Newcastle target set for move after rejecting deal – One to watch
As revealed by Fabrizio Romano, Arsenal winger and reported Newcastle target Amario Cozier-Duberry has decided to leave the North London club when his contract runs out at the end of June.
A few months ago, it was revealed that Newcastle were keen to sign the highly-rated right-winger and pounce on his potential availability as a free transfer.
The 19-year-old bagged 13 goals for Arsenal’s second string last season, scoring twice in four UEFA Youth League games, and it’s emerged that he’s now set to leave the Emirates after rejecting a contract offer at the club.
The Standard report that he’ll now consider a number of offers from clubs in Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands, with the winger also allowed to speak with English clubs after July 1.
Arsenal Under-18 manager Jack Wilshere has previously tipped Cozier-Duberry to have a big future and has previously likened him to Bukayo Saka as a pacey London-born right winger who likes to cut in on his right.
With previous links, Newcastle keen to recruit top talent on a budget and the player now searching for a new club, he could be one to watch in the coming weeks if we’re still keen.
Roman Yaremchuk is a big man but one blessed with a remarkable deftness of touch. Mykola Shaparenko’s ball into him after 80 minutes seemed neither one thing nor the other; too high to take in his stride, too low to head. But Yaremchuk cushioned it with an upward thrust of his leg and, in one movement, nudged it past Martin Dubravka. The shot barely had enough pace to get over the line, but it had enough, and Ukraine had a win that at half-time had seemed very unlikely.
The comeback means that both Ukraine and Slovakia will qualify for the last 16 if they win their final group games next week. But bright and engaging as the game was, it was inevitably overshadowed by the political context. Even beyond Kylian Mbappé and Marcus Thuram and their explicit appeals against the Rassemblement National in France, politics has lingered just below the surface of this tournament.
There were the disgraceful chants directed at Serbs by Albania and Croatia fans in Hamburg; the Kosovan journalist banned for making an eagle gesture at Serbian fans who were abusing him; English and Serbian fans booing each others’ anthems at least in part as a consequence of the Nato bombing of Belgrade; Hungarian fans with their irredentist power ballads and songs now associated with the German far right; Austrian fans booing la Marseillaise in recognition that it was originally the war song of the Army of the Rhine in the War of the First Coalition in 1792 … good luck to the Spain goalkeeper Unai Simón and his suggestion everybody just stick to football.
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But when the draw was made no game seemed as politically charged as this one. For Ukraine, of course, every game, every opportunity to remind people of their continued existence and the ongoing suffering of their country, is vital as the war against the Russian invasion goes on. Slovakia had initially supported Ukraine, offering Kyiv use of its air force. But last year the nationalist Robert Fico was named prime minister, vowing to reduce aid to its eastern neighbour while pursuing a policy of greater alignment with Hungary, whose prime minister Viktor Orban has been the most overtly pro-Vladimir Putin voice among EU leaders.
Fico’s ally, Peter Pellegrini was elected as president in April. But then last month, Fico was shot twice at close range while meeting the public in Handlova, about 120 miles north-east of the capital Bratislava. Police arrested Juraj Cintula, a 71-year-old poet, who has spoken openly of his opposition to Fico’s attempts to curtail the freedom of the press, to downgrade anti-corruption bodies and to reduce support for Ukraine. Fico is recovering and has unsurprisingly sought to make political capital out of the incident, condemning the violence of the left and the EU’s inability to accommodate divergent opinions, while the deputy prime minister and defence minister Robert Kalinak serves as interim prime minister.
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