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da apostebet： Manchester City are now interested in a surprise move to sign a £35,000-a-week player from Chelsea, according to a new report.

Man City closing in on three new signings

da fazobetai： As they did in January, City are expected to be very busy this summer, as Pep Guardiola eyes several incomings as well as outgoings. City have already announced the signing of Rayan Ait-Nouri from Wolverhampton Wanderers. The deal is thought to be worth around £31 million with £5 million in add-ons, after Guardiola identified him as the player to solve their left-back problems.

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Posts ByRobbie Walls Jun 4, 2025

And the Blues have also agreed a deal worth £46.3 million with AC Milan to sign midfielder Tijjani Reijnders. The Dutch international underwent his medical on Sunday, and he is now expected to sign a five-year deal before the Club World Cup.

The final player City are trying to get in before Tuesday’s deadline is Lyon attacking midfielder Rayan Cherki. It was claimed last week that discussions have been held over a deal, and they are now close to agreeing a deal for around £35 million. His potential arrival at the Etihad could see him become the man to replace Kevin de Bruyne, who has now departed the Blues.

Man City lining up surprise move to sign £35k-p/w Chelsea ace

While City work on deals to get players in before the start of the Club World Cup, they also have their eyes on players they would like to sign further into the summer transfer window. Now, according to The Telegraph’s Mike McGrath, City are lining up a move to sign goalkeeper Marcus Bettinelli from Chelsea.

The Blues want to bolster their goalkeeper options for next season, given that Scott Carson is now leaving the club following the end of his contract. Bettinelli has been identified as a replacement, as City feel his character makes him ideal to be their third-choice keeper.

Leading up to the summer transfer window, there has been a lot of talk about the future of current number one Ederson, who has been linked with a move to Saudi Arabia. That has yet to progress, but it seems it could be all change in the goalkeeper department at the Etihad Campus.

Marcus Bettinelli’s Premier League record

Apps

7

Goals conceded

20

Clean sheets

0

The 33-year-old, who earns £35,000 a week at Chelsea, has been at Stamford Bridge since July 2021. He joined the club on a free transfer from Fulham, and in those four years, he has played just one game for the Blues, and that came in the FA Cup in the 2021/22 campaign. The goalkeeper is under contract until 2026.

Birmingham Phoenix put themselves back into the knockout positions in the Hundred with an important win at Edgbaston, knocking Trent Rockets out of this year’s competition in the process.Tim Southee claimed a five-wicket haul, to restrict the Rockets to 118, before Liam Livingstone and Jacob Bethell helped the Phoenix to overtake Northern Superchargers in third with a measured chase.”It was a pretty good performance,” Southee said. “I think the bowlers assessed the conditions well and then the way the batters went about it towards the end, Bethell and Livingstone knocked it around and chose great options. So, I think it was a pretty good all-round performance.”I think we have had really good consistency over the last few games and have got to know each other a bit better. Obviously, Adam Milne and I have played a lot of cricket together, but for everyone else it’s great to have that experience of playing a few games together.”We adapted to conditions as quickly as possible, which helped us tonight and the surface offered us a little bit which we tried to get as much out of as we could.”ESPNcricinfo Ltd

The Phoenix won the toss and chose to bowl, which proved a great decision from Moeen Ali, as his pace attack put on an exhibition of swing and seam bowling at the start of the first innings. The dangerous quartet of Tom Banton, Alex Hales, Joe Root and Rovman Powell were dismissed in the first 30 deliveries, as the Rockets fell to 22 for 4.Tom Alsop – making his debut in The Hundred – and Pakistan international Imad Wasim rebuilt for the visitors with a fifty partnership, before Imad was retired out on a run-a-ball 29, to be replaced by Chris Green. The Australian allrounder returned for the Rockets, replacing the injured Rashid Khan, but he was to last just five balls before being removed by Adam Milne, who took a well-deserved wicket.Alsop reached his half-century, and was then dismissed by the excellent Southee, who finished with 5 for 12 and momentarily thought he’d taken a hat-trick before being denied by an overturned LBW decision.Trent Rockets set Phoenix 119 to win, and Ben Duckett got the chase off to a flying start with 30 from 16 before Rockets came firing back at them. Luke Wood dismissed Duckett and Jamie Smith in consecutive balls to put the breaks on Birmingham’s fast start.Moeen Ali and Livingstone steadied the ship for a while before the impressive John Turner (2 for 17) removed captain Moeen and Dan Mousley.Livingstone and Bethell celebrate after taking the Phoenix home•Gareth Copley/Getty Images

The away team sensed it was their chance to build the pressure with the ball in the chase and they began to restrict Phoenix’s scoring opportunities, before Luke Wood released the pressure with a no-ball free-hit that Bethell deposited into the stands to give the home side some breathing room.Bethell (38* off 29) and Livingstone (30* off 32) then took Phoenix home with a half-century partnership, as they chased it with seven balls to spare.With one game left each, the result leaves three teams with a chance of joining Oval Invincibles in the knockout rounds – Phoenix, Southern Brave and Northern Superchargers. Defeat for Trent Rockets means that, like London Spirit, Manchester Originals and Welsh Fire, their tournament is over.

“It’s something he’s done quite a bit in the T20 side previously as well”

ESPNcricinfo staff02-Jun-2024Jos Buttler has backed Jonny Bairstow to come good at No. 4 during T20 World Cup 2024, citing his experience batting in the powerplay and ability to attack spin in the middle overs.”I think for every player in the team, it’s about trying to read the situation of the game and play accordingly,” Buttler said at a press conference on Saturday. “I think Jonny’s got the experience and the game to play that role for us at No. 4.”It’s something he’s done quite a bit in the T20 side previously as well, and he’s got great variety in his game. So he is used to batting in the powerplay should that situation arrive at No. 4, but he has also got experience and power, and is a good player of spin throughout the middle phase as well.”Related

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Bairstow, who was expected to open for England in the 2022 T20 World Cup but missed the tournament due to a freak injury sustained while playing golf, called the move to No. 4 “a compliment”.Bairstow has spent the majority of the last year playing in India. It started with the 2023 ODI World Cup, followed by the five-match Test series and then the IPL. But Buttler said Bairstow was anything but jaded.”I think he’s excited. I think he’s in a good space,” Buttler said. “He’s been away for a long time, but he is a very proud guy and he has been playing a lot of cricket for England over that period of time, which is where he wants to be.”So he seems in a good space. His family is going to be with him on this trip as well, which is nice. And I think getting that injury just before the last T20 World Cup, I’m sure he’s really excited for this one.”Jofra Archer returned in England colours in the T20I series against Pakistan•Getty ImagesButtler: ‘Not trying to put too much pressure on Archer’Jofra Archer made a return to international cricket during the T20I series against Pakistan last month, after a year out with injury, but Buttler says the team management doesn’t want to put him under undue pressure.”Playing cricket again and being back in an England shirt, I know how hard he has worked to get back and it’s been a long time for him,” Buttler said. “As I’ve said before, we’re not trying to put too much expectation on him.”We know what a superstar he can be but it’s been a long time since he’s played international cricket so it’s very easy to get very excited about it and expect big things from him. But I think just give him a bit of time. He’s happy and smiling and loving being back in the changing room as much as he is on the field. So he’s in a really good space.”When asked if England were looking at playing both Archer and Mark Wood in the same XI, Buttler said: “Certainly, an option, yes.”England, who are the defending champions, will begin their campaign against Scotland on Tuesday.

Liverpool have made an enquiry to sign a new midfielder who has been compared to Reds star Ryan Gravenberch.

Liverpool prepare for summer transfers after Salah and Van Dijk deals

Arne Slot has enjoyed a brilliant first season in charge at Anfield, with the Reds closing in on the Premier League title. Liverpool can be crowned champions this weekend, should Arsenal suffer defeat against Ipswich Town and the Reds beat Leicester City on Sunday afternoon.

The main headlines at Anfield recently have been with Mohamed Salah and Virgil van Dijk’s new contracts. The pair have both penned new two-year deals, with Van Dijk set to earn more than £40m on Merseyside between now and 2027.

Talking about Van Dijk’s new contract, Slot said that keeping the centre-back and Salah means that it is “already a big summer” for Liverpool.

“[Van Dijk’s contract] tells you that we want to keep our best players. The players that have played a great season for so many years in row. When we are able to keep them as free agents, it tells you the ambitions we have for the upcoming years.

“I’m really happy they both extended. Virgil is so important, defensively and offensively, in and around the dressing room. A great personality and a great football player. I think at Liverpool there is always a big summer and it is already a big summer now. Maybe the players don’t follow everything what has been said in the media, me neither, but what I do know it was it was a big thing – ‘can we hold onto them?’ – and by already holding on to two it is already a big summer.”

Imagine him & Van Dijk: Liverpool lead race for 'world's most in demand CB'

Liverpool are looking to sign one of football’s biggest talents this summer to partner Virgil van Dijk

By
Angus Sinclair

Apr 17, 2025

New signings could join Van Dijk and Salah ahead of the 2025/26 season, and a new defensive midfielder appears to be on the wish list.

Liverpool make contact to sign £60k-p/w Nicolo Rovella

According to reports in Italy, relayed by Sport Witness, Liverpool have made an enquiry over a move for Lazio midfielder Nicolo Rovella.

The 23-year-old is also wanted by Arsenal and Manchester City and could now be set to leave the Serie A side following their Europa League exit to Bodo/Glimt on Thursday.

Lazio would want to keep their star players including Rovella this summer, however, the financial implications of not qualifying for the Champions League may mean they cash in on some.

Currently sixth in Serie A, Lazio only have Rovella on loan from Juventus, although there is an obligation to buy with certain conditions. Liverpool could swoop in over the coming months and land the holding midfielder, who has been compared to Gravenberch among others, as per FBref.

Midfielders similar to Rovella	Club
Ryan Gravenberch	Liverpool
Moises Caicedo	Chelsea
Koke	Atletico Madrid
Billy Gilmour	Napoli
Leandro Paredes	AS Roma

Rovella, on around £60,000-a-week, was also hailed as “wonderful” by Italy boss Luciano Spalletti last year, and by the looks of things, a move to Anfield could be one to keep an eye on.

England Women are using artificial intelligence (AI) to inform selection using a system head coach Jon Lewis says proved crucial in last year’s drawn Ashes series.Lewis was first exposed to the technology, provided by London-based company PSi, while coaching UP Warriorz in the inaugural WPL last year. He has since spoken with the likes of England Rugby Union coach Steve Borthwick about the system, also used by English rugby league side Wigan Warriors and English Football League One side Wigan Athletic, which allows coaching staff to simulate various match-ups and scenarios.”We are able to run simulated teams versus the simulated opposition to give us an idea about how those teams may match up against each other,” Lewis said on Friday after revealing England’s white-ball squads to host Pakistan from next week.”I can send multiple different lineups to the company and they run, I think it’s about 250,000 simulations per team that I send with all the different permutations that could happen through the game.”What I would say is it’s not how we select the side, but it’s one part of selection that we use to help understand what could possibly happen in the future. We used it very successfully in the Ashes last summer with match-ups against the Australian side.”Related

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Lewis said the research methods were impacted somewhat by a gap in the quality of historical data in the women’s game, a situation he believes will improve amid an increasingly packed international schedule and growing franchise scene. And while he said the tool was particularly useful in helping to make borderline selection calls, he would always opt for a people-first approach.”Obviously we’re on the ground with the people and that’s probably the first thing that we look to in terms of selection, which people are playing well, we use our cricketing eye,” he said. “But it’s one small part of what we do and it’s really interesting, and it played out really well last summer against Australia.”I think it will help with borderline decisions in terms of selections and match-ups. Will it ever be at the front, the thing that selects the team? I would say, in my view, no. Other coaches may feel very differently, but it is really interesting.”AI was used throughout last summer’s Ashes and Lewis pointed to the T20 leg, which England won 2-1 to get back into the series after losing the one-off Test, as a moment when it came to his aid in weighing up the merits of two players who were “both in really good form and were both really selectable”.”There was one selection in particular last year,” he said. “We saw a real strength in Australia and we matched up our strength, our best bowlers, to that part of the game against Australia last year. That worked really, really well for us. That helped us win the T20 series in particular and that got us back in the Ashes.”The players were both players that I was thinking about picking. So it did help me with those selections and it turned out that it worked out really well. So yeah, it can help selections, but my go-to would be get your people right first, get them all in the right head space, get their games in order, and then use data to support around selection.”England Women’s squads vs Pakistan•ESPNcricinfo Ltd

From data to people, England have just completed a bonding trip to the Lake District, which involved a number of team-building exercises including cold-water swimming, designed to see how players responded in situations that, for many, were outside their comfort zones.”We spend a lot of time in the nets and we spend a lot of time thinking and practising about how to improve those parts of our game,” Lewis said. “However, the game of cricket is a real tactical game. It’s a game of chess. You need to be able to be a really clear thinker under pressure and you need to be able to manage the anxieties that are around cricket, not only on the field, but the anxieties that all players face off the field as well.”We worked a lot on how to manage anxiety and how to manage pressure and to do that, sometimes you’ve got to take players out of the environment that they’re normally in. When you do that, you take away, I suppose, the hierarchy of the group a little bit and everyone becomes very even. Then what you start to see is different people voicing opinions, different people giving advice to each other, and I suppose the group connecting on a different level than they would do around cricket.”We did a really powerful session around facing our fears and the girls were really, really honest about what their fears were around being part of an England cricket team. There was some really interesting stuff that came out of that and that will really help us as a coaching group manage our players and help them to become more rounded people first and then better cricketers at the same time.”The players, some of them liked the activities that we were doing and some of them didn’t, and that caused different types of stresses and hopefully we help them with some ways to deal with those things.”

Test captain offers support to Ollie Robinson as England ponder three-man seam attack

Vithushan Ehantharajah05-Mar-20241:34

What will Bazball 2.0 look like?

For the first time under Ben Stokes’ captaincy, England will be playing for pride in a Test match.India hold the spoils, and all England have is the carrot of leaving with a 3-2 scoreline by becoming the first team since 2012 to win two matches in a series against the hosts. Though that is mainly down to the fact not every Test nation is afforded five Tests in these parts. Even Australia were only given four this time last year.That Dharamsala is hosting this fifth and final Test does add extra context of scenery and, for some, divinity. A number of the touring party will meet the Dalai Lama on Wednesday morning. At this point, England’s own spiritual leader is unlikely to be among them.Related

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The series may be gone, but Stokes’ focus remains for this final stretch of this tour. “Well, it’s like whenever we play,” he replied when asked what, aside from a few World Test Championship points, are at stake. “We want to win this week.”Complacency is not an option, particularly with the sense this team needs to step up to the next level. Missed chances against Australia last summer stung, and similar spurned opportunities in India speak of the need for a talented group to start handling these pressure situations more effectively.”It’s not a mental or a mentality thing,” Stokes said, matter-of-factly. “All you can do is work your hardest and try your nuts off in the nets because that’s where you get better.”It was in the nets on Tuesday morning that England came the close to freezing those proverbials off. Most of the squad trained in beanie hats, which were brought over during the break between the second and third Test, along with a few long-sleeve cream jumpers. Cooler temperatures and even rain forecast on day one make this match an altogether different proposition.England are entertaining picking a three-pronged seam attack for the first time on this trip, but will wait to see how what Stokes described as a “belting deck” as far as batting is concerned, with surprisingly little grass given the rain over the last week, looks on Wednesday afternoon. Shoaib Bashir is nursing a split spinning finger, having bowled almost 38% of his first-class overs in the last month. He is likely to be the one that makes way for the extra pace option.With James Anderson fully fit after a quad strain kept him off the field for the final session of the fourth Test – and just two away from 700 career dismissals – Mark Wood could return for his third match of the series. And while Stokes lauded uncapped quick Gus Atkinson as “an exciting talent”, Ollie Robinson may retain his place in the XI after a disappointing first appearance since last July in the defeat at Ranchi.Robinson went wicketless in 13 overs consigned solely to the first innings after picking up a back issue running between the wickets while compiling his maiden Test fifty. It dramatically stifled his effectiveness and in turn blunted England’s cutting-edge with the ball. His misery was compounded by a costly drop of Dhruv Jurel in India’s first innings.Stokes took the opportunity to back Robinson, whose Test record still reads an impressive 76 wickets at 22.92. And he gave a clear indication he sees the 30-year-old as an important part of England’s future.Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum oversee preparations ahead of the fifth Test against India•Getty Images”You are more gutted for Ollie that something on day one, his back going, which affects the role he can play in the long run. He is more disappointed that he couldn’t help the team out as much as he’d like,” he said.”With Ollie, we look at the effort he put in as an individual leading up to and on this tour. His work ethic away from playing was very good, and he gave himself the best chance of being in position to win that game for us.”The thing to look at is that he was out on the field, trying to influence the game even though he wasn’t feeling 100%. A lesser man would have put their hands up, walked away and not even tried.”Stokes saved special praise for Jonny Bairstow, ahead of the Yorkshire batter’s 100th cap. The pair have a long association, starting from age-group cricket. And it was instructive that Bairstow rated his 2022 summer – Stokes’ first as captain – as a broad highlight of his career.Naturally, Stokes was unwilling to take credit: “I’m not the one who’s out there doing that,” referencing the 681 runs struck across just six Tests that season. But as a close friend of Bairstow, and someone who brought up three figures himself in the third Test at Rajkot and brushed it off, he knows how much this will mean to the 34-year-old.”This is probably going to be more of an emotional thing for Jonny than it ever was for me. I don’t need to go into details as to why about the whole family. He’s got his mam, sister, partner, little baby boy and some friends here.”Playing for England means so much to Jonny and means so much to his family as well and to play over 100 ODIs, 100 Tests – a lot of cricket for England – it means a hell of a lot to him. He deserves everything that gets spoken about him in the build-up to the game and throughout the week as well.”But amid all the Bairstow-related pageantry, and the possibility of narrowing the gap between them and India, England first need to approach this fixture like it matters, even if it carries little weight in the grand scheme of things. Stokes made a note of reiterating that to the team before training got underway.”We’ve been on so many India tours, you know what it’s like when you get to an end of a long one – that sometimes you start thinking about the end of the game,” Stokes warned.”I don’t think that anyone is thinking like that because every opportunity we feel at the moment is special to play for England. Because we’ve lost the series, it doesn’t mean that this game is different to what last week was or the week before.”We’ll think about the plane and getting home when we’re in the airport. So I won’t be thinking about that whatsoever until the game’s done.”

From the outside, she seemed to be living an athlete’s dream. But the bowler was hiding a secret that weighed on her and made her announce retirement at the age of 25

Melinda Farrell in Adelaide04-Feb-2018From the outside, Sarah Coyte seemed to be living an athlete’s dream. As a regular member of the Australia line-up at a time when the women’s game was exploding into the general sporting consciousness with opportunities to travel and make a decent living from cricket, Coyte had found the career she had envisioned since she was a girl.But the talented medium-fast bowler was hiding a secret that weighed on Coyte as much as the imaginary extra pounds she feared she was carrying. Training had become an obsession and vomiting after meals a ritual. The looming cloud of dreaded skin-fold tests was always creeping closer and, with it, the overwhelming and excruciating bouts of severe anxiety. As she wrote in her blog post.At the close of last summer, the stress became too great and, aged 25, Coyte announced her retirement. What followed was a year of self-healing, a process helped by her searingly honest writing on how anorexia nervosa had taken its hold and the struggle to wrest control of her mind and body back from the disorder.For someone who had grown up surrounded by cricket – Coyte’s brothers Scott and Adam have played professionally – watching others play the sport proved tougher than she had imagined. After a year out of the game and watching her partner playing grade cricket in Sydney’s west, she decided to pull on the whites once more and see if she could once again enjoy the game.On the other side of Sydney, the Sixers’ coach Ben Sawyer was keeping tabs. He had just lost South African internationals Marizanne Kapp and Dane van Niekerk to international duties. The Sixers needed a replacement bowler and Sawyer picked up the phone. “It was a call out of the blue,” Coyte said. “Ben said that he noticed I’d played a grade game of cricket back home in Sydney and I had but only like one or two.”I thought ‘oh okay yeah hmm’. I hung up and I just mulled it over for a bit, I called my Dad. I had a lot to weigh up and think about how it would affect my mental state, how it would affect work. I’m not really sure why I agreed to do it but it has worked out pretty well. I can’t complain about it. Part of me was just curious to see what I still had left in the tank and if it would rekindle a bit of love for the game.””Pretty well” is an understatement. Coyte took 2 for 14 in her first game for the Sixers against the Adelaide Strikers at Hurstville and backed that up with three wickets in the following match. Those two victories helped the Sixers secure first place on the ladder and Coyte then chimed in with two wickets in the semi-final victory against the Strikers. Coyte had gone from retirement to the WBBL final in the space of a few weeks.But the return came with challenges and the threat of a recurrence of anxiety. Coyte turned to Sarah Taylor, the England international who took time out of the game to deal with anxiety, for advice. Taylor suggested Coyte should just stick with whatever made her comfortable and draw from the routines that had been helpful in the past.Getty Images”I had some pretty sleepless nights leading up to the [first] game” said Coyte. “With the support at home I managed to get through that pretty cruisy. It took me a few overs to get into the game, my mindset wasn’t there but once I started moving, it came back to me naturally.”It was good to get those two games out of the way and coming into finals, weirdly enough, I didn’t feel that nervous for these last few games. It’s the same game of cricket and once I started getting back into it, nothing has to change, it’s not a complicated game.”As the Sixers squeezed the life out of the Perth Scorchers’ batting in the final with a tight all-round bowling performance, it was Coyte who made the vital initial breakthrough, beating the bat of an advancing Elyse Villani, who was stumped by Alyssa Healy. Coyte snared two further wickets to help restrict the Scorchers to 99 and was awarded the Player of the Match for her efforts. She couldn’t have asked for a better return to the game but this time she has been fighting her battles on the field and not on the scales or in the mirror.”It has been more fun but only because I’ve found more of a balance within myself and all the training around cricket and being away from my family,” said Coyte. “Having a strong support network at home has really helped me transition back in to the last couple of weeks.”Her form has already sparked questions of a return to the Australian side but, for now, Coyte is determined not to put pressure on herself with such speculation. She is unsure whether she wants to make a more protracted return to the professional game.”I really like the life I have now, I love my work and going home at the end of the day not having to pack a bag and go to the airport,” Coyte said. “You never know what the future holds. I’m not putting any ideas in people’s heads, I’m not getting anyone’s hopes up, even my hopes up. I’m just going to take each day as it comes. For now, enjoy the rest of the day with the girls and go back home back to reality.”Reality involves working as a personal trainer and educating others on the danger of mental health and eating disorders for girls and young women in sport. Coyte believes her story is not uncommon and has encountered others who fret about skinfold tests in a way she finds both familiar and alarming.”I just think as a female and playing at elite levels, I think it happens everywhere,” said Coyte. “I’ve been asked to do a talk in Melbourne at an event called Disguised. Hopefully we can raise a bit more awareness around the anxiety and the mental side of games for females in particular.”Standing on the outfield of Adelaide Oval as the celebratory magenta streamers were being swept up, wearing a winners’ medal around the neck and her Player-of-the-Match trophy in her hand, Coyte paused thoughtfully and gestured to the middle of the ground.”I didn’t win my battle out here. I won it when I walked out at Hurstville.”And with that, she turned and walked off to join her team-mates celebrate a title that, while significant, pales in comparison to her own, personal victory.

Celtic’s amazing head coach of recent times, Ange Postecoglou, achieved great success during his two years at Parkhead before a move to England.

The Australian boss, who won the domestic treble in his final campaign at Celtic, won the Scottish Premiership title in both of his seasons with the club.

Underpinning his success at Paradise was the excellent work done in the recruitment department, signing the likes of Jota, Kyogo Furuhashi, Joe Hart, and Cameron Carter-Vickers among others.

Jota was, arguably, the greatest signing of Postecoglou’s tenure as he joined the Hoops for a reported fee of £6.5m, after thriving on loan in his first season at the club, as shown in the graphic below.

After his exceptional form in the 2022/23 campaign, Saudi Arabian side Al Ittihad swooped in to sign the winger for a reported fee of £25m, representing a huge profit for the club, and the winger has since returned on a permanent deal from Rennes in January for £8m.

Not all of Postecoglou’s signings at Celtic paid off, though, and one of the most infamous, for lack of a better word, moves was the addition of James McCarthy in the summer of 2021.

The curious case of James McCarthy

Ahead of the 2021/22 campaign, the Scottish giants confirmed the double signing of Joe Hart on a permanent deal from Tottenham Hotspur and McCarthy on a free transfer from Crystal Palace.

At the time of that double deal, Postecoglou said: “I’m delighted that we have signed two top-class players in Joe and James. Both of them have a wealth of experience at both club and international level, and that is something which can only benefit the squad, and I’m looking forward to working with both of them.”

Hart went on to live up to that “top-class” tag with 64 clean sheets and only 145 goals conceded in 153 matches – less than a goal conceded per game – in three years at the club.

McCarthy, however, has not had the best of times at Parkhead so far and only played 22 times, racking up 739 minutes of action, in the 2021/22 campaign.

He followed that up with just 62 minutes on the pitch in five appearances in all competitions in the 2022/23 term, missing significant time through an injury picked up midway through the season – per The Scottish Sun.

Since the 2022/23 campaign, McCarthy has not made a single appearance for the first-team – playing two times for the B team in the Lowland League last season – and his current status is incredibly unclear.

24/25

0

£728k

23/24

0

£728k

22/23

5

£728k

21/22

22

£728k

As per The Scottish Sun earlier this year, there is a mystery surrounding the Irish midfielder because he has been removed from the club website, was not in the team picture in pre-season, and has not made a senior appearance since the 2022/23 campaign, yet Celtic have never confirmed his departure.

Per Salary Sport in the table above, the Hoops are still paying McCarthy £728k-per-season and Transfermarkt reports that the Irishman’s current deal does not officially expire until this summer, which means that the club appear to be paying a significant sum of wages for, essentially, nothing in return.

It is a bizarre situation and one that may be officially resolved in the summer if and when they confirm that he has left the club at the end of his deal.

Celtic, however, have another player who is fast becoming the new McCarthy, as another flop on fairly big wages despite rarely being seen on the pitch, in the form of Anthony Ralston.

Why Ralston is becoming the new McCarthy

Per Salary Sport, the Scotland international is on a weekly wage of £14k at Parkhead this season, with McCarthy being the only other player in the squad on the same wage.

Wage Burners

Football FanCast’s Wage Burners series explores the salaries of the modern-day game.

This means that he is currently on more money per week than Kasper Schmeichel (£13k), Nicolas Kuhn (£12k), Paulo Bernardo (£11k), and Luke McCowan (£8k), among other first-team stars.

That is despite Schmeichel being the number one goalkeeper and Kuhn delivering excellent performances this season, racking up 18 goals and 14 assists from a right wing position for the Scottish giants.

The German winger has, therefore, made a huge impact at the top end of the pitch for the Hoops in all competitions, providing quality as both a scorer and a creator of goals.

Ralston, on the other hand, has only started five matches in the Champions League and the Premiership combined in the 2024/25 campaign, after starting six times in those two competitions last season.

The Scottish defender, who came up through the academy system, did start 61 Premiership matches between the 2019/20 and 22/23 campaigns, but has fallen down the pecking order in recent years.

24/25

5

£728k

23/24

6

£728k

22/23

14

£728k

21/22

25

£442k

20/21

1

£286k

19/20

21

£286k

18/19

3

£234k

17/18

7

£234k

16/17

1

£130k

As you can see in the table above, he has only started 11 league matches – alongside zero in Europe – since the start of the 2023/24 season for the Hoops, earning the best part of £1.5m in wages in that time.

The rarely-seen defender is, therefore, fast becoming the new McCarthy at Celtic as his number of league starts each season has declined year-on-year for the last four campaigns, despite still being a relatively high earner.

Ralston is currently earning more in wages than players, like Kuhn and Schmeichel, who offer far more on the pitch for the Bhoys, which suggests that the Hoops are throwing money down the drain with the reserve defender.

With this in mind, Celtic should consider moving the full-back on in the upcoming summer transfer window before his lack of minutes on the pitch reaches McCarthy’s territory.

Rodgers must finally get rid of Celtic dud who earns more than Maeda

Celtic must move on from the forward who earns even more than Daizen Maeda.

4 ByDan Emery Apr 9, 2025

Unless Ralston can find a way to put himself back in Brendan Rodgers’ plans as a regular in the first-team, the 26-year-old flop is well on his way to becoming a forgotten man at Parkhead.