament is the larger than normal amount of expectation and pressure that was put upon the team prior to the whole thing kicking off. We had the best striker in the world and all that was left to be decided was how many goals we’d win by in the final.

The old idiom says that you don’t turn into a bad team overnight, and it’s absolutely true. We went through the World Cup with more or less the same side that breezed through qualifiers, not only winning but winning comfortably, scoring goals and keeping clean sheets. The Capello regime was being applauded by players and the press alike, instilling order and discipline to the modern day footballers was surely a good thing – although perhaps it was taken a little too far come World Cup time. But players live and learn, and so do managers. So the calls for wide spread culling of coaches and players are a little hasty. Yes young players are due into the squad, but not at the rate being suggested. Some are ready, Dawson, Walcott, Milner, Lennon and Johnson to name a few, but some aren’t and let’s not forget we do have world class players already filling many positions. We have the chance to gradually blood youngsters in a relatively weak Euro 2012 qualifying group and get them ready for a major knock out tournament. The likes of Wilshire, Gibbs and Wickham can learn simply by being around the squad, these guys are not Premier League regulars and can’t be thrust into international limelight, not yet, we mustn’t forget the counter-productive nature of Walcott’s only World Cup call-up. The kids must be handled with care and their talents nurtured, not exposed before an over expectant world.

Losing on penalties is noble, losing to Brazil is acceptable, but losing to Germany is not. But credit where credit’s due, Germany are a very good team – ask Lionel or Diego. But giving Capello the chance to right his wrongs is a good move, he doesn’t become a bad manager over the space of 3 weeks and I trust him not to panic like the rest of us, make the necessary changes and get England to the Euros. So wash those England shirts and crack open a beer, because we’re guaranteed an exciting two years…

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Written By Karl Sears

Everton boss David Moyes believes the squad he has assembled for the new season is the strongest since he arrived at Goodison Park from Preston North End more than eight years ago.

The 47-year-old has signed Jermaine Beckford, Magaye Gueye, Jan Mucha and Joao Silva this summer while keeping all his big-name stars and is pleased with his dealings since the end of last season.

After watching his team beat Melbourne Heart 2-0 in a pre-season friendly thanks to goals by Jack Rodwell and Louis Saha, Moyes said:"I think in my time at Everton we've now got as strong a squad as we've ever had so I'm looking forward to the new season and seeing how it goes.

"I'm not a great goal-setter. I think you take the next game and you get on with it and you see where you end up.

"But we're ambitious and we want to do well and we've got a great desire to do better than what we've done in the past so we'll just try to keep it going and hopefully see where we end up

"I thought that we needed a little bit more firepower up front and that's why we've brought Jermaine Beckford in.

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"Jermaine's just struggling a bit with his groin just now. He's not quite comfortable yet at training so we weren't going to use him but I felt we could get 20 minutes so I think he felt fine.

"His first touch and his first movement nearly showed you why he's scored so many goals through the lower leagues. We're giving him a great opportunity to see if he can do it at the highest level."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email

Blackburn Rovers manager Sam Allardyce has successfully managed to bolster his strikeforce by landing the Manchester United forward Mame Biram Diouf on a season-long loan arrangement.

The 22-year-old Senegal international moved to Old Trafford from Norwegian side Molde just over 12 months ago and made six appearances from the substitute's bench for Sir Alex Ferguson's side. He previously netted 33 goals in 75 games for Molde.

Meanwhile, Allardyce has vowed not to rush Phil Jones too fast. The teenager has already broken in to Rovers' first team, but the Blackburn boss has promised to make sure he does not use him too often at this early stage in his career.

He said:"Phil is 18 and you have to take into account the delicate state of his body. He has not matured into an adult yet. When you are playing in the top league in the world it can be a huge risk if he is overplayed.

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"The perfect example is Michael Owen. Liverpool overplayed him at 18. All of a sudden he is riddled with hamstring injuries and despite only being 30 he is now struggling to recapture the form from when he was 21. We have to guard against that."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email

There are a few positions Arsene Wenger may want to strengthen before the transfer window shuts, but left-back will certainly not be one of them. The first choice going into the new season will probably be Gael Clichy, but his understudy Kieran Gibbs has the ability to challenge him for the position in this campaign and give Arsene Wenger a selection dilemma of who he is going to play. Gibbs impressed for England on Wednesday night, he had a big impact when he came on and showed some good attacking flourishes. Although he is a undoubtedly a good left-back, Clichy does not always inspire absolute confidence in his defensive abilities, and he can be guilty of making mistakes that can lead to chances for the opposition. At 20 years of age Gibbs will want to be playing regular football and if he performs to his potential, he should have a good amount of playing opportunities this season.

Since Ashley Cole’s acrimonious departure to rivals Chelsea in 2006, Gael Clichy has firmly established himself as Arsenal’s first choice left-back. Clichy has abundant qualities; he is quick, athletic, good on the ball, and poses a buccaneering threat down the left flank, something that is so important in modern day football. However, he can occassionally be found wanting defensively and looks shaky at times; this often appears to be due to a drop in concentration. The fact is that although Clichy is an excellent player, he has not reached the same level as Arsenal’s previous left-back Ashley Cole. This would of course be a tough ask, Cole has been one of the world’s best in his position for years and is one of very few to play for England who has not disappointed. Arsenal though, may well have the natural successor to Ashley Cole already in their ranks.

Arsenal fans have been optimistic about the future of Kieran Gibbs for a couple of years now. Since making his Premier League debut against Tottenham Hotspur in February 2009, Gibbs has displayed immense potential. One thing that has been so impressive about the youngster is his absolute calmness. He has never looked phased by the big games, even when he slipped at a crucial moment in a Champions League semi-final leg against Manchester United, allowing them to score, he quickly recovered his composure and although Arsenal were well beaten, he did not disgrace himself. Many players might have had their confidence destroyed by this costly error, but Gibbs came back stronger and has never looked short of the confidence one needs to play for a top side. His international career has also just begun, and he performed well in his first England appearance on Wednesday night. It is my personal view that Gibbs has the potential to be a better player than Gael Clichy, but at the moment Clichy is more experienced and is still Arsenal’s best left-back, and it will be the correct call for him to start the season as first choice.

Arsene Wenger has never shied away from fielding young players, and if he thinks Kieran Gibbs will be a more effective player for Arsenal than Gael Clichy, he will play him. A full league season and a European campaign may be a little too much to ask from Gibbs at the moment, but he should be given a good amount of opportunities to play in these competitions in order to aid his development. Clichy will probably be the main left-back at Arsenal this season, but Kieran Gibbs should have a decent amount of games on which he can build. With Armand Traore also in the squad, one thing is for sure; Arsenal will not want for a left-back this season.

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Aston Villa caretaker Kevin MacDonald insisted the buck stopped with him following Sunday's 6-0 thrashing at the hands of Newcastle United.

MacDonald, who was unbeaten in his two games at the helm following Martin O'Neill's departure on the eve of the new season, saw John Carew miss an early penalty at St James' Park before the floodgates opened.

Villa were playing their second game in four days and afterwards the interim manager claimed he made a mistake with his team selection.

"One or two of the young lads who have played three games in a week, maybe it was too much for them, so I will accept responsibility. It was me who chose the team," he said.

Meanwhile, MacDonald has admitted he still doesn't know whether he wants the Villa Park job on a full-time basis.

He added:"My views are that maybe by the end of next week when we have finished all those games, I will be able to sit down and think is it what I want to do or is it not what I want to do?

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"We have got a big game coming up on Thursday (against Rapid Vienna) which we have got to get back up for to try to get into the Europa League."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email

An impressive Champions League showing in midweek showed that Harry Redknapp’s team are more than capable of mixing it with some of Europe’s finest. Tottenham fans will be hoping the midweek performance, will kick-start a season which has been patchy at best.

This week at FFC we have seen a mixed bag of Spurs blogs which has included…rebirth of Robbie Keane; ridiculous gamble that Tottenham may regret and the seven wonderkids who never cut the mustard at WHL.

Plus we have taken a look at the best Tottenham stories on the Web this week.

Top TEN Worst Football Pundits

Top TEN Overrated Premier League Players

The rebirth of Robbie Keane?

The £6m Tottenham rumour highlights their lazy nature

Caption Competition: Van der Vaart faces up to an old foe

FIVE reasons for Tottenham fans to be optimistic

One aspect of Premier League clubs that the PRESS casually ignore

The Premier League MYTHS debunked

FIVE things we learnt from Tottenham’s CL opener

Ridiculous gamble that Tottenham may live to regret

Did Tottenham make the right transfer call?

Tottenham will only signal true ambition by ditching Crouch

Tottenham Hotspur’s striking dilemma

The 7 Tottenham ‘Wonderkids’ that never were

‘Six of the best’ – the Tottenham returns from hell

Top TEN Premier League WAGS

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Best of Web

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Local honour at stake for London trio with Wembley European Cup final – Guardian

Tottenham win 2-2 – Dear Mr Levy

Van der Vaart: Spurs Own Answer to Fabregas, Lampard & Gerrard – Football Pools

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You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby – Who Framed Ruel Fox?

A game of three halves. – Spurs Musings with JimmyG2

Harry Redknapp accuses Arsène Wenger of double standards – Guardian

Believe – Dear Mr Levy

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A welcome addition to our Champions League wag series – click on the image to view the gallery of Yolanthe Cabau

Blackburn Rovers have swooped to sign free agent midfielder Herold Goulon following a successful trial.

The 22-year-old Frenchman spent two years in the Middlesbrough youth team earlier in his career and was available on a free transfer after leaving Le Mans during the summer.

Goulon, who graduated from France's famous Clairefontaine Academy, has signed a deal until the summer of 2012.

Meanwhile, Rovers will be without captain Christopher Samba for Sunday's trip to Liverpool.

Samba is banned following his red card during Monday's goalless draw with Sunderland.

However, his absence is likely to be countered by the return from a thigh injury of Ryan Nelsen.

"We lose an exceptionally good player in Samba, we've got to deal with that," manager Sam Allardyce told the club's official website.

"It depends on Ryan Nelsen in terms of fitness. He came back from a long haul flight from New Zealand and was injured.

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"We lost him for the Sunderland game but he should be fit for this weekend. That gives us options on whether we play Phil Jones at the back or in midfield.

"Without Ryan then obviously Phil would definitely be playing in defence."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email

Blackpool manager Ian Holloway is waiting to find out the outcome of a dispute between the club and star midfielder Charlie Adam.

The 24-year-old Scotland international is reportedly seeking arbitration over unpaid bonuses and could even seek to end his Seasiders contract, which runs out in the summer of 2012.

Holloway told reporters:"If there is a problem then it's none of my business. That's between the club and one of the players and it will be sorted out by arbitration by the sound of it.

"If Charlie feels that way, if the chairman feels that way and there's a dispute then someone else has got to sort it out and I'm delighted that it's not me.

"If he decides to be upset and unhappy I'll deal with every mood and he's had a few since I've been here.

"I'll deal with them and I'll manage them as I've done before. Charlie has no problem with me at all. I've got no problem with him and the club doesn't have a problem with him.

"If he feels aggrieved then he's dealing with it in the right manner and it will get sorted one way or another. We'll see next week and then we'll move on from whatever the decision is.

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"Charlie knows what I've been trying to do with him anyway is to make him worth a lot of money and then sell him to a much better club than us, because I believe he's good enough to play for a much better club than us.

"But we are now a much better club because of him and I think it's a joint thing."Subscribe to Football FanCast News Headlines by Email