Blackburn Rovers’ rivals urged to sign Sam Szmodics to ‘guarantee’ promotion
Peterborough United owner Darragh MacAnthony believes Leeds United should sign Sam Szmodics to ‘guarantee’ promotion.
Blackburn Rovers’ star man has been subject to plenty of transfer speculation already this summer. Rovers are keen to retain his services and could offer him a new contract to do so.
If a Premier League or life-changing offer presents itself, Rovers won’t stand in Szmodics’ way, providing an acceptable fee is agreed. At the time of writing, that hasn’t occurred and so Rovers expect him to remain their players.
MacAnthony knows Szmodics as well as anyone, having signed him from Bristol City and then sold him to Rovers two years ago. He has been impressed, if not surprised, by his goal-scoring exploints at Ewood Park.
READ MORE: ROVERS Q&A ON TRANSFERS, VENKY’S AND MORE
In a Q&A on the club website, the Posh chairman was asked who Leeds should try to sign this summer. His answer was straight forward and not one that will be popular with Rovers fans.
How do England solve their Jude Bellingham problem?
One question for Gareth Southgate’s eventual successor is how they would respond to a conspicuous moment that happened in the Euro 2024 final. That was when England’s biggest star, Jude Bellingham, appeared to roar at the bench. Some observers sitting close by claim he questioned the movement of his fellow attackers, who he insisted were too slow. Southgate tried not to react.
Reporting this isn’t to raise another discussion that seeks to doubt or do down England’s great hope, in the way many people will instantly presume is the old build-em-up-to-knock-em-down culture. But it is to point out how one of the next manager’s great challenges will be to ensure that a talent like Bellingham is properly maximised; that he isn’t wasted – that he actually wins something.
It’s also to recognise that English football is dealing with a different sort of personality than its national team has ever had, perhaps more akin to American sport. Some find this refreshing, and required. They point to how Bellingham has done something no English player ever has at a tournament, and actually scored a late knockout equaliser to keep them in it. The spectacular manner of that bicycle kick against Slovakia only added to the audacity of it all. How else?
About The Author
